Philosophical Photography, Percontation, Prose, Poetry, Parables, Pottery & Politics… Phew!
WEEK 26: Landscape: Simplify – Simply the scene to make your primary subject stand out.
If you look closely at this dead tree it resembles a hand curling out of the marsh. A bird must have thought it a potential place for a nest, but it really wasn’t given the straw debris beneath its crooked fingers.
Did the nest slip, or did the tree let go?
~Richard
WEEK 24: Artistic: Sparkle! – Shoot what inspires you this week, just make sure it sparkles.
I’m still playing catch up with the 52-week challenge. This week was July 4th and the traditional time for playing (carefully) with sparklers, so this was easy to take literally! We did some light painting, but I ended up choosing this one, as I loved the soft lighting.
~Richard
It all started out with good intentions back in January as I stumbled across the 52-week challenge for improving my photography. I knew it was going to be difficult, especially the portrait challenge, as that really is not my comfort area and, thus it was at week 19 (messy portrait) I faltered. In fact, I stumbled so badly as I struggled with this one that I ended up losing momentum and now I am six weeks behind! I can throw out excuses like work pressure, an extended business trip abroad and too much to do in the garden and the house but, to be honest, they’re hollow reasons. That portrait assignment simply knocked the enthusiasm out of me to complete the challenge.
Well, I’m back now! I have a lot of catching up to do and it will be a be a bit erratic but I am determined to set myself back on track. Weeks 19 to 25 may be out of sequence but I fully intend to get them completed.
So, I waited until sunset in Ocean City, New Jersey to get this one.
Week 25: Portrait: Silhouette – Expose for the background and let your subject fall into shadow. Shape is important this week.
~Richard
WEEK 18: Artistic: Texture – The artistic inspiration this week is texture. You should almost be able to feel the image.
When you look around you, there are just so many textures to choose from, so many in fact that it becomes difficult to decide what to do. For this assignment I was going to use a metallic texture but then switched to a stone texture instead. This is from a wall tile at my place of work.
The rough lines remind me of the grooves on a record for some reason. I wonder what sound it would make if it could play?
WEEK 17: Landscape: Urbanscape – Most Landscapes are wide open spaces of natural beauty… this week find the beauty of the urbanscape/cityscape.
You would think that it is quite easy to get an urban landscape, but this week I was fairly rushed and the weather wasn’t the best, with a few days of drizzle and grey skies. Anyhow I eventually ventured out this morning, taking a 30 minute diversion before work, with the intention of getting some street shots and, moment of inspiration, some shots from the top of the parking garage, six floors up, in the center of town.
I was strolling purposefully up the stairs when I was overtaken by a “bit of a Martin Parr moment” as I call them, and decided that an internal urban landscape would fit the bill nicely. I love the huge swathe of grey concrete, the light glinting off a single parked truck in the distance and just a small splash of color of the elevators on the periphery.
Please let me know what you think!
~Richard
WEEK 16: Portrait: Movement – Most portraits are stationary, so this week explore adding some movement. Dancing, twirling, or even hair flips.
Lots of choices this week – skateboarding, bicycling, etc. In the end I went for more localized movement – portrait of a drummer jamming in the basement…
WEEK 15: Artistic: Metal – Cold, hard steel. Shiny Aluminum. Or even rusted and broken down. Find your inspiration in metal this week.
Metal, one of my favorite subjects for artistic photography. I love rusty old metal, shiny metal, industrial, forged, ironworks, you name it. I have even tried my hand at blacksmithing only a couple of years back and would love to have my own forge. Heck, even one of my favorite songs of my youth is about it.
I already have a reasonable collection of suitably themed images available but, keeping true to the challenge I decided to try something a little different. Given that I spend 8 hours a day in an office environment I thought I would choose an everyday object from my desk and see what I could do with it using my handy iPhone5.
WEEK 14: Landscape: Zoomed in – Most landscapes are wide sweeping images. Try an alternative and zoom in instead.
I admit that this seemed counter-intuitive to me. I always associate landscapes with sweeping vistas, and therefore using a relatively wide lens like my 20mm (that’s 40mm equivalent on a 35mm frame). But the assignment seemed clear so I attached my biggest glass, the 200mm (that’s a huge 400mm equivalent on a 35mm DSLR) and zoomed in on a woodland landscape near my home.
In order to make it more interesting I captured a little of the Spring grass and some spiky overwintering plants in the foreground, with the wooded landscaped valley behind.
WEEK 13: Portrait: High Key – Expose to the right and create a light, airy high key portrait.
Oops, my bad. For some reason I was more hung up on trying to figure out the concept of “high key photography” versus “high key lighting” and simply exposing to the right (ETTR) than actually looking at the brief in sufficient detail. Anyhow, as usual there’s a lot of highfalutin crap written about high key photography, and I don’t have the interest or time to argue. To me it simply means light tones and no shadows.
I have produced a high key image but not a portrait (of a person). And now the weekend is over my models are no longer available! I will have to try again…
~ Richard
WEEK 12: Artistic: Transportation – Our world is one defined by how we get around. Literal or interpretative, find inspiration in transportation.
I had too many ideas for this one; cars, trains, bicycles, buses, perhaps even an Amish carriage, if I were to travel west a few dozen miles. I mean, how can so much choice be a problem, right?
Well, it can because the issue then becomes one of creative overload, at least in my case. Yes, I need to focus (pun intended) on what I actually want to achieve with this assignment.
So, a day or two to think and then here we go:
Idea 1: Panning cars traveling on the highway to give a blurred background. It didn’t happen.
Idea 2: An arty shot of an AMTRAK train or the SEPTA regional railway, maybe in black and white. It didn’t happen.
Idea 3: A bustling street scene in the center of town, or a commuter ride showing traffic congestion. It didn’t happen.
Idea 4: Cyclists – there’s always several of these guys on the back roads at the weekend. That one didn’t even start!
Grr, what’s going on?
Then, on the Monday morning drive to work, an epiphany: the American school bus – it’s so obvious!
As an immigrant from England the yellow school bus is as much an internationally known icon of US society as the red double-decker bus is quintessentially British. It instantly identifies any scene as being American. I would venture more so even than a slice of mom’s apple pie cooling on the window sill…
… and I know where they park a lot of them 🙂
Oh, and there’s a backstory to this as well – I will share that on tomorrow’s post
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