Week 14 - 365 in Photographs

Day 92

More structures. Always a good default when the landscape seems to be the same - not winter and not spring yet. Lots to practice with structures like getting the camera level or failing that adjusting the tilt correctly in post processing. Then because of angle between you and the subject there is which line to adjust too. In the photo above I picked the purple bike rack. It was the subject of my interest and by making it the one object the most square for the viewer it draws their eyes there.

Day 93

In this photo it is the flag poles because they frame the statute. I learned this principle placing and hanging light fixtures at my day job - electrician. The measured middle of the room does not always look like the middle of the room. The center of the statue would often be picked as the center of the photograph. It is in reality her leading foot. The heel is in the center of the flag poles which trisect the composition. Ergo it is the poles which must be true vertical.

Day 94

Lots of vertical lines in this photograph including the subject - the boy in blue. I took this with my long lens at a distance so no curve of the lines like with my wide angle. I tend to want to take structures with my wide angle lens and distortion, even if it is not a fish eye lens, can happen. On this particular day in Las Vegas, New Mexico I was trying to catch candid shots of the filming of Longmire television series. I had my 70-300 zoom lens on which required me to back away from my subjects.

Day 95

This resulted in not getting the whole building but also not getting a lot of trash like poles around the buildings. It is like a pre-crop - what we used to do in the film days. We called it framing your shot. And the best benefit was all the lines are straight. The vertical ones at least. And those are the ones we get our balance from. As humans we are used to slanting sidewalks and receding lines of perspective.

Day 96

But we want what is right in front of us to be vertical. The columns were fun. Only editing besides making it black and white was cloning out a no smoking sign. I debated the 800 but decided I like it.

Day 97

Obviously I like this church. And I like the shadows on the church walls. What I like most about the church are its lines. As a car dealer would say, "It has classic lines." And even if the photograph is about the shadows the lines have to be straight. At least the vertical ones at the may point of focus for the viewer. Not necessarily in the center of the picture. In the one below it is the like from the top of the arch on the biggest window of the transept to the bottom. Yeah, not actual like there to follow.

And it isn't always easy to get this right in the field. And even in the film world we made adjustments in the darkroom. Yes, even Ansel Adams. BTW adobe buildings are a real lot of fun because they have no verticals really.

Day 98

As I went to post the first photograph of the new week - Day 99 - on my FaceBook Page Binford-Bell Studio I realized the cupboard is now bare. I have to get actively out with the camera and take pictures.

Week Two of 2014 in Photos

Day Eight

Art is a journey. I have believed that for a long time, and that belief is why this blog is called Creative Journey. This week I have been traveling on that journey with both photography and painting. My painting is going through a metamorphosis and so is my photography.  And photography in general is evolving because of the dry darkroom possibilities with digital technology.

I have been going through my recent photographs selecting photos for a show called Insight where it only has to begin with a photograph. It is not about how good your photograph can be but how artistic the end result is. So it is not surprising for me that this week I was looking at four subjects, each in two different ways. Day eight was subject number one. I loved how this city wall looked like a canyon wall especially when colors were enhanced.

Day Nine

But to me it looks far more monumental in black and white. These two photos were taken one right after the other. In the film days you could say the occupied neighboring cells on the strip of film. I am a camera turner. Not unusual for me to stand in one spot and move the camera rather than me. The play of light and the oblique angles in this building attracted me. The question was first how best to capture them. And then once on the computer how best to translate those images.

Day 12 - Same building/other side

Another example of me standing in one place and just turning the camera or me or zoom lens is Day 12, and a photo which will be posted most likely in the coming week.

Day 15???

I treated both photos differently in the dry darkroom of my photo processing program and they look like two different buildings. BTW you can twist the images in your computer rather than your camera on location. I have played with these piano key windows quite a lot.

I have said before that every photographer needs to turn away from their subject and see what is behind them. With buildings you also need to walk totally around them. These windows were on the right side of the first two photos. And the ones below were on the left side or back of the building.

Day 11

I loved the play of shadows on the ramp and wall. I am posting the original of this photo right off the camera below. I am not done with this image. All good digital art must begin with a good basic image. You may note that other than changing it to black and white I digitally straightened the most dominate vertical line in the finished photo.  I have seen some really good photographs fail because it makes the viewer uneasy because of a lack of anchor. Oddly you can make viewer really off balance like the two window pictures but not just a little tipsy. I am playing with that in a sketch for a painting I am hoping to finish today: How far is too far?

The original of Day 11

One of my frequent fans on my Facebook fanpage thinks I have gone a bit too far with the photo below. She believes the viewer has to work too hard. And that is a definite legitimate concern.

Day 10

I liked this treatment because it becomes more about the drip lines down through the misted window than the image behind that window.  And I was drawn too that because the drip lines look like the trees the droplets of water conceal.

Day 14

In the image I posted today of the same subject from a more oblique view the photograph is more about what is behind the glass rather than the glass. Color helps but also making the horizontal lines in Day 10 more angled draws the viewer beyond the glass. Horizontal lines are static especially in the bottom third of the photograph.

I am sometimes amazed at how much of my four years of fine arts I remember. And it is one of the reasons I shy away from photography workshops. They seem all too much about F stops and all too little about art.

I didn't put Day 13 on this weekly blog because it was off the topic. Visit Binford-Bell Studio on Facebook to see it. Better yet, become a fan and see the photos as I post them daily.