The 365 - 9/21/17 - Day 60

Happy Thursday everyone - One of the areas of my photography which I am focusing on improving is product photography.  For a long time, it was a skill which I had overlooked as a possible interest and in truth I had probably taken for granted that I could be decent given what I had learned in my other photographic areas.  After all, the products usually never moved and you had in theory an unlimited amount of time to figure out the composition and lighting.  The truth of it is that this is a whole field of expertise onto itself, and while it may be true that there are aspects of product photography that may appear easier than other genres, it simply means that the standards are that much higher.  A lot of my practice time is now used with some new to try to get better in this space.  The large driver is of course that I see a potential business line maybe someday here, but also because I have learned so much from each of the other photographic steps that I have taken.  And I guess this is the lesson that I wanted to get to with this post here.  I never knew what I didn't know before I took each step.  With those steps some other skill or bit of knowledge became apparent and in some cases they were even obvious after the fact.  However, I know that if I had never tried that brand new thing, I never would have realized that brand new thing.  The image posted tonight was at the time nearly a happy accident.  This flower used to be in my parent's house and I was bored one day and looking for items to shoot and found this flower near a front window.  The high exposure and backlit window gave the impression of a white seamless background and the transparent petal stood in contrast to the stem.  I loved the look and worked a few different angles for a good bit of time.   In doing so, however, I saw new potential in working in a high-key style, and more importantly more recently I have taken a more serious look at my skill set in product photography and lighting.  This is has of course opened new doors of things I didn't know before and now my challenge is to work and learn in a brand new space.  Continually growing and improving.  Have a great Thursday night - 

Houston, Texas - Natural Light

The 365 - 9/20/17 - Day 59

Happy Wednesday everyone - A couple of days ago I posted an image a building side and warehouse door I had encountered during a photo walk in Houston.  This kind of image has been a theme in some of my work for some time, and tonight I wanted to share one of the early photos that started that series.  I used to live in Red Hook, Brooklyn which is an industrial and dock neighborhood in New York.  The neighborhood is filled with artists and craftsmen creating beautiful works of art each and every day and I was always captivated by the contrast in the kinds of things made in the neighborhood and the aesthetic of the neighborhood itself.  It drew me to have photo walks and try to see the everyday sights in a new way that was more in line with what I knew the neighborhood to be.  It was really in this crucible of trying to see these industrial buildings, walls, and doors as art in which I really started to develop what I call my "everyday eye."  This is the vision that I try to use to capture something unique out of the mundane, and what I try to share with my photo students in our school's photo club.   I have found this to be a very difficult skill to try to explain and transfer to students, and really one that has to be created and developed with some kind of immersion.  Practice makes perfect and all of that.  However, I know that I can take an image like this in an area where someone would simply walk by without another thought.  It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but there is a sense of story here and strong geometric shapes and lines in this image.  Most importantly, it is an image that was made from a scene which people pass by everyday without a second glance.  This is the photography boiled down to its central purpose - to force a viewer to witness something he or she might otherwise overlook.   Enjoy your Wednesday - 

Red Hook, Brooklyn - Van Dyke

The 365 - 9/19/17 - Day 58

Happy Tuesday everyone - For today's image I wanted to come back to some of the work from South Dakota.  All along Spearfish Canyon are a number of sites that are both easy to access and make great photo subjects. The common lesson in working with landmarks and landscapes is to try to find a new and different view of the popular subject.  With countless visitors during all times of the year, Spearfish Canyon's Bridal Veil Falls is absolutely one of these subjects.  People flock to this roadside attraction and snap away with their cameras and phones from the public platform and even from some of the risky unauthorized areas.  Therefore, trying to make images of this falls is a great tester for trying to look at this classic sight in a new way.  The look of the falls is iconic.  The water seems to drip and flow down the rock face of the gorge in much the same way you could imagine a bride's veil would.   My "new" look for this falls was to zoom in and focus on this "flow" of water.  I wanted that to be the subject of the image.  The length of the falls I think drives viewers of the falls to try to capture the total size from top to bottom in their images.  By zooming in and focusing on just small part here, I hoped to capture the idea of the falls here, particularly with how the water looks in my mind now, without creating another clone of so many snapshots.  Looking for something new and different in the everyday is currency of every photographer.  Enjoy your Tuesday - 

Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota - The Bride's Veil

The 365- 9/18/17 - Day 57

Happy Monday everyone - One of my favorite parts of a photo walk is discovering an image in a completely unexpected way.  In one of my old neighborhoods in Brooklyn, I found that I was intrigued by the particular microscape of buildings and doors in the area.  These were things that I looked at each and every day on my commute into work, but they took on a new identity when I started seeing them from the photographic eye.  The everyday sights started becoming shapes, forms, and lines.  Once that happened, I started to see these everyday, ordinary objects and locations as images.  That reflection came with me here to Houston, and has continued to be part of my work here.  This image here was taken along a photo walk near the medical center and museum district.  It is a simple scene, but one that can almost speak to a story if put into context.  More importantly, for those of us who seek to find images in urban areas on photo walks, these kinds of images showcase that interesting viewpoints can be found everywhere, even in the mundane.  Have a great Monday - 

Houston, Texas - Delivery Door

The 365 - 9/17/17 - Day 56

Happy Sunday everyone - Today I wanted to share one of my favorite images from a previous trip to Mexico.  I was around Oaxaca and Puerto Escondido for nearly two weeks and this trip was one of the first where I saw myself as a photographer.  I shot several cards worth and this particular trip and shoot still comprises some of my favorite images despite the fact that it has now been several years since I was there.  While in Puerto Escondido, I was staying in a resort on a cliffside One of the great advantages was that my room looked down on the small cove below us and gave me a higher perspective on the water below.  I could simply go out on the balcony and shoot down over the water to get some really amazing overhead shots.  This particular morning, the water was pretty empty as it was still early and the beach hadn't yet filled with people.  These three men down in their boat were preparing to take some tourists out to the dolphins and turtles, a good money-maker for some of the locals.  The colors in the water provided a striking image and the isolation of the boat and the boatmen allowed the viewer to imagine a story within the image.  This was one of three images that I put up in my home and since that time, this one in particular has now taken a prominent place.  The more I look at it, the more I love.  It just keeps growing on me.  Happy Sunday everyone.

Puerto Escondido, Mexico - Three Boatmen