Happy belated Saturday everyone - A belated post today, but I think the double image today explains why. Enough said. Enjoy your weekend!
Houston, Texas - The 10th Man
Houston, Texas - After Game 7
The Enthusiastically Amateurish Photographer
The 365 - 10/20/17 - Day 89
Happy Weekend everyone - One of the strangest things that I have noticed about this hobby of mine here is how it has subtly started to change the way I see things. I remember reading in several books about "vision" and the "ability to see", and I must admit that they were difficult concepts to put my head around. It was difficult to understand in the academic sense how these photographers were simply seeing these opportunities in the everyday situation. It wasn't until I found a book by Michael Freeman, and others since then, that I began to understand that what they meant by "vision" was the ability to see the constructive lines and shapes in the everyday situations. Where I used to see people walking along the sidewalks, I started to understand that I needed to look for the line created by their eyes or faces or shoulders walking along the sidewalk. Then the craziest thing happened. Without even noticing when or how, I began to see the lines and shapes everywhere. Buildings, people, faces, objects weren't those things to me anymore. They were the composite lines and shapes that made them up. Then the breakthrough happened for me, when I could see those lines and shapes, I could more easily begin to construct images on the fly. Leading lines made more sense. Triangles made more sense. I began to find interesting subjects in areas that I thought I never would. This image tonight was from a rest stop in South Dakota. One of the sculptures is a teepee arranged with these pillars. I noticed the lines they made and the geometric shape against the sky. That was my subject, and it was one that I would have never seen before I learned how to "see." Enjoy your weekend -
Roadside South Dakota - Pillars of the Teepee
The 365 - 10/19/17 - Day 88
Happy Belated Thursday - Great subjects are only a backyard away. One of the first important lessons I learned in making my photography better was to fill the frame with the subject. Using the edges of the outside frame and making the subject the sole focus of the picture brought a more dynamic composition to even the simplest of subjects. Once I had turned this corner, I found that I could make images that were interesting to me almost anywhere, including my parents' backyard. This stone cherub sits atop a small water feature in their garden. I was drawn to the texture of the stone in the face, and I used a rule of thirds approach to the composition (along with filling the frame) to create this image. This is one of my oldest black and whites, but one that I still enjoy viewing. Enjoy your belated Thursday -
Houston, Texas - Stone Angel
The 365 - 10/18/17 - Day 87
Happy Wednesday everyone - One of the many projects I have currently running through my head is a photo book project celebrating the Black Hills of South Dakota. As many of you know, I have been working the last few summers making photographs of area, and recently I have been tinkering with some potential layouts for the larger book series. In looking through photo books on the market, and in particular those of the Black Hills, I saw a lot of opportunity to showcase beautiful art from the area without relying on the standard "snapshot" of the local attractions approach. It felt like too many of the books showcased marginal images of standard sights and attractions of the Hills without critical thought of why that image should be there. Make no mistake, I am not denigrating the current offerings as I can understand and appreciate just how difficult it is to create something like a photobook. My previous offerings were personal items that comprised about 30 pages or, nowhere near what I hope this current project will be. However, I did know that I wanted to offer something more, and something I could appreciate on an image by image basis. Each and every shot in the project would be there for a reason and would hold up critically and technically. The image today is a concept I had for the page footers. I was inspired by the work of Robert Tisdale, who created high-contrast black and white images of Black Hills fauna. Using images of simple subjects, I pushed the whites and blacks to the extremes to create these sillohuettes. My goal is to use these kinds of images as footplates for the chapter pages. Something a little bit extra for a project that I hope offers something a little bit extra. Enjoy your Wednesday -
High Contrast Series - Bird on a Wire
The 365 - 10/17/17 - Day 86
Happy Tuesday everyone - Photos with a higher vantage point are rare for me. I usually have found myself in the action and thus quite a few of my photos take on a more traditional ground-level perspective. A trip I took several years ago gave me a chance to change some of that. I had a room on a cliffside overlooking the water and beach. This gave me an opportunity to take a few shots from this higher vantage point and give a more bird's-eye view of the scene. These days, this kind of shot is quite a bit more common now that drones are increasing in availability and popularity. However, I think this makes this kind of shot even more special for me because while I can't say that I worked very hard to get this shot (I think I was standing in front of the hammock on the balcony I had been laying in just before), but nevertheless they were and are rare in my overall photo library. I originally showed this image in color, but I think I like the black and white version here a bit better as it seems to not belong to a given time period. It seems a bit more timeless as I am sure this beach will continue to be. Enjoy your Tuesday -
Puerto Escondido, Mexico - Day at the Beach