Tuesday, October 1, 2013

with autumn closing in....


I love learning about photography. Some of it is very technical, things like "light fall off" and focal planes...I start hearing this stuff and think, "can't I just take a pretty picture of a flower??" And yes, I can. I know that stuff is out there to be learned. Someday. But for now I'm sort of trial-and-erroring my way through. And that's fine, too! In the end, a pleasing picture is a pleasing picture, no matter how you got there.

But I definitely love to give myself challenges and...assignments. That's how *I* learn - by doing. By making mistakes and trying again a different way. Lather, rinse, repeat. Until I achieve the look I was going for. 


For last week's shoot, I had a theme - The End of Summer. In my mind I was loosely imagining Mother Nature a little somber at seeing her magnificent summer come to an end. Sometimes themes come across a lot better in my mind's eye than they do through the lens of my camera! I think this kelly green dress, which seemed very Mother Naturey to me back at my apartment, was far too contrasty with the muted hues of the sand and ocean. I'd wanted the model to almost disappear into her surroundings and instead she really stood out. So, I learned to pay more attention to colors in wardrobe and their relation to their surroundings. I'll hold onto the dress for the time being and maybe use it again in a forest shoot, where it's closer in color to the environment. 


In an effort to subdue some of the images, I used texture overlays, a process I've not used much. Someone that has been really inspirational to me is Brooke Shaden, a fine art photographer who does amazing work using compositing and  texture overlays. I'm still pretty tentative with my use of them, but I'm challenging myself to experiment and go a little further each time. What do you think of my overlay images?


I also played around with long exposure shooting, trying to create a ghostlike effect with the model walking back and forth in front of the camera set to very slow shutter speeds. I still need to work on that! *I* know that's the model in the green dress, but it probably just looks like a green blur to all of you. 


So in the end, do you think my pictures give a sense of the ending of summer? Why or why not? 

3 comments:

  1. So beautiful! I'm definitely getting an end of summer vibe. I love the long-exposure ghost-like effect.

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    1. Thanks, Shannon! The model and I were laughing cuz I had to keep saying, now walk across again...now again...now again...now AGAIN...okay one more time...one more time...okay one MORE time...must have been like a hundred times, with me raising the shutter speed a little with each shot (when I started she was invisible!).

      It's funny when you know how to do something in THEORY, that it takes much more trial and error attempts to make it work in practical application. But it's fun trying different things.

      Thanks for visiting!

      Bettye

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  2. So nice to read some of you. Step by step the way you use to take to have fun with and by the photography.

    Axel8591

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