Tag Archives: photography technique

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Diagonals

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Diagonals are leading lines. They draw your eyesight and attention toward a vanishing point.

My brain is having fun with the idea of leading lines. Something like, “An aardvark, a can opener, and a Nihilist walk into a bar…”? Or maybe, “The night was dark and stormy…”.

Anyway, enjoy the gallery! Thanks to Patti for hosting a great challenge and explaining and illustrating the technique so well. Visit her blog HERE.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Triptych

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Our Challenge host this week, Ann-Christine, has given us a really fun idea to play around with. Here’s how she puts it:

 “With Three of a Kind, I want you to think about things related to your main photo – maybe a book, a flower, a room, a piece of art… Almost anything will fit in here – you could make your three images tell a story too! Simply put: Your post should have three separate images that are somehow related. (Another option is splitting one photo into three parts.)

There is a special word for this art of three – triptych. The shape may be seen in Christian Iconography and became a common conventional style for altar artworks in the Middle Ages, from the Gothic era forward, both in Europe and overseas.“

Here are a few groupings I created:

“A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and
simple images in whose presence
his heart first opened.” ― Albert Camus

“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind.
And the third is to be kind.” ― Henry James

“To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones
knowing your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.” ― Mary Oliver

Please visit Ann-Christine’s post HERE to see some excellent examples of displaying photos in threes and play along with us Lens-Artists!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: The Rule of Thirds

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I am always fascinated by the beauty of nature in its most exquisite detail. I’m sure some people would look at my files and think, “Jeez, what a bunch of boring shots of plants!” I like to think that if I focus on presentation, I can redeem the endless green. The “Rule of Thirds” is a helpful tool for adding interest and eye-appeal to the composition of a shot. Tina outlines this concept and poses this week’s Challenge in informative detail. Visit her post HERE to see how it’s done.

I picked up a few additional pointers from Tina’s post that I will keep in mind.  
“It’s important to compose birds with an area of open space in front, visually implying they could fly away at a given moment.“

“Another approach to composing is a “Z” configuration – structuring your image so that the viewer’s eye is moving from left to right – as most of our viewers typically read.“

“Good composition is like a suspension bridge – each line adds strength and takes none away…Making lines run into each other is not composition. There must be motive for the connection. Get the art of controlling the observer – that is composition.”
– Robert Henri

These are interesting concepts to ponder. What makes something pleasing or interesting to your eye? Leading lines, balance and symmetry, color, subject matter…there’s so much to consider in photography. And so much to see that’s pleasing and interesting in this wide world. Happy snapping, photographers!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Bokeh

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Sofia, our host for this challenge, writes: “The term bokeh was first used to distinguish normal motion blur from the blur obtained when things are out of focus. It literally means blur in Japanese. The Nikon website, after a more complex and technical explanation reduces it to simply this: ‘bokeh is the pleasing or aesthetic quality of out-of-focus blur in a photograph’.” The picture above is of a very young fern, its leaves all rolled up. The soft focus background draws attention to the inward curl, like tiny arms hugging its own precious new life.

I like how the background blur in this closeup of a dewdrop on some beard lichen reminds me of neuron pathways in the brain. (I do wish the drop were in sharper focus, though.) The bokeh background feels very Zen-like to me. It’s what happens when you are calmly mindful of the thing right in front of you, while the background fades into a peaceful blur. Here’s a gallery of my nature close-ups with bokeh backgrounds:

Please visit Sofia’s post, HERE, for more on this technique and instructions for participating in the challenge.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Focus on the Subject

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Patti writes: “In this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #121:  Focus on the Subject, we invite you show us an image that uses leading lines, patterns, color, contrast, selective focus, freezing the action, doorways or arches, or the eyes of humans or animals to draw our attention to the subject.” 

Leading lines:Patterns:Color:Contrast:Selective Focus:Freezing the Action:Doorways or arches:The eyes: Moon the cat is the perfect subject to deliver a message of Happy Halloween and Blue Moon. I also wish those who celebrate All Saints and All Souls beautiful holy-days. Be safe, be well, be optimistic as the Earth revolves slowly… 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Negative Space

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Amy, our Lens-Artists host this week, writes:

This week we will explore negative space in photography. Negative space is the area around the main subject of your photograph. This space is empty or unoccupied. Spencer Cox at Photography Life explains, ”Photos with high amounts of negative space are: empty, subdued, peaceful, calm, and isolated”.

If you’re familiar with this blog, you can imagine that I had all sorts of philosophical associations with the words “negative space”. Here I am in California, giving hospice care to my mother with lung cancer while the West Coast is on fire. Two of my children and their spouses live in Oregon, where I moved at the beginning of August, leaving Wisconsin. If you read the news, you know there is a lot of scary stuff going on in all of these places, a lot of “negative” energy.

However, now I know that “negative space” can just be the background that allows you to focus on a particular subject. Re-framing the shot, allowing the busy-ness surrounding the essential element to blur, highlights its unique and important features.

Empty, subdued, peaceful, calm and isolated.

So, maybe all of the disasters of 2020 are just the “negative space” that will allow us as humans to focus on what it supremely important about life on this planet. And what do you think that is? 

 

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Cropping

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For this week’s Lens-Artists’ challenge, Patti schools us on cropping images. This is a challenge of technique, and she suggests that cropping can be used to:

1. Simplify the shot by getting rid of distractions.

2. Improve the shot by focusing on the best part of the composition.

3. Change the meaning of the image by emphasizing certain aspects.

4. Create an abstract.

My first reaction to this challenge was a sort of disappointment. So many of the recent challenge themes have been very emotional: Home…Distance…Going Back. Creating those posts was therapeutic for me. How do I take this technique and use it to allow myself the emotional therapy I need this morning? (And yes, I need emotionally therapeutic activity this morning!!)

So, that’s a challenge.

Here’s a photo I took in November when I was out on a solo walk at a wildlife refuge nearby:What was I feeling that afternoon as I strolled through the refuge, alone with my thoughts?

I remember that I was looking for the familiar solace of a natural view, something focused on the journey forward, with hope in the distance. I also remember that I was feeling quite alone. Then again, in creating this composition, it might make all the difference just to pay attention to the present situation, to the path I am walking right now, and take the next few steps in full awareness of where I am. Perhaps what I really meant to convey in this photograph all along was the complete picture: the backstory, the now, and the not-yet. They all exist simultaneously.

I find this a very interesting exercise…but not the most compelling image.
Maybe this one?

That’s my daughter and her pup…in Oregon…where I’ll be moving. This is what compels me, emotionally. I feel pulled forward on that leash.
Do you feel it?

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Leading Lines

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This week’s challenge host, Tina, says, 

Leading lines carry our eye through a photograph. They help to tell a story, to place emphasis, and to draw a connection between objects. They create a visual journey from one part of an image to another and can be  helpful for creating depth as well.

I’ve never had any formal instruction in photography, but I think I have a pretty good natural eye for composition…sometimes. Let’s see if I’ve intuitively used Leading Lines in any of my pictures. 

Okay, wow. That one was obvious. You could argue that Lake Shore Drive and the street lights all lead to the Chicago skyline in that shot. 

The rustic fence and the gravel road take your eye to the Schottler farmhouse.

These two seem like they follow a reverse leading line…a receding line, or a vanishing point.

I think these last three are my favorites, though. They draw my eye to the horizon, which I long to explore.  

 

Anyone want to come with me?