Day Thirty-Three: Well dressed on a dreary day.

Cold and gray today in Durham.  It drizzled off and on throughout the afternoon.  I had hoped (again) for some real rain because I have an idea for a rainy day picture.  But I need a real downpour for what I've got in mind.  It will come.  At least with the only occasional rain, I was able to get out and take pictures for an hour or so this afternoon.  This time, on one of the Duke campuses. 

I knew when I saw the gray skies this morning that it was going to be a black and white day.  While it was rainy, it wasn't terribly dark and all the snow lying around everywhere works like a big reflector to bounce a lot of light around.  So I saw the possiblity of getting some good, high constrast black and whites today. 

While I was walking, I came upon this gentleman who was quite well dressed and walking along the snowy sidewalk next to the campus path where I was.  I jumped over the stone wall and moved off into the street to get a quick couple of shots of him as he was coming toward me.  Only had about 10 seconds til the light chagned and I needed to be out of the street.  But I got what I came for.

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Twenty-Seven: The Decisive Moment

This afternoon I drove out to Chapel Hill to shoot on Franklin Street and on the quad there.  The light was filtering through the enormous old trees and making interesting shadows on the paths and lawns.  So I found myself a spot into which life would move, and I waited.  I liked the balance of the lamposts on the left and windows on the right.  And I wanted the figure in my photo to be moving perpendicular to the point of view, which creates tension in the composition.  Then I waited for life to stroll by.

I had groups, singles, people walking dogs and pushing bikes.  I shot some of them, but none of that was what I was looking for.  I was waiting for the "decisive moment."  That term (coined by Henri Cartier Bresson) has always seemed somewhat limited to me.  While I understand the objective, to me, it's not necessarily that the moment be decisive, but rather that the elements in the composition be caught at the apogee of their action within the frame.

Here, the gentlemen striding down the path interplays with the girl in the background,  His stride is long and purposeful, moving along his path.  Her stride is more casaul.  He is moving across the frame, she deeper into it.  While there are two figures in the frame, they are isolated from each other.  The eye is drawn to the path into the photo by the placement of the subjects-- the static lamposts and windows, and the dynamic figures.  Neither has crossed into the plane of the vertical path...in an instant, both will.  And an instant ago, they were not yet in the frame.

This is the apogee, or, if you prefer, the decisive moment.
 

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Twenty-Four: A morning ride

I managed to make it out for about an hour this morning while breakfast was being made and the baby was sleeping.  I still had the big lens on the camera from my rugby shoot yeseterday and went off to see about photographing some nearby horses.  But the horses had blankets on and were all on the far side of field and I just couldn't get anything interested.  Giving up on that plan, I was just about to pull off when a bicyclist came up the road.  I liked the strong graphic element of her hat and knew it would make a nice black and white photograph.  The light was gray and flat, though bright enough to give nice crisp lighting to the cyclist. 

Molly and I also set up a quick studio shoot (actually in the hallway in our basement) with a background and lights and I shot both Molly and Isaac for a bit this afternoon.  Some nice stuff.  You can see it on my main blog.  Thought about using one of Isaac for today's official photo, but I am trying to limit the number of times I photograph the kids for the blog, and with something I liked already in the can, decided that shoot would be just for fun.  http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Twenty: Pandering to Interestingness

This photo is a somewhat canned attempt to mimic the type of works that get on Explore in Flickr.  Flickr calls it interestingness.  While the mysterious algorithm that determines interstingness can be frustrating for those of us aspiring to be included, I have to admit it is one of the (very few) things I like about Flickr.  The images that make it, while a seemingly random assortment, all have something special about them.  Sometimes it jumps out at you...somtimes it's far more subtle.

Two of my images have made it to date.  One of Molly:

And one abstract::

And I did once before make a deliberate photo with the express thought of it being Explore-like:

Anyway, aside from being a bit of a cliche, I do like today's image.  I like the motion, the colors and that her boot is the only part of her that is sharp.  I also like the baskets inside the door which gives another plane to the image and the way the doors frame her and reinforce the sense of motion.

Please check out my main blog: http://bmcportraits.wordpress.com/

Day Ten: The Intrepids

I was driving home late morning along the golf course near my house and saw this group of golfers hit their balls off the tee. The thermometer in my car said it was 33 degrees. I parked and waited for them at the top of the hill and struck up a conversation with them while I was photographing. They, like many of us here, were just plain tired of being holed up inside through 2 plus weeks of temperatures 20 degrees below our winter norm. So they dressed warm and went out to play a round.

The weather forecast is looking much more pleasant for the days ahead with temps back in the 50s by midweek. It's about time. Maybe I'll play some golf myself.