Well last night I took my baby on an excursion (again!). The idea was to work out at exactly which point in the skythe sun would be best for evening portraits or at least how it differed as the light changed. I was looking for how it affected my camera and its settings and of course the composition. I started way too early. I had harsh sun, my camera struggled and the sun flare was crazy intense. I managed to semi salvage a few photos. These are a couple.
I will try again tonight.
One of the great things about a new baby is the inevitable desire to photograph every thing that happens and every detail to remember forever.
From a photography perpective it has renewed my desire to look for interesting images and shapes to capture. I found myself sitting with little “E” and watching the goings on around me. I may only have my Galaxy and Snapseed but its enough to get a few good, or at least interesting, images a day.
Here is one of little “E”.
He is so tiny at the moment. I want to remember that detail forever, it will last such a short time.
Another random photo.
I took of my older son W. He was dressed up as a fairy doctor and something in the composition of this photo appealed to me. Its a rubbish photo without the filter but it becomes abstract enough with it to focus on the composition over the content.
I am pregnant. Very pregnant. So pregnant that my husband now laughs at how big the tummy has become. You see the rest of my body hasn’t changed. Photoshop out the tummy and I would look like I did before this pregnancy.
I felt like I wanted to document the tummy. This will be our last pregnancy and its size needed capturing, but I’m not really into glamourizing it (pregnancy for a mum of two young kids and another on the way is not glamorous) and the image wouldn’t represent the situation at all. I also wanted to stay true to my lack of time. So I have used my camera phone and not my DSLR.
I decided to use a documentary or lifestyle type shot to just capture a moment.
I quite liked it and then tried a few filters for fun. Somehow the colour version seemed too personal to share?! Anyway, at least there is a record of the gigantic tum!…and my son’s interest in it.
My husband was looking at old photographs in black and white tonight as research for his work. They were historical and had that “feel” about them that old photos have. I was then looking at a photograph I took today at Waterfall Gully in Adelaide, South Australia and I felt it had the same “feel”. I grabbed a sepia filter and voila. If it wasn’t for the line of cars in the carpark you might mistake it for a different time.
I don’t use Instagram as much as some people, but if I’m messing around for fun I do post some photos. Its usually ones that weren’t good enough and I hope that the filters will help somehow. The results are varied. I thought these turned out fairly well.
Industrial warehouses at the docks at Largs Bay.
W
The Pub at Largs Bay has really interesting architecture, especially for a Pub?!
You can find the images here via Instagram.
http://instagr.am/p/OSqISAkToV/
http://instagr.am/p/ORUqGrETgT/
http://instagr.am/p/OTvQkHkTjG/
I have had a reasonably interesting past week. I went to the zoo and then on the weekend our family went to the Mangrove boardwalk for an excursion. E who is two, loved it. His father is a science primary school teacher and so it ended up in a science lesson! E took ages walking along the boardwalk throwing the seeds that had fallen on the boardwalk into the mangrove mud to make a new tree.
The mangrove roots stick out of the mud to get air to the trees in high tide.
Strong midday light and extraordinary mangroves with lots of detailed branches made it hard to get a good shot of the boardwalk.
One of the mangrove seeds E was so fascinated by. It is a shame my iphone thought it knew better than me and refused to focus on the seed, instead choosing the plank of wood behind. Interesting choice iphone.
You know I got artsy. I liked the shape and contrast of this corner of the boardwalk.
My husband noticed this. I knew I married him for a reason! haha I love that he always keeps an eye out for anything that looks interesting and they are often good too.
The steep decent from the lookout above the canopy.
Explorers R & E.
Playing with filters. I took this photo of R while walking along and I knew he wouldn’t like it, so it got death by filter!
The Marina near the entrance of the boardwalk. After waking up to rain and fog it turned into a beautiful day!
I found a still life on the way in. I love the colours. I was talking about harmony in a post about composition using colour throughout to bind the areas together. The yellow tones in the wood are repeated in the paint and the water in the terracota pot.
I even found interest in the junk on the side of the track.
Oh man!!! YES! I photographed the drain in the bathroom! I thought it looked interesting and actually said a lot about the bathroom. There was NO LIGHT in the bathroom. An unattended place, it was pitch black on the inside except for the light that came in under the crack under the door. Fortunately, being a mother feeding a baby, I am expert at moving around in the dark. And I liked the shadows.
Poor little guy had to spend his time in the stoller again. He is way too curious and mobile for a boardwalk with a drop off into mangrove mud!
I am…wishing everyday was excursion day!
I had a grand plan for this photo. The fence followed up toward the bustop shelter and if you look closely there is a man walking in the window of the shelter.
Unfortunately you couldn’t see the man. So as I always seem to do when an image is going down the gurgler, I filtered it to death. Fortunately I found the result, as far as the fence was concerned, interesting so I am using it. It IS very red.
I take photos of everything that goes on around me. Its the one good thing about using my camera phone. It’s always handy.
Most of the photos I take are, well, terrible to be honest. Half are blurry, some are ho-hum and a few I like. In amongst that are a few that I think had potential in the theory part and just didn’t translate. Pity. I though I would post a few. I generally play with filters in cases like that. A futile attempt to turn something average into something…else. It never works. A great photo is just that. The saying, ‘you can’t dress mutton up as lamb’ also applies to photos.
W eating guitar
E out walking with his umbrella. Please note it was NOT raining, but he insisted he take it all the same.
E’s collection of little people. I thought it was ‘interesting’ (try ridiculous), that the one little person with darker skin was a prehistoric cave person?!! I realize that there are different races represented in little people, but it seemed slightly skewed. My comment on mainstream race representation did not work anyway. Oh well.
I was playing with effects again. The tree in my front yard turned into the circulatory system!
What to do with a spare five minutes? Have a play with an app for filters. As I go along I realise my aim as a photographer is to minimise or eliminate my use of filters because I generally use them to hide a poorly taken photo, but I think if they are used in a way that is obvious they can be fun and let’s be honest the only way you could use some of the photos that don’t make the cut. Here is a couple of examples. I am… not always serious.
Learning the Light 