Winter is here. Locally that means snow, which means less vibrant colors, more muted landscapes. Look at that sky though.
Fine, I took that in autumn, but isn’t it pretty?
Of course, we are lacking snow right now. Its January and our landscapes are shades of brown.
The sky makes up for it. This one was taken a few days ago.
I read an article that encouraged shooting and editing to recreate the feeling a scene evokes, rather than simply recording a moment in time. You would think that snapping a photo wouldn’t be so complex, especially in our day and age of ready access to portable cameras (read: phone cameras), increasingly portable lighting equipment, and instantly viewable results
Photography is an art form, or can be, when done with thought.
What thought or feeling do you think I had when I took this photo?
Ready?
My thought was “cool, a window, maybe I can frame something with it. Like, I don’t know, more rock wall.”
Deep, right?
Here it is in color
When it comes to windows and frames like this, my first thought is, ‘Have someone pose there.’ I love how those portraits look. Unfortunately, this stop was unplanned, and I don’t have ready access to models on speed dial—‘Yes, hurry, or we’ll lose the light!’ Maybe I should start taking my dog with me again. I’ve done that in the past, and it’s nice both to have her with me and to feel a bit safer when you’re accompanied by a maligator. Not that we live in a dangerous area, per se, but she’s helped a couple of times while I was walking through town. One time, for example, a man harassing pedestrians took one look at my maligator eyeing him as we approached and found something better to do.
(TBH, she’s half Belgian Malinois, half German Shepherd. 100% gorgeous, am I right? I’m right)
Moving on…
Sorry not sorry, she was such a cute puppy.
Pet photography would be a fun area to get into.
Moving on (honestly this time) to…
Taking a photo to express what it felt like instead of look like (advice from David duChemin, highly recommend his books/podcast).
Do you, random internet person, take photos and edit them to recreate the emotion you felt? Photography, being an art form, has room for taking a photo for emotion, to capture a moment in time, and/or to record what something looked like. I like the idea of using a photo for the emotion it invokes, and if you think about it, many photographers do exactly that—photos of war, of children starving or children laughing, empty spaces that scream isolation, or town gatherings that radiate camaraderie.
So I’m going to challenge myself to take photos with feeling. Maybe that feeling is awe, like capturing a sunrise with its gorgeous colors, or maybe it’s solitude in the forest. Or maybe I need to reflect more on what taking photos with feeling really means for me.
(BTW, if you’re more of a cat person, I have plenty of cat photos to share in the future. If you’re not an animal person at all and rolled your eyes at my gushing, I won’t ask what’s wrong with you—that would be unfair. I will wonder about you, though.)
