I was sitting in our sunroom this morning trying to finish the first half of The Brothers Karamazov for our book club this afternoon, when I looked up from my chair and thought, hmm, that might make a nice picture.
By the way, I uploaded more pictures from our backpacking trip to Minister Creek onto JPGMag. Check them out and let me know what you think.
I keep taking pictures of our hibiscus. The big bright red flowers are just so hard to resist.
I posted several more Lakeview Cemetery pictures today onto the jpgmag website, from September 15. Click here to see them.
University School's sixth and seventh grade football team was playing Monticello Middle School, which is just a few blocks from my house, so I walked over to watch for a bit. I taught all of this year's seventh graders last year when they were sixth graders, so it was fun to watch them play.
I'm not sure I have the rigth equipment or the right skill to take good sports pictures, but there are some things I like about this shot. I like the two players centered in the photo facing each other, and the line of teammates and coaches looking on. I also like the parts of other players you can see on each side of the picture--indicating that there is more going on on the field than main subjects.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Lots more pictures were taken this weekend. I'll post a link when I have them up either on jpg or flickr.
Mark and I are leaving in the morning to go on an overnight backpacking trip in Pennsylvania. I'm taking the camera, but I won't be able to post until Sunday night. Have a nice weekend!
I didn't feel like taking pictures while the sun was still out, but I didn't want to resort to another shot of my computer so I had Mark light a bunch of candles. Kind of boring, maybe, but better than my computer. I think I'm in another lull and I need to find a good book to learn some new technique or something. I never finished reading the Freeman Patterson book I bought a few months ago--maybe I'll pull that one out.
I think I have a knack for making interesting pictures out of every day things (my dad had very kind things to say about that on yesterday's post--thanks Dad!), but those happen mostly by accident. I mean, I see something interesting, and think "Hmm, that might make a good picture." So I snap a few shots, but don't necessarily pay attention to the details. Later when I see them on the screen I sometimes find some really good stuff--but in the moment I took the picture I had no idea what it would really look like as a photograph.
I want to get better at having in mind what I want a picture to look like before I take it. On a night like tonight when I haven't taken time for picture-making, I sometimes get a vague notion of what I want to do. Tonight I was thinking back to my After Dinner picture (from September 8) and thinking that I liked the lamplight shining off the glasses. I wanted to try and reconstruct something like that, but I just get kind of tired of trying to contrive a picture, because I don't know what I want it to look like exactly. I usually need to see something and then want to take the picture, rather than create a scene so I can photograph it. Maybe this is OK--maybe creating a scene to photograph isn't a skill worth working on. But I want to be more expressive with my pictures, and I think this might help. Perhaps not actually creating a scene to shoot, but more having in mind what kinds of images, colors, lighting, etc. will convey what I want to express and being on the look out for it.
A scene from my backyard--a birdfeeder hook and powerlines. I've been very busy lately having just gone back to work after the summer off, and am finding it difficult to get out to take pictures during the week. I'm running out of interesting things to photograph in my yard. But I guess that provides a challenge.
I spent some time at Lakeview Cemetery today taking pictures, and it was tough picking just one. In the next few days I'll try to get some more of the good ones up on www.jpgmag.com/people/mindylou.
I've been experimenting some with black and white recently. I'm still not sure when to go with bw over color, but this one seemed to work.
Today wasn't an "I forgot to take a picture" kind of day, it was an "I didn't feel like taking a picture" kind of day. To quote one of my favorite YouTube videos, "I'm feeling cranky and pubescent today and I don't know why..." But this evening I laid down on the floor next to Mark (who is worn out from the backpacking trip he took over the weekend) and snapped some pictures. I knew this one was blurry, but I pressed the shutter-release down long enough to override my camera's this-picture-is-blurry-so-I'm-not-going-to-take-the-picture feature (aaarrggh I want a better camera) and got this. When I saw it on the computer screen it actually made me feel a bit calm and peaceful.
Seems a bit anti-climactic after yesterday's pictures. Oh well.
Speaking of yesterday's pictures, I found out through a friend about a magazine that takes submissions from any regular joe photographer by uploading pics to the mag's website. I've started uploading to this site and there is another picture from yesterday that is worth looking at (along with others that may or may not have shown up on Photo Dilettante). Check it out: www.jpgmag.com/people/mindylou
Today was a very fun picture day, and a very tough decision. Mark and I went downtown for the Air Show. First I got to take some fun pictures of downtown. Then some fun pictures of the Thunderbirds. Then I noticed a young man doing some tricks on his bicycle so I approached him and asked if he minded if I took some pictures of him (I'm so proud of myself!). Those pictures didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but it was a step in the right direction. On the way home I saw another potential photo opportunity and almost had Mark stop the car so I could get some more shots, but we were both tired.
