10: Photographic Vision

Well I thought about reshooting yesterday’s image today but the sky was again dull and gray. Later I went to a meeting and by the time I got home it looked like rain. A short time later the rain started. There was flooding all around town and the rain kept falling. My favorite place to watch the rain is sitting in the swing on my front porch, at least when the wind is not blowing. As the wind was blowing rain in on the swing, I retired to one of the rockers on the porch. I sat there thinking, looks like I miss today, and then I looked toward the house across the street.

House Across the Road in the Rain

9: Photographic Vision

I once heard the expression: “Sometimes photography happens to me and sometimes I happen to photography.” This time photography happened to me. For the past several years I have walked out the same door at the Government Center and never noticed this image. So this time photography happened to me.



Sorry to say I had no tripod with me and in the heavy overcast and a longish lens the image is not very sharp. There is likely a much better composition, if I looked around. So you might say this is a reference shot for future use.

8: Photographic Vision

Seeing an image is the first step in producing a good image. Well it seems like the image a day is starting to take hold. For the first time in a long time I saw something and envisioned an image. The second step is to portray the image in an artistically pleasing manner. This has always been one of my many weak points, I spent too many years doing factual documentary photography. I hope to improve this artistic skill within the next 350 days. Next is the technical skills, these fall into 2 parts capture and post processing. When I try, my capture skills are not all that bad. My post processing skills are another issue. I tend to stay with “that is the way it was” concept and fail to use post processing to enhance the image while not changing the image.

Overgrown but not Abandoned

Photographic Vision. Many people have told me that most good images photographs and other types express something about the one who produces the image. This has been true of the images I have already posted and this one is no different. Here we have something old and a little run down. It is a little overgrown. But, it has not been abandoned.

7: Photojournalism or Snapshot

Well it was not long before I got drafted into photojournalism. I will relate that tale whenever an image shows up for a suitable illustration. It is sort of strange that photojournalism was my first and last paying gig in photography. Photojournalism is similar to street photography. The primary difference is in photojournalism you know the story and the subject beforehand. The one major rule is the photographer should not adjust the image before or after the capture. The image should remain true what was there without the presence of the photographer. Sad to say this is no longer an important rule to most photojournalist today. That is one reason I no longer choose to be a photojournalist.



This image is more of a snapshot than photojournalism. But can be considered photojournalism because it is an image of the first Sunday Service of a new church in Monroe. Not only is it a new church it has a methodology not common in most modern churches, Go an Tell not Come and See

6: Street Photography -- Truthfulness

Henri Cartier Bresson once said; as a street photographer, he wanted to be the invisible man. Others have said to shoot street one needs a since of espionage. Both of these statements imply that the photographer should not be observed in such a way as to change the image or what the image represents.

The Buy ??

This image although it “documents the human condition,” it does so by being untruthful. It was not posed. It was shot with a long lens to suggest spying. It suggests an activity, but there is no proof of such activity.

5: Street Photography -- Signs

Chris Weeks titled a series of videos on street photography, DOCUMENTING THE HUMAN CONDITION. For me that statement is the defining criteria for shooing street. To document the Human Condition a street photograph needs to tell a story. This is usually difficult in a single photograph without knowing something else. A hard lesson for me was learning that a human did not always need to be present to document the Human Condition. Signs are a great example.



This pair of signs sort of hit me in the gut, as I have been working with a group of homeless guys. ( I intend to bring them to you in the future if they allow it). What these signs say to me is; “ I am willing to help you a little, but you must explicitly follow my rules and my standards. You are to have no personal traits. Then and only then I will let you in the back door.”

4: Some times you fail

What a day!! Got up put the coffee on. Grabbed a quick shower and got ready to take a friend to the doctor in Charlotte. Got ready to leave out and found I had forgotten to turn the coffee pot on. No coffee all morning.

While waiting at the doctor’s office, I noticed this small purple flower among the yellow ones. Being the world’s greatest photographer, I had neither macro lens nor tripod, combine that with DT’s from caffeine withdrawal, the shot lacks detail so it went into the scrap bin. By the time I got home the temp was in triple digits, too hot for an old man. As evening approached unannounced guest arrived. So it is to the trash bin as it is the only thing I shot today, and a deal is a deal.

3: Street Photography and Hormones

Well yesterday I introduced Street Photography. Well I am not real fond of the majority of modern “Street”, it mainly consist of two primary subjects. One of those subjects is my topic for today.

One thing nice about being old is when you tell a tale most folks consider it either a lie or it was too long ago to really matter, so here is the tale. My entry into photography sort of coincided with my entry into raging hormones. This last item seems to still have a big hold on most modern “street”. The vast majority of modern “street” consist of snapshots of attractive young ladies, so it seems most of these photographers are men dealing with raging hormones. OK, back to the tale.

Well being new to photography and raging hormones at that time, where is the logical place to shoot in the summer time, the Swimming Pool. Being completely terrified by women my glamor photography success rate was very low. It seems most of my pool shots came out like this.

2: Introduction to Street Photography

When I started out in photography the only examples I had to go with were home style family snapshots. As we had family snapshots my subjects turned out to be people on the street, people I did not know. As I was very young, most people likely thought “just some dumb little kid” so I got away with it. Not long into my career a man came to town taking pictures of people on the street. We met and he sort of took me under his wing. He guided me on how to turn snapshots of people on the street into “Street Photography”. The image needs to tell a story and illustrate a human trait.

Curiosity

1: Breaking out is hard to do

Well it is day one of the 365 photo project. I stayed up late last night reading my Bible, so I slept late. I started gathered up my gear while thinking about a possible capture for the day. I then noticed a little dust on a lens, best clean that before I head out. Better still, I best clean everything. While cleaning I noticed my batteries were not fully charged, put all my batteries on the chargers. By now it is the heat of the afternoon and harsh lighting, best wait until later.

I started out to go to the store and their sat Ms Polly expressing my dilemma, Breaking out is Hard to do.


A note about Ms Polly Anna, she is a lovely charming young lady, NOT. She is cute enough and is rather flirty,. But she reminds me of a very attractive Prom Queen that knows she is attractive and has a Miss IT ego to go with.

June 20, 2010 A place to start

As one gets older they start to reminisce and thing from the past start to take on a different meaning. I have spent well over half a century dabbling in photography. Over the past couple of years I had set it aside for several reasons. Now I am getting the itch to rejoin the world and photograph some of it. Several friends have sort of pushed me that direction. My daughter suggested I do a 365 (a picture a day for a year) project.

I hope to take a little different approach to this than many folks. It is my intention, at this time to try to shoot new images that relate to my photographic past. Of course there will be some exceptions to this as I am not sure I can come up with 365 new images that tell a story about my past, but here goes.