We already had the four-fer with the house. Now I bring you the sky-road photos that I so love, three ways:
attempts at art
The possibilities are well, endless
There are very few things I don’t like to photograph. Ask me about anything and I’ll tell you I love photographing it. One of these things are these decaying looking neon signs. They are art work in and of themselves with all of their colors and when you add my magical photo editing skills, well, the possibilities are as I said, endless.
Enough chit chat. The work:
I love photorealism and I try to put at least some small element of that in every photograph.
I am also incredibly unoriginal so I bite off of the masters, a lot. In this case it is Walker Evans, depression era photographer who spent the last part of his career photographing stripes on the road. Ah, that is just great. Well, anyway, some Walker Evans-inspired work:
Sepia toned paradise:
Random people
As I have said up here numerous times, people do not like to be photographed, so I don’t usually get shots of them up here. Lately though with the new camera, I’ve been been doing this new thing where I just go out with the camera around my neck with my finger on the shutter. People are at their best when they aren’t posing. Now trust me many end of them end up looking like crap, but a few looked really great. Here was one that I really liked:
The look of amazement on the woman’s face was just so interesting to me. A close up:
This was another random one, just walking around, clicking the shutter:
I wanted this one above to look like someone I knew that I was taking a picture of. I really like this one. Another click the shutter wonder? OK:
And I guess if I am feeling the way the t-shirt above says, I’ll have to…:
To end this on a high note, I present these two:
And, to make it all “documentary gritty and all” I made it black and white:
I obviously did not sneak this shot. These boys saw me and said that if I gave each of them a dollar, I could take their picture. I thought I would get to pose them however I wanted, but they insisted on posing with their money. Those model divas. All about the Benjamins, I’ll tell you. They also mentioned something about me getting famous with that shot. Uh, yeah, little chance of that happening. But I am making progress in the whole “there are no people in these photos” thing.
The eternal “why”
In “A Room with a View,” George Emerson, during the vacation goers trip to the Italian countryside, climbs up on a tree and starts screaming “beauty, beauty.”
Anyway, I thought these following images were also examples of what George was calling out for so eloquently.
Here goes:
Flowers are so difficult to photograph. I tried as hard as I could not to make those up there look like what you’d see in a photography exhibit at your local Starbucks. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but I am trying for something a little bit beyond that.
Here’s are two other things that could be cliche city:
I love this kind of iron work, but this can really veer again into the type of picture that comes with the frame you just bought. Same goes for the peeling paint, that I stole from Man Ray anyway. I still have a lot more practice before these photos get anywhere beyond that.
All the pretty houses
The blue photo is the original. Usually when I leave the tungsten setting on I like the picture initially, but not at all later on. This time I really liked it, but me I had to tinker all the time and hence we have 4 photos. I like the number 3 the best and the b&w was meant to invoke an American Gothic kind of feel.
But where are we….
635
What is 635? That is the exact number of photos I took in Florida over eight days. I know, that is so few, right? And how many of them did I like? Seventeen? Ten? Three? I’m going with three. And here they are:
The few, the proud, the three photos I actually liked out of 635. Maybe I’m not as good of a photographer as I thought….
A break with tradition…
That is, these are not from my daily load of shots of Grand Central/details on buildings/blurry shots taken from some moving vehicle/people’s feet. These were taken with the Canon AE-1 all manual fun fun fun camera of wonder.
I was going to keep these under wraps until I was ready, but I realized that there are shots I really like and want to share them with people. Or, should I say person. Well, ok, people.
You gotta click on these to get the full effect. They are coming across small. I don’t know why.
Enough with the blah blahs, here is the work:
I was going for an Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keefe 1930’s in Mexico kind of feel. I loved the shadows in it and the sort of off-ness of the whole composition. Some disagreed, but a friend reminded me that photography is very personal.
Here is a photograph that I think is ok, but a lot of people like:
And the pièce de résistance:
As soon as I saw this tree, I knew this was going to be special. I walked around it and took a scant three shots at an f8 and an f11. I like the small apertures because I like my photos dark. Ok, photography lesson over.
Weird abstract glass shapes
From the school of “what the hell is this?” I’ll give the Tony Snow explanation — its a matter open to interpretation. Or, I am unnaturally attracted to shiny objects. Which would make me a cat or our current president.
This one for once doesn’t get some long-ass explanation
For those of the view who wrongly believe there are too many of those up in here.
This was just something I loved:
I love how the flower suddenly, with a little manipulation, sparkles.
And to think, it started out life as a run of the mill macro flower shot:
People things, part II
I still think the lack of people things comments are unwarranted, but here is an experiment I’ve done. I’ve taken photos already posted here, cropped the rest of the photo out and picked selected people in the photos and altered them. The sepia hides how grainy the photos are. These are not, repeat not, finished work. I just wanted to see what these people looked like close up and in their natural state, unposed and unaware they were being photographed.
Here goes with the results. Again, just throwing a couple of ideas out there. As with other photos on this thing, you gotta click on them for the full effect.
Weird and grainy I know, but there was something sort of scary about the guy’s expression:
I liked the old tyme feel of this one:
Completely, I repeat completely on the fence with this one. Half of me said “eh, boring portrait, but the other half said “something here intrigues me:
Ok, yeah, pixilated and totally weird looking, but this girl looks kind of ethereal to me:
This one also had a very strangely ethereal quality to me. I kept it in color because what was already there was very interesting:
Last, but not least, this that gave me the initial idea for this whole thing:
I know these are not the world’s best portraits, but I’m taking a stab at something a little bit different.
wrong side of the camera 