governor’s island

A break with tradition…

/ nataliar77 / 4 Comments

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.

People things, part II

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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.

People things

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Ok, a lot of people have commented that there are no people things in any of my photos. Well, so, I’m posting some photos with some people things in them and then there will be an editorial comment on all the commentary. See, see what I did there?

Anyway, some photos of my favorite place with people things in them:

I mean those appear to be feet and calves and they appear to be attached to a person of some kind. That counts as a people thing, right?

Ok, you wanted more, so I’ll give it to you:

People things in all of these photos. All of them. Ah, you mean not random people things that wander into my shots. Truth be told, I want to photograph people, but I love taking photos of them doing natural things or contrasting against a background. This for example illustrates that:

I did a little cropping here, but you get the idea. People things. I meant these people no disrespect. Their dress and manner reminds me of another time and I liked the contrast between them and the modernity of the background. I turned around, snapped a photo and moved along.

Later, I saw the same family and whipped out the old digital and wanted to get a shot off. The woman in the photograph angrily admonished me about taking photos and she was right. I hadn’t asked permission and that group of people is probably subjected to many a strange stare from one and all.

It struck me though that my favorite photos are ones like this. Unposed people in what they call “captured moments.” Of course, getting such photos is extremely hard because the people you want to photograph are going about their casual lives, not wanting them invaded by a camera.

Photos don’t need people in them to capture a feeling of a place or an emotion. Trees can capture emotion and feeling as well as pictures of people. People though, they tend to talk back and not want their picture taken. This is one of the most annoying things about photography. People constantly telling me that they look fat in photographs or refusing to even be photographed. Maybe I’d have more photographs to put up here if people didn’t run in the other direction when I tried to take their photo. I don’t post posed photographs up here that have no context and aren’t interesting. This isn’t the MySpace of some college co-ed. This is my photography site for my ideas.

So, the complaining about the lack of people, it could stop. People, they tend not to want to be photographed. Trees tend not to mind. And, they don’t talk back or tell me they look fat.