Just because they are not the latest and greatest anymore, it doesn’t mean that these miscellaneous ramblings have to die after their 30 days of glory; I gathered them here for posterity;)

 

09 2020

Slim pickings is the central idea for the month of September, but this may not necessarily be a bad thing!

As I realized that I haven’t been out shooting much in September, I tried carrying the camera with me even more. I tried to “make” images rather than “take” them; in other words I looked around me and I searched for the images that, as I have always maintained, are everywhere.

So, this month it was Pop & Abstract more than anything else, as objects and even people became props in spur of the moment inspiration bursts.

Everyday objects, like a rope or even a plastic bottle, can be seen in a different light (sometimes literally!) and may lend themselves to the cause. People can can take different forms if you change the perspective and use lighting to either reduce or enhance their attributes. Depth of field and the use of color can create visually stimulating and pleasing images that are unique in the abstraction.

And when inspiration knocks on your door again, pick up that camera and go out and shoot, knowing that you are always ready to experiment with whatever is handy when it decides to leave you again for a while!

 

10 2020

To say that October found me in a dark mood would be the understatement of the year! This was obviously (?) reflected in the images I captured and it manifested itself with all that negative (aka Black) space in most of them.

There is nothing wrong with a dark mood or dark images for that matter, don’t get me wrong – I am just stating facts here! Using negative space to emphasize the main theme of the image is nothing new and it is indeed a pretty powerful tool when used right.

A child’s eyes, a lit building, light reflections on the water, a building entrance, a roof, a vase, a panoramic landscape, virtually all themes and subjects can be presented in a different light, when using the darkness of negative space (excuse the pun) and that is what I tried to do here.

Another “experiment” occurred during post processing and it had to do with a more pop art feeling that I wanted to elicit, using “slices” for a composite picture of sequential moments, as is the case with the girl and the bicycle and the silhouette figures in the sunset (with lots of black there too, for good measure).

However, the three images that speak louder to me this month are the tail lights on the Marathon dam, the yellow light in the foggy evening and the blurry lights of cars in what looks more like abstract painting than photograph. In all three there is the hint of human life and motion, without seeing a human moving. There is a distinct feeling of melancholy that is accentuated by the lighting and, coupled, with the presence / absence of people, the image speak of loneliness more than anything else.

 

11 2020

Image making in the era of COVID-19: Walk around the house, camera in hand and look busy. Seeing everything in a different light, mundane and utilitarian objects become the protagonist. Of course, this can only go so far and in have gone down that road, especially on my instagram feed, which you are most welcome to browse and see for yourself.

I decided to focus on two different subjects this month and explore them in different ways, namely model airplanes and the violin. Angles, lighting, concepts all change from one image to another, all in a bid to overcome the inherent lack of more stimuli, due to the lockdown.

Setting the images up, using people and objects as props, in essence orchestrating or directing the image to its final form may take away the spontaneity of the moment, in the sense that the moment is artificially created, instead of pre-existing and waiting to be uncovered and preserved by the photographer. Personally, I do not mind that at all. In my view of the moment, “seizing” is great, “creating” is another kind of great too, so I indulge! This is another take on image making altogether: going from an art of subtraction to one of addition, all in the name of a final product that usually shows no trace of the creation / creative process.

As was the case in October too, the mood was dark and this was reflected in the tones and the relative absence of light. The use of silhouettes figures somewhere in there as well, essentially detracting from the full range of emotions and adding to the subtle feeling of melancholy.

 

12 2020

Trying to reconcile lockdown and creativity is a full time job. My lockdown cosmos has been reduced to my home and however far my feet or bike will take me for a stretch, and let me tell you, it is not that far.

I am faced with visual stimuli that have been around me for many years and due to current circumstances I get to see them even more. A blessing and a curse for sure: a curse because if there is an image hiding somewhere in there, I have probably seen it and made it already; a blessing though because I am forced to really look more intently, make use of other angles, different times of day, other lighting, other mood.

Looking hard enough will uncover images that have waited there for years. It is akin to forcing yourself to play the same opponent with your old and beat up racquet, or wearing your old running shoes to do your morning run. It builds character. There are no fancy places to go, no events, no novelties, just the usual stuff around you that are begging to be discovered.

A walk to the nearby supermarket exposed two buildings that I go past pretty often, probably on my way to shoot other, more interesting buildings:) A sunset shot not only from my balcony, but being “obstructed” by it, uncovered another kind of sunset image, one that just might escape Oscar Wilde’s distaste for the “provincialism of temperament”.

And animals… Cats and bees and the beauty of looking at them up close and personal. I was lucky with them and I enjoyed making these images, although, from the look on his face, I am not sure if the cat felt the same;)