Short entry today, mainly wanted to post pics from my first shoot as a pro, which happened last year. The pet in question was a gorgeous Alaskan Malamute named Zeppelin. Zeppelin was a challenge in that he was so stoic that getting a reaction from him, a face, a behavior, was difficult. A good learning experience for me. Also, as a person who shoots outdoors primarily, scheduling a shoot around the sunlight is super important. Knowing where the sun will be hitting the best, when golden hour will be, and planning on the unforeseable were all lessons I took away from this shoot.
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So it's throwback Thursday and this is one of the earliest dog photos I've taken, that I can still find. I believe it's from 2003-2004, but as it was taken with a little disposable camera, then scanned onto a computer later, then uploaded onto a website, then downloaded back onto my computer, I have no way of verifying that. I have come a long way, but even then I think I showed a knack for catching expression. For comparison sake, this is the same dog, 4(ish) years later: Whoa. 2008 was a big year for me with my photography, in general. I still wasn't confident enough in my abilities to even consider it as a profession (not to mention I was busy being in FRONT of the camera), but I did manage to get some shots like this: Ugh, naming my photos. NEVER put a title on your photo without backing up a version WITHOUT the title, or I guarantee you will regret the title you choose. Other than that, it's a pretty solid photo. A little underexposed, but you know, whatever. In 2009, I got to travel to Germany and Czech Rep. and took photos like this: In 2011, I spent a summer in Yosemite, took some beautiful photos like this: And learned the cold hard lesson that when it came to nature photography of big beautiful mountains and waterfalls, what Ansel Adams didn't beat me to by 80 years, a million amatuer photographers did. I mean, that was RIGHT ON THE TRAIL. Every single person with the wherewithal to look up with a camera in their hand would get that photo. So yeah, it's a good lesson in originality. That's probably enough for throwback thursday...okay, maybe one more (2004)
Hi, and welcome to my blog!
Without making one political statement or another, I want to post the following photo. A little backstory: the dog's name is Junebug, and my fiancee and I were pet sitting her for a few weeks. While out the other day practicing and looking for some new shots of the dogs I hadn't captured before, I caught Junebug sitting in front of my dad's scoop-mobile. Years ago, some teenagers had graffitied the tractor with the words "legalize it" (misspelled, of course) and a pot plant. Without realizing that I had framed in the words, I caught the photo of Junebug as she was squinting into the sun. A very serendipitous image. I would like to think that this is an example of a "three phase photo". Most people see the dog, "awwww," they say. Then they read what's behind her, and then back to her face. I am giving myself more credit than I deserve, but there's an important photographic concept here, I believe: A great photo is one you continue to get something out of the longer you look at it, and that draws your eye around the photograph. This can be seen a lot in the works of Ansel Adams, as one's eye moves from the rock in the foreground to the distant mountains, miles and miles away. Travel and nature photographer Art Wolfe talks at length about using lines and shapes to move the viewer's eye around the photograph. I think one of the best sub genres of photography to see this in action is street photography, where so many competing elements in the frame force the photographer to use lines and shapes to really clarify to the viewer what they should look at initially, and then secondarily. Photojournalism does this as well; with any storytelling medium, first we see the 'who' or 'what', and then the 'where', 'when', and hopefully 'why'. |