Wednesday 25 August 2010

The Gallery: A Photo I hope to be Proud of


As the Gallery is quite a creative thing to take part in, I thought that I'd take part in it this time via my new blog, especially since part of the reason I set it up was to be able to indulge myself by doing more of this sort of thing.  When I saw the prompt for this week's Gallery, I thought that it would be quite easy, but actually I've found it wasn't.  I'm not a prolific photographer these days.  I used to be quite keen, to the extent that in pre-digital days I had my own darkroom, but that was a long time ago.  However with all the inspiring photographs I see on other people's blogs, I'd love to have a go again.  I also recently picked up a bargain book called 99 Digital PhotoART Ideas: Create Your Own Art for Your Walls by Annabel Williams, which really inspired me - lots of ideas for taking photographs as artwork, and encouraging you to take more control of your camera - something I've not done with my digital SLR - partly because I've been too lazy, and partly because I've not read the manual properly!  I quite fancy getting one or two more lenses, but having seen the price of the ones I want, I think they'll have to go on the wish list for a while.

Anyway, I took a look at what I'd got, and most of the photos which I'm proud of, I felt I could take no credit for.  The scene itself was beautiful, the effect I'd achieved was entirely accidental, or my kids looked particularly cute in that shot, but it was nothing to do with me.  Now I don't suppose that really matters, you can be proud of a photo for any reason you like, but I wanted something I felt I could take some credit for.  In the end, I chose this one which I took on our recent holiday to Cornwall (our first proper holiday for 7 years).  I've not done anything with it yet, but I feel it has great potential, and that I can take some credit for the composition, if nothing else!  One of the first priorities will  be to get rid of the yellow lines, which I feel are far too intrusive.  I'd also like to see what it looks like in black and white.  Although the purist in me feels that digitally editing photos is in some way 'cheating' I know that these days, it's a rare photo that hasn't been edited, and lets face it, plenty of image manipulation used to go on in the darkroom anyway!  Perehaps when I get round to doing something with it, I'll post the finished result so you can see the difference.

10 comments:

  1. I love the masts against the sky

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  2. Beautiful shot. I love the two bicycles propped up against the railing.

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  3. You can get rid of the yellow lines??! I am such an innocent when it comes to photo manipulation, even though I've seen the magic my sister (a semi-pro) can work... I love this one though, and will be very interested to see how it turns out!

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  4. It's a fab photo but I know what you mean - a bit of cloning magic and all of a sudden it could be anywhere at anytime :)

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  5. Lovely. I like the focus on the bikes x

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  6. It's a beautiful shot - I hope you'll share the final result with us :)

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  7. Love this pic... its making me think of the pirates in Peter Pan, although I'm not sure how the bike fits in with that... maybe someone is struggling to think of a happy thought?! :)

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  8. This is a beautiful image. It works very well just as it is, but I think it would be amazing in black and white!

    Thanks for visiting my blog, and how nice to know that I inspired you to start an etsy shop! What's your shop name, I'd love to have a look?

    Angie :)

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  9. this is really nice! it would also be really visually interesting if next time you up-ed the depth of field and had the ship masts in the back sort of fuzzy - it would draw the eye to it and create even more interest. what's the maximum aperture you're working with?

    bridgetmcenaney.wordpress.com

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  10. Thanks everyone for the comments:

    @artangel - I have replied to this on your blog!

    @brij: The camera was set on automatic for this, and at present for every shot I take. Although I understand the rules behind exposure/aperture/depth of field, it's been a long time since I've applied any of them, and I've been to lazy to explore my camera instructions so that I can control it manually (pathetic I know). As you say, controlling the depth of field can make a huge difference to the way a photo looks.

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