A Matter Of Perspective

Over the years, I've heard any number of suggestions about changing one's perspective in order to get a more interesting photograph. Out of all of them, the two that have tended to work best for me are, 'Look up!', and 'Look behind you!' During my fat years, I avoided shooting from a low position as much as possible. I'm going through a thin period at the minute, so perhaps I should shoot as many shots as I can from ground level before I hulk out again...

Photography is not a group sport

I had a little time before the opening reception for my show, and was touring a historic house this morning. As I was walking around the space I noticed this composition. I wasn’t sure if what I had in mind would work, but my framing flattened the field to make a somewhat abstracted image. I find it hard to get anything creative when I am in a tour group, and tend to avoid them as much as possible, but today my persistence paid off.

Good light this weekend!

Homing in

A while back, I made a little spur-of-the-moment trip to Columbus, GA on a crisp sunny winter morning. I had the Nikon F3 with me, but in my rush to get going, I only brought one lens along, the famous 105 mm f/2.5. That was just the lens that happened to be mounted at the time. The lens is justly well respected for making portraits, but its field of view is a bit tight for walking around a city, I think. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful day, and I wasn't about to leave the lovely F3 in my bag, so I thought I would just focus my attention on interesting details as I strolled through the historic part of downtown.

The lens provides sharp and contrasty images on film, but I remember that it also worked nicely paired with a Nikon digital camera I had back in the early years of the 21st century.

Dancing on the head of a pin?

When going out to shoot photographs on 35 mm film, I tend to reach for a lens in the 28-60 mm focal length range. Within those limits, my comfort zone is definitely between 35 mm and 50 mm. While I'm getting more comfortable at the wider end thanks, in large part, to my cell phone, 28 mm is still a bit of a push for me. 

Sometimes, though, an even more dramatic change in perspective can lead to interesting photographs being made. Such as going out with a telephoto lens or a fisheye and nothing else. 

The first image is of water bubbles in a pond shot using a Zeiss 200 mm f/4 lens, the Contax RTS II, and a roll of Lomo Potsdam 100 film. I dragged the shutter a bit to make things more interesting in the final image. (For the record, I do have some documentary style images where everything is in crisp focus. But they are kind of boring. Just saying. And as an aside, the RTS II is one of the most pleasant shooters out there in my opinion.)

The lack of anything in the frame to establish scale adds a certain ambiguity and mystery to the photograph that I really enjoy. Perhaps this is actually an image of atoms undergoing a melting transition?