Archive for photography
Light, line, path
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I attended my first Denver Photowalk Meetup this morning at Confluence Park, just east of downtown Denver. Today’s assignment was to shoot as many photos as possible for an hour, then focus on just a handful of shots for another hour. The lesson: to discover the difference between shooting indiscriminately and editing in the camera.
Given that I’ve been reading about mindfulness in the midst of an overwhelming week, the assignment seemed right on target. The group leader, Alex, suggested that we have a theme or focus in mind. I wasn’t sure until I got started what would draw my eye, but pretty quickly I settled on light, line and pathway. I also decided to work with my Nikkor 50 mm F1.8 lens, which I love but haven’t shot a lot. I wanted to play with depth of field.
This morning at 9, the light was cold and hard. Every line was doubled by dark shadow. I decided to take advantage of the light conditions (after all, that’s what photography is all about) and catch as many contrasts in light as possible. I put on my headphones, pushed play on a Moola Mantra track set on repeat–a chant my birthmother sent me for Christmas that lights my brain on fire–and started shooting.
First, I wandered along the South Platte River, spending about 30 minutes shooting reflections in the water. This is one of my first shots of the day. I love shooting reflections. I spent the first 20 minutes shooting variations of this shot: wide, close, catching the edge of the river, varying shutter speed and aperture. I’m most satisfied this this shot, but I don’t think it’s as interesting as my later shots. Still, it exemplifies my themes.
When I got tired of shooting reflections, I started walking north on the path and the grafitti’d underpass caught my eye. I love the “neopolitan ice cream” aspect of this shot. I took about 12 shots here, deciding on focus and trying not to blow out the left side of the shot.
I love traintracks, and I especially love cairns. They are symbolic of being in the moment and marking where you are in that very breath. In playing with my theme, I stacked these three rocks on the rail and aimed. I took about 40 shots here, finally settling on this composition, focus and depth of field. It’s not quite right … I wish the focus were a little to the right. This is not about perfection, but about practice.
As I was walking back to the group after the first hour, I saw this shot and it struck me as a visualization of my belief about life path: Like the zigzag shadow, you do your best to align with the train tracks but always zig and zag along the way. I like the perspective. I took 3 shots of this scene, playing only with depth of field once I had the beginning, middle and end in frame. I’d like to come back to this shot with a different lens, maybe, or shoot it sitting down … I love the idea of it, and the story of it (the beginning, middle and end), but there’s too much in focus, I think. Maybe cropping would help?
One of my last 3 photos. I took several shots of this scene, playing with depth of field (getting used to manual focus on my Nikkor 50mm 1.8). I love the kacina-doll effect of this angle on the bike rack, the contrast of angle and curve, and the hard shadows. I also like the softness at the back of the photo, which adds some mystery … my idea of “the path.”
One of my last 3 photos. I took 4 shots. This is a horizontal crop of the original. I love the repeating shadows transected by the bottom of the wall, the way the wall cuts that diagonal from southwest to northeast, and the peeling, fading paint. I love the hard light we had this morning.
One of my last 3 photos. I took one shot, intrigued by the line of shadow on the ground vs the burst of light across the purse, all of the diagonals, and the hook.
I met a few people, took some interesting photos and had a lovely time. It’s a good group; I’ll join them again.
Which shot is your favorite? What’s your perspective on life path: a straight line or a zig-zag. Does your ultimate destination change throughout your life?
Best of ‘09: Word or Phrase: Working out my shit #best09
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Hayman Fire burnline, on a random roadtrip from Deckers to Manitou Springs.
In 2009, I turned 40. It seems remarkable to me, that number. It’s solid, the mile marker smack dab in the middle of my road trip called this life.
The first part of any road trip is filled with moments of my settling in, figuring out the best place for my sunflower seeds, selecting the best CDs or playlist, moving the cooler around until it’s firmly in the middle of the backseat. I usually find myself taking more pit stops in the first half of a long road trip. I look around more. I worry about getting there–wherever ‘there’ is–safely and on time.
The first half of a road trip feels like a dress rehearsal for the second half, the time where you really sink into the seat, elbow on the ledge of your open window, and sing over the wind at the top of your lungs even when the hot guy in the convertible pulls up beside you. Who cares what he thinks anyway. This is your trip, not his.
Someplace in the middle of my roadtrips, I usually stop, stretch my legs, get my bearings, and settle back in. I do a little reorganization, toss the empty soda cans in the garbage, work the knots out of my back. That’s exactly what this year has been like. I’ve been working my shit out, often in public here on this blog.
- I’ve been doing therapy weekly since May, using PSYCH-K techniques to unearth and resolve deep-held beliefs about myself and life. Some of the work as been successful, other parts not so much, but the fact that I’m dedicated to this journey to the point of spending 7% of my monthly income on it tells me this time around–because boy, have I tried this before–I’m ready to resolve and let go.
- I got married, throwing my lifetime fear of abandonment out the window as I said I DO to Steve. I am so committed that I even changed my name, something I didn’t do the first time around.
- I became committed to figuring out the best way to deal with my bipolar disorder–the best way for ME that is.
- I have become much better at quickly coming to understand how I feel and why I feel it. Where it used to take me days or even weeks to get it, now I can usually get to it in one conversation, or one blog.
- I decided that yes, I will write the novel. Nothing’s on paper yet, but the outline’s almost done in my head. And, because I am nuts, I also have started thinking about a second novel, to be written under my pen name, which will be an erotic romance. 2010 will be the year I actually write these books, now that the process doesn’t seem insurmountable. I still have some confidence issues to work out, but those will come by starting the damn things.
- I started taking pictures again. I love taking photos, and while I want to get better, I’m willing to ask questions and look dumb and have a lot of failures along the way. I’m hoping that someday I can make a buck or two on my work, either by taking portraits or selling calendars (ha!). But for now, I love that I have a hobby I can play in minus the need to be the World’s Greatest.
- I have written more this year than ever before, thanks to this blog. Yes, yes, sometimes I’m funny (by accident) and other times I’m downright depressing, and the Days of Grace project has become tedious for me, and maybe even for the 50 people or so who read this every day. However, I have been writing. And not writing was part of the shit I wanted to work out this year.
- I stopped trying to lose weight. Since I’ve been dieting in one way or another for most of my life, deciding that if my body wants to be a size 12, so be it, took more weight off me than South Beach or Atkins or fasting ever did. Figuratively, of course, because I’m still a size 12. However, this morning, when I looked at my naked body in the mirrors, I was fine with what I saw. This time last year, I looked pretty much the same, and I hated what I saw.
- I started to heal my relationship with my sister, which has been estranged for the most part since she was born.
- I have become a better, more loving mother to my daughter.
- I’ve mastered the double spin in salsa dancing.
- I’ve learned to better speak my mind even when it’s uncomfortable to do so.
- I’m still a slob, although I have had moments of neatness.
If you follow numerology at all, you understand that life comes in cycles. Numerologists say that those cycles are 9 years long. For me, 2009 was a 1 year–a year of rebirth, and of continuing to let go of what I started to let go of in year 9. I’m halfway through it, and I can feel the momentum for my next new adventure building inside and outside of me. I will continue to work on my depression, my perfectionism, my body image and identifying goals and values so that I can launch myself into whatever comes my way with a new vision of who I am and where I’m going on the second half this roadtrip called my life.
Blogger Extraordinaire Gwen Bell has issued a blogging challenge for each day of December–a “Best of” for 2009. I’m joining in as I have time and as the topics interest me.
Show & Tell: Bird Invasion
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Just as spring was promising to explode from fat buds on my neighborhood trees, we were invaded by a swarm of birds. Hundreds of robins, woodpeckers and other smallish–and noisy–birds weighed down the Chinese Elm in my front yard to the point the branches sagged. The scene was out of Hitchcock as the birds dove at me, aiming for my hair, my face when I pointed my long lens at them. I ventured further beyond my front yard and noticed every tree on my block was laden with birds. I stopped and counted 20, 30, 40 on on small maple, just planted the previous autumn. Even the shrubs were covered with birds–like someone had scattered them into the air by the bucketful and they landed where they might.
No one else was no the street. Just me. The whole scene was otherworldly, with the grayed out late afternoon sky flashing above me turning trees and birds to silhouette as I squinted up. For a moment, all was silent. And then, as if a conductor raised his baton, the entire flock levitated and flew.Flew! Raucously and with great fervor, they took to the wind and became a dark gray mass overhead. They headed east away from the mountains. Minutes later, rain began to fall, erasing any trace that the flock had camped on my block.
See who else is in the sharing circle this week over at Melissa’s Blog. And if you want to play Show and Tell this week because you saw it here, leave me a comment before adding your link to Melissa’s Mr. Linky.
Show & Tell: Tyson and the Goldfish
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First semester sophomore year in college, I took Photojournalism I with the Pentax K1000 I pilfered from my high school photography class. We bought Fuji c-41 black and white film in bulk and rolled our own film into canisters. I learned to work the darkroom–kind of. I am impatient, and the precision the darkroom requires made me nervous and uncomfortable. To pass the class, I had to turn in three photos that I processed and printed, photos that told a story, which would be judged by my 20-odd classmates in a final show.
On Thankgiving Break, I brought my cat Tyson home with me. Tyson–Ty-bo-san, kitty love of my life–was a stray kitten my college fiance and I found and adopted and raised together. But he was always my cat. Handsome, smart, funny, I adored him and he adored me. I couldn’t leave him in my apartment alone for the holiday week, so in the carrier he went. When he arrived at my parents’ house, he immediately found the goldfish bowl my brother had hung in a Mom-crafted macrame plant holder over his dresser. I could hardly drag him from the spot. That fish tank became his personal TV for the week.
Thanksgiving morning, as the sun streamed in through the window, I caught this shot with the K1000. It’s grainy and imperfect (also scratched from being in a “bad” album for years), but this photo so wonderfully captures his intelligence and intensity. I love this photo, so much. As much as I loved him. I have dozens of pictures of him–as a kitten, in the last days of his 18 years, being silly, hiding in boxes, cuddling with teddy bears and my other cats, you name it. Most are of better quality, in color, in perfect focus. But this shot remains my favorite.
I wound up turning this shot in as part of my final project. It won 2nd place in the student photo-storytelling competition out of 60 entries, making it extra-special for me.
Want to join the Show-and-Tell circle? Visit Mel’s site and come play with us!
Wordless Wednesday: Prophylactic
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On Saturday, Steve and I took a road trip on Highway 67 to Manitou Springs. On the way, we stopped by a junk/antique shop and nosed around for an hour. One odd find: a Chemical Prophylactic Kit from World War II. Note: For Army Use Only. Sailors and Flyboys: you’re on your own in the war against the clap.
Handsome man
Posted by: | CommentsSometimes, I can’t help but stare at him. He has no idea about how good looking he is. In fact, he considers himself “average.” I’ve been attracted to men before, gaga, crushing hard, but the attraction usually wanes with time, or with knowing them. With him, almost four years in, I’m still incredibly attracted. He has the most perfect profile. He has all of my favorite features (he’d laugh and say, “Yes, Lynn, I have eyes and a nose and a mouth.”)
I mean the cleft chin. The single dimple. The eyes that penetrate the camera lens like he’s looking straight into my heart. The strong jawline. He’s light brown and blue. He’s slim and only an inch taller than me. He has the most perfect ass, even when he’s sidelined from running. I love his hands, especially the way they feel against my skin. I love his lips, especially the way they feel against my skin. I love the way he looks at me, when we’re solid and we can feel the thin electric line of connection that runs between us.
He is a handsome man. And he’s going to be my husband.
Foto Friday: For the love of cupcakes
Posted by: | CommentsToday, one of my graphic design vendors decided to win my loyal business forever. She brought cupcakes from Happy Cakes bakery in Denver for absolutely no reason. Or maybe as a belated birthday present. Let the picture say how I feel.
