WordPress Photo Challenge: Hands
As I shot this, I got to thinking about what the artist’s hands look like after he (she?) was done painting this. I mean, it’s about five feet tall, was probably painted at night when an artist is less likely to get caught, and fully spray-painted. I can’t imagine those hands were clean.
WordPress Photo Challenge: Unfocused
There’s a little something in photography called Depth of Field. It refers to how much of a space there is between the nearest and farthest objects in a photograph that is sharply focused. A photographer may choose to have a large depth of field in order to keep everything in focus, or choose a small depth of field in order to allow a great deal of the photo to be out of focus. How you manipulate your aperture will determine how much of your photo is in focus, and, therefore, how large or small your depth of field is.
One strange this for me, however, is how a small aperture – say, f8 or above – may feel unfocused even though more of the photo is in sharp focus. Take the photo above, for instance. It was shot at f8. It is mostly sharp. It does, however, challenge me to decide on what subject to focus my attention. Should I pay attention to the bright and perplexing graffiti on the wall? Or maybe the strange artwork, wherein some…thing…seems to be trying to pry its way out of the wall? Or perhaps I should pay attention to the broken toilet and discarded shopping cart. By shooting it all in focus, I’ve created too many subjects and, therefore, created an unfocused, but sharp, photo.
What do you think?
Merry Christmas!
It would have been easy to snap a photo of a neatly wrapped package sitting under the tree, but I decided to test my ability to hold my camera steady. I failed, quite spectacularly too, on most of my shots, but this one turned out.
Well, it turned out in a sort of abstract art kind of way, but that’s the way I remember most Christmases. Abstractly.
Oh. Merry Christmas. I hope Santa was good to you.
I invoke the power of Hercules to get me through the next two days!
From the Firenze files. This is the statue of “Hercules beating the Centaur Nessus”, which is in the Loggia della Signoria in Florence. I thought of this statue tonight because I feel as though my strength is waning. As though Friday cannot come soon enough. As though Hercules needs to loan some of his strength to me and then I’ll make it through this week.
Hercules! Help!
Circles!
“Style is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward” – Robert Frost.
I’ve always loved Frost’s poetry and the image of circles like this brings me back to his imagery.
Hey Eraserhead! Do you know who your director is?
Lynch, that’s who. Or, as the tagger left it, LYNCH!
This little photo opportunity presented itself in Victoria. I was shooting some great vistas of my Province’s capital when I looked left and saw a street art homage to the most twisted film I’ve ever seen. That film is “Eraserhead” and I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to remember that film. Now, I don’t know what spawned the inspiration for this little bit of stencil art, but if I had any artistic skill I don’t think I would have used it for this.
Still, the opportunity presented itself.
Garbledygook
Gibberish. Nonsense. Babble. Blahblahblah. Yada yada yada.
I don’t care what you call it, but I don’t understand it. The graffiti above presumably means something and were I a street artist I might even be able to decipher what it means. As it is, I am an English teacher and I haven’t got a clue.
I still appreciate its beauty and artistry. To be able to pull off something this large with spray paint in a short amount of time – it is public property, after all – is amazing to me.
Can anyone read this?
The eye is always watching
The eyes are the windows to the soul.
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven.
I’ve got my eye on you.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind.
Look me straight in the eye.
You never know how you look through the eyes of others.
Um…do you have any to add?
Freaks and geeks…
I managed to get out and shoot some street art today. Despite not feeling well and waking up far too early (4:07 a.m. Really? Stupid brain…go back to sleep at that hour) I ran some stairs and then went for a quick photographic adventure.
I will post, in the next few days, the actual route that I take to get to this underpass. It sits under the Trans-Canada highway and houses two lines of rail. It also houses some of our city’s homeless, who’ve taken refuge at the upper parts of the berms that hold up the highway. It also, conveniently, is just around the corner from Wal-Mart.
Lately, I’ve come to use the term “freak” quite often, so when I found this I had to shoot it. Not the prettiest photo, but definitely a statement. What’s it saying to you?
Photo Friday: Street Art Spirit Raccoon
This is one of my favorite pieces of street art. It’s some kind of “anti-consumerist” comment that I’m not even sure I understand, but I don’t know that exact comprehension is important when it comes to art.
This piece might be about the consumption of native art and the fact that the real meaning of aboriginal painting is lost when it’s purchased by ignorant people. Maybe it’s about aboriginal artists no longer making their art for community and are now making it for the highest bidder. Maybe it’s about raccoons holding people hostage by sitting on their heads. I don’t know.
What I do know? It looks cool.
Photo Friday’s challenge this week is Animal. Spirit raccoon seemed to fit.
What does your backyard look like?
Sunday night. Two days ago. The clouds were dissipating in just the right way. The sun was bouncing off them as it set somewhere west of my yard. The clouds lit up with fire and smoke and looked like something Michelangelo might have painted on a ceiling. God may have been reaching out to Adam through these clouds.
It was pretty.
Walking on the beach was never so mystical
I will try to write as little as possible for this photo, as I feel it speaks volumes on its own.
It was shot on film, not digital, media.
It was shot on a camera that is thirty-five years old.
It was shot on the Oregon Coast, near Manzanita. It has not been touched by Photoshop; the only processing that occurred was at London Drugs Photo Center.
It has captured the mystical, magical, other-worldly aspect of the Oregon Coast and shows the main reason why my family will probably return to the coast for all of the foreseeable summer vacations.
All right kids – voting time!
I took my Pentax K1000, completely manual, old-school camera and my Pentax K20D, super digital, 14.6 megapixel camera with me to the Oregon coast. The diptych above shows the difference between the two cameras. The photo on the left was taken with my K1000. It was shot on Kodak 400 Ultramax film. The photo on the right was taken with my K20D. It was shot on a CMOS digital sensor. I adjusted the contrast slightly on each in Photoshop (I had the film transferred to a CD); otherwise, these two photos were taken in the same place with Pentax 50mm f1.7 lenses on two separate cameras.
So, which one do you like better? The one on the left, or the one on the right? Film, or digital?
If you’re stuck and want to see them bigger, click on the photo for a larger version.
Ooh…water lilies. Wait…another lily photo?
Here’s another shot of the pond with the water lilies. I have written pond, but it really requires quotation marks. It’s a man-made pond in the center of Chilliwack, BC. It has a big fountain in the middle, more ducks and duck sh*t (which I guess comes with the ducks) than you can imagine. It’s next to the library and a big hotel. And it’s a “pond”. Yeah, that looks better.
At least something’s growing in the back yard besides weeds.
These are my wife’s day lilies.We recently tore up a huge section of the backyard and made a flower bed. We planted a Katsura tree, a few “pinky winky” hydrangeas (there’s a name that makes me feel manly), euonymous shrubs, dianthus flowers and day lilies. It’s really quite pretty, that island of color and life in the sea of weeds that surround it. It really looks like the rest of the yard is out to get our brand new flower bed.
My wife’s favorite flowers are lilies, so she was ecstatic when these flowered so early after having been planted in the ground. I think they’re quite pretty. What do you think?
Water Lily…all alone.
Don’t worry. Its friends are just off to the right and left. It’s not really alone.
It is pretty, though. It is amazing that this little flower, this beautiful flower, is growing from these leaves that are clogging up the pond in which they grow. It is hard to see the water in some places for all the lily pads lying on top. Yet this little beauty makes the whole mess tolerable. Maybe even enjoyable.
WordPress Photo Challenge: Broken
This is a detail from the Alexandra Bridge in the Fraser Canyon of British Columbia. It is a disused automobile bridge, but is now only a pedestrian bridge on a lovely walking trail. It has been abused, by both the graffiti artists and time. The broken down look of this bridge’s pilings and foundations only add to its character. In the missing surfaces and rusty guardrails, there is a sense that this bridge has seen and experienced (as much as an inanimate object can see and experience) a great deal of time and wear. And in that wear is a beauty. I can only hope that when I’m broken down my experiences will make me beautiful.
I understand Monet’s infatuation. Also, PHOTO FRIDAY
It’s a little overwhelming, I know, but I love all the green and white. The water lily is pretty invasive. Once it starts, it doesn’t stop. Kind of like the feeling that I got staring at this pond and all of its lilies. I kept finding new ways to take shots of it. Hmm…I wonder if I have time to swing by again tomorrow?
Also, this enormous collection of water lilies is based on Photo Friday’s challenge this week. Funnily enough, it’s ENORMOUS.
Black Beauty…or BEAST!
It’s a full frontal view of my K1000 – otherwise known as the Beast. It’s about twenty pounds and made of steel. Not really, but it is heavy and most of the parts are steel. It’s still got some old beauty and a retro feel to it that makes me love it. There’s no molded hand hold, no battery/auto rewind pack, no zoom lens. Just a prime lens (with a great aperture of f1.7) and a light meter that tells me if I have too much or too little. Beautiful.
The late night post: Photo Friday’s all vertical today.
I went to Europe a couple of years ago and got to fulfill one of my architectural fantasy wishes: Sagrada Familia. I am amazed by this place. From the outside, the Nativity Facade, depicting the birth of Christ, looks like a giant, monstrous thing that may eat you if you stand too close to it. From the inside, the pillars that Gaudi (the architect, who died in 1926 before seeing his work finished) designed resemble giant trees. It’s not done, the construction I mean. In fact, the builders figure it should be done by 2026 – it was started back in 1882. If you have a chance to go see it, do.
The shot above is from one of the northeast spires. It is a dizzying height, but well worth the self-guided tour through the byzantine hallways and walkways and spiral staircases.
Retro-chic; or, here’s what cameras used to look like.
On the left is the place where the photographer set the film speed (apparently, the last time I used this camera I was shooting a roll of ISO 200 film) and then, according to the light being allowed through the aperture, I set the shutter speed to 1/30 of a second. The smaller, round, silver thingy is the shutter release. It triggers the shutter and the shutter makes a satisfying “ka-chunk” when it is released. The thing on the right is the “film-wind lever” and it moves the film forward, and the numbers inside that show how many exposures I’ve taken.
This is the way people used to take photos. This is the way some people still take photos, although I would guess that many people will not recognize this in any way. Oh well, it’s retro.
All is mostly well – here’s a new photograph
This is the ceiling of the Maggie Benston Center at Simon Fraser University. It houses the university’s bookstore, the Student Services center and a myriad of other student services. It is also where I’ll be marking exams again tomorrow. I’ve already marked for a day, but there’s at least two, maybe three days of marking left. The room in which I mark exams overlooks a large grassy area on which students lie around a suntan while I read the papers of a couple thousand students. I missed marking today (although, if I am completely honest, I didn’t miss it that much) due to a medical concern yesterday.
After nine hours in emergency, x-rays and blood tests, the doctor diagnosed a complication in my abdomen. After ruling out appendicitis and most likely ruling out a kidney stone, Doc decided that I’ve got a little (well, Large) intestine issue. So I’ll be eating a ton of fruit and drinking enough liquids to drown myself over the next couple of days and I’ll get it all sorted out.
Well, that was more personal than I meant it to be.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Sky!
When I’ve taken photos of the sky, they never turn out the way I’d like them to. I see big, puffy pillows or quilting patterns. My camera sees white streaks on blue. It never quite satisfies.
Sunsets, on the other hand, work beautifully. In fact, because I get to focus on a small area, rather than the entire sky, I can often make the orange sky seem even more beautiful and pervasive. I’m sure that the night I shot this, dusk was settling behind me, with all its blues and purples. But I could cut that stuff out and focus solely on the big orange in front of me. The weekly photo challenge, if you haven’t already guessed by the title, is SKY. Check out some of the other bloggers.
