Leaves, blossoms and seedlings are fun to photography. Try guava, persimmon leaves, young and when the fall to the ground. Lots of color and texture. Also green onions you plant that produce a seed pot. Another great thing to photograph and test lenses with. I documented my guava plants from seedlings to plants in the ground. Nice break from taking pictures of building and people.
It is good to be inspired, Rog. Some nice simple photography there. I have a few shells, but don't dare taking them out for the price I paid for them. I loved the idea of you placing the shell in the middle of the road. I think that idea has a lot of potential. I alos think that some , if not most of Fininger's photos were done with a 4X5 Techinal camera and his use of movement to alter the perspective. Worth trying. Great to see you an dhappy Easter.
Cheers. I actually preferred the ship container ones. There was a cobbled area I was going to place it on but it was full of puddles, i'd have got wet knees! (How stupid though!! for the sake of wet knees!)
His “selfie” photo appeared in the Time Life library of Photography which was an excellent series. This is how I learned photography. The “selfie” is iconic, I will never forget that shot. Your shots are great BTW!
Wow ! what an Idea. I have a bag of shells, from a trip a few years ago . Just sat up a studio creation . Had to photograph on digital, (No film in any cameras), but is fun anyway. Sent a $ Thank you. Thanks. KB
I did this a while ago (on digital) with a glass ball. Even harder to get it to keep still even on a calm day. Great idea though and gets you out shooting and being creative.
Happy Easter! I enjoyed this context and was great to see you out and about with a shell in hand and a bottle of aspirin in the other for later! I stumbled across Feininger and that exact book you showed whilst poking about in a used book sale. I bought it for tuppence and it’s filled with a previous owners notes and comments in the margins…lovely stuff. Cheers~ Peter
Great pictures! However I think large format cameras are perfect for this kind of pictures (more detail, less grain, perspective and sharpness control).
I have four of Andreas Feininger's books, The Manual of Advanced Photography, Basic Colour Photographer, Principles of Composition the the two volumes Darkroom Techniques. Well worth looking them up. White 'blue Tack', or white plasticine are good for securing light items, well it worked for me when photographing small pieces of charcoal, or artifacts for archaeology
Speaking of inspiration, I've been inspired by your videos recently and I have been enjoying still photography. I don't have a darkroom setup, but I do have the ability to develop my film. Currently I have a roll of Ektachrome in my camera, but I am soon to start shooting Ilford HP5 on some stills. Everything I have captured currently has been digital, but I am loving the results
I see it's March there in England also! That was an interesting idea of using your computer screen as a backdrop, what aperture did you use? It looked like you had placed the shell no more than about 7-10 inches away yet there was a very shallow d.o.f. in the images. Ps, I'll be the big elephant in the room and say it's Edward Weston and not Western... :D Happy Easter!
Hi Roger, nice tip on teaking inspiration on the masters of the past. I recently watched the interview with Andreas and was very very interesting. The one thing you did not mentioned here is that he uses LF camera with really tele-lenses (if you see even the studio shot - you will be amased). Even in the images you show in this video - in the cityscapes check for the compression - this is LF camera with extreme telephoto lens.
Jesus, what a funny coincidence. I was just reading up about Nautilus a few hours ago. Thankfully you're not subjecting yourself to the misery Weston did.
