-
12-month photo project – first lessons taught
My hubby and I have made four little trips since the beginning of the year to get some interesting photos of buildings for the first month of our 12-month photo project and already those little trips taught me a few lessons that I would like to share with you. Lesson 1: Take your timeIf you are busy, you usually don’t want to waste the time you have and hurry in many regards. But photography needs certain slowing down, pushing away other matters and paying full attention to what you see, what you perceive, what you are looking for. Thinking about it, making your choices, using a tripod if necessary, and…
-
Starting a 12-month photo project
Do you work better under pressure, even under that self-imposed? I do so a few years ago I chose to fulfil a 52-week photo project to improve and enhance my photography skills, it was back in 2014. Based on evaluation of pros and cons of the project I decided to take it slower and use some guidance and in 2015 I participated in a course focused on still life photography. The year felt as not long enough time so I continued with shooting this style and participating in a similar course also in 2016. When I was thinking about a new photo project for 2017, I was pondering over my experience of those three years. What was good…
-
Lilac and wooden birdie
Some time ago I took a photo of cut hydrangea in a vase placed by quite an ugly window, you could see it in my post Out of place. I decided to use the same vase and the same window for another out-of-place photo, this time with lilac and a little wooden bird that decorates my interior. Again, I was intrigued by the contrast between the beautiful flowers and the place. Here is different, let’s say a bit more artistic, processing of the photo: I already have other flowers in my mind to put there and shoot, such as yellow Lysimachia or white Marguerite, sounds like it might be a…
-
Unexpected portrait
In the Czech Republic, we celebrate a name day, the date of the year when our name is presented in a Czech calendar. It’s the same date every year. A few days ago my younger son had his name day and he was thrilled to get a T-shirt with the name of one of his favourite bands as a few days before that he had got a cap with the same name. He also got chocolate fish he liked and he came up with the idea to take a selfie to preserve the memory of the presents. I offered to use my camera to get a decent shot and when…
-
Apple inspiration
The other day I was peeling apples and their shapes and colours caught my attention. I brought my apron (that I like but rarely use), picked a few leaves of lemon balm that grew in a pot on my window sill and played with my camera for a while. This is the photo that I liked most: I played also when processing the photo and liked the darker, less saturated version. It’s tricky to try and change colours of fruit and herbs… The following photo presents the same settings but quite shallow depth of field which makes the eye return to that focused part again and again. There is still…
-
Charm of the faded
Back in March I was capturing books and tulips and I tried several settings. I shared some of the photos in my previous posts Books and tulips and Yellow and blue. There was one more setting though and today I’d like to share some images it brought. The titles of the books below are not important. I chose the books because of their size and the colour of their covers, they looked great together. Some of the tulips I was shooting with were already faded but I decided to use them anyway. Their last moment of glory… I processed both photos in Lightroom and then I sent one of them…
-
Story of a badly taken photo
Today I’d like to share with you something different than my still life images and that is a story of a badly taken photo and what it taught me. Unless you are always ready and prepared when holding your camera, you must have experienced a situation when you were shooting something and suddenly something else happened which you wanted to capture quickly and oops, you found out that you forgot to change the last camera’s settings which turned up to be utterly wrong for the desired capture and the moment was irretrievably lost. This is how I took the photo that you can see below, it’s straight out of the…
-
Yellow and blue
I love combination of yellow and blue and I used it in another set of photos with books. The first and second photos feature a fantasy novel by Jules Verne “The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz”. It’s an old book and I love all the illustrations it contains. I read it ages ago and when I was flipping its pages on this occasion, it felt tempting to start and read it again. There are only little differences between the two photos but along with the format, I find them interesting. The third photo features another book by Jules Verne “Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen”. I might have never read it…
-
Books and tulips
Book images belong to assignments of the second month of Kim’s Be Still course and one would say that they are easy to be created. Not everything is as easy as it looks though and I can tell you that I had a hard time with them. For this first series I used tulips that I bought last weekend. I hesitated in the shop whether to buy a bouquet in one colour or this mixture but when I made the decision and brought the tulips home, I was really pleased about how wonderful the mixture looked. As you might have guessed, the book in the top-down photo above focuses on…
-
Magic of coincidence
Take a tray. Put a colander inside the tray. Put a watering can inside the colander. Shoot. I know, it sounds like utter nonsense. I’d definitely shake my head in disbelief at such an idea. But coincidentally, the other day I bought those three things for my still life photography and when I wanted to take them and place them somewhere (no idea where at that moment), I put them together in the above mentioned way and went looking for some available space. When I got back and saw them sitting on the table, it struck me how interesting they looked together. That made me go and grab my camera…
