-
Shades of simplicity
Simple may be ugly. Simple may be dull. But simple may also be beautiful… Ingenious… And even sophisticated. I love simple ideas and inventions that make a great difference. I love simple photos that are talking loudly. And when creating my still life images, I strive for simplicity that may be extremely simple and yet expresses calmness, illusion, thoughts not yet spoken aloud. Simple may open a door to imagination… Which means… simple may not be simple at all…
-
Table, bird and roses
I had my birthday a few weeks ago. When my husband asked what kind of present I would like to get, I told him I would have a special wish, which was to find or create a place in our house that would give me some free space for taking still-life photographs. I was fed up with using the kitchen table or living-room table and floors of all kinds, all of that not quite suitable for taking photos. I used to have a small makeshift table in one of the rooms but now our treadmill is placed there and it doesn’t fit anywhere else. I also used to have an…
-
Formats and negative space
The other day I took a few photos in our village and I loved especially the following one: The portrait format brought the rippled water with reflections of the clouds into the picture, thus creating a valued negative space adding to the main contents. Then I thought, “well, I’d like to post this photo on my blog so now I need a landscape version to place it as the featured photo of the post”. I cropped the photo, setting the bank of the pond somewhat higher above the middle, leaving just a bit of that precious negative space in the picture. And finally, I thought “this would be a nice…
-
Cosmos Discovery exhibition
Just before the end of the last year, my family and I visited a Cosmos Discovery exhibition in Prague, an exhibition telling the story of space flights and exploration. The exhibition has been prepared in cooperation with the American NASA and space museum and education center Cosmosphere and we’ve learned many interesting facts about the history, presence and potential future of space flights. It is not the case of this post to repeat the information, I’d much rather wanted to share a few photos illustrating the atmosphere of the exhibition. I needed to absorb the atmosphere myself before starting to use my camera at all, there was so much to…
-
Having realised my word for next year
During this year I made a decision to change things and run this blog without comments allowed. Just to keep the blog as inspiration to myself and to those who find it inspiring and to free myself from expectations regarding any feedback. At the same time I made a relating decision, which was to publish also smaller posts based on let’s say just one photo or a short reflection. All of that with the aim of being more active and creative. Well, while I’m still happy with the first decision, the other one turned empty. Yet the day before yesterday I took a few photos in our village and after…
-
End-of-year wishes
I haven’t been much active on this (or any other) blog lately but I wouldn’t want to miss out on this last post of the year. May it be somewhat personal? You know, I could count the reasons and excuses for my absence here readily but in the core, there definitely lies shortage of discipline and motivation. I don’t function well based on swings of mood, I need plans, deadlines and visions. Then I make progress, then I am creative. Abandoning the planning and dwelling amidst doubts, negative thoughts and lazy attitudes have always led me into the hell of rejection and it is so easy to get tempted to…
-
All Souls’ Day
Every November, 2 we celebrate All Souls’ Day here in the Czech Republic. On the one hand it is a Christian feast when a church prays for the faithfully deceased, on the other hand it is a day when many people regardless of their faith come to cemeteries, clean and decorate for winter their family tombs and also light a candle in memory of those buried there. It’s a beautiful tradition and I always like to see so many candles lit at the same time and expressing all the memories and prayers. As much as I like that tradition and tried several times to capture the atmosphere, I’ve never liked…
-
Still-life sunflowers
When the left part of your brain is tired of all the thinking and planning and worrying, it might help to leave it to its own destiny and ask the right creative part to work miracles. The miracles may not be that awesome as you might wish them to be but they have their own rhythm, their own life. What about allowing them to pull you into their flow of vision and imagination? There are so many smaller and greater ways how to be creative. Last year my son wanted to plant sunflowers so we bought some seeds and waited whether they would grow. They did and they looked great…
-
Phone booth
Today I would like to share two photos, both of which I took in a small town Stříbro. There are not many phone booths remaining here these days with all the affordable mobile phones, yet here and there you can meet some. I felt attracted to this one as soon as I saw it and I wanted to incorporate it into capturing the place. As a result I got two quite different photographs. I was standing at spots just a few steps apart, only turned a bit more to the left or to the right. I also used different light when sun showed its face here and there. I have…
-
Scrapyard inspiration
When shooting photos in a scrapyard for the theme “Rusty” in my photo-project in 2017, I took a photo that I found quite simple and yet intriguing. Several corrugated sheets were lying on the ground among other scrap and sharp sunny light painted lines on the top sheet. I saw a potential in that geometry but after editing the photo for a while I abandoned it, dissatisfied with my results. Today I came across the photo again and decided to give it a second chance by creatively playing with it. I can tell you, I’m glad I did. To start with, I created a black&white version… … and here is…
