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Beauty of the simple
Last time I promised to show you another try of mine at a top-down-taken photo, something a bit different than the elaborate and colourful composition you could see in the previous post, and here it is: It’s a very simple composition and I expect that (some of) you might find it (a bit) boring. Yet look at the pattern on the towel, the shapes and lines created by the colander, the subdued colours… all the parts contribute to the whole which I find delicate and beautiful. When I posted a square version of the arrangement on Instagram, I wrote to it that “beauty of the simple makes you see a…
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Some things are simply meant to be
The other day my husband and I were shopping in a Tesco hypermarket in Pilsen. Inside the building, there were presented several large boards promoting books to be published, each side of the boards was devoted to a single book. There was always a paragraph or two presenting the book and its author but what especially attracted my attention were images of the book’s covers along with their drafts and other versions, it’s something one rarely has the opportunity to see. Who could resist having a look behind the scene? Several of the promoted books were written by Franz Kafka, a writer coming from a Jewish family who was writing…
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Colours and shapes
The first month of Kim’s new Be Still course is focused on still life images shot top down. Top-down, looking-down, from-above, flat-lay, they have many names but just one perspective. They may look easy but they are not that easy. Firstly it’s the thing with arranging the right props in the right way with the right background but that’s nothing new in still life imaginary. Secondly, there are a few technical problems. The height from which you can shoot is usually limited, so you need to use such a lens that will include the whole arrangement into your image. The bigger your props the wider angle of the lens needed.…
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Beauty of the ordinary
On Friday we had what might be the coldest morning this winter with its -20°C, which equals -4°F. Actually, it would be the coldest morning in the 15 years we’ve been living in this village. I was a bit afraid that my car wouldn’t start because I was supposed to get to work and to get my children to school so it was a relief to hear the car making up its mind and waking into operation. The gear box was stiff and was moving with slow deliberation but we were on our way and that mattered. It was cold the whole week and we got plenty of snow but…
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My birthday flowers
I have birthday at the beginning of January and I always get some flower(s) from my colleagues when we get back to work after Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Two years ago I used the flower in my 52-week photo project, then last year I used it at the beginning of my still life project. Have you seen (and remembered) those photos? It started to feel like tradition and I didn’t want to make this year any exception. The thing is though that as I get the flower usually on Monday and can’t shoot it until weekend, the shooting is quite a difficult job because the flower gradually fades and…
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Evaluation of my be-still experience
At the end of 2014 I announced my intended participation in Kim Klassen’s year-long course “Be still 52”, a course that was focused on creating still life images. As I told you at that time, after experiencing my 52-week photo project in 2014 I wanted to improve in planning, arranging, working with light, working with the depth of field, working with textures, I wanted to open my imagination more. Have I met those expectations? Have I improved those skills? Here is my evaluation. I haven’t fulfilled all of the assignments that we got in the course but for a change, I don’t feel guilty about it. I started the course…
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Getting messy
In the last assignment that we got in the Be-still-52 course, Kim asked us to get messy… The idea was to use whatever we found appropriate to create a scene that doesn’t look neat but makes an interesting image and take a top-down photo. I had some plants at home that I needed to replant and decided to shoot the replanting which I supposed would be messy enough. Yeah, it was… The first plant is a succulent that was very small when I bought it but it grows really fast. I thought I would separate the offshoots but the root system was not easy to divide so eventually I ended…
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Guidance and inspiration in one word a year
Several years ago I read for the first time about the idea of choosing a word for the following year, a word that is supposed to be an inspiration and guide rather than any kind of resolution. The word can represent something personal to be focused on throughout the particular year, something one wants to learn, develop or improve in, or it can represent a desired change in one’s life, a direction to be followed, a dream to be fulfilled… So many possibilities… But how do I choose such a mighty word, I asked myself, and couldn’t find the answer easily. Those following this practice recommended pondering, meditating, praying and…
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PF 2016
Here we are again, at the end of another year. Nobody knows what the next year holds for them and how they’ll be able to embrace that. It’s time to wish one another strength, health and happiness and it’s high time to send New Year cards to our friends, families and business partners. Someone celebrates the last day of the year as a milestone, others refuse to see anything special in it, but the truth is that the date changes and we need to get used to that new number… I’ve posted New Year cards in this blog since 2011 and just a few weeks ago I was made aware…
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Coffee and change
Take some change, coffee or tea and shoot top-down or any other way that suits you, that was another assignment from the Be-still-52 course I’ve been following this year. I gave it a try and found out that there are so many possibilities how to fulfil this assignment. I agree with Kim who mentioned that it could be quite an interesting series. We still have Czech crowns in the Czech Republic so you can see a few pieces of our Czech change in the images. I have two favourite photos from this shooting, both in two versions. All images have been processed in Lightroom. Photo No. 1 was shot top-down…
