James

In a slight departure from my usual desktop fare I thought it would be nice to do something other than images void of any direct human presence and offer up a few shots recently taken of my brother, James. We often find ourselves out shooting together and after years of living with artists in Memphis he seems used to being behind the camera or being the subject as well as the artist. Makes for a great model simply because he understands the little things that make for a good shot, consistent posture, personal awareness and other such details that lead to a solid shot. I can’t wait to be able to point to his website but he is currently working out all the details and figuring out what approaches to take with it but I will be sure to write up something about it here when it does launch sometime this year. You will most likely recognize him if you follow along with my flickr account as he frequents my film work as one of the only willing models around most of the time.

As for this round of images, I wanted to call attention briefly to this type of composition. It’s something I have been slowly playing with more and more over the past year or so now and that is a heavy center focus and/or a strong sense of symmetry in a photograph. It started when I bought my Hasselblad and started shooting square medium format shots and fell in love with the strength of a center weighted image. I enjoy the strong simplicity of it but it does not always work because the movement of the image is very much static when shooting in this way. A strong sense of movement is an important thing to explore and understand as a photographer both from a traditional composition standpoint as well as an understanding of why an image’s movement works or does not work psychologically. When using a center focus its good to use a subject or scene where it makes sense to use it otherwise you risk coming across a bit amateurish by using the single most obvious type of composition. All this depends, of course, on your intentions in taking a photograph and this is when it is good to be aware of the feeling you are looking to convey within your image to best decide on how to compose it in a way that will best share this feeling.

I promise, at some point in your photographic journey you will come to realize that simply capturing something beautiful for the sake of beauty will start to wear off and this will leave you wanting more from the relationship you have with your camera. This is a vital point for any photographer to reach, when the techniques you learn up to that moment become less the focus of what you are doing and you start to allow yourself to explore why you shoot not just what you shoot. It is why it is important for any aspiring photographer to honestly learn the fundamentals of shooting so down the line when this shift occurs you can stop focusing as much on the technical nuances of making photographs and begin to focus on creating something truly lasting and meaningful.

Tiny Waves

Whew, it certainly has been a while since I have been able to do a desktop post has it not? Sorry for the slow down, it happens sometimes when I get too busy with work but I plan on making up for lost time and start taking the 5D out with me to work and around town in an effort to get some new images to share. A few days ago I found some time to head out to my favorite lake again but this time to a new area within the lake. The trailhead and parking area I had used for years closed down and left me to find a new access point on the opposite side but I will admit there are some great new places for me to explore in light of the change. I will admit to these images not being my most striking but I really wanted to get something up so I made the best of what I had snapped that day and decided to go with a few shots of water washing up on the shore. These waves were oh so tiny as they crashed onto the dark brown sandy shore. It was hard to get my wide 35mm lens close enough in to snag these shots and while the camera and lens did end up getting wet it wasn’t so bad it broke anything.

Upon sitting down with them in Aperture I decided to take a different approach to my usual fare and go crazy with post processing. Using some heavy curves and liberal tinting I came up with these variations. I know that I often speak of the benefits of not relying heavily on post and I don’t mean this as a contradiction to my standards but it is important for everyone to know that I am not against heavy post work, I simply encourage anyone wanting to better themselves as a photographer to learn to get great photos without relying heavily on the computer to fix your images for you. I find that at least 50 percent of the time that a lot of post work actually takes away from an image and often sucks a lot of emotion out of a photograph but I will leave these discussions for another day.

Countdown

Update: Time to close the joke here, I think its had well enough time to work its magic but fear some may be glancing at this in the good ol’ internet short attention span way and thinking this is how things will be in the future. Didn’t mean to scare off anyone! In response to this I have decided to go ahead and start writing up an article with my thoughts on watermarks in todays online world and post it in the next few days. It’s a big topic but something I have been considering writing about for some time now as its kind of fascinating in a way. For the record I will never add such mess to images posted here on 50ft, promise! Funny to end up with my foot in my mouth here, lesson learned. Don’t use your own product as the punchline I left my original text down below as well as the image in its normal calm loveliness.

Note: The following is a satire. (Well, I really hate to have to do this guys but image theft is running out of control with my photographs online. Wallpaper sites, iPad and iPhone apps, posters, they are everywhere I turn it seems and so something just had to change. While I usually frown upon the use of watermarks I am left with no choice! I like to think I have come up with an elegant solution for the watermark problem though. Simple, clean, efficient. It’s even Helvetica so I won’t loose too much street cred with my younger audience. All in all I think this is the right way to go with the wallpaper images to keep them safe from theft. I hope not too many of you mind this change, It’s something I have thought long and hard about and those few tiny pixels in the corner just were not cutting it anymore.)

So that mess out of the way, I can talk about the shot a little. As you may have noticed it’s from the same pier as the last desktop only a few seconds later and a minute or two away from twilight. I think it’s amazing how fast the sun feels like its moving in those last moments of sunlight. The slow transformation of colors across the sky and on the ground never gets old, especially in open spaces like this. As for the direct, centered composition, I think the bench there on the right gives a subtle balance to the weight of the sun on the left side of the image but maybe I’m just reading into it too much. Really, I simply like the feeling of calm I get from looking at this shot and hopefully it can bring that feeling to you as well.

Untitled

I often do my best to find a good title for all the wallpaper images I post here but this time around I simply could not find one that felt quite right so for the first time I will simply leave this image untitled. As with the last beach photos posted I shot this while down south on the Gulf coast. The deep southeast in the U.S., despite its strange reputation, has some beautiful places to explore and discover. I love the big oak trees and the hanging stringy moss like plants on tree branches. Not to mention the marsh lands and their trees with roots poking up out of the water. I don’t get south as often these days but it would be fun to take a short road trip dedicated to shooting sometime in the future. Just one more thing on my, I should do that sometime list.

Those of you keeping track of such things, the photo here was shot wide open at f/1.4 with my 35mm canon lens and my 5D. The original color had a much more exaggerated yellow tint because of my crazy white balance setting I often jump to but I decided to cool things off to make it feel more like I remember it feeling while standing there. I remember walking out onto the pier here just as the sun was making its final move beyond the horizon and luckily my brother was willing to stop for a second so I could steal a couple of shots. I love the feeling I ended up capturing and could not help but want to share it with everyone as a desktop. I think my favorite part of the image, oddly, is the hint of flare there on the railing.

Golden Light

Due to the overwhelming popularity of my mnml beach wallpapers I could not help but make a couple more like minded shots while down in the Gulf coast shooting a wedding for a family member. We were exploring the roads near the coastline and completely lucked out around sunset and came across a gorgeous little stretch of beach we had all to ourselves. I noticed this great cliff-like formation in the sand near the water and knew I had found the perfect spot to shoot. It almost looks like a wave of sand, frozen there in time. I love these moments where a time and subject just suddenly click into place and gives you exactly what you want. There is some crazy saturation here I know but I did not add any in post. It is all the time of day + a nice white balance. Remember, you can do so much with just the basics within the camera. I find many readers think I do a lot of post work but I really do as little as possible as often as I can.

Unfortunately I totally blew a handful of great shots of this spot because of lazy shooting that lead to bad exposures. The sky was totally blown out at its brightest point and had a nasty looking band of white. If I have the time I will write a post specifically talking about the shots and write a little about why it happens and how to avoid it. To the best of my ability that is.