Our Dining Table

 

I've always loved this simple grayscale shot of a small dining room table and chairs my family once owned, although I've rarely ever shown it to anyone since shooting in February of 2004. 

Taken in an open area that we used as our dining room in the house we rented at the time, this shot always appealed to me not only for the subject matter but for the soft quality of the light within the scene. My available light here was late afternoon sunlight shining through a living room window to the right (not visible), partially diffused by a thin white curtain, and to a lesser degree, the floor lamp visible in the corner.

It was this light that, to me, made the whole scene appear peaceful, quiet and relaxed. If I'd tried to shoot this with a flash it would have appeared totally different, and would have ruined the tranquil mood I was trying to record.

Taken with my old Canon T60 with Kodak T100 CN black and white film.

The Infrared Levee

This shot is reminiscent of the twilight shot with the walkers in my prior post. In fact it's the same benches and lampost, same vantage point and perspective, but photographed several years later in a different way, with different light.

Here the sun was almost directly over head on an early summer day. Light like this usually produces flat, uninteresting scenes with almost no shadows and is generally not desirable for good photography. What made the difference here is a built in preset setting I used (monochrome with an infrared filter and contrast as high as it would go. Lately I've been shooting quite a bit this way). Shooting this way rendered the blue sky almost black and really brought out the haze which hung over the city on the other side of the river. To me this scene almost looks like a negative and I've received many compliments on it.

Taken in May 2011 at the Old Ferry Landing in Port Allen, Louisiana with a Pentax K20D.

The Twilight Levee

In my prior post I mentioned silhouettes with two silhouette shots I'd taken. Here I'd like to present two more of them, taken at (and of) the Old Ferry Landing levee walk in Port Allen, Louisiana on two cool, beautiful fall mornings in 2003.

The idea is the same in these scenes: dark shapes in the foreground against the background sky only instead of bright sunlight as in the church silhouettes, these shots were illuminated by the soft, subdued glow of the pre-dawn twilight. As far as available light goes, in my opinion, this is the most beautiful kind to shoot with.

Early in the morning before sunrise people usually can be found on this levee walking for exercise. The figure in motion in the second image is two people walking side by side but appeared blurred from the slower shutter speed I used. I remember for both scenes I had to try more than once to be there early enough to catch the lampposts before they turned off (they would go out several minutes before sunrise). I try to be the "early bird" but it doesn't always work!

Both of these were taken with an old Canon TX on Fujichrome Provia slide film.

Two Churches in Silhouette

Anyone who knows me will know that silhouettes are one of my favorite types of photographs, and I love to shoot them whenever I can. I also love simplicity. As I taught myself photographic composition years ago I learned that a silhouette is compositional shape in it's purest form because that's all that is visible: the shape alone, with little or no detail against a brighter background.

These are two churches I shot at different times earlier this year. My light source was the blazing and brilliant sun, carefully positioned directly behind the cross in the first shot and the steeple in the second. I exposed intentionally to render the foregrounds dark, almost featureless black shapes. These two scenes are about as simple as it gets compositionally: they're nothing more than dark shapes, with edges made of straight lines, against the background sky.

I consider these two photographs, especially the cross/sun shot, to be two of my best. Love silhouettes, love simplicity!

As always, questions and/or comments are welcome.

Cross and Sun: taken February 2011

Steeple: taken August 2011

Tree Scenes at Night

I don't consider these to be particularly great shots of mine, however I do like them nonetheless mainly because of the contrasts between the foreground and the deep background, and the strong shadows cast by the bright side lighting.

I remember having a lot of fun with these. Illumination was provided by a single floodlight in my neighbor's backyard. It was after dark when these were taken I found these scenes to have a kind of eerie, almost spooky feel which I loved (anyone who knows me knows I love spooky things - photographs, movies, books, etc.)

Taken in my backyard in November 2010.

9/11/01 - GOD BLESS AMERICA. Never Forget....

Mesh Curtain

 

I enjoyed shooting this one quite a bit, and this is another of my shots that seems to have fooled a few people.

I've been asked more than once if this was a roaring outdoor fire seen from behind a chain link fence. Actually it is a roaring fire but it's in the fireplace in my living room and the silhouette is the wire mesh safety curtain.

My available light source was the fire behind the curtain. I did attempt this shot using flash, and it didn't look hardly at all the same. Of the two, I much preferred this version.

I took this on a cold winter night during the Christmas holidays, I remember my kids were in the living room also at the time, not far away watching "The Polar Express" (one of our family's favorite Christmas movies). Good memories...

Taken December 2009.

Night Rain

 

What is this a shot of? Look closely and I bet you can guess... it's the view through my car's windshield on a cold winter night with rain that was steadily falling.

I was in my car, parked outside a Wal-mart waiting for the rain to lighten up a bit before I went inside to do some shopping. While I waited I got out the camera and took a few shots through the windshield because the colors of the lights in the distance (mainly from illuminated signs and brake lights from cars out on the road) when seen through the rain, looked very interesting and even a bit mysterious to me. They were brilliant and other than the floodlights in the parking lot, were the only lights I could see.

I focused on the rain on the windshield the best I could and shot about a half dozen frames, I liked this one the best.

Taken in January 2011.