Week 40 - Sound

When I thought of sound I instantly thought of music and dancing. I love listening to music, singing and dancing, so I wanted to take a happy dancing photo for the week's theme. In the busy world we live in, sometimes it's good to put your headphones on, let go of everything and dance to your own tune! Many thanks to my brother for being a perfect model on an autumn Sunday afternoon!

Alors on Danse!

Week 39 - Break the Rules

This is my daughter and the "magic tunnel" at the playground. It's been a busy week and going to the park with her was one of the few moments of calm, so I took advantage and took some photos. As far as breaking the rules goes, I think I was rather conservative, just going for a centered framing of the subject. Unfortunately it was an overcast day and the photo is not as sharp as it could be because of this, and I wish I would have payed more attention to what is behind her in the shot (to eliminate the bits of sky and foliage at the edge of the tunnel if possible).


 I do like the weird reflections in the walls of the tunnel, and my subject's excited expression! What do you think?

Week 37 - Run

As my daughter is learning to move faster and faster, she is always happy to chase us around the park. I thought I would take advantage of this and use her as my model for the run theme. Unfortunately, a bout of bad weather left me with little over an hour of bad light to shoot, and trying to use a fisheye lens for the first time left me with just three photos to choose from. I did not get the dramatic exaggerated photo I had in my mind, but I think this one is ok as a start. I am looking forward to playing with the fisheye some more in the future.

Week 26 - Negative Space

I am not a fan of the 'negative space' syntagma, but I loved the reference to the Japanese "ma" from our assignment email. I am far from that ma, however, since my first idea of a moody figure against the sea was spoiled: I could not find a good vantage point and the seaside was just too crowded to get my minimalistic composition.

So I went for a different approach: reducing clutter through a clear sea-sky background, all shades of blue and white. I was lucky that my subject is also wearing white, so his face stands out even more in the photo, and I used the low angle and wide frame for added drama. I like the shot because it tells a different beach story, the one of the food vendor working while others are relaxing, but I want to revisit my first idea as soon as possible.

Oh, I almost forgot! This week is the halfway mark through the one-year project! Happy to have reached it, I hope to last the whole year!

Week 24 - Transportation

As luck would have it, I was preparing to go back to work after maternity leave when transportation week came along, so I had to run around town with various errands. I snapped this in the afternoon when people were starting to go home from work, but there was still enough light to produce all the interesting reflections.

I thought a lot about whether to crop the upper part up or not. Cropping would have brought the people more into the spotlight, but would have required a "panoramic" format. On the other hand, I liked the reflections in the top window, and the alternation of window space and open space, even if it "distracts" from the subjects.

Week 20 - Single Light Source

It's about time I started catching up on these posts, I have about 15 to go before I'm back on track...

Just my luck to have no sunshine on the one day I had free to shoot something this week, but I managed to come up with something nonetheless. The photo below is from an art fair taking place in a somewhat unconventional space with big industrial looking windows. I spotted this woman looking out the window and decided that the light coming from outside could be considered a 'single light source'. I especially liked that her posture looks relaxed, but her face is very tense / sad in the reflection, and this created a bit of tension for me. Anyway, here is the photo in question, let me know what you think:

Experiments for a new technique - Double Exposure

I think double exposure is not for anybody. Even doing it in camera, it required a lot of post processing to get to a point where I kind of liked the result, and even so it is very easy to fall into a 'cliche', like I did here by juxtaposing some flowers and my friend's portrait.

This is the final image:

And this is the original:

I think this was OK for a first experiment, but for next time I will think of some ways to give my double exposure more meaning. What do you think?

Week 13 - Levitation

This theme was difficult for me, as I was still on holiday and had limited time and options to set it up. My somewhat unoriginal idea was only made better by the zen feeling of my sister in law's living room and some help with post processing from my husband. A big thank you to everybody for the support!

PS. Note to self... next time use a tripod and manual settings!

Week 8 - Make a statement

This week I had a clear statement in mind, but not so many ideas about how to illustrate it. Sadly, time was not on my side either, because my model slept through the few hours of light. So I was left with little over half an hour in bleak afternoon light and I had to make do with that. I took some shots using the built in flash, but they didn't turn out right, so I just upped the ISO and hoped for the best.

I find the end result to be a decent shot (with a really cute model if I may say so), but maybe not really everything I had in mind:

And my statement...

Parenting is Hard

Becoming a mom, I noticed one thing: when it comes to parenting, no matter what you do, there is someone out there to tell you that you are WRONG! You can read a ton of books, listen to a ton of advice and in the end be left utterly confused about the choices you have to make for your baby. No wonder parents today are feeling stressed and pressured into accumulating information instead of just enjoying their babies.

So, to illustrate my concern, this is my daughter browsing through some of the 'baby-themed' books I have in my house, with a background filled with different pieces of opinions: sometimes contradictory, and almost always harsh.

What do you think: is my statement well illustrated? What could I have done differently?

Week 4 - Complementary Colours

Hi all! I have been very lazy in posting photos from the 52 frames project, but that is not because I didn't take them... it's just that I always found the time and mood to write when my photos were on another computer, or late at night when it felt better to just go to sleep.

So, week 4's theme was about complementary colours, how they interact and emphasize each other. It's still Winter in Bucharest and everything is bleak, so I wasn't drawn to going outside to find my inspiration. Instead, I turned to my friends (whom I was meeting for drinks), and asked them to try and dress in complementary colours for me to shoot.

It was a fun but also challenging evening, and for the future I must remember the following:

1. When taking photos in a crowded place, make sure you pay attention to the background. We were in a crowded bar, and I think I threw away lots of shots because there were coats on chairs behind my subject, or people walking or whatever distraction.

2. It pays to know the location beforehand (or scout it when possible). It was the first time I had gone to that bar, so it took me a while to think about where it was best to shoot .

3. In an indoor shot, pay attention to shutter speed values and use flash if necessary. This seems like a no-brainer but it's something I find myself struggling with more often than I'd like. Again, lots of shots I ended up discarding because of motion blur or other shutter speed faux pas. Unfortunately I don't have an external flash for my X-E2, so using the built-in one posed an even bigger challenge and in the end I ended up choosing one of the photos I had shot without a flash. Just goes to prove I need more practice in poor lit bars :)

4. Work on guiding your model! I find I am more on the observing side, letting people do their own thing and just taking photos when a pose strikes me. But when the subject is in a non-natural position and deliberately posing, more help might be needed from the photographer, and I feel I haven't done such a good job in this respect.

Here is the photo I chose for the project

I liked it most because I like the background as well as the portrait, and I like the fact that part of the "story" is only seen in the mirror (the cocktail glass), and because I managed not to botch the white balance too much.


Here are the runners-up:

This was taken at our table by the big windows of the bar. I did a poor job at eliminating distractions from the background (this is a pretty severe crop from the original) so in the end I didn't like the photos taken there, although I feel the setting had potential.

I deemed this shot too direct. Plus, it makes me want some Aperol Spritz!

This is another one I liked, because of all the interesting elements in the background. I am not to happy about how I cut off her feet, nor about the open doorway on the right. By the way, these shots are all taken in the corridor in front of the ladies' room ;)

Of the photos that didn't make the cut, I like this one the most because it has the cleanest composition, but I think the colours are less emphasized in this version, plus the one I chose has more mystery and more interesting things in it.

What do you think? Which one do you like?

Many thanks to my dear friend and beautiful model, Andreea! I hope next time I will spend more time photographing and less time fooling around and feeling awkward.

Week 1 - Self Portrait

This portrait is reflection in the window of my childhood room. Although I haven't lived in my home town for 13 years, I still return every Christmas. This year I am a first time mother - my daughter is 5 months old - so I find myself more nostalgic about my childhood than ever.

I had a different idea for my self portrait. I wanted to take a photo where I would stand still while a crowd of people would go about their way in the background. I borrowed a tripod from my sister-in-law and did a series of shots in the town centre, but I hated all of them. My pose was too stiff, or I had moved, I looked too fat, too plain, etc. 

I got home disappointed, then I remembered I had taken a selfie using the same curtain and Christmas lights some years back. I was still in college then, and that photo was more of a vanity shot, clear focus on my face and looking straight at the camera. I decided this second shot would be more fuzzy, so I shot my reflection, capturing the street outside as well. 

It is more 'me', as I feel right now: in two places at once, nostalgic about the time I was young and carefree and couldn't wait to leave home for college, but at the same time trying to embrace my 'true grownup' state now that I am a mother. 

As I give it more thought, a self portrait is also a good shot for a new year: 'forcing' us to think about ourselves, what we have achieved and what we want to achieve. Thinking about this I realize that I'm pretty happy with my life so far, and one can't ask for a better way to start the year. Here's to a great 2015 for everybody!

Așteptând mușterii

Pe stradă sau în bazar, vânzătorii turci sunt în permanentă așteptare de mușterii. În aparenta lor plictiseală, sunt gata în două secunde să îți ofere cel mai bun "deal".

A venit anul nou?

A cam venit, şi eu n-am mai pus nimic pe-aici... De început de an, vă ofer o poză tot din colecţia "ziua de spălat", ediţia cu mâncare şi o expresie cel puţin surprinsă.

Să vă meargă bine tot anul!

Pantofii lui Dorothy

Ah, de-aș avea și eu pantofi ca ai lui Dorothy, să le lovesc de trei ori călcâiele și să mă ducă unde vreau... cred că acum aș alege o piscină cu apă albastră albastră din Dubai! :)

Între două scaune

Elodia, caine de paza

Benzinaria are doua "intrari": una da inspre strada, una spre Dunare.

Pe partea dinspre strada scrie "caine rau" si e un lacat cat toate zilele la portita. In partea dinspre Dunare, cainele rau are ochi blanzi si vrea sa ne cunoastem. Ma miroase si apoi ma lasa sa o mangai. Il intreb pe nea Nicu, benzinarul din Crisan... asta e cainele rau cu care ne amenintati pe partea cealalta? Raspunsul e simplu: noaptea si pe partea cealalta, Elodia e rea rea. Pazeste sarguincios benzinaria satului Crisan, care e vizitata in proportie de 80% din apa, cu barca. Pe partea cu apa, e mai ingaduitoare.

Ce sa spun, destept caine de paza. Ce-i drept, n-am incercat sa o "verificam", venind dinspre uscat...

Fragmentar

De câte ori privim lumea prin ferestre murdare, şi fiecare fereastră ne sparge percepţia în mii de bucăţele, până pierdem din vedere întregul? Într-o imensă sală a oglinzilor care deformează, câtă încredere putem avea în ceea ce credem că vedem?