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 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 32 - Edited by Someone Else

We had a reunion with my husband's friends from college this weekend, so between drinking beer, running around with kids and hanging out with people I've not seen in a long time, I had little time for shooting. I also let my husband choose which photo he wanted to edit, but neglected telling him about the 'extra credit' for a portrait shot... this is the photo he chose

Week 27 - Water

This was a 5 am shot after a crazy night partying at a wedding. The boys from our gang were set on having a swim before the night was through, so after some of the 'older' guests started leaving, they dared each other until one of them jumped in, and eventually the got even the groom to join the 'madness'. I took several shots of them swimming in the eerie blue light of the pool, but this is the one I like the most. Maybe because the subject is my husband!? :)

My one wish was for a bit more breathing space to the left side of the shot, but the pool was small and crowded and getting a sharp shot at 5 am was achievement enough.

Party on!

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 21 - Architecture

The newest bookstore in town resides in a beautiful building, dating from 1860 and renovated last year. It used to be a bank before it was confiscated by the communists and turned into a department store. It was abandoned after the Romanian Revolution and the owner has been trying to get it back from the state for the last 20 years. Now it is bustling with life again as the new 'hipster' spot in town, a meeting place for artists, designers, book lovers and tourists.

On this particular morning it was almost empty (10 am on a Sunday) so I was able to get a good shot of the beautiful spiraling staircases and banisters with the perfect number of people to complement the place without making it feel crowded. If you remember, I had taken a previous photo of this scene for 'black and white' week - you can see it here. For black and white, I decided not to use the shot because it felt very crowded and with no apparent subject. I have to say I am much happier about the retake!

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:

Early Morning

Another of the shots from my day experimenting with the 'toy camera' filter:

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 19 - A New Technique

This week's challenge was all about trying something new and experimenting. I tried playing with double exposures and freelensing (shooting with the lens detached from the body of the camera), but in the end I did not think my experiments were good enough to include in an album, so I went with my fallback plan of trying out the "advanced filters" feature on my Fujifilm X-E2 camera.

There are a lot of filter to play with, among which selective colour, 'tilt-and-shift' and soft focus, but the two I experimented with most were colour-pop and toy camera. Colour pop (obviously) gives all colours a boost of saturation, making them stand out, while toy camera produces weird colours and a prominent vignette, to simulate a cheap film camera of old. I also went one step further in my experiments and tried a lot of shooting from the hip, centered subjects and finding weird or unusual shots during mundane activities like walking in the park. I had a lot of fun and captured a few interesting shots, out of which I chose this one to submit:

I just realized this is the first photo with a portrait orientation that I submit for the 52 frames project... Anyway, I like this shot because of the sharp angles and the unbalanced feeling it gives me, I like the lines forming a V and splitting the frame in three, and I like that the guy's hands and body are also forming Vs and sharp angles.

All in all, playing with this filter has been fun, but I don't know if I would use it on a day to day basis. The colours are interesting, but the vignette is a bit too much for me most of the time.

Week 18 - Behind the Scenes

I took this shot in an unused exhibition space of the National Library. I liked how the empty exhibition panels let some of the light from the doors through and created long shadows on the floor, as well as coloured glimpses of the world outside. A mom and her baby wandered off from the main exhibition into this empty space and peered from behind the panels, and I took the chance to use them as a back-lit subject. I also tried a cross-processing technique which worked better than I expected in such a high contrasting scene.

PS. My photo got featured on the group page, with the following caption: This image was carefully planned and executed by Irina Dodea, for this week's "Behind the scene" challenge for our framers. Take a moment to read the story behind this shot, or alternatively, admire with us the multiple lines, pleasing symmetry, and excellent use of contrast in this scene (underline by me for bragging)

Week 16 - Through a Child's Eyes

Also known as 'tutu time' :)

It was not easy trying to photograph my daughter playing, but I did have fun.

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 10 - Reflection

Just a reflection in a puddle turned upside down, but it makes me think of Alice's Wonderland.

Stay tuned...

For week 9 - black and white...

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 7 - Rule of Odds

I'm glad I waited to post this shot, because now I can gloat a little and tell you it got featured in the screencast critique. I can't tell you how happy I was to get my one minute of fame, which you can watch too (do it right now!):

Be sure to check out the whole video, because it is interesting and educational (and there's also a part one, here).

This week I have no alternate shots because the one I chose is really the one that spoke to me the most. So here's the photo in question, without further ado... Hope you like it!

Under Construction

The beach can be a melancholic but interesting scene this time of year

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.