Week 23 - Focus

I don't like to photograph flowers, but I have a weakness in this respect: I cannot resist wild flowers! I simply love them. They remind me of Summer, freedom and unspoiled beauty, and if you pick them from the field all the magic is gone, so I photograph them. As it happens, I was in the vicinity of a wild flower field when this week started so I had my choice of subject. I tried to get a flower in perfect focus, with the rest of the field blurred behind but still recognizable. I also liked the natural frame of the wooden fence and its texture, and the cute shadow of my lovely flowers.

Now Summer is almost over and I am looking forward to a long and warm Autumn (fingers crossed), but I still like to look at this simple photo and be reminded of the beauty of nature.

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:

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.

In Sibiu, houses have eyes

You have been warned!