I Win!

This is a picture I have featured once before on my blog.

Combining Elements

It's here again because I won!

Alright, I won a category.

We have an annual photography competition at Education City and I won the "Qatar" category with this effort. I'm so happy!

Listen To Voices You Trust

A great artist must listen to his inner voice because by necessity he will be doing things that others think are "wrong". However, in order to improve it is necessary to have feedback from people who have proved themselves trustworthy. The biggest help I get from Flickr is the small circle of other users who are familiar with my style and who I am familiar with. They pointed out the potential to me of this picture which I did not see myself. I am grateful for that.

I am not saying, by the above paragraph, that I am a great artist. But that is certainly what I aspire to. If you don't have the same aspiration yourself then why are you taking pictures and showing them to others. Why are you reading this?

Good Photographs Need No Explanation

This is a good picture because of the colour and forms and the questions it asks. It is entirely unnecessary to know what the subject is. A lot of photographs are ruined by including too much in order to "explain" the photograph.

Cliche

This sort of shot is a cliche but, so sue me. I like this.

A Stupid Idea Is One You Don't Try

Extension tubes enhance the close focus ability of lenses by taking them further from the film plane. I was doing some photography of some decorations for my wife's business when I notice that a discarded toilet roll tube was about the same diameter as the Nikon F lens mount. I certainly wouldn't call it full-featured or convenient but I was very pleased with the results of this little experiment. All I did was hold the tube between the lens and the camera.

Improvise!

I went on this outing with a group from my church to the dunes. I was picked up straight from work and had no chance to get a tripod. I had to take all the shots handheld as a result. However, when I saw the kids climbing the dune with their torches I knew I had to get a long exposure shot of it somehow. I found a Jeep parked nearby and propped my Nikon FE on the roof. The exposure was between two and three minutes. I'm glad I persisted because it is one of my favourite shots from the trip.

Don't fall at the first hurdle. Try to find a way to do what you want to do.

Sharpness is Heavily Overrated

This is an effect I have managed a few times without each time being precisely sure how I attained it. It seems to involve stacking my 50mm lens full of closeup lenses and then shooting with a wide aperture. Still, as soft as it is I think the effect is somewhat magical.

It is always worth experimenting. If you are curious about a certain accessory you should try to obtain it. Once you have it you should try using it in every way you can think of. Especially, the "wrong" way.

Creatively Closer

This sort of shot is best done with a dedicated macro lens. This shot, however, is taken with my 50mm f1.4 lens. It is mounted reversed on my FE and I have added all three of my closeup lenses to it. This was certainly not an easy shot to take but with a little perseverance a good result was still obtained.

Colour and Texture

This is another view of the digger. This picture is not a picture of anything in particular. It is a picture of texture and colour. When examining a subject always try to cover as many angles as possible. You should also try to get back and see the shape of the whole and then get close and see if there are any details that might be good subjects in themselves. For this shot it is the crust of salty white sand and the beautiful spraypaint colour against the "industrial equipment yellow-orange" paint that is the subject.

The warning sign provides context and is enough to let the viewer know that this is a piece of machinery. It was certianly not necessary to include this for an abstract but I wanted to tie this picture back into the series of other pictures of the digger I took at that time.

Seize the Moment II

This digger has been a favourite subject of mine. It is typical of a lot of industrial equipment in Doha. It was used until it could no longer be used and then left were it lies. I love the evidence of its life and its slow decay that is written all over it.

On this particular day it rained. We get less than a week of rain a year in Qatar usually. I couldn't pass up this opportunity to emphasize the desolation of the old machine with this view of its cab spattered in rain spots. Again, if I hadn't had a camera with me this shot would never have happened. This is the essence of smash and grab photography.

Seize the Moment

I think this is as good an ilustration as any of why I always try to have a camera with me. The colour on this rose is nice. The texture is nice. The light when this was taken, sets it all off perfectly. The day before this the bud was not open enough. The day after it was losing petals. During the day this flower looked like this there was probably less than an hour when the light was like this.

Keep your eyes open and be ready.

Colour vs Detail

Although ostensibly a macro, this shot is really more of an abstract about colour. The shallow depth of field here keeps the eye on the picture as a whole.

Alternate Light III

Never be afraid to experiment with artificial light sources. The colour of these flowers is nice anyway but under the mixed source outside lighting of my house on a moonless night it really comes alive. Long exposure timed by my Nikon FE.