Godstow Abbey, 8 July, 2007.

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So I spent this past Sunday afternoon and evening at the Godstow Abbey on Port Meadow, about a 45 minute walk from Oxford's city centre. A couple days later, when I managed to get the resulting roll of film developed, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this made it through a nasty case of shutter stickiness, which caused almost 22 exposures out of 36 to come out completely blank. Somehow, and thankfully, I managed to get this one. The sticky shutter has since been remedied (I believe, it's still a tad temperamental), but I learned something important from this particular photograph. Its somewhat of a milestone for me. Point, line, shape, form, texture, pattern, and color are all much more present than any of my other efforts, I think. The shapes of the ruins of the chapel and the abbey wall are all relatively balanced, and the colors are richer than I've managed in the past. The exposure is decently executed, and lo and behold I retained definition in the sky, the stone, and the grass, with one exposure.

Nevertheless, this was still sort of a happy accident, and of course I can do much better. Even so I began to look at what drew my eye to this particular scene so that I may better understand my photographic self. I think ultimately this was a convenient natural occurence of the rule of thirds, for one. Standing and simply looking at this structure, it's quite imposing, but still seems devoid of anything that'll make a great photograph. When you look at it through the viewfinder, things change though, as is so often the case. I seem to have focused on shape here more than anything else, hoping that the exposure would simply be a vehicle for the forms. However, (because I bracketed!! WOO!!) I managed to come out with an exposure that was somewhat of an enhancement, and the colors kind of popped when I first saw it. However, I think that if any merit can be drawn from this shot, it's that it shows a small amount of emerging competency in composition. Exposure is a technical aspect that can be learned, while composition has proved much, much more elusive to me. While this is a good start, I still have quite a long way to go, so I must take what I've learned with me the next time I go shooting in such a way.

Since seeing this photograph, I've developed a fascination with form, and I did about an hour-long shoot around Worcester today. I spent the time trying to pick out any repetition of form, or complimentary shapes that exist in objects I walk past every single day. Doorways, benches, trees, pictures on the wall, classrooms, anything, really. I payed less attention to color, as well, so as to hopefully place the focus solely on my composition. Hopefully this'll help me find my falterings and my emerging strengths. I'll have the prints back tomorrow, so we'll see.

I've also found that I like shooting in harsh light. The print at the top of this post was shot around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and the sun is still very high in the sky here in Oxford, so shadows are very pronounced, and photos can be far too contrasty if you're shooting facing the sun. Interesting, I suppose. I shall take it farther, hopefully.

In any case, cheers.

Russ

Pointlineshapeformtexturepatterncolorasaurus...

I realized something today when I was walking around running errands; I have what I will refer to as the "that looks cool so I'll take a picture of it" disease.

I need to start looking at photographs in a much different light (hehe, no pun intended) than I have in the past. I've always had the idea that if anything strikes me as interesting looking, it'll make a good photograph. This is completely and utterly false, in my limited experience. Nine out of ten instances the image in question is too busy, says nothing significant, or is impossible to accurately represent photographically without post techniques I have zero access to (or, let's be honest, ability to use) at the moment. I came to this conclusion after realizing first that I'm not really a tourist anymore, as I sort of live here in Oxford on a bit more of a long term basis than any of the other places I've been in the past month and a half, so I don't need to take the "Holy shit the (famous place here)" photos anymore. And, at least to some to some degree, the sick amount of pictures I've taken with my camera already have shown me it's capabilities, which I'm proud to say are quite impressive for an entry level camera that's almost 20 years old. So, with that basic foundation in place, I can begin to focus my attention much more on composition, which is a relief, as my pictures have been somewhat generic to this point. Granted, I've gotten some technically good shots, but for the most part they're uninteresting, and aside from being somewhat aesthetically pleasing, if someone were to ask me what prompted me to take it, I'd have nothing beyond "Well....I liked the way it looked," and that's not why you take photos...at least on a level beyond "Look, I was there."

I simply wish I knew how to make my pictures say something. I mean, granted, I've been tossing this age-old question around in my head for a mere 5 weeks. A lot of people spend years doing so. But, it seems there's much more to it than simply snapping a shot of a pretty pink sunset, or taking pictures of ducks and boats. I've found that my simplest shots of the seemingly most mundane things have been my favorites, because when you do that, you're pulling artistic value out of the completely ordinary. For example, I have sitting next to me a close shot of part of my windowsill in my room, and it, to me, holds much more significance than the shot right underneath it in the stack of a very, very beautiful sunset we had a week ago. I (somehow) managed to make something completely ordinary, even flat out unappealing, into something someone might look twice at. However, this is nearly all I have to show from 6 rolls of film.

To this end, I believe that shooting in black and white for a little while will do me good as a photographer. The absence of the rich colors usually present on modern films forces the photographer, and ultimately the viewer to focus on the basics; point, line, shape, form, texture, and pattern. Color is usually the last one, yes, but the point here is the absence of color. Once I have the basic tools down, I think bringing color back in will make my photos much more worth looking at, as right now I'm drawn to bright colors (like most primitive creatures), rather than things that lead an observer around a picture...like on a little mini-journey of epically esoteric proportions.

Now I just need to purchase a black and white film that a minilab over here can do something about processing.

Russ

First post...

I promised myself a few months ago I was done with blogs for the most part, and in the traditional, "This is what my life has been like for the past 72 hours" way, I suppose I am.

However, over the past couple months I've found myself taking an increasing interest in the photographs that I take, and as my interest grows, so does the amount of consideration that goes into each shot. I'll be putting some of my photos on here and then promptly railing on them, as it seems getting my thoughts into some kind of proper medium is the only way for me to organize them, and this is a chance to share my somewhat ill-guided (at least for now) efforts with you. The main problem with this is that my camera is of the good ol' fashion 35mm film variety, so putting actual photos here requires a scanner. Lord Vader, I shall double my efforts.

In any case, Cheers.

Russ