Thomas Jefferson said, 'The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.' This is a maxim I would do well to follow, but I too rarely succeed in doing so.
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There may be poetry in motion, but it’s not necessarily easy to capture that poetry in a still photograph. Despite that, we all try from time to time, and there are various techniques we can use.
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Let’s consider how much of your image is occupied by your main subject. Often the answer to that is, quite a lot of it. But you can take this to extremes, either filling the frame completely or leaving lots of empty space around your subject. Both can be effective, in different ways.
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For those of us who grew up in the sixties, groovy was the feeling we all aspired to. Groovy was exciting, fun, cool (another sixties word!) Too young to really be part of hippy culture, it nevertheless influenced my tastes in fashion and music. Getting ‘in the groove’ was where I wanted to be, even if as a schoolgirl I was probably very far from being so!
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How good are you being self-critical when it comes to your photography? Can you easily pick out the best of your shots and are you comfortable rejecting those that have been less successful? I confess I’m pretty rubbish at it.
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Can one word describe a photo, or a photo define a single word? That’s the challenge set by Paula in her monthly Pick a Word post. Five words, five photos inspired by those words.
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Salvador Dali said that, 'Surrealism is destructive'. It seems counter-intuitive to think of art as destructive, when it is such a creative process. Surely the purpose of art is to construct? And photography, as an art-form, creates or constructs a record of a moment in time. So perhaps to apply Dali’s definition of Surrealism to our photography, we need to partially destroy our images and distort that record in post-production?
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Try to forget what objects you have before you - a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, 'Here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow,' and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact colour and shape, until it gives you your own impression of the scene before you.
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Reflections really add something to a landscape, perhaps because they allow us to ‘see double’. Already beautiful scenery is enhanced by being presented to us a second time, often rippled or distorted in an upside-down version of itself.
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I pondered awhile what treasures to share for Aletta’s Lens Artists challenge. Should I focus on the treasure that is the opportunity to travel and the wonders to be seen in the world? Should I talk about precious moments spent with friends and family? Or should I maybe feature actual treasures? The possibilities seemed endless!
