Photo of the Week #233

I have been working behi1nd the scenes to get some much needed work done on the site. If you come back here periodically you will be seeing some updates that will help to make the overall experience better. I advocate for all photographers to have their own website, even if they aren’t actually a professional. Social media isn’t as friendly toward photographs as they once were and it’s getting hard to even be seen these days. Your own site is a sure way to display your work the way you want it to be displayed., no compression or alterations involved.

Photo of the Week # 222

It is said that if you don’t step out of your comfort zone, you don’t grow. I believe this to be true and I value critique in my photography a great deal, but I think that many people look for critique in places that aren’t valuable. The vast majority of people on social media don’t know a good photo, have you seen them complimenting each other on their blurry profile photos? Your friends or family likewise aren’t the people to look to for honest opinions, they like everything you do, or maybe they don’t but they aren’t going to tell you if that’s the case.

For valuable critique, look to people whose work you admire, for obvious reasons. Maybe find a friend you trust who is willing to be honest with you? I don’t wait and count social media likes but I do notice when a few certain people engage because I trust and follow those people. Those are the opinions I do value.

As usual, thoughts and comments always welcome.

Photo of the Week # 221

I am often a little late to the “party”, let’s just get that out of the way first thing. It took me a little longer than most to learn composition techniques. Good composition often involves what you leave out of the frame as much as what you put in. When we start out in photography, we run around pointing and snapping like crazy and of course, they are all masterpieces, right? Back in the beginning, I would expect to bring home a basket ful of “good” shots or I was not happy about it. I heard about Ansel Adams’ comments where he said “a crop of 12 good images a year being a good crop” and I thought, “really?”.

The light bulb finally came on and I began to see what Ansel was saying. I looked back at all my old work and realized that the vast majority of it was documentary photography at best, snapshots. This is all very normal and part of learning. I also used to adhere to a few “standard” aspect ratios too…..to make it easier to print or frame. Of course not a whole lot of them got framed either so that really didn’t make sense either. Finally, I came to the realization that by far the most common place for anyone to consume photos was on social media and currently, mostly on a small phone screen. I began to see that by allowing myself some creativity in something as simple as cropping an image, I could change it immensely. There are people out there who simply will not crop a photo, not even for straightening a crooked horizon! I think those people are missing out on a valuable tool.

This image is called Sawtooth Range and was made in Alaska. I love the beautifully atmospheric nature of the shot and the 2:1 panoramic aspect ratio works great from my point of view.

Photo of the Week #201

This photo was made awhile back, 8 years ago in fact. I’ve always loved this image because it depicts a slice of maritime history. This old shack resided beside the road leading from Tantallon to Peggy’s Cove, can’t remember what that road is called, been awhile. This wonderful piece of fishing heritage is now gone, if you didn’t know where it once stood, you would never know it ever existed.

This is another of my re-edits using some more modern technologies for editing that I now have available to me. Lightroom has come a long way in that time! The new masking tools in Lightroom are a life changer for me, love the versatility we have now.