Many photographers embrace photo challenges like the 365 project where you post a new photo every single day. For me, that's a bit much. So, I decided to check out Lindsay Adler's "Creative52" book which challenges photographers to post a new photo every week with a new theme for each week.
It's a great way to get your creativity flowing and to force a person to think outside the box and outside of their comfort zone.
Week 1 is "Create an image based on a single color."
The example for this was a guy covered in red holi powder. Well, I have a bunch of holi powder and I almost did a very similar image in the example shown in the book, but what's the point of copying something?
I decided to take a photo of a staircase and edit it in a way that would question if one is ascending or descending.
The stairs at work had been refinished with the rubber grips taken off to expose the concrete beneath. The concrete was then stained with this greenish finish.
The project forced me to create new walls for the staircase, adding texture for both sides, extending the staircase upwards and down a bit to finish out the frame, adjusting the color to match the stairs, remove the hotspots, etc. etc.
Then the question cropped up, are you ascending or descending? How to illustrate that I want to be ascending? A bird is too much of a go-to for me. A person walking up the stairs is too on-the-nose. So, I thought about the challenge and thought about how balloons cast color on their shadow when light passes through them.
Okay, but how do you get the shadow to adhere to the angles of the stairs?
Using Photoshop and a feature called "vanishing point" you can map out a 3D structure that corresponds to the stairs. You can then paste in the shadow of the balloon and it will warp to the angles of the stairs.
Visit my photo blog for things like this: www.jaylammphoto.com
#creative52 #creative52photographyproject #lindsayadler #stairsandsteps #stairschallenge #ascendingphotography #ascending #descending #descendingstories #balloonart #balloondecoration
Let's take a little look at how some of the Wizards in the Harry Potter universe are absolute jerks. Of course, this is all in good fun, but I want to take a look at the behavior and piggishness that Wizards have in this Potterverse. I mean, if they existed along with us here, they'd have a lot of explaining to do.
Creative 52, Week 29: Shoot a Very High-Key Image
High-key photography, damn near blowing out your image with copious amounts of light. Make your subject look like a pretty angel coming through heaven’s gate or something.
For this image I wanted to do a slight combination of high-key with low-key elements. By that, I mean, I wanted to put some form of viking face paint on the upper part of my face so I could later overlay an image of stars, the galaxy, or something of that nature. I wasn’t quite sure what yet. My girlfriend helped me with the makeup and even did an initial splatter spray of white on my forehead for texture and added pizzazz.
I wanted to wear a suit for this because you usually don’t see vikings in suits and I wanted to be a Work Viking…Assistant to the Regional Viking.
To make the blown out effect I hung up a white sheet in a doorway. Behind that sheet I put two softboxes with two 100 watt bulbs each to the side. I put two large LED worklights down a bit lower. ...
Creative 52, Week 28: Shoot a Very Low-Key Image
10/14/2021
Low-key in photography doesn’t mean relaxed, chilled out, and soft spoken. Low-key simply means that the emphasis is on the shadows, on the darks. Whereas high-key is all bright and damn near blown out, low-key has crushed blacks and is all mysterious. Perfect for getting close to Halloween, right?
Well, Gina was shooting a video for an upcoming belly dance gathering and was dressed like a witchy crone named Cailleach, a divine hag and Queen of Winter. She had a cool twiggy head band and some matching make-up; plus, we just finished watching this movie, Censor, which had this cool lighting theme all throughout. So, we decided to shoot this low-key image and video using only colored video lights…no strobes. The lighting was inspired by Censor and another movie called Mandy. Both movies are worth checking out.
This whole thing was a challenge because I really wanted to utilize the sharpness and look that I get with my ...
Collective Isolation
I have a strip of 75mm film I use for a bookmark and recently I was admiring just how damn cool it was. And then I was walking past these windows that look out upon the Mississippi River levee. In a way, this section of windows, framed by the support poles, reminded me of that 75mm film strip.
People, for the most part, tend to mind their own business. It's why we can go out to a restaurant with a loved one and pretend that we're not in a big room with dozens of other couples also pretending that no one else is around. When I set up my camera to take these pictures I decided to capture little frames of people minding their own business. So, no, I didn't want to "Shoot a Frame Within a Frame" using shadows or doorways; I wanted to use the entire wall of windows as a frame to separate interactions, use the lower section of windows to frame individuals going about their business while ignoring others, the upper part of the windows to frame birds flying together in ...
