I'm fairly obsessed with symmetry. I'd say pretty much to a fault.
What is it about symmetry that is so pleasing? It's kind of like how a melody resolves in music. It's pleasing because your brain was expecting a resolution and it happened. When you see symmetry in photography it's comforting in resolution: The sides meet up, the lines converge, there's balance.
When it comes to photography I'm often apprehensive about using the ole Rule of Thirds because I don't like my subject being thrown off to the side. But there's the belief--and rightfully so--that symmetry is beautiful, especially in regard to the face.
When this week's challenge came up I wanted to find something out in the world that was symmetrical but also avoid using the face as my subject. I also didn't want to find something interesting and just mirror the image left and right. I thought that would be cheating. I wanted to find something that was already symmetrical and play it up a bit more in post-processing.
On my way to lunch, I walked past this beautiful church called St. Joseph's Cathedral and I noticed how the front facade was almost mirror image identical to either side of the front door. The sky was particularly clear as well.
So, it became my take on Symmetry for this week.
I really wanted to add a single balloon being held in the hand of the baby statue to get across that the balloons above were possibly let go by the same baby in the statue. Hopefully, if people look close enough they'll fill in the blanks and come to that conclusion. I also wanted to change the color of the balloons to compliment the color of the sky but I just felt that the blue of the balloons and the blue of the sky just worked so well together. I sat on this picture for a couple of days, turning my monitor on to look at it, walking away to give my eyes a rest, coming back to it to make sure I liked it. Ultimately I'm very happy with it and it's one of my favorite images I've taken so far even outside of this 52 week challenge.
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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 ...
