White campion flowers blooming in front of the garage door.
You know I like flowers. I won’t apologize for the amount of flower images you will see on this site.
These little guys are in bloom right now all over our property. The nice thing about photographing wildflowers to put up on line is that I have to do some research to find out what the heck they are.
Turns out these guys are an alien from Europe but are now widespread over the US. They don’t seem to have too many uses, but extracts from their roots and leaves are extremely toxic to mosquitoes.
…and I rather like the color, actually. No need to paint it black.
Photographing subjects we don’t normally photograph is a great way to train the eye to see differently in order to improve our art.
I am naturally drawn pretty things (like flowers, and butterflies and plants) which tend to be easy to make nice images from. But there are so many other subjects out there that make interesting photos.
It doesn’t always have to be pretty to make a compelling image.
This is why the photograph-a-day challenge I did a few years ago was so valuable to me. Because I was disciplining myself to take and upload one photo a day I was forced to overcome my “photographer’s block”. I learned to see things differently and wound up with photos I never would have taken before–some of which I really liked!
Photos like the one above are a good example of something I wouldn’t normally think to capture. It’s not pretty. It’s not a subject I’m particularly interested in (it’s a door. And a wall. And a… thing.). But it is still a compelling image because of the lines, the texture and, of course, the color.
It may not be something people are going to come in droves to admire for hours, but it’s useful for training my eye to see the world around me differently so that I can learn to make more compelling images overall.
What kinds of images can you make that you wouldn’t have considered before?
Another one of my favorite things; feathers. Normally grungy tattered feathers would offend me (I like my feathers pristine, straight and clean!) but they are uniquely photogenic. I discovered this one in the mud after a rainy night and the combination of the lines, holes and sharp points displayed in the feather and the roundness of the water droplets (plus that dark, dark background) was compelling to me. I think it makes an interesting image.
I spotted this leaf in a chair in our driveway this morning while on my way out the car. The stark contrast of the colors and watercolor pattern grabbed me and I had to photograph it.
