Sunset Flower
If this looks kind of similar to last week’s photo, you’re probably not too far off the mark. I shot this about two minutes after that one, about ten feet away, looking in the same direction using some of the same techniques. I even have the subject off center, just like last week, with the notable difference here being the color of the focal point: yellow instead of red. This image also bears a striking resemblance to another photo I put up last fall, with this specific type of flower backlit against a blurry horizon. The big question for me when I took this image was one of aperture: f/1.8 would obviously give me the most pleasing background blur, particularly with the spots of light. But the sharpness sacrifice isn’t always worth it and in this case wasn’t one that I was quite willing to make. So I stopped down…
Layers
This picture is kind of similar to some that I shot near the end of 2020 in that it has a single subject, in this case a leaf, with some wide-aperture artifacts in the background complementing the main focal point of the image. What separates this image from some of the others I have taken recently is the sheer level of contrast between the subject and the background elements. When I was walking towards Theta Pond one afternoon in early December my eyes were immediately drawn to this scene because of the bright red leaf set against a long row of green bushes, and thought it would be fun to show that extreme level of color contrast in a picture like this. It more or less worked out how I had hoped, but there was one thing I didn’t plan on that turned out to be the proverbial icing on…
Onward
Those of you who have been reading Weekly Fifty long enough know that I like to schedule my posts well in advance–weeks, even months before they go live. As I write this it’s about a month prior to the post being published, and we’re coming up on the end of a pretty rough year for a lot of people. 2020 has been soul-crushing in a lot of ways for a lot of folks, and if you have been hit hard by the pandemic then please know my heart goes out to you and I hope you are doing OK and starting the new year with a sense of optimism and even excitement. It’s been tough to see the silver lining with everything that has been unfolding these past several months, and yet, it is there if we look hard enough. There is news of a vaccine on the horizon, and…
Closeout
Here it is, my final photo for 2020. And just like usual, there isn’t really anything special or noteworthy about the fact that this image is the one to close out the year but I hope you enjoy it anyway. I schedule my posts weeks or even months in advance, and it’s basically just dumb luck as far as which picture happens to land on any given Wednesday, but even so I do think there is something to be said for this particular image as we leave 2020 behind and head into a new year. But first, the photo. This was the result of several attempts at capturing a backlit leaf at Theta Pond one morning in mid November. The first challenge was to find a single leaf, isolated against everything else in the frame. An inspection of a nearby gingko tree resulted in nothing noteworthy, as too many leaves…
2020 Year In Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EikL7PYIRjk
Catching the Light
It’s amazing how much difference it can make to shoot photos in the morning. Or in the evening. Or any time the sun isn’t higher in the sky. I have always enjoyed taking pictures at the extreme ends of the day, and not just because the light is better. In the morning the air feels fresh and there is a sense of newness about the day that falls away as the sun reaches into the sky, and in the evening you can feel the calm and order settling on the earth as things wind down before the final rays recede into the distance. Taking pictures during those times feels like a slightly more tangible way to explore the world, and try to capture just a glimpse of what it feels like in person. Not that I want to be melodramatic here; the point I’m making is that it’s really cool…
Recovery
I took this picture eight days after one of the worst ice storms in a while, but you would almost never know it unless you look really carefully. After a week of intense cleanup most things on campus, and around town, are almost back to normal. There are piles of tree limbs and branches on almost every curb, but most of the debris is gone from campus thanks to the tireless efforts of the groundskeepers and cleanup crews. If you look carefully at the red tree you’ll notice that it seems incomplete, almost like someone took a pizza slice-shaped chunk out of the top. That is most likely a missing branch that broke off in the ice storm, but other than that this seems like a pretty normal scene for this time of year. With one exception: there are no students. Not just an absence of pedestrians in the image,…
Verglas
I shot this on a Monday afternoon while my wife and I were out on our usual walk with the kids–the same walk, on the same route, that has netted several Weekly Photos this past year. The air was chilly and the rain was falling, and little did we know it but our state was about to get hit with the worst ice storm in a long time. When I shot this photo we didn’t know any of that was coming though, and all I was thinking about was how the lightly falling rain just bordering on sleet would make for some interesting photo opportunities. Unfortunately I didn’t really see anything until I noticed this lone read leaf as we were making our way back home. My wife and the kids went on ahead while I paused to see if I could capture a good shot, and I think it…
Duck Duck Pink Duck
I don’t mind being more than a little out of the loop. I’m usually not the first person to jump on new social or technological trends, and I can’t really tell the difference between a DVD and a Blu-Ray. It’s nice existing relatively free from the one-upsmanship that sometimes exists in other circles, but this photo is kind of a very small example of how it’s a little weird at the same time. I was biking to work on a cool morning in mid October when I saw the fountain outside the Low Library on campus filled with…pink ducks. Why pink ducks? I dunno. Strange things happen on a college campus sometimes, and you just have to go with the flow or go mad trying to make sense of it all. I didn’t really try to make sense of it or figure out these ducks’ raison d’être, but I did…
Prickle
For a good long while now, one of my favorite subjects to photograph on an annual basis is (are?) magnolia seeds, particularly those on the periphery of Theta Pond on the OSU campus. It’s almost like shooting fish in a barrel, because it’s almost difficult to not get a good picture of these brilliant red and brown husks: just point your camera and press the shutter. The brilliant reds contrasting with the rich browns, with deep greens in the background, almost always come together to create a brilliant composition of light and nature. My challenge, then, becomes one of growth and change. How can I take a new look at a similar subject and turn the familiar into something a little more interesting compared to what I might have photographed in years past? Part of the answer lies in something I have been using more on my DSLRs lately: Live…