Friday Photography

Today's post is about something that I like to do to keep my eye fresh and the creative juices flowing so to speak.

This week's assignment is Local any image taken close (within a few blocks say) of where you live

Please post any photos, comment about anything or ask any questions about photography (If I don’t know the answer someone here probably will)- Please treat this as a photography (and anything else for that matter) open thread.

Going for a Walk

Being a photographer is not about having a great camera, being an expert at post processing, a massive client list, or lucrative book deals. It is about seeing. In our normal lives we don't tend to see stuff - we notice stuff then move on. Photographers and other visual artists don't do that. We look really hard at stuff.

The longer that I go without taking a photograph the harder it is to get back into that way of seeing the world. With this in mind I try to get out at least once a week, camera in hand, and just wander around the local neighborhood and take some shots. Early Sunday morning is the best time because the light is good and people are very absent. It allows me to take my time and if I see something interesting, to look at it from many angles, and to try out different camera settings without feeling like a total idiot. (I am English and we tend to have a really low embarrassment threshold.) After I get home (usually at around 6AM at this time of year) I spend an hour or so selecting and editing shots. I use this time to test different ways of editing as this part of the process can make or break an image.

I like doing this around the town center where I live because most of the subject matter is fairly ordinary and this is important. It means that I can't cheat, I have to find the shot so to speak. It is not like photographing a beautiful scenic view which, at sunrise, will always look pretty good. This leads to an important concept. Very few photographers can just raise a camera and take a good shot. The scene has to be worked. I will usually take at least half a dozen shots of anything that happens to pique my interest.

This leads on to something else that I've discovered. If I am walking past something and find myself slowing down or stopping to take a closer look I get the camera out - even if I don't see any potential photograph at all. Usually some part of my brain is a step ahead of the conscious part and has seen the photo. All I have to do is find it. Nine times out of ten I get a photo where, initially, I hadn't seen anything at all.

As far as transport goes I will go out on my bike sometimes but I pedal very slowly. Once we move above a certain speed we cease to notice anything much at all about our surroundings. IIRC this speed is somewhere in the region of five miles an hour.

Photographs

All of these images were taken in the town where I live. All bar one was shot within three blocks of my home.

Assignments

Last Week's Assignment - Animals

Photographs and comments

This Week's Assignment - Local

Anything close to home. Try to notice ordinary things in the environment that could potentially make for a good photograph. Of course the photograph doesn't have to be taken specifically for this assignment.

Any treatment is fine - natural colors, black and white, heavily edited or straight out of the camera. It's all good.

Where to post images

I'll put up a new thread tomorrow, around noon ET, specifically for the uploading of photos relating to the assignment. If you want to post them here and/or on tomorrow's thread that is fine. Also feel free to post any other images of anything on either today's or tomorrow's threads. The assignments are purely optional - just something to get the creative juices flowing!

Finally

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.

-Jonathan Swift

This is an open thread so have at it. Post photos, questions, thoughts etc. - anything whatsoever to do with photography or anything at all for that matter.