Our last week of hard light. I found some hiding among the trees.
Please check out the work of the other amazing photographers participating in Photo 52 by following the links around the circle. Next up is my talented friend with an eye for delicate beauty, Linda Hooper.
Photo 52, week eleven!
In our third week of investigating hard light, I decided to tackle some full sun high noon shooting. Not my favorite lighting conditions for photographing people because of the harsh overhead shadows it casts on faces. However, we had a Zamboni to check out and time waits for no man. Or boy. Or mom.
Patiently waiting.
It's here!
Please continue around the blog circle to the amazing Lisa Rigazio. Her use of dramatic light is simply stunning. If you are unfamiliar with Photo 52, click here for the initial post.
Photo 52: Hard Light Week 2
Winter flowers, city lights. When presented with something so lovely, it's hard to resist documenting it at every angle; up close and from afar.
Next up in the Photo 52 blog circle is my friend and fellow New Yorker, the exceptionally gifted and very lovely Sarah Roemer Davis. Please check out her blog and take a spin through the chain to see my fellow Photo 52 participants' interpretations of hard light this week.
Hard light: our subject for the month of November.
To my mind, hard light is dramatic. It casts shadows. It can be aggressive and harsh or bright and crisp, depending on your frame of mind. On a chilly morning this week, with wind blowing briskly as countless people began to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the rising sun was all of these things.
If you are looking for ways to help those impacted by the storm, donations to the Red Cross seem to be a reliable place to start. Additionally, closer to my heart, a dear friend of ours is from the devastated town of Breezy Point. NY. Her father is the chief of the Breezy Point volunteer fire department and her parents, aunts, uncles and cousins all live there. She has been on the ground helping this week and has just passed along information for two well organized funds that can benefit the community directly, noting that the Red Cross is focused on Staten Island and other communities in the NYC area at this time.
Breezy Point Cooperative Disaster Relief Fund
C/o Lee & Kane Attorneys
2175 Flatbush Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11234
http://www.breezypointdisasterrelief.org/
Alternatively, the volunteer fire department is accepting donations directly as they will need to repair all of their badly damaged trucks and equipment:
BPVFD
1 Firemans Plaza
Breezy Point, NY 11697
Thank you for reading this far, and do please continue around the blog circle, starting with my neighbor to the north, Kennedy Tinsley of Tinsleyhouse Photography, to see what my fellow Photo 52 participants are sharing this week. I implore you to take a close look at Kelly Roth Patton's blog post as well, which contains relief fund information aimed at the Red Hook neighborhood in Brooklyn. If you are unfamiliar with Project 52, the introductory post can be found here.
Life, lemons, lemonade...
This is not how I had envisioned my fond farewell to our four weeks of backlight, but so it goes.
Please continue around our blog circle to see the exquisite work of Erica Collins.
Week seven of Photo 52. This week is the third in our month of backlight, and while my post is perhaps more personal than usual it partially explains my general absence from the blog and the camera. Our little guy just turned three, and his grandma just turned three plus a few, so the family has been in town to celebrate. We took a trip up to Storm King Art Center and enjoyed a beautiful afternoon filled with backlight, fun and love.
Please continue around the blog circle to see what my very talented friend Lisa Rigazio has been up to this week. She has an amazing eye for texture and contrast, and uses it to bring a little edginess to her work, be it an urban scene or her two darling girls.
Blinded by the light...
Week six of Photo 52, and week two of backlighting. I am taking a class at ICP with fellow blog circle participant Justine Knight and our assignment this week involved following a stranger and seeing where he or she led you. The images from this exercise generally range from bad to terrible since stalking is not something I have much experience with.
At one point on my walk, as I tried to put a little distance between myself and my chosen subject, I noticed that after a week of bad timing, bad health and bad light, the sun was creating a beautiful fall glow through the just-turning trees. So I stopped for a moment, aimed my camera upward, then hustled off again so as not to lose my unsuspecting muse.
Please continue around the blog circle and see what other amazing backlight my fellow participants have found. Next up is the lovely and talented Canadian component of our circle, Kennedy Tinsley.
Stepping out of the shadows, into the light! Weeks five through eight of Photo 52 will be all about backlighting. I often feel that in these photographs the light can take on a life of its own, becoming an additional subject in the frame.
It felt good to be seeking moments in the sun during some remaining fall warmth. And, preceded by a string of cloudy days, this bright morning sunshine was a sparkling reminder to appreciate that without the brightest lights and the darkest shadows, life would be very grey indeed.
Here is a little fun at the Bryant Park fountain. If you look closely, you will see it was also doubling as a very large birdbath on this fine morning.
Please continue along the circle to see the beautiful and ethereal image one of my dearest friends, and amazing photographer, Kami Chaudhery captured of her daughter in Seattle this week.
A Play on Shadows: Week 4 - Me and My Shadow
When my fellow participants and I first started discussing the details of our 52 week journey, we decided to commit to each topic for four weeks at a time. Last week, as I started to think about my week 3 shadow shot, I began questioning the wisdom of that choice. It was increasingly hard to get an image I was happy about using. But, of course, that is the point of looking closely at a subject, isn't it? To find new ways to think about something and push beyond the easy path?
This week I have been revisiting (or "finally getting around to reading for the first time" if you'd like to be truly precise) some materials on directional light techniques. My obsession with his eyelashes is well-known, so this image is not particularly original for me. However, the lovely lines of the lash shadows and the curves of his sweet face make this intimate glimpse of my own little shadow my favorite image of the four-week series.
Next up is the exceedingly talented Sarah Roemer Davis. Her urban sensibilities and darling son make for some memorable photography.
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore...
Week three of our shadow theme! I can't say I'm actually in amore with this image, but I had my camera on me the other night and decided to take a picture of the beautiful crescent moon despite my less than ideal gear setup. It took me a moment to realize that the haze behind the crescent was, in fact, a shadow of quite some magnitude - that of the earth itself.
Please continue along our blog chain to see what my fellow New Yorker and beautiful photographer Jessie Wixon found this week.
Playing with Shadows: Week 2
Last week, I joined a group of photographers in launching a 52 week study into light. In this week 2 of our month on shadows, I walked the parks along the West Side Highway in search of a little less concrete and a little more jungle as my source of inspiration. The days are getting cooler, the shadows begin to lengthen by early afternoon, and while summer colors still abound, there is a hint of autumn in the air.
Playing With Shadows: Week 1
The heart of photography is light. Glowing evening light, yellow indoor light, even an absence of light - ultimately, it is the ability of a photographer to see the light, understand it, and decide how to use it that will make a photograph memorable. The successful use of light in photography is an endlessly fascinating subject and one that I am striving to understand better every day.
With that in mind, I am embarking on a 52 week project with a group of talented and diverse women from across the country and abroad. We have very different lives and distinct styles but share a love for photography. As a means of furthering our growth and education, and as a way to see each other's work regularly, we have decided to tackle the concept of light head-on. Each month, one of us will pick a light-related topic and we will all post a weekly shot based on our interpretations of that theme.
Our collective adventure is called Photo 52: A Play on Light and our first month's theme is Playing with Shadows. My submission for this week is below. To see everyone else's amazing work, please continue along the chain.
Next up, our talented yellow rose of Texas, Kim Dupree.
