the view

pink peonies from the terracotta gardens here at 29 Black Street

Let's make sure to try and visit a few of the blogs through each week of other members & leave a comment or two. Praise & accolades, constructive criticisms, ideas & suggestions, questions or just a simple hello ! 

Those of you who know me from 29 Black Street know that I am a self professed haphazard at best, not-at-all technically minded photographer. My photography road is and has been always paved with great intentions. I always mean to study my camera's manual, I always mean to leave the automatic setting behind, to get out my tripod, play with the bells & whistles (my current sweet Canon G12 has oodles of them) - but I don't, I never seem to get to those things and I haven't yet in the 5 years that I've been, rather obsessively taking pictures & posting them on my blog.

But here is what I do do ... do ;-)

I do have a great, comfortable, long, over the shoulder strap
I have fast-charging rechargeable batteries, a large memory chip (ensuring your camera is always ready)
I try to carry my camera everywhere
I'm looking, seeing, imagining my world everywhere I go as a photograph (this takes practice)
I am very aware of light - especially bright sunlight & it's effects on everything shadow & light

and here's the kicker ...

I barely ever look through the regular viewfinder

I almost always use the screen view on the back of my camera to compose a photograph and I often
don't even do that. I just hold my camera up to something, looking down at it, away from me, down on the ground ... and I take loads of images of each thing I'm photographing, edit at your computer.

ta da that is my big secret ... and now I've told you and we're only on week 2

Week 2 challenge - approach your 10 (or more) slices of life this week keeping the view in mind.

Once again document either some thing (here's an example) or a variety of things (places, people, pets etc) and see how many different unexpected angles & views you can capture it from plus using a variety of lighting situations. Try a few images abstracting the photograph down to simply colour, light & shadow.

Hands up who got a good over the shoulder strap for their cameras ? Phone camera people exempt from this question and I guess if you have a pocket size camera also exempt. The whole point of a comfortable, sturdy, long strap is it makes you make more confident, so that you never ever feel precarious holding your camera at any angle - worried that you might drop it. And it also encourages you to wear your camera, on your body, like an accessory to your outfit :-)

In closing more inspiring beautiful snippets of life - A Year of Sundays from 3191 miles apart