Tagged: doors

This study was only my second course working in color digital photography. Of course I am familiar with my camera and with digital postprocessing, but it was tricky to channel my photographs into a cohesive study.

My biggest challenge with my digital camera, something I’ve almost certainly mentioned here before, is taking my time. Film is precious, valuable, scarce: and so I line up every shot as best I can. Digital space is nearly infinite, so, when shooting digitally, I tend to snap away. That spray-shoot approach always leaves me with a folder full of photos, but rarely are any of them of true value.

So this study, for me, was about practicing the first and most important step: taking the picture. Each of these images was something that caught my eye, and instead of impulsively shooting away, I paused. I stepped back, framed the image in my head, then in my viewfinder: and then snapped.

I can feel the difference. I took my time, and I think that approach is reflected in the presentation of these photographs. They’re all things that are above everyday notice, but I took the time to really look at them… and so they’ve been transformed.

And of course, the doors. A guest critic came to speak with each of us individually about our work, and he said to me, “what’s with the doors?” I don’t have a good answer, and I’m not going to be artsy about it: I just like colorful doors. I think they’re pretty. That’s why I took pictures of them. But maybe, by taking my time, I made the pictures a little bit more special than otherwise.

The first half of the semester study was posted as February’s photographic gems, and I also posted the end-of-semester gallery display here, if you’d like to see how the whole study looked on the wall. I think it was a successful study, and very good exercise for my viewfinding eye.