I liked the bright colors and he repeating circles (the ends of the cardboard tubes). Also the rougher textures of the wood contrasting with the smoother stone background.
Incense holders
Abstract
This was taken through the window of a travelling north along the Hudson River. Some of the reasons I like it:
1. The diagonal lines
2. The darker areas at the top and bottom
3. The almost abstract look
4. The ambiguity. It’s not immediately apparent what it is
I don’t like the lighter spots and blurred areas in the foreground, but I guess it’s inevitable considering the picture was taken through the window of a moving train..
A float
I came across this lonely float near a dock on one of our beaches. I liked the way the light area in the bottom left balances a similar area in to top right. And the way the darker area to the top left balances a similar area to the bottom right. Also the way the the curved twig seems to lead the eye to the float, which doesn’t really need this because of the extreme contrast between the bright colors of the float and the comparatively less saturated areas of the rest of the picture. It seemed to me that it would make an attractive almost abstract composition.
Yellow flowers – an impression
In his book “Photography and the Art of Seeing“, author Freeman Patterson presents a series of exercises aimed at enabling creativity by forcing people out of their comfort zone. One of them is: “Shoot a sunset, a flower, and the surface of backlighted water, entirely out of focus”. In “Purple flower on a background of yellow” I posted a fairly conventional picture of an in-focus foreground element (in this case a flower) with an out of focus background.
However, bearing Mr. Freeman’s advice in mind I also took this picture where everything is out of focus. Both pictures were taken in a small area of unused land by the side of a busy road in Briarcliff Manor. Not a likely location for picture taking. I applied an ‘Autochrome‘ preset in post processing and enhanced the colors in Lightroom. I’ve liked autochromes since I saw some at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. I’m actually not too fond of this present, which to my mind doesn’t really provide the kind of luminous brightness that is typical of a true autochrome. In this case, however, it worked reasonably well and I like the result.
A face on a canoe
The road down to one of our beaches is lined with racks holding canoes, kayaks and the like. As I was walking past one day I noticed this “face” on one of the canoes.
I don’t know whether this resemblance is completely by chance or whether another passer-by had spotted that the two rivets looked a little like eyes; and that the trapezoidal shape could easily be the outline of a face and had then decided to scratch in the nose and mouth. Whichever it is it still looks like a face to me. I also liked the rough textures and the vivid colors.