Photographs and thoughts on photography and camera collecting
Taken at the Pallisades Center, a mall in Rockland County, NY. I was attracted to the colors: the bright red of the wall with the neutral grey above it; the darker grey at the bottom and the small orange line that cuts across the frame. The repeating, different sized windows added some interest with the hint of something going on behind them. I think there’s an overall abstract look to the picture.
In the previous post (Why It Does Not Have to be In Focus: Modern Photography Explained) I mentioned that I find it hard to to break rules and explore boundaries. So I thought I’d try something a little different. This started out as fairly low resolution scan of a film photograph taken with a Kodak Retina IIc. I was standing in Charles Point Pier Park near Peekskill when I spotted some geese flying overhead. I quickly snapped the shot without thinking about exposure and/or focus. The result was a rather blurry photograph of the geese with the tops of a few lamp posts intruding.
First I blurred it some more and adjusted the cropping mostly to remove the lamp posts. Then I converted it to black and white, applied a few filters (including one which gave a negative look) and voilà this is what came out. It’s kind of abstract looking. It reminds me a tiny bit of Les Oiseaux by Matisse. I very much doubt that this is great art, but it was something different for me to do and I enjoyed the process.
I like the colors and the geometric shapes. In retrospect I realize that I didn’t get the focus right – or at least I didn’t get the depth of field that I wanted. The steps in the foreground are very soft. I still like the picture though.
A couple of interesting shadow patterns I bumped into while looking for other things.
During a recent trip to a nearby restaurant (not an Asian restaurant) I noticed a vase with calligraphy on it. I was attracted by the creamy, smooth ceramic of the vase next to the bold black calligraphy strokes.