Photography, like a lot of art, tends to look really polished and wonderful from what actually gets shown; beautiful pictures, very clean and well-made behind the scenes videos, and social media feeds filled with portfolio-worthy shots week after week.
Reality seldom mirrors this. This past week I went out on three separate days for photographs, took over one hundred, and may not have gotten a single photograph that could go into a portfolio. Not to mention rolling my ankle and nearly getting heat exhaustion. I think I want to share some of the better images I’ve caught this week, as well; maybe I’ll make this a recurring section.
I’m lucky enough to be able to work from home 3 days a week, out of a 5 day workweek. While I don’t mind being in the office necessarily, there’s not a need for me to be in there, and it saves on gas if I simply don’t go in. However, I enjoy taking walks down around the office, as it’s located near Old Town Alexandria, VA; an absolutely lovely (if gentrified) place to take pictures. 2- and 3- story townhomes make up the majority of the buildings, with businesses crammed next to residences wherever there’s space. There’s also an abundance of flowering plants in nearly anybody’s yard, which made (and still do make) excellent subjects to practice photography on. Given that I’m often far too shy and nervous to ask people on the street if I can take their picture (and often people seem to be somewhat rude around this area), it’s an ideal situation, and leads to me photographing down at work far more than I do at my house, with its myriad of forest privately owned by people with guns, or walking along a road with no sidewalk and a 40 mile-per-hour speed limit.
Last Monday, on which all three of the above photos were taken, I suppose I just didn’t find anything that captured my attention. I already felt somewhat out of it, but I wanted to push forward and try to find some interesting photos anyway; you need to get out there to find things, regardless of how you’re feeling, and I’ve certainly found photos before that turn my mood around. I may edit the photo of the white flower some and see how I feel about it. After thinking on it for a while, I found myself considering that my issue may have been that I didn’t “push” myself with these photos. I took my usual route around the office, I used my usual settings, and I didn’t try to make any odd shots or use new techniques. Overall, I may have not gotten anything interesting because I didn’t do anything to help me focus on my photography.
With that thought in mind, Thursday I decided to try something different. I couldn’t really change my usual office route, as I only have a half hour or so to meander before I need to get back to work, but I used entirely different settings than I typically did. For anybody who isn’t aware, Fujifilm X series cameras (I own a Fujifilm X-T4) have a number of color grades and other settings known as film simulations that are meant to simulate how film stocks capture light and color; they’re not 100% accurate to film photography, given how differently digital and film handle light, but they’re reasonably accurate, and can provide a very different look and feel to images with little to no extra editing. All of the photos in this post are taken straight out of camera, with no editing applied, and the film simulations can be seen. This is absolutely invaluable with helping visualize what sort of edits I may want to apply to a photo later, as I can just change the film simulation preset that I have on in order to see how it would look. All of the photos in this article are straight out of camera.
I seldom shoot in black and white, but Thursday was perfect for it. The day was almost cloudless, with harsh sunlight beating down from overhead. I’ve found black and white photography can embrace greater contrast than color without losing information, so it can handle the harsh spots of sunlight in an image much better than vibrant color photography could. And I actually got a number of photos I was pretty happy with.
It takes a bit of a different mindset to shoot in black and white, as our brains tend to think in color since we see in color. Especially trying to photograph flowers in black and white feels difficult to me, as I tend to view that pop of color as the interesting bit. But when you take away color, you’re left with just the light and shadows playing off of each other. You can see the fibers and folds that make up the flower petals or the harsh shadows on the topiary tree, for instance. Texture, form, and shape really come into their own, and it’s kinda fascinating. I’ve been saying I need to shoot in black and white more often and I think these photos prove my point, especially since I’m so often shooting during midday sun.
Once I left work, I felt rather inspired, and realized I had some extra free time that afternoon before I had to be home. I looked for another park to walk through, somewhere I hadn’t been before, and ended up taking a stroll through Theodore Roosevelt Island, right in the middle of the Potomac River. I turned the color back on and ended up rather pleased with the images I got, using some of the preset film simulations I keep on hand to make good use of the sunlight making sharp shadows. Walking into the clearing where the monument was struck me in a particular way, as I’d been watching 2001: A Space Odyessy the night before and the opening scenes with the stone monument were fresh in my mind. I felt rather happy about the day’s efforts before rolled my ankle not paying attention to the steps I was going down, then got on the highway and got stuck in rush hour D.C. traffic.
Finally, Sunday I took my brother out hiking at Harpers Ferry. Neither of us are in particularly good shape, it was far too hot, and we ran out of water before we even got started on the trail, as we walked the 45 minutes from the Visitor’s Center into the lower town. We ended up turning back before we even really got going and rested for a while before heading home. I didn’t get any good pictures, but I did get to play with shutter speed some while my brother tossed rocks into the Shenandoah River for me. Maybe we’ll head back up when the weather cools off some and we can actually stand to hike for a while.
I find it interesting that most of the photos I’m proud of from a week-long period came from a single day. Maybe it was a difference of mindset, maybe I remembered to drink water and take care of myself better that day, maybe it’s that massive combination of unknowable factors that affect us that we call luck or happenstance. I feel like the focus I had on black and white photography and stark, contrast-y shots helped a lot with narrowing down the things I was looking for, as well, but I worry that focusing too much on a single type of shot will make me miss other shots that could resonate with me. I suppose these are thoughts to sit and think about later, though; for the moment, I’m fairly happy with these, and maybe one or two might make it to my portfolio.
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