Abigail at sunset is My Final Photo for May 12, 2013
Abigail loves to be photographed but it is always on her terms. Usually when everything is perfect from makeup to shoes.
I’m not sure if today was an exception to her rules or she desperately wanted a new photo.
Either way, I obliged her as the sun settle behind the trees at the end of the cul-de-sac. Backlight, 50mm f1.8 lens, Photoshop, Smart Objects, masked layers, and CLT.
Red wagons with yellow daisy plant – My Final Photo for May 11, 2013
It’s a cold day in May. What to do except go to the garden store to see what people are buying?
They were buying what you would expect from greenhouses filled to overflowing with flowering annuals and perennials, and vegetable plants.
There is really not anything new you can shoot at a garden center with the exception of some new type of plant with a strange, genetically varied blossom. Hoover Gardens is one of the places I haunt, visiting often during the year to see what may be different.
Searching for the perfect plant
Today was no different so I decided to do a still-life using three of the stored red wagons and one of the yellow daisy plants instead of continuing to watch for someone sorting their way through pink, purple, yellow, white, and variegated varieties of spring plants.
If this were a standard news feature assignment any photo I shot of shoppers would have been publishable. It’s difficult to shoot a bad photo with so many repeating patterns, colors, design shapes, and people available. Setting up a still-life as I planned would have stepped out of the bounds of photojournalism and not be permitted. I wasn’t on assignment but shooting for a personal journal and possible;e stock sales.
The composition began with a great deal of luck. There were three unused wagons sitting next to each other in the open shade on the northern side of the outdoor shelter.
I chose a single plant with the tallest and most prominent flower placing it just off center in the center wagon.
Shot with the 70-200mm lens with a narrow depth of field. Shot a variety of focal lengths sometimes tight on the plant with others frames wide enough to include more of the background.
My final edit is a horizontal frame that cropped out the distracting background. It also leaves space around the slightly off-center plant for headline or story type that might be necessary.
You can see the variations and other photos at The Gardiner Collection.
Leaping out of the rain – My Final Photo for May 10, 2013
Earlier this week I got caught in a thunderstorm while I was on Main Street in Uptown. It happened again today as I stood in the doorway of Cluckers to protect myself from a swirling deluge of rain so severe there was no safety under any awning.
I thought about making a run for State Street which usually had more shoppers and increased my chances of someone dashing to their car because they needed to get somewhere rather than stay dry. I stayed where I was as I only carried the D5000 which is not sealed against the weather.
There were two people who braved the rain. The man above, caught at the “decisive moment” on his tiptoe leaping across the rain-filled gutter onto the sidewalk, was eager to meet friends for chicken wings and liquid refreshment. Given the same choice I’d run through heavy rain, lightning, and rain-filled gutters. Wise decision. Very decisive.
Dashing to the car in the middle of a thunderstorm – My Final Photo for May 10, 2013
The other was a woman running to her car at the rear of The Old Bag of Nails. She couldn’t use the back door. It was closed because the restaurant’s outdoor grease trap had overflowed spreading the foul smelling viscous liquid into the lot, across the sidewalk and into the street.
She had not only to navigate a longer run to her car, she was forced to run into the street to avoid the thick layer of used cooking grease that blocked her path.
Then I wished I had a longer lens. My decision to carry only the D5000 with the kit lens was not a “decisive moment” for me although I liked the photos I got with it.
Honeycomb at the Cooper Road Farm – My Final Photo for May 9, 2013
There were many choices for today’s My Final Photo. From abortion protests and free hugs at Otterbein to new spring growth of an ever expanding carpet of poison ivy. Out of it all I chose the simplicity of a piece of honeycomb left for natural recycling at the hives at the Cooper Road farm.
Bee hives at Cooper Road Farm
Hay bales and barn at Cooper Road Farm
Baby crying in stroller at farmers market – My Final Photo for May 8, 2013
Wednesday beginning in spring means the Uptown Westerville Farmers Market where I spend several hours each week talking with farmers and their customers. Usually I come away with photos of the latest crops or someone inspecting fruits and vegetables or carrying their selections to their cars.
Today was different from the summer when I photographed the hands of farmers with their produce.
I heard the low volume cries of a baby in the stroller next to me at the last booth in the market. It was a cry just loud enough to be heard but not of such a volume that the baby sounded in distress.
The lower section of the stroller held an older child who was too involved eating the recently purchased cookie to care about her sibling crying just over her head in the second compartment. I couldn’t see the crier because the sun shield was folded over her.
Her mom, taking a break from deciding which breads to buy, folded down the shield to make sure everything was OK. It was, except the baby began to cry louder once she saw mom. Mom, recognizing the increased volume and intensity as a feined attempt at physical distress, went back to her shopping.
The tears, the expression, and her reaction when the baby saw mom intrigued me.
I got two frames before the oldest child, a sister holding a cookie and standing beside the stroller looked at me like the grenade boy by Diane Arbus, reached over and closed the shield. She then looked at me, tilted her as if to say “Go away! This is my sister and you’re not going to be taking pictures of her crying!”
She turned and walked away shoulders held high and the cookie slowly moving toward her grinning mouth.
The photo is ordinary but the story elevates it to My Final Photo for May 8, 2013.