Running... Again?

Image
  If you know me you know there was a time about 10 years ago or so where I was running. A lot. At least 5 days a week and at least 5 miles a run. I wasn’t training, I wasn’t preparing for a race or a marathon. I just found myself enjoying the time spent running. I wasn’t obsessed with numbers, but I kept track of them all and liked seeing improvements in time and distances. It was good physical health and mental health. Then I tweaked my knee. Not bad enough that I couldn’t walk on it, just a tweak that told me I needed to back off of running for a little bit. So I decided on 2 weeks. At the end of 2 weeks I aborted a run very early as the pain was still there. 2 weeks became 3, became a month, became 5 years. 
Post a Comment

A Fountain in Black & White (Photocentric)

When I first started reading up on photography there was a lot of talk about "learning how to see", or "training your eyes" to see like a camera. Our eyes, with the help of our brains, are more superior than the lens and sensors of our cameras, for the most part. And as I learned how to shoot HDR it again required me to train my eyes to take better shots in HDR. Although it is true that any shot (and when I say shot I mean bracket of shots) can be HDR'd, the shots that are planned with HDR in mind usually turn out better.

The same goes for black & white. In the digital age black & white photography, for the most part, starts off as a color photo that is massaged in post processing to become black & white. The b&w option on your camera, or the quick b&w conversion in your photo software usually doesn't make for a dramatic photo. Again, any shot can be black & white, but the shots that were seen as black & white while being planned usually turn out best.

I really like black & white photography. It's beauty is in it's simplicity. But despite how much I may like to look at it, I'm finding it very difficult to shoot for it. I have a hard time visualizing the shot beforehand, and once I get started processing it I'm lost. So when learning something new I thought I'd try to simplify what I was doing. So I went looking through my library looking for simple high contrast shots that would make good candidates for a b&w conversion, and trying to see if what I envisioned at the beginning would be what I'd get in the end.

This shot was simple. The subject is front and center. I originally shot this trying to get a feeling of movement from the water, as opposed to freezing the action. Once I took it into Silver Efex I was comfortable and knew what I wanted to do. The cars in the background, because of their lighter color, needed to be dimmed down. The fountain lights were a little too bright (and might still be too bright) so I dimmed that down as well. I wish I had framed the shot differently so the whole halo around the fountain was visible, but I went about brightening up the parts that were viewable. Then, to finish it up I added a vignette and a border. Overall I'm pleased with how it came out.


Location: Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Pros and (Mostly) Cons of Upgrading to a 4K Monitor

Image
I'm in the process of getting back into photography which will mean a new camera, more on that in a later post. But the first step for me was a new computer, one with the horsepower to handle a modern day camera and its RAW files. Along with the computer comes a new 4K monitor. 4K is great for media consumption, right? Your characters on your favorite show or movie really look detailed and realistic. Scenery looks wonderful. Everything looks great, right? Wrong. You know what doesn't look great? That photo I took in 2012 that I thought was sharp but is very much not. I transferred over my past catalogs of photos over to Lightroom Classic and eagerly began opening up some of my favorite photos. At first I was happy with how the colors looked and how the scene was composed. Then I noticed it was a little soft. Well I had just gotten a new contacts prescription so that must be it. Changed to my glasses and the photos were even blurrier! I went through photo after photo and most ca
Read more

Running... Again?

Image
  If you know me you know there was a time about 10 years ago or so where I was running. A lot. At least 5 days a week and at least 5 miles a run. I wasn’t training, I wasn’t preparing for a race or a marathon. I just found myself enjoying the time spent running. I wasn’t obsessed with numbers, but I kept track of them all and liked seeing improvements in time and distances. It was good physical health and mental health. Then I tweaked my knee. Not bad enough that I couldn’t walk on it, just a tweak that told me I needed to back off of running for a little bit. So I decided on 2 weeks. At the end of 2 weeks I aborted a run very early as the pain was still there. 2 weeks became 3, became a month, became 5 years. 
Read more