Friday, January 18, 2013

Festival Of The Belly Button


Dearest V ... The City Daily Photo Community is running "Festival of The Belly Button" this week. An opportunity for members such as Melbourne Snaps to do a bit of navel gazing and consider how their photography has changed.  Some of my regular visitors may remember the above photograph posted a few weeks ago.  I called it "The White Rabbit" and accompanied it with a quote from Alice in Wonderland, ""I'm late, I'm late for a very important date. No time to say hello, goodbye I'm late, I'm late, I'm late."

The photograph was taken with a shutter speed of 1/2 second in full sunlight creating both blur to convey motion and over exposure to provide the whiteness exaggerating the circular shadows from the overhead light. It spoke to me of rushing and rabbit holes hence the reference to the White Rabbit.  I enjoy the text as well as the image. 

Below is a photograph taken 20 months earlier.  This one was called "Wet in the City Circle" on the Auto camera setting and there was no accompanying text. While it conveys the gloominess of rainy days I now see it as a "flat" image with with little depth. 



I admire those who master their technique using blur, depth of field, colour and composition to best portray their subject. This is my contribution to The Festival of the Belly Button.
Cheers J

13 comments:

  1. The first photo is stunning, but a story is told in the second.

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  2. Spot on, Joe. Thank you so much for participating, and in such a reflective manner. Just what I was after.

    And so many other participant were equally introspective about their craft.

    I agree with you about the second image: it is flat, without an aim. Whereas the opening image is a zinger.

    Plaudits, sir.

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    1. Thanks Julie. It was a great idea for a them. The name you gave it was a great.

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    2. Oops. Predictive text. I meant the name you gave it was a treat.

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  3. I can see from your examples that your photography has progressed though I have seen nothing but amazing photographs since I began following your blog some time ago. Thanks for the introspection.

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  4. I see what you mean Joe, it's a 'white rabbit' kind of day. I loved the first image a few days back, the second tells its own story!
    P.s. i knew you'd come up with a gem of tale, merci beaucoup!

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  5. Rain is often a mixed blessing for photographers. While it can be hard on cameras, it often softens a subject while deepening the color saturation, and can provide great reflections on wet streets and sidewalks. Might control some of the narrower depth of fields with tripods or unipods that allow longer exposures at smaller f-stops. There is always a way around the problems, just think of the opportunities.

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  6. Fantastic impression of speed... amazing technique and creativity Joe!

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  7. Good shots, both of them. While the first image is eye-catching, the detail of the second documents reality better and has its place in photography. Photographs have countless different purposes and your two very different photos illustrate two such purposes. That's my bit of navel gazing!

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