Thursday 26 September 2013

Photoblitz!

Now for some reason, the idea of a photoblitz triggers the song "Ballroom Blitz" in my mind. Don't ask me why, it may be just the word blitz is common to both.

So I did my photo blitz at home over the lunch hour. My camera is at home, the strongest shadows occur at midday and my dog Pumpkin is there so I could take a picture of his paw (not that I included it in my list of five photos.) I actually took a series of photos of his tail, sharp and clear and then blurrier and blurrier for the abstract "is this really a photo" idea, but choose not to upload it. Taking the photos was a little stressful as I over think things so a time limit was helpful.

So why did I choose the photos I did? I chose my photo of the sky because it was almost perfectly uniform, something that rarely occurs. I took another one a few minutes later and it had changed again and had purple edges. I chose the photo of my face because it was a happy accident. I just turned the camera around, clicked and voila! It actually is a fairly good photo. I liked that it showed only half my face so that only my eyes are conveying emotion. I would have been better to leave the title blank and let someone else fill in the emotion though, so they could try and guess what was going through my mind at that time. The photo of the plant turned out nicely, with the leaves nice and crisp. And I love my upside down camera shot, another happy accident. Finally, I wanted a strong shadow picture and the chair created a nice contrast, though I wouldn't say it was an interesting shadow.

I think the best photos I took were the ones where I didn't think too much. I have an unfortunate tendency as an artist to overwork my pieces and am still learning to leave paintings alone! Perfectionism can kill a great painting or pot. I think it has to do with not trusting my judgement. Still learning to do that!