You are what you eat

Subconsciously it seems that the sort of photographs you look at seep into your brain and influence the ones you take. That's how I've been feeling of late. Overcast, boring landscapes (rural and urban) in a 5x4 format because if been looking at photographs like that shot on large format cameras. Even with the sun shining this morning I found myself making some more.

I also made a few, like the two below, that would probably have the Flickratti praising the composition, bokeh, and other such nonsense. Note the careful use of the rule of thirds and exaggerated perspective. Sure signs of a stunning capture... Yawn.

There wasn't much going on at the beach. Just a couple of people picking coal who packed up and left before I could get to them. The chap below has a specially modified electric cycle to carry his gleanings back to the camper van. This is typical of my  beach photos. Lots of sand and sky with a relatively small subject. Partly this is inevitable, the sand and sky at any rate, partly it's the way I instinctively frame my shots.

There is a big problem in making photographs on the beach. The horizon. It's all too easy to have everyone's head smack bang on the horizon line. Pictures work much better if the horizon falls a little lower, or (if it can be managed) higher. If my knees worked like they used to it would be easy to crouch a little and drop the horizon. As it is I have just two height settings these days; standing and kneeling... I guess I could take to dragging a small step ladder along with me!!

Back on the computer I decided to ask Google how to order photographs in a Lightroom gallery. It's easy when you know how. So this time the sequence makes some sense. Aside from the large format influence (two of the four were cropped at the taking stage) I notice some of my usual preoccupations in the set of ten pictures. Street furniture and road markings, formal arrangements of shapes in a flattened space, and empty places. Out of the ten I think three are quite good, and one might be a bit better. I can imagine one being liked by other people. I mean, you can't go wrong if a picture has a cat in it! Of course it wasn't the cat which drew me to make the picture, it was the semi-derelict wall. Then I spotted puss looking at me, and framed accordingly.


Larger

I think it's time I sat down and made a serious attempt at cataloguing my pictures. Then maybe I could collect together those which share themes and see if they make any sort of sense as groups. Trouble is, organisation isn't my strong point.

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