Strong winds blow change, hopefully

The wind is so strong this morning it blew my daughter’s plastic playground off the deck. Her green collapsible tube is now lying in the day lilies. It’s hard to believe all of this greenery grew so quickly; three weeks ago my pictures were still quite brown.

I’ve been doing a lot of family photo editing over the last few days. Working with pictures of people feels a lot different than my portraits of fire hydrants and lampposts.

I’ve taking a fairly common “lifestyle” approach to my family photography: wide apertures, VSCO nostalgic “film” presets, etc. I haven’t thought much yet about what I would like to say about my family through photography. But a picture like this one of my daughter hugging her cousin has me interested in telling these stories, too. I wish I had more time to take pictures at our get-togethers. Mostly, I’m busy making sure my toddler isn’t about to hurt herself.

I often feel two sided in my personal photography: there’s my pictures for artwork and my pictures of family. I would like to reconcile the disparity but I don’t know how. Or better yet: I would like to create “lifestyle” photography that is a self-expression – art – and can move away from cliché.

What Did the Drainpipe Say to the Creeping Phlox?

I took two photographs of this rock garden: one from across the street and this one, both at 70mm. The homeowner waved to me from her front door, visibly happy I was stopping to take pictures of her garden. I didn’t tell her I was more interested in the white PVC downspout poking its way out of her retaining wall than the spring bulbs. The flowers alone are pretty… dull. The flowers and the pipe make a story.

These Wise Men

I’ve been collecting pictures of Christmas ornaments taken over the last couple of months. I’d like to make an edition of holiday cards to sell on Etsy. I wonder: were these Magi forgotten? Or were they kept out of love? Who needs a holiday “season” after all to display one’s favourite treasures?

This Creeps Me Out

I took my flash out again today to continue exploring how to use it to make art.

The pictures I’m taking look like double exposures. Instead of exposing two different scenes in the same image, however, I’m combining the feeling of two different times of day: dark and light.

When I saw this picture in my viewfinder, I got creeped out, like someone had snuck up behind me and was breathing on my neck. What I see is darkness made visible. I’m casting light on things I don’t want to see.