Tag: CCY

How many roads

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“Leading lines” – #5 in Cee’s challenge which is really a class which so much to learn!

This shot would have probably been better without the pole in the middle but I was trapped behind windows in an airport when I took it.

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The obvious choice, a path, a wall, a vanishing point. This photo was taken at the German national garden show in Brandenburg an der Havel, at the wall encircling the old church district.

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Agriculture tends to thrive on lines.

So thus architecture.

I used the Roker Beach lighthouse before but how could I not?

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Completely different water, and a bridge rather than a pier.  That’s the Moseltalbrücke  which at its highest point is 218m high.

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And finally, a somewhat quirky office building in the town of Heimsberg in North-Rhine Westphalia.

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Cee’s Compose Yourself Photo Challenge: Week #5 Leading Lines

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Next to nothing or very little

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“Simplicity” – void space – for Cee’s Compose Yourself photo challenge.

Hanging in space – literally.  But with safety net.

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Kreuzspinne

Even the head is submerged in void space.

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And just a simple flower.

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Cropped and uncropped:

 

And finally, in my opionion the best shot of the lot.  Coloured and black&white:

 

As much as I like the delicate yellow, I think I prefer the white tulip, though.

Cee’s Compose Yourself Photo Challenge: Week #4 Simplicity

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Plastic, wool, and feathers

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“Always take more than one photo” – the reason being that a little shift in position, a different angle, a different background can change a bad photo to an mediocre one, a mediocre one to a good on.e

There is this farm where you can buy milk directly from the producer and as advertisements they put these plastic cows in front of the barn. It was snowing when I passed them and I snapped a few photos. The first one is awkward because the cow looks in the wrong direction, her head ultimately looking small in comparison to the body.  The roofs peaking over the bank are in the wrong position. In the second picture this is even worse making the photo very cluttered, just as in the third shot where the background just disturbs the figure of the cow in the front.  Getting close and shooting the black and white cow from below shows a portrait, it shows off the cow best but as a drawback the photo looses a lot of information.

The following shots are pretty obvious: the first one is too cluttered and getting close is the answer but I also captured the little wooly sheep from the top thus showing off his face mach better.

Last not least a series of Abigail, the goose.  While all the portraits are showing off different details my favourite is the larger photo because of the angle of the head.

 

Cee’s Compose Yourself Challenge: Week #3 Always Take more than One Photo

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The good, the beard and the ugly

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The next topic was: What all well-composed shots have in common.  So here are few examples of not-so-great and some better photographs.

There is quite a lot wrong with the first shot starting with the direct approach of the goose towards the camera and the funny way the second one stands behind.  In the second shot the white goose shows off her (his?) beautiful neck-line to perfection and the Egyptian goose almost fades in the background.  Almost, I dare say the photograph would have been better with just the white goose.

More geese.  The mistake in the first one is obvious, daddy goose is swimming out of the picture but I managed to capture the family in the next one.

Even better was this one because I went down to their level.

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Enough with the birds – here I was fascinated with the beard of this guy.  In the first photo the half of the face distracts from the beard which looks so much better against the uni-coloured background in any case.

And then there is this foursome. The two shots on top don’t work particularly well.  In the first the two guys are not even looking at the gnarled tree. The second one is not too great either, the lady on the left with the pink jacket is too prominent and distracting from the focus of the picture.  The composition works better in the two shots in the bottom row. Everybody looks at the tree, the purple t-shirt guy is pointing towards it.  And in the last shot, he bends over the tree, his body language expresses interest and therefore inspires interest in the others (and the viewer).

 

Cee’s Compose Yourself Challenge: Week #2 What All Well-Composed Photos have in Common

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The lighthouse on Roker Beach

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I came late to Cee’s Compose Yourself photo challenge.  It’s now into week 20 – but since the topic is “Review and Practice” I am taking the opportunity to start at challenge no. 1 and work myself up (without posting my blog entries on her site).

So, here are ideas for her topic: “How your camera is not like your eye” which is all about composition.

 

I first saw the lighthouse of Roker Beach (Sunderland) from this perspective:

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The friend we were visiting is truly blessed to have this view from her breakfast nook.  The photo was only a quick snapshot to document her bliss.

We were there for a few days and of course, one is always drawn to this landmark. Here are a few shots taken at various times of day resulting in different light effects even though the basic shot remained more or less the same, even though one is from the other side of the beach:

Getting closer in a flat perspective proofed to be boring in this case, mainly because the top of the lighthouse, bar of any life, is kind of boring:

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Getting even closer and picking out details proofed more satisfying:

Or showing off the curved pier:

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The tighter framing in the shot above makes for a better picture than the one below, by the way:

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But there is a sculpture on Roker Beach, a camera aperture in fact, which makes for the ultimate framing of the lighthouse.

C2C shutter
C2C shutter

 

 

 

 

I wasn’t there on 4 September when one can apparently see the sun rising in this camera angle but this was good enough for me:

 

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Cee’s Compose Yourself Challenge: Week #1 How Your Camera is Not Like Your Eye

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