Thursday Doors: Chartres
Posted on November 26, 2015
There’s more than one way to look at a door, as this image illustrates. This is one of the massive doors of Chartres Cathedral – as seen by a mouse, perhaps.
As a free gift, here’s another door from Chartres, which I used in a recent post on Vertical Lines for Cee’s Compose Yourself Photo Challenge.
Diagonal Lines
Posted on November 25, 2015
The interesting part of this challenge is that many diagonal lines are also leading lines. Since we’ve already ‘done’ leading lines, I’ve tried to come up with some images that are all about the diagonal itself, rather than them being, even incidentally, leading lines too.
I think this is my favourite of this week’s selection:
The mast of a catamaran
And here are a couple of others:
And here are a couple of what Cee described as ‘implied diagonals’:
Finally, my favourite images from earlier contributions to this thread. The first from the Vertical Lines challenge and the one on the right from Leading Lines (which, neatly enough, is also an implied diagonal):
Weekly Photo Challenge: Trio
Posted on November 21, 2015
This photograph was taken at Circular Quay in Sydney, and is a detail from a sculpture depicting a settler family. It’s one of a series that commemorates Australia’s early days.
Aerobatics
Posted on November 20, 2015
There’s a permanent debate among photographers about the acceptability of post-processing. Purists equate any form of editing with cheating, while others argue that there is nothing wrong with getting creative with an ‘as-shot’ image.
I must say that my sympathies are with the latter group. Of course you should try to take the best shot you can in the first place, but whether your post-processing goes no further than a crop and a bit of sharpening, or you go to town and create a virtually new image, it’s the end-product that matters, as with my before-and-after images in my recent post on Vertical Lines.
This image (taken at the nearby Blond Airshow a couple of years ago) has – quite obviously – been doctored. But believe me, whatever merits it may or may not have, it’s a lot more interesting than the original.
Thursday Doors: Navaleuil
Posted on November 19, 2015
My first contribution to the Thursday Doors challenge hosted by Norm 2.0.
This matching door and shutters can be found in the hamlet of Navaleuil, about two kilometres from home here at Tranquility Base. Compared to the smaller doors on the left, it also shows what a difference a lick of paint can make.
Thursday Doors November 19th 2015
Vertical Lines
Posted on November 18, 2015
This week, we try to demonstrate the importance of vertical lines in composition. To begin with, here’s my personal favourite from the selection for this post:
An abacus in the old schoolroom at Montrol-Senard. It wouldn’t be the same shot if the column second from the right wasn’t slightly askew.
A collection of other verticals:
Now, two photographs of the same scene, one in landscape, the other in portrait. Unsurprisingly, the vertical represented by the tyre-tracks is a much stronger element in the portrait version; this makes sense because it’s the tyre-track that’s the real subject, and the trees in the landscape version are just a distraction:
Now, for the vertical line that doesn’t really work in the original, here is a ‘before and after’ from Chartres Cathedral. The vertical is obviously where the door meets the wall, but in the original the thing (whatever it is) halfway down the left side of the image is a distraction and, more importantly, because it’s an open doorway shot from the inside, the exterior has been blown out.
However, cropped to remove the distraction, as well as some of the dead space at the top (which also helps to preserve the original image constraints), and with a bit of tweaking of the tone curve, I think it’s a far superior image:
Weekly Photo Challenge: Victory
Posted on November 14, 2015
Horizontal Lines
Posted on November 14, 2015
I have to saythat I’m completely in agreement with Cee when it comes not only to horizons but also other horizontal lines actually being horizontal; I use the Straighten Tool in Lightroom to correct my own errors – as far as possible.
Oradour-sur-Glane, with the Monts de Blond in the background.
Some other images featuring strong horizontal lines:
Finally, a couple of other images with multiple horizons:
Cee’s Compose Yourself Photo Challenge: Horizontal Lines and Horizon
Patterns in mosaic
Posted on November 14, 2015
This is a detail from an intricately patterned mosaic in the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. Islam discourages, or in some cases completely forbids, the creation of images of humans and all sentient beings. Accordingly, the development of art has focused to a great extent on geometrical patterns.
(You’ll have to believe me when I say that I’d already selected this image before I saw the one featured in Cee’s post)
Weekly Photo Challenge: Ornate
Posted on November 7, 2015
‘Ornate’: made in an intricate shape or decorated with complex patterns.
This is a detail from a stained glass window in St. Mary’s Church in Beverley, Yorkshire that fits the bill for this week’s challenge. The glass itself is complex and decorative, and so is the intricately-shaped stone framework that holds it together.
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