While at Alt Summit, I signed up for the "Photo Walk" with Tracey Clark around Salt Lake City. No idea what to expect although the blurb mentioned something about composition, so I thought I could definitely benefit since I seem to suffer from "too much close up and not enough context" disease lately. Tracey is best known as one of the founders of Shutter Sisters, an online community of women's photographers, and for thier book Expressive Photography (a candidate for the photography book club? what do you think?)
We started out with of a bit of a chat - and I say chat intentionally. This wasn't a formal photography lesson, but rather a conversation with Tracey about some of her core principles, and then it was a very much get out there and practice kind of thing...and to get out there and practice, that meant facing the cold and rain.
I'm going to do this post in two parts - one this week and one next - for this week, I wanted to focus on the excercise Tracey had us do, which was to draw a word from a hat, and then incorporate it into our photography that day. Mine was "sparkle". "Sparkle". Um...if I had had that word the day prior where you couldn't walk two steps without a stream of sequins and glitter during the conference, that would have been a cake walk. But outside in the rain, on a crazy gray day in Utah, it wasn't exactly sparkle central. But it forced me to get creative and out of my comfort zone. Because of the gray around us, I ended up doing a lot in black and white. Since traditional sparkle wasn't about, I looked for reflections since that kind of sparkles (right??), and things that echo sparkly things - for example, something that echoes the shape of fireworks or something to that effect.
I'm not Tracey, but here are my results - check in next week for the color set of photos and the principles! Also, Leslie from Lights and Letters, who joined us also has a great recap - anyone else that I missed?
All Photos by The New Diplomats Wife.
Great shots! I am such a sucker for black and white photography. I love how it can make even the rim of a garbage can appear beautiful. A talented photographer doesn't hurt either.
ReplyDeleteThese are beautiful photographs. I think you did an excellent job with your word "sparkle".
ReplyDeletenicely done!!! awesome pictures, the lighting gives such a cool effect, love it
ReplyDeleteWow! these do sparkle for sure!! The b/w really features the beauty of the water so well! well done my friend. : )
ReplyDeleteHow beautiful!!! Love your pictures!
ReplyDeleteLovely tones and compositions! Well done!
ReplyDeleteThese photos turned out great! Too bad the weather wasn't better.
ReplyDeleteLove these! Do you shoot in color and then convert them later? The processing is wonderful, high contrast and deep blacks. It's so cool how two people can shoot the same thing so differently. I love your point of view.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful! My favorites are the ones with the umbrellas.
ReplyDeleteLeslie, on your question about how I do b/w. Yes, I shoot color in camera and then edit in lightroom. The standard "recipe" is the one I learned from Me Ra Koh - take saturation bar to zero, up the blacks a bit and add contract (after you've corrected for any exposure). With a few of these I tooled around a bit with the "classifieds" preset from ClickIn Moms Papparazzi set but I don't use presets often since they usually give me too much of the effect I was after. Let me know if you have more questions!
ReplyDeletethanks again everyone for all of your kind words on these!
There's nothing quite like black and white if I do say so myself! I'm from Salt Lake and it's great to see how you captured it, beautiful!
ReplyDeleteAllyssa
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