It’s a quiet morning in my brain today. Not so much to say. Rather than repeat myself with words, I’ll just share an image with some repetition from the Brick Lane photowalk I did as part of the Hampstead workshop last month. I can’t believe my England trip was a month ago already!
Also, today is the last day to link into this month’s Photo-Heart Connection. Don’t miss it! Have a great Wednesday.
Oh, how heavenly it was, to be back in the land of scooters! I didn’t spot any scooters in my excursions around Yorkshire, but London had a nice selection of scooters to photograph. I’ve come to realize that my little scooter photography obsession is as much about place as it is about scooters. Usually when I’m capturing a scooter sighting, I try to find out if I can find an interesting composition that tells you about the place the scooter was parked, through the context I choose to include. Interesting scooters and interesting places, a perfect combination!
When I have a scooter sighting, it’s the perfect opportunity to use the Process of Elimination, which we’re studying this month in Exploring with a Camera. This wonderful scooter was spotted on the Hampstead workshop photowalk, just off Brick Lane. I thought it might be interesting to share my Process of Elimination for this image. All of the images shared are straight out of the camera except for the final edit.
The first sighting was from walking down the sidewalk behind the scooter. It’s an interesting scooter, not your usually cute one, but I thought the chairs would be great to include. It wasn’t a busy street (thankfully) so I stepped out across/into the street to explore the scene. The first shot I tried was vertical, going with the lines of the scooter.
The vertical orientation doesn’t include enough of the chairs, which really add interest to the scene. The background becomes more of a distraction with this framing, with bits and pieces of too many things. So, the next step was to try horizontal.
Better! Got the chairs, the interesting window with the reflections, the graffiti. But the scooter is too high in the frame. The foreground of the road is doing nothing for this image. I want more of the interesting background. As I framed up the next image, this guy walked buy. Quick, catch him in a good spot!
OK, I like where he is in the frame but this image is not really what I was looking for in the scooter sighting. He’s a distraction. So I capture essentially the same frame without the guy.
You will note that I included the car on the right in the frame. That was intentional. I had the framing mostly the way I wanted it, but including a little extra would give me the most to work with later for cropping since I didn’t have time to work the scene further. I needed to move on, as the rest of the participants in the class had moved way up the street and I was lucky I hadn’t been run over by a car by this time.
Into Lightroom for crop and edit when I got back home, and here’s the final image again:
An interesting scooter in an interesting place — I couldn’t ask for more in a scooter sighting! I’m going into scooter withdrawal now that I’m home. The only one I see is in my garage, and believe me, that’s not a place you want to see! If you sight a scooter, please share it with me on Instagram or Twitter using #scootersighting. I need to get my fix one way or another. 🙂
Have you been thinking about the Process of Elimination this last week? How has the idea of eliminating what is not essential to your message affected your capture or edit of images? Please share with us! You can link your exploration into the comments on the original post here. There are a couple of folks already linked in, so be sure to visit to see what they’ve found. And how do you like the process of linking into the comments? Would you rather have a linky? Let me know! I’m on the fence myself. I kind of miss the linky.
PS – I’m off to the Vancouver Gathering with David duChemin this weekend. Yay! I’ll be away from the blog for a few days, but I’ll tell you all about it next week!
The forecast was bleak. Just the day before the Hampstead run of my A Sense of Place Workshop, it showed rain, rain, rain. Everyone was supposed to be prepared for the weather, but I knew a lot of rain would cut our afternoon photowalk short. So imagine the delightful surprise, waking up to a day of blue sky and sun!
Saturday 8th October proved to be a great day for a photowalk. With the same format as the Hebden Bridge workshop, on this day four participants gathered at The Oak Studio in Hampstead for the morning classroom portion session and then a photowalk in the afternoon.
It was a great morning, getting to know everyone as we talked Photography of Place. We discussed our personal philosophies and approach on photography, and how that figured into our individual sense of place. We looked at whether we tend toward capturing the big picture, landscapes and cityscapes, or the little details. We talked about creating images that convey our experience of a place.
And then we went out to practice! Our walk began as we took the underground from Hampstead to Brick Lane, although we spent more time chatting with each other than photographing on this part of the journey.
Using the converging lines on the tube station to capture a fun portrait of Fiona
We arrived at Brick Lane with cameras in hand and blue skies above. What a lively place! It was a fantastic opportunity to capture everything from grungy urban texture to vibrant graffiti to vintage looks. It was amazing the different views and details we could choose from in the walk through these few streets. What we all see and choose to photograph is so different! The variety is evident in the images from the participants:
Photo by Kat
During the walk we chatted and mingled as we photographed. It’s always fun to be with other photographers, because you understand each other. You aren’t hurried along, and you don’t get weird looks from each other about what you choose to photograph.
Elissa and I, enjoying a joint self-portrait
Being in a group photographers can embolden you, and help you photograph in situations you normally don’t. One thing I heard both at the workshop and when I went on photowalks with other friends during this trip was how brave I was, taking pictures of anything. Me? Brave? I don’t see myself that way. But the comments made me realize I have become more comfortable just capturing things that interest me, regardless of who is around. If I can help others feel more empowered to capture what they want to capture, then hey, I guess I’ve done my job as an instructor.
We wandered our way to a fence of love locks, where Justine left us for the day. Unfortunately I thought of getting the group photo just after she left, so this isn’t quite the full class group.
The participants: Fiona, Elissa, Barbara, Becs and Justine (not pictured)
I can’t tell you how fabulous it was to meet these lovely photographers in person. Since they all had been in my online classes at one time or another, we’ve interacted before, but it was a great way to get to know each other in a new way. To hear about their lives beyond the computer, along with our shared interest in photography. I hope that the connections made on this day continue well into the future.
I’ve always believed that taking workshops is a fantastic way to get us out of our regular patterns, and to learn something new that can help us continue our growth as artists. I take the approach that if I get even one new idea from a workshop that I can put into practice, it was time well spent.
Becs checking out a different perspective.
What I’ve known for a while is that teaching workshops ratchets it up a notch from there. It can be daunting and scary to put yourself in place as the teacher, but ultimately, the experience of thinking through the concepts, creating the content and then seeing it put to use by others is immensely satisfying.
What I learned from these workshops: I enjoy it just as much so in person as online. I think I was made for this.
Want to see more images and hear more about the Hampstead workshop? Check out these blog posts from the participants:
A Workshop and A Photowalk by Becs
Photography Down the Lane by Elissa
A Sense of Place by Barbara
a sense of place by Justine
Sense of Place with Kat Sloma from Kat Eye Studio by Fiona
