I’m musing on shadow bokeh over on Mortal Muses today, so I thought I would share this companion photo of shadows in focus here. Light is such a wonderful thing, don’t you think?
Shadow Focus
Sweet Relief
Isn’t it funny, how you can totally love something, but you can sometimes get too much of it? That’s how I feel about night photos right now. Bring on the sun! I captured this one in my living room last weekend, a nice break. Just a plant and a shadow and the sun. Simple pleasures.
This weekend we’re heading to Oktoberfest in Munich. Should be fun to see this crazy, big, famous festival. Lots of photo opportunities, and a Radler or two. (For those of you who don’t know, a Radler is half beer, half lemonade, and pretty darn good!)
I also wanted to announce that I’m planning a Photowalk in Portland, Oregon when I head back to the US for a business trip next month. Mark your calendars – Sunday October 10th at 10am. Please email me (kat [at] kateyeview.com) if you are interested, and I’ll send you the details on meeting place when they are finalized. Many thanks to Jenny C in Portland for helping me to get this together. Come and join us, rain or shine!
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Exploring with a Camera: Shadow Portraits
Today I thought I would post of fun exploration idea that I’ve played around with a few times. Finding a great “shadow portrait” opportunity like this one requires a few things:
1. Sunshine or a direct light source that throws shadows. OK, obvious. 🙂
2. A wide open enough surface that the shadows are recognizable.
3. Noticing the shadow.
4. Deciding on composition: Angle to capture the shadow to get the “portrait” of your subject, how much of the background to use to “frame” your portrait, etc.
You can do this with any object, it doesn’t have to be people. The thing I like about these shadow portraits of our family is that they are all three of us together (since I don’t turn my camera over to strangers, it’s hard to get a family photo all together) and that they are also of the place we are at. It puts us, in that place, in a unique way.
The first photo was in Riomaggiore, in the Cinque Terre last weekend. The photo below… well, it should be obvious.
Play around this weekend and take some shadow portraits if you have time. Or just notice the shadows around you, that is interesting in itself!
Summer Shadows
This image is about summer. Summer sun and shadows. Summer sports where you are out in the sun. Hot, direct light creating sharp shadows on the ground. Have you ever noticed how shadows change focus? Depending on the light, the subject, the distance to wear the shadow is cast. It’s really cool, I’ve been noticing it more lately.
This image is from the Giro d’Italia in Milan last May.
Patterns
Everywhere there are patterns. In our behaviors, our preferences and in the world around us. This is one thing I’ve always loved about engineering, finding the patterns so that you can solve the problem.
This kind of brickwork is a very common European pattern. I love how the individual squares are used to create these arcs. This image is of Patrick and Brandon’s shadows on a street in Bolzano.
