Hello and thank you for calling in...

My name is Helen and I am a Photographer living in England. I started this Blog on the day that my Grandma died, three months after my Father died and several weeks before a third funeral. Initially it was a very personal way to stay connected to the people I'd lost and it helped, it really did. But writing and taking pictures everyday has opened back up a creative side that I had lost during the everyday. A big thank you to my followers, to those who take the time to comment and to new visitors, I hope we will become Blog friends too...

Monday 7 November 2011

colours and lines

Running with last weeks posts about colour, black & white photography and the colour purple I clicked over for my daily fix of Kats blog and had a 'moment' when I saw her photograph 'Under the Bridge' This picture incorporates my colours and I could look at that picture for hours, it calms my soul. These are the colours I paint my figurative paintings in and I have clothes with patterns in these colours, so looking at this picture is heaven to me.
But it is a little more than that, the subject is 'me' too. There is Architecture, water, my new favourite decay and lines! How thrilling are lines in a photograph, sending your eyes backwards and forwards, around the picture and back to the beginning again. I have hundreds of pictures with 'lines' running through them and this links nicely with Kat's current
Exploring with a Camera theme of Opposing Lines.
'Red Leicester'

Red Leicester has so many lines that when I first saw the picture I had taken, it felt a little overwhelming. When taking it I was drawn to the colours I saw through the lens. The red made a striking foreground against the brown wood and the pale blues of the sky through the windows. The architectural elements were a secondary consideration even though I had gone to Leicester to capture architecture and pattern but all the opposing lines in the picture take your eye off in different directions and somehow it works.



So as with Kat's picture, take the colour away and I would still love it, which is what we have been trying to achieve in black & white photography, although it was the colour that I connected with first in both pictures.
I find this subject fascinating, that you can look at an image and LOVE it, its that subconscious 'knowing' that this picture is just perfect for you. Its when you begin to break down the reasons why you like it that it becomes really interesting and I listen intently to visitors to the Gallery, when after looking around at the many images on the walls they stop in front of one picture and are transfixed. Many times the first comment is "This picture is me" and then, usually when a puzzled friend asks why, they begin to break it down into "I love the colour" or "I love to look at boats" or "I love the pattern". Often people will come in looking for a picture that matches their living room and they leave with something totally the opposite. They come in with a practical head and they leave following their heart.
As I've mentioned before, as an artist you are aware that by painting onto white canvas you are baring your soul to the world with your creation. You are choosing the subject, the colours, the composition and presenting it for admiration and often criticism. Its a scary thing to do sometimes.

I wondered if the same where true of photography, do our pictures have our stamp on them in the same way, could you look at a photograph and say oh yes thats so and so's work. These ponderings inspired the 'Me Reflected Photography Share'
I had been looking for a picture in my portfolio that holds all the elements of the 'me inside' to put in the share and I hadn't found one. Kat's picture would be very close and I wondered why in all my time as a photographer I had never strived to take my perfect photograph and had never analysed what elements I would need in that picture. I have some pictures that I'm very proud of, as I'm sure every photographer does but they have all been reactive photography, something catches your eye and you take the shot. Its not so easy to manipulate nature or buildings into your perfect composition and if you do, it then begins to feel too contrived. Enter the whole debate about photoshoping and if you take out or add parts to an image is it cheating? ....... this is where my head begins to hurt and I realise I'm rambling way off track again and I still haven't loaded the dishwasher......

11 comments:

  1. Helen, what a marvelous post! I so enjoyed reading your ponderings and seeing these beautiful photographs along the way. I think you would love the Find Your Eye journey - we ask and answer so many of these questions along the way! You are in your photographs, you just may not have recognized it yet. Thank you so much for your participation on my blog and with Exploring with a Camera. I'm enjoying getting to know you. And I LOVE your idea for a Kat Eye photowalk! You may see something on that SOON. :)

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  2. thank you Kat! I will certainly check out Find Your Eye. Love your blog and if you need any help with the photowalk, you know where I am!

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  3. Just letting you know! I linked to this post as an example of curves as opposing lines today: http://kateyestudio.com/2011/11/curving-around-opposing-lines.html.

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  4. I love this beautiful composition, fantastic.

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  5. What a thought provoking post. There's a lot of information here and some really stellar photos as well! It's hard to pick a fave so I'm glad I don't have to - I can just enjoy each of them.

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  6. Thank you so much Kat for the Link!

    And thank you for your lovely comments Leovi and Terrie, it really is an interesting topic! :o)

    Helen

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  7. These photos are gorgeous and striking! I'm so rubbish at photography but love looking at other people's photos :) I think photoshop is an awesome tool but it does open up a lot of debate on how much is too much, though if I like a picture then it doesn't really matter to me how much it's been photoshopped...now I'm rambling!

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  8. Oh my! These are very striking! So clean with such strong lines!

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  9. These are all such stunning photos.

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  10. Thank you all!! Sorry for the delay in replying but it has been my Birthday Weekend and I've been thoroughly spoiled with parties and visitors!

    'Yeti' you know your so right, when I think of some of my favourite images by other photographers, I've never questioned whether they have been photoshoped or not.

    Thank you 'Cedar' it was the most amazing light that morning,I can't take any credit! I haven't done any editing other than cropping.

    Thank you 'got my camera' The blues really 'ping' out at you don't they!

    Helen

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  11. Gorgeous images, love all the opposing lines. It was fun to read your thoughts too.

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