I love how we are learning to see light differently; the way it mottles the ground as the sun streams through the leaves, the texture it adds, or takes away, from a surface, the shadows created as someone walks through your light source. I love the beauty that light brings to the world around us.
It was a great afternoon of class where we were able to go downtown to Browne's Addition and wander and just photograph things as we saw them, trying to focus on a few different things/techniques in our environment: lights, mottling, panning, reflections, shallow depth of field, etc. I love shallow depth of field so I often do have my camera set to a wide open aperture so that I can focus directly on my subject and letting the rest fall off so they can shine.
I tried a few different things for reflections, but didn't have as much success as I thought I would. I tried to capture the clearness of the apartment buildings in Jadyn's sunglasses, but it wasn't nearly as clear as what I though it was to my naked eye. The wine glasses in the restaurant window as we walked past were lovely and you could see some of the building from across the street and a few trees if you look closely enough. I also stood to the side as Shae tried to photograph Sarah from inside the copy shop window as she was reflected back through the window that was close to me. While they aren't the clearest of photographs, it was fun to try and capture these images.
As Elizabeth and I walked along we walked under a chestnut tree. I had never really paid attention to how large the pods for these chestnuts were. They are huge! Elizabeth loves these as they remind her of her childhood and picking them and reaching inside after cracking them open so she could see the fruit of the nuts inside. As she squished it, it started to crack. She reached down, picked it up and began opening it to reveal the goodies inside. Excitement arose as she discovered that not there were three inside, not the more common two! Chestnuts are lovely as they emerge from their pod; all shiny and lovely brown-red in color. Chestnuts are simply beautiful!
It was a great day - one that I am not only grateful for the opportunity to photograph the beauty around me, but to also be able to do that with friends and classmates who can share this beauty from their point of view and to remember it in the form of a photograph.
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| Girl cracking up walnut pods to reveal the three chestnuts inside on October 5, 2017 in downtown Spokane, Browne's Addition, Washington. |
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| Girl cracking up walnut pods to reveal the three chestnuts inside on October 5, 2017 in downtown Spokane, Browne's Addition, Washington. |
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| Girl cracking up walnut pods to reveal the three chestnuts inside on October 5, 2017 in downtown Spokane, Browne's Addition, Washington. |
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