The Act of Seeing

Do you Experience what you are looking at?  Sometimes things we look at appear and disappear because we don’t really see them.  Maybe it is because we don’t take the time to examine or appreciate what we are looking at.

Photography or the art of photography requires a certain amount of sensitivity to your surroundings.  There is a marvel at what appears to be the ordinary.  Seeing is the ability to look at a scene or object and appreciate its form, shape and the patterns.

In my backyard there are several of those plastic lawn chairs, which for one reason or another never get used.  I observe them every day on sunny days, overcast days from dawn to dusk.  On windy days they are blown from one side to another.  And after several years of looking at them I decided to photograph them at various periods during the times of day, stormy weather and how they appear under different lighting periods.  So while this blog is about seeing and the photographing of a somewhat ordinary subject...it is also a study of light and how light can change the appearance and mood of a seemingly ordinary subject.

All images were shot using a Sony A7II and Sony Nex-7 cameras.  I can be contacted at nymacc@gmail.com for comments or questions.  As a photographer I have a willingness to loose myself in what is before me. This process is part mechanical and part creative.

Creative Still Life

Still life photography is a simple method of helping you to improve your creative eye. Still life images have a appealing feature, whether it is the shape, color or presentation that makes them stand out.  They present a way of testing you as an artist in presenting ordinary things you might find in your environment in an interesting and possibly new style of looking at the object.  I have always found it a challenge to present one item and contrast with another in the same image, such as opposite shapes.   All of the images presented here are shot using very simple setups and window light.

All of the images above were shot with a Sony 7AII camera…the image below (with Nikon in its place) shows a basic still life set up used with window light and reflector to open up shadows.  I can be contacted at nymacc@gmail.com