Finding inspiring stories and drawing on experience.

Today is world photography day, a day to celebrate this wonderful art form that was born 174 years ago by Joseph Niepce.  Though many had been working with the medium it was Niepce whose first permanent image from his window that started the ball rolling.  So many developments have been made since and it is easy to say that with the number of images created every day that this may have been one of the pivot-able moments in mans history.  With so many photo's being created by so many wonderful people it is sometimes hard to keep it in perspective.  That is why it is nice when one discovers someone who we can consider an inspiration, using photography in a way that reminds us of the value of it.  That it is truly a medium for all people.

I learned of one such person the other day through the photo-social site Pheed.  A young lady who goes by the name 4ftPhotoz.  She has an incredible story but rather then share it here I would invite you to search her name on Facebook and read it in her own words in her biography.  You can also find her posts on Instagram and her own site http://www.4ftphotoz.net  A remarkable person using photography as a way to express and find themselves in the world.

Besides being inspired I turned a little to my 40 years of experience in photography when I created my photo of the day for August 18. 

I was working in the back yard and looking for something interesting to make as the subject for Sunday's image.  As I was moving around some old barn board I noticed this old, rusty hook and liked the way it looked against the grain of the wood. I photographed it dry at first but it was very flat.  Then I remembered an old trick we use to do in landscape photography when there was a pond with rocks in our scene.  I use to splash water on to the rocks to darken them and help with the contrast range.  When I splashed water on the wood and hook it brought the wood to a darker tome and added the beautiful highlights (coming from the open sky above) along the hook.  I did adjust the white balance in camera to around 8000K to help add warmth as the blue sky made the overall scene cool at daylight.

August 19  Wanting to try something a little different and trying to be creative I decided that I wanted to work with a shadow.  Looking around for an interesting subject I found this silver pepper grinder on our shelf and I figured the shape would create an interesting shadow.  Using the reflector only on the Alien Bee I moved the light back far enough to achieve the shadow I was looking for.  I added a white card to add a little more separation and angled my 7D.  I gave it some extra room as I knew I would be bringing the file into the iPhone for post processing with Snapseed.  I wanted this sepia feel I knew I would get with the grunge filter in trying to mimic an old 30's style look.

I also took a quick close up shot of this cantaloupe flower blooming in our front window.  Using the 20 mm extension tube on the 24-70 allowed me to get in close.  I cropped in photoshop and used Photo Suite 7 to add the frame.