I missed posting last week because I was preoccupied with some upcoming events and, frankly, just wasn’t terribly inspired. That’s one of the reasons I belong to TPE (The Photographic Eye). For one thing I know from the experience of others in the group that sometimes you’re just not feeling it. Different people handle it different ways, some better than others. Skipping last week didn’t feel great, and reinforced the general concept that I want to post once a week here as part of my mechanisms for continuing to work on my photography even if I’m not inspired.

Another reason I belong to TPE is that if I can’t find the inspiration myself I can use the TPE classes, posts, and other resources to help me find something to work on. This week Alex has given an assignment on lines and shapes. Specifically, five shots emphasizing line and five emphasizing shape. The lines are to include one horizontal or vertical, one oblique, and one curvy. The shapes are to include at least two silhouettes and are to clearly be about the shape.

I took a walk through part of the neighborhood yesterday to work on this assignment. The weather was uncharacteristically uncooperative. I got rained on briefly which, if you know Santa Fe, you realize was a shock. I’d like the say the light was crap, but I know better — the light is the light, work with it. I will say that the light was particularly challenging for silhouettes. I’ll be continuing to work on this assignment — you may see it again next week — but here’s the progress so far.

Horizontal and Vertical

This is the gate to the dog trot between our garage and our front door. I wanted the background to disappear, which meant I could not kneel to make the lines more perfectly vertical. If Alex takes a look at this I’ll be curious to hear his comments. Theory says that horizontal and/or vertical lines convey stability, maybe safety and comfort. This definitely feels stable to me.

First try at oblique lines

Our neighborhood is dominated by nature. And if it’s not nature, it’s rectangular faces of adobe houses, long lines of vertical fencing, and mostly straight dirt roads. The slanty yellow house was the initial attraction, but it doesn’t carry the idea well enough on its own. The wires offer some hope, but there’s too much going on here for the lines to dominate. If I try to give the yellow house more space I have to bring in a very orthogonal adobe house on the right. More space below brings in horizontal wires. More to the left brings in a vertical power pole. It was a nice idea but I think it’s not going to work.

Theory says that oblique lines are energetic, possibly disturbing. I think there’s some of that here. I certainly feel my eye led to swoop off up and right, and I feel like it manages to include the house in the idea of things being launched off the image.

Oblique maybe, wonky definitely

I don’t know if this satisfies the spirit of the assignment, but I like the juxtaposition of “mansion” and out of kilter. Did I exaggerate the slant? Maybe, but you can’t prove it. And I promise you, the sign is not vertical in reality.

Calming mountain curves?

Yesterday (and today) a solid bright blue sky is not available. I think that’s going to convey the concept better, but here’s what we have for now. The exposure was challenging because darkening it started to give the clouds too much texture. As they are here they can participate in the “gentle curve” idea to at least some degree. Of course the main gentle curve is the mountain ridges. If I go much lower, you start to see houses.

I’m looking forward to trying this on one of our normal sunny days.

Is this even lines?

I don’t know what to say about this, and I hope to report on what Alex has to say. It gives me the feeling of mostly vertical, with some horizontal support, but energy from the jaggedness. If I owned this driveway, I ‘d be getting the negative energy of impending repair, but I don’t.

Shape

Of course I’d have preferred to square this up, but doing so brings in a whole bunch of background noise from the side garden. In fact this is about the only angle that doesn’t bring in noise of some kind — the garden, a house window, ….

Shape? Color? Subject?

I could have made this black and white, but I don’t like it as well. Maybe it’s not for this assignment. I like the color contrast. I like the fact tht the mailbox is embedded in the wall, but maybe that makes it too unusual a shape to be about shape. I claim you’d know it as a mailbox if I put it out of focus to remove detail, at least here in the US. Maybe I should do that.

Again, shape?

Honestly, I don’t think this is about shape now that I sit and look at it. It’s certainly a recognizable shape, but it’s not a simple one. I don’t know. I really have to think about this and probably watch Alex’s prompt again.

I expected to make this B/W but the background is wrong. I need the yellow to distinguish it more from the background.

And in conclusion …

I hope you’re entertained by some of these photos and maybe some of the comments. For me it’s already been a good exercise because it’s got me thinking and excited to try some variations. It’s also got me thinking about which photos feel natural or right (whatever that means) and which are forced. Doing an assignment for the sake of the assignment certainly isn’t exciting. But Alex doesn’t give assignments for the sake of the assignment. It’s all about learning to see, understanding basic elements that contribute to, or detract from, an overall image. This particular assignment is more about recognizing the basic elements. Getting this far has made me understand that it’s not as simple as it sounded at first. Yeah, I’m afraid you are almost certainly going to be stuck with this same topic next week.

Lines and Shapes