photo-a-day 2 20/20

Here is a little trick I thought of myself.  I wasn't too sure if it would work, but it did the first time I tried it here.  I wouldn't be surprised if someone else may have done this before, but it's all in the wrist.  The gray sky behind the buildings caused the overall composition to look black and white, when in fact it is color.  I'm glad this is was the case as I feel too much color would take away from the overall effect.

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photo-a-day 2 19/20

Another cool thing about Detroit's downtown is this mixture of old and new.  I found this best illustrated here.  I took a good strong under angle to help illustrate the immensity of these structures, but also made sure I captured their interaction in the same swoop.  Luckily there was a monorail line as well to be included in the frame.

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photo-a-day 2 18/20

Detroit has some amazing architecture in the downtown area.  I find this one to be on e of the better buildings I have encountered inside and out.  It reminds me of one of those mega structures that one would find in a scifi novel.  I wanted to illustrate it's symmetry both in the structure itself and the reflections of the outer towers on the center one.  The sky was a nice cloudy one, to offer less interference and for greater concentration on the subject at hand.

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photo-a-day 2 17/20

The added depth of a simplest silhouette was intended to function on a multiple levels.  Power lines always make for great movement in a photo that would be too still if it were just clouds.  They also cut up the frame random sections of smaller frames.  And there is the opposed western movement, with the power lines starting lower in the composition and splitting eye movement into two different directions of up and down.  Viewers who read from left to right tend to view art the same way.

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photo-a-day 2 16/30

Risking getting hit by a car I took this today.  What compelled me to take the shot when traffic was busiest must have been the sun glint off the rails, an ooh shiny moment.  I wish I had a little more time to change the focus a hair up the frame, but for off the hip I like this plenty fine.  I was attempting a great deal of depth and I think the complex subject made it very easy.  Fresh rain on the street has always been a very appealing thing to me, and what has attracted to me to stay in the pacific northwest.

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photo-a-day 2 15/20

As much as a self portrait one would be able to get out of me utilizing this media.  Even thought that was not primary result of this, I was still aware that my image would inevitably buried amongst all the lines of both the elevator shaft and the reflection.  If I remember correctly there was a little construction going on behind me, hence the large truck.  If you step back from the detail though, it as if I created a plaid out of reflection and object.

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photo-a-day 2 14/20

Another example of micro worlds turned larger, through macro and close up techniques.  Again foreground objects were ignored to create a more centered and balanced focus, and add to the overall terrain view one might expect if looking off into the distance.  Nature has provided a nice almost dead palette.

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photo-a-day 2 13/20

I had some technical difficulties, but here is the photo-a-day resumed.

I always found that simplicity is sometimes the best story provider.  Here a silhouette of a telephone pole stands in front of a painted sky.  This was taken at sunset, from the balcony of an old apartment of mine. Nothing here was manipulated, just luck in sky conditions and timing.  I chose to keep the telephone pole present as to give the photo more depth and to give the picture more context than something completely abstract that would be just the clouds.

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photo-a-day 2 12/20

I was experimenting with the focus a bit here in hopes to exaggerate the colors of the scene.  The daisies in the back ended up being the point of focus, and not the flower in the foreground.  This I wanted to feel like a splash of paint interrupting the focus.  The odd focus also lends itself to an overall fake plastic look to the entire whole.  This was taken on a bright sunny day which furthered my goal of super saturated colors.

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photo-a-day 2 11/20

If you haven't noticed, I like to take photos of architecture reflecting other architecture.  Generally this is a highrise from a distance with a nice glass surface reflecting a building near it.  Here I approach a similar idea, but this time I'm closer to the reflector.  This is a glass elevator shaft with the elevator lifted above.  I angled this with a slight tilt to give it a better flow and direction.  Parts of the elevator shaft line up nicely with the buildings' verticals and horizontals giving a sense of balance and unity.  The trees cut up the forms to add an organic element adding more depth to the overall frame.

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photo-a-day 2 10/20

The light conditions for this ended up being exactly what I wanted.  A case of being at the right place at the right time.  The angle was low as this odd plant is more of a bush shape that only comes up to mu chest or so.  A macro setting was used to give a different focus to the whole as I wanted to un-focus the rear of the image even more to create a more abstract feel to that part of the frame.  I think the light lent itself to help the greens' vibrance not diminish in this.

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photo-a-day 2 9/30

I took a couple of photos of telephone poles stripped of years of flyers.  Rusted staples and various color washed paper torn and shredded made for some modern art.  These were taken at dusk giving them a more overall blue tone.  What most people tend to ignore can become art in the right composition and framing.

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photo-a-day 2 8/20

I was going through some transitions in my personal life when I took this.  I was feeling very introspective and thus felt the light through the petals reflected my mood at the time.  The focus was chosen to give the rest of the flower a more ethereal out of focus look, something a little more somber.  Unfortunately the light was not cooperative as I feel this would have been way better at dusk or dawn.

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photo-a-day 2 7/20

Architecture is one of my favorite subjects, especially larger buildings.  Their glass sides lend to reflecting other large buildings adding depth and character that wouldn't be there if they had no neighbor.  This also creates more intersecting lines which I'm also very fond of.  This time around though I forwent the reflections as the uncover awning created enough intersection.  The glass windows behind this nakedness moving away at a not too extreme angle, keeping a calm almost order to the over all piece.

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photo-a-day 2 6/20

This low angle shot I took a couple of times to frame the "V" structure of the grate the way I wanted it, as well as getting the focus just right to have a little foreground fuzziness.  This created a greater depth giving the subject a more cavernous feel than it had in real life.  Also present is more corroded man made forms, this time taken over a little by nature, both in the cobweb and the moss.

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photo-a-day 2 5/20

I always find man made materials decaying a point of interest.  This was rusted parts on an older VW Bug.  What also caught my eye was the juxtaposition between the shiny "new" metal trim and the rust so close together.  The texture of the bubbling paint is also something I enjoy and I think it adds a lot of character to what would have just been chrome on white.

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photo-a-day 2 4/20

This monolith is somewhere downtown Portland, I want to say it is a parking structure but I'm not entirely sure.  The sun was perfect for this shot allowing for a great deal of contrast between the side it was throwing itself on and the shadows it helped the structure cast.  It reminds me of oppressive communist architecture, or a large thudding pound trailing off into a blue wash of silence.

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