Author: brenda

a photo study: rhythm I

Rhythm, a vital element within music, dance, and poetry, is also important in photography. Ted Forbes writes that visual pulses are within all visual compositions.

EmptyName-203_HDR

Repetition is easy to find…all around us are shapes that are pretty basic and similar to each other. We will see them repeating at regular intervals within nature, design, works of art, architecture, and photography.

rythum-7kittyparkingweb

Standard rhythm involves the same or similar elements repeating at regular intervals — think of equally spaced light posts extending from left to right across the frame, the slats of a crib, or a series of windows on the side of a city apartment building. These patterns can be thought of as a subset of rhythm in that patterns always have rhythm, but rhythm doesn’t always have patterns.

rhythumweb

Rhythm affects the quality of our viewing experience and helps draw and keep the observer’s eye within the frame. Visual rhythm is often most powerfully used as a vehicle for or backdrop to your central story or primary subject.

rythumtrioweb

After a week of studying rhythm, I’m finding a need to stay with this topic as the extension of rhythm within sound and physical sensations to a visual format is like…hmm…sitting in an introduction to physics class. Well, maybe not exactly like a physics class…maybe more like an introduction to “imaginary numbers.”

compositionbwebwy

In the meanwhile, I’ve concluded this week’s photo study blog with a Ted Forbes’ video rhythm in visual composition.   I would enjoy hearing your thoughts and understanding about rhythm as well as seeing some of your creative use of repeating patterns.

expanding market share…the hidden agenda

studyofrhythumtone1. “I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks.” That sounds like a worthwhile reform, though it would be a rather dramatic reversal for Trump, who, as Rachel noted on last night’s show, has weakened the background check system.

Indeed, the L.A. Times  reported this week, Trump administration officials “have quietly chipped away at the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the federal system that stores consult to make sure buyers are eligible to purchase guns.” The piece added, “In his recently released budget for the coming fiscal year, Trump proposed slashing millions of dollars from the budget for the background check system.”

2. “…with an emphasis on Mental Health.” Again, Trump is the one who, shortly after taking office, took steps to make it easier for the mentally impaired to buy guns. What’s more, as the Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell explained last week, Trump’s proposed budget calls for significant cuts that, if implemented, would limit access to mental-health services for many Americans.

3. “Raise age to 21.” There seems to be a growing number of Republicans who can’t answer questions about why a young adult can buy an assault rifle, but not a beer. The NRA, however, has not yet signed off on the change.

4. “…end sale of Bump Stocks.” If Trump is serious about this, he could endorse the pending legislation banning bump-stock modifications. So far, he hasn’t

Cited: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/guns-pay-attention-what-trump-does-not-what-he-says

I am finding myself wondering if those who support guns in schools, churches, malls, etc. have they ever, personally, been in a war zone.   A quote from a very close friend:

Before I went to Vietnam, I went through six months of extensive weapons training, and then SERE (survival, escape, resistance, and evasion) training. Even so, I’m not embarrassed to admit, I still pissed my pants in my first firefight with the VC. Yeah, I came home, but some did not. Are we now expected to train our educators to the same standard? Why on earth would I want my daughter [an university instructor] subjected to the same terror? Would you? I do not.

Then I am beginning to wonder if the focus upon Second Constitutional is more about a distraction that comes from stirring up emotive distance while the gun industry is silently expanding their market shares.  The easing of the federal background checks, removal of criminal records, budget cuts, opening up gun ownership to “mentally impaired” individuals, easing interstate carry of weapons, and now arming school teachers…all in all has the hidden benefit of expanding the market share.  Did the NRA begin lobbying politicians as the gun industry saw potential loss of revenue due to market saturation?

Before I labeled myself as an independent or progressive, I am foremost a parent, a grandparent, and more recently a great-grandparent. My youngest grandchild will graduate from high school this spring. I worry, as do most conscientious parents, grandparents and great grandparents, about the availability of these weapons falling into the hands of an irresponsible person and using it against helpless teachers and students.

My world of friends and family is rather small…yet, my life history includes the loss of a childhood friend after being shot by his brother, two teen suicides, and the deaths of three young sons by their father.  I also have a dear, dear friend whose childhood family was taken hostage by her stepfather that ended when the police chose to use…not weapons, but tear gas.  No one was seriously injured throughout this ordeal; yet, I wonder would the ending to this trauma be even more intense for her and her family if there had been a gun in the home…

 

xdrive photography learning – 20 – bokeh

Within xdrive photography’s bokeh lesson, Raj notes that the unique blur within photographs known as bokeh is a composition tool that allows a photographer to guide a viewer’s eye as well as to keep distracting elements hidden.

cropped-dandelionproject13118web.jpg

Nikon D750    f/3.2    1/320s   40mm   ISO100

exdrive-1web

Nikon D750     f/5.6   1/320s   230mm   ISO 100

xdrivewebfloral

Nikon D750     f/5.6   1/200   210mm   ISO 100

Over to you Raj.  Thank you for this informative lesson and your amazing images.

weekly photo challenge: a face in the crowd

The human body speaks…very loudly through its postures and movements.  More and more I’m finding that photographers who create street images from perspectives other than direct portraiture opens me to ponder individual humans stories that speak through the body’s emotional expressions which often are distracted from by a smile, an eye glimmer, a hair cut, a style of dress, etc.

images submitted in response to Erica’s photo challenge:  A Face in the Crowd

a photo study: sub-framing

Thus far, this photo study project has expanded my understanding of: rule of odds, simplification and negative space, composition, lines, shape, and the photographer. This week, I “focused” on Ted Forbes’s discussion on sub-framing and while I initially bounced up against an internalized adolescent wall of resistance, the intention to first understand, then to see, and finally to create images with this composition tool in mind brought about a bit of…fun.  (Note to self: don’t cave into those pesky adolescent moments of opposition and resistance.)  Also, as I reviewed my photo files, I was surprised to find sub-framing in past blog postings.

A simple way to understand sub-framing is to re-define it as a picture in a picture. This technique invites a viewer’s eye into an image through the use of natural or man-made elements. This invitation to the viewer to be guided from the foreground to the background also adds depth to an image. They may take multiple shapes or forms and may either dominate an image or constitute a small component in a wider composition.

Architectural Sub-frames

Using architectural elements is probably the most obvious way to frame a subject. Using doorways, window frames, archways, framed mirrors.

Urban and Street Sub-frames

Urban landscapes in general and street scenes in particular offer countless opportunities to use sub-frames to add depth and interest to what would be otherwise somewhat average shots.

Natural Sub-frames

Natural sub-frames generally don’t offer the uniformity that one finds in man-made structures but will add significantly to an overall composition. Trees easily frame a subject. and the use of grass, flowers, or bushes can often bring more attention to your subject by creating a blurred foreground as the eye tends to go toward the in-focus areas of the images first, while the added dimension adds depth to the photo to make it more interesting.

thephotographer-5web

Creative Sub-frames

Sub-frames need not necessarily be created by fixed physical elements but may also be created on-the-fly.

Sub-frames in Portraiture

Sub-frames can provide interest and focus within portraiture shots where the composition seeks to include the wider environment rather than only capturing details of the individual subject.

subframewebbecca

In closing I wish to express my gratitude to  Ted Forbes for offering these amazing videos.  Also, I included links to photographers, Robert Frank and Saul Leiter,  two leading photographers who have creatively incorporated the sub-framing composition technique.

I would love to hear your thoughts and see your creative efforts.

a weathered home

subframe-1door

Ricoh Caplio GX100     f/4.1    1/73s    7.3m

…Just beyond the field is a house weathered gray by the seasons and weakened by the stresses of time. In the golden rays of the morning light, the young girl is kicking up dust clouds, searching through the barren soil for seeds of her past, and desiring to be freed from yesterday’s delusions. She walks over to the side of the road and bends over; as she stands, I see three keys, dangling from her left hand. One key is silver, another is gold, and the third is made of diamonds. I feel the pain of fear awaken as the warmth of this early autumn day touches the frozen shield that embraces her heart

…literature provided me with alternate threads by which to darn a harmonious, yet delusional, understanding of death, of fatherless children, of a family. To move into this realm is to be cuddled in the arms of a chair, mesmerized by the pages of a book unfolding like an accordion, embraced by a transparent sound barrier, and transported into fantasies found through fictional characters. While my mind’s eye grasped the hand of my naïve emotional self and together we observed the telling of storied lives, there was a seeking mind that simultaneously identified revealing markers to create a map, not to a place of hidden treasures, but to a place that felt like a home.

B Catherine Koeford, A Meditative Journey with Saldage