I am a bad person

I must be. How often can you hear a normal, decent person say they single-handedly reduced to silence a highly frequented forum thread of one hundred and forty-six pages, with one post? I should take note and refrain from having my critique requests unleash further death and destruction upon the world.

Then again, at times, I briefly think to myself that maybe my photos were so inspiring, that everyone was too much in awe basking in their glow, to actually reply. Because I'm confident, like that.

No matter, the show must go on. (I feel I've said that somewhere before. Either that, or I'm suffering from deja-vu syndrome, which sounds so glamorous, I couldn't help but see a silver lining in it all.)

Fearful as I may be of the consequences, I dare present to you my latest weapon of mass forum destruction...



As you may suspect, this was also taken sometime this summer, and I hate my then self with a vengeance for being in a warm sunny place, with glorious mountains to gaze upon and not a care in the world. I also hate my future self for being not just cold, but at the very least snowed upon.

However, it has come to my attention that I am beginning to make less and less sense, which can only be a clear indication of the fact that I am now too sleepy to be coherent. I shall now bid you good night, before I start quoting limericks in a shakespearean tongue.

Facing my Nemesis

I'll start by saying that I've always had somewhat of a phobia of taking portraits, mostly because I was never quite sure what to do with my subject, and I suppose on some level, because I'm also not much of a people person.

But then again, my grandpappy used to say - or someone else's, I forget - that one should try everything at least once. And I, being the good granddaughter that I am, now find myself facing what has turned out to be my greatest fear as far as photography is concerned.

The result...



Should one find oneself wondering about the nature of the funny looking light streaks - wonder no more, they are soap bubbles. And no, I am not five years old. I dare you to claim otherwise.

Milestones, statistics and critiques, oh my!

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and what a fine morning it is! The sun is shining gleefully in the sky, birds are singing perched up in the trees, and the joyful presence of unique visitor number one hundred was bestowed last night upon my humble little corner of the Internet. Joy to the world, I have an audience! Gosh, I suppose I'd better watch what I say from now on.

And we now return to our regularly scheduled program. Today's happens to include critique report for Sunrise. It was generally well liked, mostly due to the colors and the framing, and basically the only thing people seemed to find wrong with it (or at least would comment on) was its lack of sharpness. And now the more I look at it, the more I tend to agree.

Someone once told me - and I'm starting to think this is the best photography advice I've ever received - that the final result is all that counts. No one cares if I had to do a somersault or stand on my head to take a particular photo and nobody is going to cut me any slack if it's still a bad photo.

So far from it that I'm saying this as an excuse rather than a simple explanation, but no, I didn't have a tripod and it was also a little too chilly for comfort. It's actually quite a funny story - I did technically own one, only it was a present and I wasn't going to receive it until a couple of days later. C'est la vie... There's always the next photo.

Anyway, despite the generally positive critique, none of those who commented were overly vocal about it, which confirms my original suspicion that my Sunrise falls within the category of "close, but no cigar". I suppose that's a critique in itself and a very constructive one at that.

Back to school

Remember when I told you about my epiphany that maybe I could figure out just what makes a good photograph tick, if only I'd start by taking a good long look at each gear? No? Well it may have been something along those lines.

Whatever the case may be, my lesson for today deals with texture. Case in study - small waves on seawater...



As with all others that are going to take their place in this category, this is a photo with no point or meaning whatsoever, but that I found appropriate for the subject in discussion and good for future reference. I suppose what I found attractive about it in the first place when I decided to point my camera, was the elaborate play of light being reflected and refracted over and over, making for an almost psychedelic and surreal look when taken from context. But that was just me.

Having concluded our lesson for today, I'll end with a "class dismissed" I'm sure you're all looking forward to.