Smidgeshots - 14 - Rainy Night

First things first, you may notice a fancy little logo at the bottom right of my pictures. That is the new addition I will putting on all photos online. Just one little security measure I guess. And it was fun to paint light ^^ Now then, onto the photos themselves. There's nothing nicer than raindrops in a photo and bevlieve me there's no shortage to rain drops here.

Come Sit on My Bench

Blurred rain is one of my all time favourite things to photograph. Those little yellow dots remind me of magic, as though they're sprinklings of fairy dust.

Or In My Car?

It's always good to have something to focus on, whether it's in the foreground or the background. Here, the car is blurred, so we see it, but we don't take too much notice of it. This is good as our eyes are then naturally drawn to the droplets on the glass. Had there been no car there may not have been such a good contrast and the photo may not have been quite as gripping.

Or On My Bike?

Here I am working on the concept of lines. The first seat is out starting point and then it beams in towards our last. If you drew connecting lines they would converge at the end of the page like railway tracks, naturally edging our eyes up the photo.

Fancy A Spin?

I stood for quite a long time in the rain to get this shot. I love how the light plays and intertwines with itself, the whites dissecting the reds, turning to yellows.

Time for a Photo?

Aside from the blurred face and hands this is a pretty good shot. Andy looks very professional and the hexagonal dot on my lens adds a sort of artistic valor to the piece.

Smidgeshots - 13 - Shadow Play Excerpt One

I recently came into possession of a lamp. One of those ones with the long, movable neck and the large bulb; like the Pixar mascot. Anyway, these bulbs give off a very yellow tungsten glow which is normally not what you want in a photo. However, slap up a bit of grease proof paper and you have yourself a shadow art frame. Here are some excerpts from my upcoming artsy attempt: Shadow Play.

Microphone

My housemate Stephen is looking suave with the mic beside him. No, he doesn't croon, but he will speak in a devilish manner if you ask him nicely.

Bird 

Remember being a kid and making shadows on the wall? Well, I used to do that a lot and now I have the capacity to capture these little imaginations like never before.

Roses

 This one really tickled my fancy. The trick is - well, I can't give it away as I'm not sure how Stephen did it! But the effect is pretty cool!

Face

Scrunch up a sheet of paper, poke a few holes in it and what do you get? Some kind of tribal man with his head on fire! Now that's what I call art.

Hello

 I have a few ideas expanding on the "Person behind the Paper" idea and this was a trial run. Expect more like this over the next few weeks.

Smidgeshots - 12 - Grain

Often I take a photo which is nice but boring. Sometimes I edit these photos and they become boring and bad. Every once in awhile I edit them and the boring part goes away, though as to the good and the bad I cannot say. Photoshop has a great grain effect which, when played around with for a while, helped to create these shots. Now I'm not saying they're good or bad, that is for you to decide. But they sure as hell aren't boring.

Pole

Andy described the pole with the sun at the top as Gandalf's staff. Now though it's lost that quality, instead imbued with an old timey feel to it.

Corner

Between the yellow lines and the ivy on the walls I feel like this is the opening shot to a haunted house.

Wire

This is like something you'd pull out of your grandfathers old suitcase he keeps in the attic and when you ask about it he flips out, throws a vase at you and mutters about camps and numbers and hell.

Bridge

I actually didn't add any grain to this as I feel like it would have detracted from the idea. David and Andy walking away here is so... I don't know... emotional, almost. I left a little bit of blue in Andy's shirt and I feel like it adds this weight to the image. They walk, david slightly ahead as though annoyed or too caught in his own head to talk, towards the end of the bridge. And what awaits them? We cannot see if this bridge goes to a happy place, if it leads to their end, if it ends at all. And, based on this shot alone, we may never know.

Smidgeshots 11 - Perception

As I wandered around the back alleys and side roads yesterday I began to toy with the idea that our perception marks our understanding. What I mean by this is what we see creates an identity which mould how we react. Take the simple case of a wasp or a garden variety spider. Tiny creatures with almost no affect on us bar a bit of a sting or tickle on our arm hairs. Yet people freeze in horror when they see these things. Why? Because they perceive them to be dangerous, therefore they understand that when they see a spider or a wasp they must run away or kill it quick. The same can be true of homophobia, communism, even strangers. Our perception; this is weird, that is wrong, he is odd, affects our understanding; I will beat him, I will go to war, I will walk on the other side of the street.
With that in mind I found a couple of photos which, I hope, do my theory some justice. These are things which test our perception to skew our understanding. Enjoy.

*None of these photos have been edited, touched up or added to in any way. They are purely the work of the camera.

Lines

Let's start with an easy one. A footpath, no? One which seems to go on an on, leading to some bright place in the distance. In reality this path is about two meters long and leads to a green patch.

Dots

It might take you a second to realise that this is a manhole grill. A simple circular covering for our sewage system. Yet here it has some other quality, some Aztec feel to the shape, to the holes and the contours.

Lines Two

This one is peculiar. The lines seem to distort and bend away from the lens. How long do they go on for? Where do they lead? In fact, this is a garage door. Nothing more than that. Yet our mind runs riot wondering what it could be, what it could mean.

Stairway

A stairs etched into a mountain? Perhaps the path up to our Aztec grill. No, this is merely a close up of some tree bark. But it's always nice to imagine.

The Beach

Look at that shimmering light in the background, those footsteps in the sand. But would you believe me if I told you this is a wall? A bland, boring concrete wall with lots of circles imprinted as the concrete was setting. Just goes to show that what we see and what is reality are often not combined.