Week 1 - Day 6 - May 6, 2009 "Tree Petals on Slate"

Potential, but not quite there.

Today as I moved around taking photos I noticed these petals on top of a slate bench. I really like the effect, because it's hard to tell what the viewer is looking at. It could be snow falling, it could be petals on water. It could be light through trees.... I hope that the photo will eventually cause the viewer to pause and try to figure out their own interpretation of what the image represents.

Lessons:

• This shot is over exposed, so the petals look out of focus. I'm going to return tomorrow to see if I can do a better job. I think I may do some bracketing of my camera settings to get a variety of exposures. I'm also going to take a different lens with me.
  
• I took a variety of subjects for my photo today that I thought might be interesting. When I loaded the photos on the computer I was surprised to find that this subject ended up being the most interesting of all the shots.
• When I first started this blog I thought that I would use a different subject each day. I now think I will learn much more by revisiting the same subject, and trying to improve my technique.
  

Stay tuned tomorrow to see if I can improve on this image. (If the subject is still there.)

Photo details: Exposure time 1/125, Aperture f/4.5, ISO 200, Lens Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II.

Further thoughts on yesterday's photo:

I think the blur was a bad idea on yesterday's photo. I was trying to use the trees and Ho Plaza to point to McGraw tower. The blurring of the trees and pedestrians makes a deliberate attempt to force the viewer to look at the tower that isn't blurred. I think that the photo should naturally do this without gimmicks.