Time to Slow Down

Stuck at SFO waiting for a flight to the UK, so a chance to post a few thoughts on my passion: photography.

To day, with all our technology, we are attracted to images that just seem ‘amazing’, because, say, they stopped some incredible action: for example on the sports field or when, say, an explosion goes off. In other words images our eyes and brain could not hope to see without our technology.

At the other extreme we also use technology, neutral density filters, to ‘smear’ out time, thus capturing the emotion of time passing in a single image; for example water that turns into a milky, ghost-like feature.

Then there is one of the oldest forms of photography: still life. I kind of middle ground between the two extremes above, where the subject simply doesn’t move. In other words exposure time becomes an ‘irrelevance’. Of course originally, with photographers only being able to capture exposures over minutes, still life was the way to go. Now it is a choice.

So I was pleased to see that this month’s competition at my local camera club was “Still Life” and thus I had an ideal opportunity to try out this ‘old’ genre.

Wiki tells us that “still life photography is a demanding art, one in which the photographers are expected to be able to form their work with a refined sense of lighting, coupled with compositional skills. The still life photographer makes pictures rather than takes them. Knowing where to look for propping and surfaces also is a required skill.”

Having collected various unusual ‘bits and bobs’ over many years, I decided to incorporate these into my image. We also had a rather organic looking pot that I promised my wife I would break. As for a backdrop I decided to use our mantelpiece. I used a 24mm focal length on my 5D3, and the F/18 exposure, at ISO 100, was 13 seconds. The image was captured in available light.

After playing around in PS-CC I arrived at this final view. I like it, but will the competition judge? Well, as an honest man, I will make a full disclose in a couple of week’s time :-)

Fallen