Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Mostly Color NYC Photoblogging

Grr... I waste a whole buncha time rambling on about why I suck at nature photography, and Picasa/Blogger eats it. Wankers.

I'll sum up, 'cuz I'm impatient and cranky now, plus it'll probably get eaten again:

Basically, there are two primary dimensions I look at in selecting a photo subject: Content (coolness, weirdness, beauty, etc.) and Composition (forms, shapes, and how well they fit into my framing sensibility). As anyone who has gone on photo walkabout with me can tell you, Content is optional for me - I'm a Seinfeld photographer, I take pictures of nothin'. And when I do point my camera at something interesting and hope Content is enough to carry the picture... it usually isn't.

When it comes to nature, for me it's heavy on Content and light on Composition: Lots of beauty that I just can't find a way to frame. Charley observed that my compositional style tends to be geometrical, which I think is pretty accurate. Nature certainly can be geometrical, but usually isn't, and I haven't been able to adapt my compositional style accordingly.

Alternatively, it could just be that I'm a thoroughly urban creature, or that I haven't found the right kind of nature yet. I'll keep trying.

It was a lot smoother and coherenter the first time, but oh well. You get the general idea.


I was tracking the seagull, and somehow managed to get something reasonably not-bad-looking. Or maybe the seagull flew into the shot, except that I don't have, like, five shots of the exact same thing...


Pylons! I took a whole bunch of photos of these. Doesn't necessarily mean I'll post all of 'em...


No shit.


Early stage in the life cycle of the Northern American Bagpipe.

This is actually an excellent example of Content over Composition (not to mention photo processing). The photo completely sucks, but I was tickled by the resemblance...

6 comments:

oldwhitelady said...

Nice pictures! I would have eaten them, too, if I was Picasa/Blogger. They are that good!

Anonymous said...

I was tracking the seagull, and somehow managed to get something reasonably not-bad-looking.

A penicillin picture! I like that one a lot.

flory said...

I like the pylons. Don't know why, but I really like that one.

Eli said...

Yeah, I think the pylons are definitely the best out of that batch. Much better stuff on the way, though.


Think... canopies.

karmic said...

I can't see the pics, so will have to read again from home.
But a nice insight in to the mind of Eli the photographer.
Re your post about Fromkin. *A* tells me he is a must read. I don't read him enough.
CBS reality show.. yep we are in deep doo doo.

Eli said...

You should listen to *A*. You should *always* listen to *A*.