Electric Farm
32mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 30 Seconds
A little over a year ago when I formed this website, one of my promises to you all, my readers, was to go the “quality over quantity” approach in my blogging. Instead of uploading photos after photos, snapshots that only clutter my site’s library, I’ve always tried to cull through only the best of my photographs and write in a style that is frank, concise, yet still sports a touch of my personality.
The only sad part about constantly maintaining a site like this is that I’m no “full-time photographer”. That is, I don’t make a living on photography; not yet, at least. Though I do pride myself on the the small jobs and assignments I maintain throughout the year, a large part of my photography is personal, a “hobby”.
The thing about hobbies is that they all must play second-fiddle to higher obligations such as school and work. For much of the year, the former responsibility takes up a large, but consistent, chunk of my time. I had no idea that the latter would take ahold of my summer as it already has done; working a near-full-time job as well as other small local jobs.
Over the past few weeks, one of those “small” jobs absolutely exhausted my photographic drive. Working as a photographer for a camp of over 150 weekly-rotating children takes its toll, knowing that all of the kids’ parents expect a great individual photograph of their little one enjoying their time (also, I can’t share any photographs given these are kids on a limited photo-release form). It was exciting to get paid to make photographs for three weeks straight, but nearly every night when I got back, my shutter finger and “mind’s eye” were too exhausted to head out and make any photographs of merit.
Returning to the title of this post, however, I still have persevered to create some great photographs over the past few weeks, with what little energy and time I have had left. Time to share!
First up, hot on the heels of my previous post on creating better macro photographs of flowers, incorporating environmental elements that contribute to a flower existing can make for a stronger artistic image. Take this, for example, a common black-eyed susan photographed as it is still growing, seemingly towards an out-of-focus sun (shining through some trees):
Keep Growing!
105mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/100
Sometimes, simply focusing super-close on an interesting subject can create a photograph that cannot be imagined by the perspective of the human eye:
Abstract
105mm, ISO 400, f/22, .4 Seconds, 1:.88 Magnification via PN-11 Tube
Just last night, in fact, I went on a little photo trip on a new (to me) country road near sunset to see what landscapes I could compose. In order of time captured, let’s see what I found:
Flare and Ripples
32mm, ISO 100, f/16, 1/25
Curious Colt
32mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/80
Loner
32mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/50
Simple Empty Solitude
32mm, ISO 100, f/8, 1/10
You might have spotted something peculiar about the first photograph at the top of this post. I managed to capture lightning in a summer storm! If you’ve been with me since this site’s beginning, you may know that the last time I tried this, I failed miserably, and almost ruined my camera. What luck, then, to come across a line of cold-front thunderstorms on the way home from work, as well as still having my camera handy from the other aforementioned camp-photographer job! By using a wadded-up shirt as a makeshift tripod and manually focusing on the far-off barn, I managed to capture some dynamic lighting in the clouds from the cloud-to-cloud lightning, as well as a few strong cloud-to-ground strikes and sheets of rain off in the distance. I quite like the contrast with the peaceful farm.
I wasn’t finished yet, however. Returning to the overpass where I created my first true “light-trail” photographs about a year ago, what better way to commemorate the slightly-belated occasion than to now combine both elements of light in a long exposure? A ying and yang of powerful and erratic lightning, with the smoothness of man-made trails from passing cars.
Electricity
32mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 30 Seconds
That’s all for this catch-up post, guys and gals, thanks for dropping by! Though I am thankful and fortunate to have work—therefore making money—this summer, I hate that it means I can’t post as frequently on the site as I was hoping to, similar to my every-other-day blogging like last summer. Real life always has to come first, however, but I still try to do what I can to make photographs worthy of my time and effort. If I try to make any more time, I’ll be eating even further into my already slim sleep schedule. I can’t have any of that, now, can I? 😉
P.S. All photographs in this post captured with the Sony NEX-7 and Zeiss 32mm f/1.8 or Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AI-s Micro.
Matthew Durr Photography 