Category: <span>Blogging</span>

Published October 20, 2017 by

Had My Camera; Saw a Deer

deer, Avard Woolaver, backyard, Nova Scotia,
© Avard Woolaver

Had My Camera; Saw a Deer (Day 20 of 31)

I had my camera in my hand. It was twilight time. I was in a brushy sort of meadow area a few miles from home, taking pictures of a dead tree with long, interesting branches. Suddenly a deer reared up—a large buck, snorting at me and leaping in place. (Deer ordinarily seem so gentle, but this thing was seriously frightening.)

It’s the kind of unusual situation I love, far more fascinating than the tree I’d come there to photo. I was holding my camera at that moment. So how many photos was I able to get? You guessed: zero.

It just happened so quickly; the deer reared up intimidatingly, not far at all from where I was standing, and it made itself so big and was acting truly ferocious. The noises it was making—I’m not kidding; I was scared, and not just because it had startled me.

We miss all kinds of great shots over the course of a lifetime. That day I learned that you can miss them even when you’re right there in the moment, actually taking pictures at the time! But it was such a brief moment—five seconds, perhaps? Not much more. The deer snorted with rage a couple more times, then spun around and disappeared into the woods past the meadow.

(The deer pictured in today’s entry isn’t the one I’m talking about. It’s a deer that wandered into my backyard on a different day.)

It was a great moment, one I often think of when I drive by the spot. No photo captured it, but that’s okay; I have the memory.

(For the month of October 2017, I’m participating in the 31 Days bloggers’ challenge. You can find out about it here, and check out the interesting work other bloggers are posting.)

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31 Days Avard Woolaver deer

Published October 19, 2017 by

For Night Photos, Use Your Headlights

headlights, Avard Woolaver, snow, winter, Nova Scotia,
© Avard Woolaver

For Night Photos, Use Your Headlights (Day 19 of 31)

All kinds of lights can give your photos interesting effects at twilight or in the dark; car headlights, which are intense and directed, can be especially effective. You can use them to create mysterious, fairy tale-like effects, because they can brightly light one patch while darkness seems to press in from all around it.

It’s a fun activity to fool around with when you’ve got some extra time. (The long evenings of autumn and winter are a great time to try this; and frost and fog, combined with the strong light, can give you even more interesting possibilities to explore.) Check out the differences between how your high beams and low beams look.

My backyard includes a small hill, about a five-foot rise, with trees at the top, and I’ve gotten some intriguing shots by parking the car so that the headlights shine up into the wooded area.

Just don’t, whatever you do, lose track of time and let your battery run down. (Been there.)

(For the month of October 2017, I’m participating in the 31 Days bloggers’ challenge. You can find out about it here, and check out the interesting work other bloggers are posting.)

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31 Days Avard Woolaver headlights

Published October 18, 2017 by

Think of What’s in the Foreground

foreground, composition, Nova Scotia, New Topographics,
© Avard Woolaver

Think of What’s in the foreground (Day 18 of 31)

Here’s the one photography lesson I clearly remember learning from my father, one of the many photo tips he gave me: Pay attention to what’s in the foreground of your shot. When he could, he always included something in the foreground.

My dad was interested in the composition of his photos, and he was a really good amateur photographer. He read some books on the subject, and he enjoyed learning and applying new techniques. It gives me great pleasure, now that I’m older than he was at the time of our conversation, to have that link to him so clearly etched in my memory.

And it was a solid piece of wisdom; the book he’d read had steered him right. When I was doing my photography degree (at Ryerson, in Toronto) and learning about composition, this was something we discussed quite often.

When an object or person is included in the foreground the photo has a greater sense of depth and dimension, and may give an indication of scale. Lines in the foreground can lead your eye to what’s important in the photo. A sign in the foreground can help you remember where a photo was taken, or add a splash of colour.

Photographer Lee Friedlander welcomed foreground obstructions such as poles and trees as a way of creating visual interest. He explains, “Somebody else could walk two feet away to get those poles and tress and other stuff out of the way, I almost walk two feet to get into it, because it is a part of the game that I play. It isn’t even conscious; I probably just drift into it… its like a found pleasure. You’ve found something that you like and you play with it for the rest of your life.”

It’s something to keep in mind when you’re out wandering with your camera, exploring the world.

(For the month of October 2017, I’m participating in the 31 Days bloggers’ challenge. You can find out about it here, and check out the interesting work other bloggers are posting.)

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31 Days Avard Woolaver composition foreground

Published October 17, 2017 by

The Best Camera Is the One You Have with You

camera, best camera, winter, landscape,
© Avard Woolaver

The Best Camera Is the One You Have with You (Day 17 of 31)

For anyone who loves photography, it’s easy to get caught up in all the tech details. Camera phone or “real” camera? (It’s this question iPhone ads are attempting to address with their gorgeous photo campaigns of people’s everyday lives.) Which camera? Which lens? Of course, the old saying is still apt: The best camera is the one you have with you at the moment.

I keep my camera with me an almost embarrassing amount of the time. (I also carry my phone, of course, though not quite as faithfully; I’m much more likely to be caught without my phone than without my camera.) Here are some of the times you’d see me carrying it, if you followed me around all day: into the grocery store. Into the gas station, when I go in to pay. Into the post office. When picking up my kids at school. Walking in the woods. Dropping in at my mom’s house. I’ve taken interesting shots in all these situations—photos I didn’t anticipate or plan for. This is true despite how ordinary most of these situations are.

For example, I go to my mother’s house every day; it’s a short walk. Every single object, twig, container, magazine, and potted plant in that house, and all the way there and back, is something I’ve already seen dozens, possibly thousands, of times. It doesn’t matter; there are still good photos to be had. Freshness can feel hard to come by sometimes in a daily life as filled with routine as mine is. That’s okay—it just means I have to concentrate a little harder.

I’d love to be seeing new sights and encountering new photo opportunities at every turn, but that’s not where I am in my life right now. This is my season of this daily routine. My family is here, and my mom, right now, needs me very close by. And I figure (I hope) it’s good for me, since I can’t travel much now, to concentrate on recognizing the uniqueness and beauty in this environment I’ve seen a million times before.

(For the month of October 2017, I’m participating in the 31 Days bloggers’ challenge. You can find out about it here, and check out the interesting work other bloggers are posting.)

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31 Days Avard Woolaver best camera camera Nova Scotia

Published October 16, 2017 by

For Portraits, Look for Open Shade

open shade, portraits, cat,
© Avard Woolaver

For Portraits, Look for Open Shade (Day 16 of 31)

Daytime portraits taken outdoors give you great opportunities to experiment with different lighting, and open shade is your friend. What’s open shade? It’s the type of light you see on a bright day when you’re not right out in the sun, but under a tree that makes a solid canopy above you. Open shade is also the light you might have under a patio umbrella or a similar covering. (Dappled shade, with sunlight filtering through the leaves, is more problematic for photos; look for that solid layer your subject can be under.)

Pictures of people taken in direct, bright sunlight tend to suffer from several challenges. If the light is too harsh, you’re going to miss out on detail. Moreover, such light emphasizes the features we often want to brush kindly over—wrinkles, for instance. Bright sunlight tends to make middle-aged people look older, and the elderly look ancient. And of course squinting is another problem when people pose in bright light.

Open shade has the effect of softening wrinkles, but it’s still bright enough to capture all the details. The softer, more diffuse light flatters everyone.

People aren’t the only subjects flattered by soft light; animals are, as well. Open shade is a great way to get really charming pet pictures. And you’ll probably both be more comfortable, which greatly increases the odds of getting a nice photo that shows your pet’s true character.

(For the month of October 2017, I’m participating in the 31 Days bloggers’ challenge. You can find out about it here, and check out the interesting work other bloggers are posting.)

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31 Days Avard Woolaver open shade pet portrait