Category: <span>Photography</span>

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

Published October 15, 2017 by

Seasonal Chores Are Great Photo Opportunities

chores, seasonal chores,
© Avard Woolaver

Seasonal Chores Are Great Photo Opportunities (Day 15 of 31)

Most of our family snapshots are taken at the high points: birthdays, holidays, picnics, vacations; our daily chores don’t typically make the cut. (How many shots do you have of someone in your family loading the dishwasher or cleaning the tub?) For just that reason, though, a few pictures taken during chore time are worthwhile to amass over the course of a lifetime.

But seasonal chores are a different matter altogether, for several reasons. First, you do them only a few times a year; because they’re rare, they can often feel more celebratory—or, at the very least, lacking in the grinding drudgery that can accompany, say, getting dinner on the table every night. Second, these occasional tasks are often outdoor activities that connect us with a coming or departing season. Third, they’re another way we inherit practical daily wisdom from our forebears and pass it along to the next generations. All these factors make our seasonal work an interesting subject for photos.

I’m thinking about things like preparing the garden for winter (or, in the spring, for planting); cleaning gutters; chopping firewood; burning brush in a bonfire; getting out or storing away a barbecue; putting up Christmas lights. Commemorating such tasks through photography reminds us that work often has elements that are pleasant, and that taking care of our homes and families is a huge and ongoing project. The necessary duty involved in this work is one more way we show our love—and that is always a worthwhile reason to take a photo.

(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 backyard chores seasonal chores

Published October 14, 2017 by

Memory of Where They Used to Be

gone, remnants, ghosts, remember, memory
© Avard Woolaver

Memory of Where They Used to Be (Day 14 of 31)

Memory is a funny thing. Some photographs contain ghosts that not everyone can see. Not ghosts of people, but of buildings, trees, gardens that are gone. Like the sides of city buildings that still show where long-departed neighbouring structures used to stand, some photos show mounds of empty earth, driveways to nothing, tattered remnants of former lives.

Such pictures can have an evocative melancholy for those who can remember what’s missing; but it may be that even viewers who aren’t familiar with the changed landscape can appreciate it. A pang of loss is a universal thing.

Consider taking some photos of places you know well that have changed over the years, and try some different ways of including clues to the past life of this place. For instance, I mentioned driveways that no longer lead anywhere—a sight that can be so odd and moving. If you happen to take a photo in such a landscape, think about playing up the driveway in your picture and showing how it trails away.

Virtually all of us who are older than, say, ten or twelve have many people who are missing from our lives, but that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten them all. In some sense a photo can still show that same kind of memory: an element may be no longer there, but also not quite erased altogether.

(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 memory

Published October 13, 2017 by

The Moose Was a One-Time Thing

moose
Shubenacadie Wildlife Park                 © Avard Woolaver  

The Moose Was a One-Time Thing (Day 13 of 31)

Did you hear, earlier this year, about the so-called Moose Sex Corridor? It was a news item from my part of the world, Canada’s Maritimes, that was picked up by a number of news outlets worldwide.

Here’s the gist of it: Moose are endangered and quite rare in mainland Nova Scotia, where I live, though they’re pretty common in the northern part of the province (which is Cape Breton island), in neighboring New Brunswick, and down through Maine. Because they’re such a hazard on the roads (moose are huge), the New Brunswick highway department spends vast sums of money fencing both sides of the highways for long distances. It’s pretty effective at keeping them off the roads but limits their movement and is an issue for them during mating season. Hence the moose sex corridor—not its official name—designed to make it easier for lonely moose to find one another.

Though they’re rare in my part of the province, they’re not unheard of. And last winter there was one in our small community, causing great excitement. I saw its prints in the woods but never got a chance to see the animal itself. Sightings were reported, and I had my camera ready, but I never got a chance to get the photo I wanted.

Our lives are full of these missed photos, like the fish that got away. We have to let them go, unmourned. It’s so easy for those of us who love taking photos to develop a collector’s mindset—but let’s be honest: Would my life be at all better, by even the slightest bit, if I had a photo of that moose on my camera?

No. No, it would not.

(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 moose