I'm sometimes told I have a knack for seeing the unusual in everyday settings. Although looking for the unusual is not something I foster, I am in the habit of watching for lighting, texture, lines, and shadows, and this leads to some interesting and, at times, offbeat images. This way of looking is a habit any photographer can, and should, develop. It's not special; it's just photography.
For instance, I like watching dappled patterns cast on walls by sunlight especially when clouds, or waving branches, are moving across the face of the sun. The little ephemeral shows of light and shadow often create interesting photographs, as in these flower silhouettes cast on a surface in our kitchen.
Flower Shadows
(click on image for a larger, sharper view)The other day I noticed that the light funnelled through an overhead Solatube skylight was refracting into a colour spectrum against the wall creating an indoor rainbow. I quickly picked up my Digital Rebel with a fast 50mm lens to capture the unusual effect:
Refraction
(click on image for a larger, sharper view)Sometimes it takes no more than a different perspective on a commonplace subject to give it impact. In the following photograph, I had been on the ground photographing a flower when I heard some goldfinches in the birdbath behind me. By the time I turned around they were gone but I focused on the birdbath in case they returned, which they didn't. But one look through the viewfinder told me that the birdbath itself was interesting from this angle. Perhaps this is what it looks like to an incoming bird.
Birdbath
(click on image for a larger, sharper view)Sometimes you simply stumble across odd things, like the baby soother in the next photo. It likely fell out of some baby's stroller and a kind Samaritan found it and hung it from the limb in case the parents returned looking for it. It was a startling thing to see hanging from the branch and far too interesting an image to pass by.
Baby Soother
(click on image for a larger, sharper view)You often see visual tensions created by incongruities. Log cabins, in my personal mythology, are rustic, remote, and heated by wood stoves. Finding a log cabin with a electricity meter on the side struck me as incongruous.
Log Cabin with Electricity
(click on image for a larger, sharper view)Some of my favourite visual tensions come from the juxtaposition of man and nature. No matter what we build, it becomes the habitat for creatures the structure was not originally designed for. Bridges are for cars, or for people, but pigeons like them very much as shelters and nesting sites. This was the frame from last weekend's photoshoot that I liked the most. It combined early morning light, bright, bold bridge lines, strong shadows, moving water, and a lovely pigeon poised to take flight.
Bridge with Pidge
(click on image for a larger, sharper view)(14-Apr-2004, Revised 17-June-2004)
www.NorthernJourney.com -- gene@wilburn.ca