Sandi Simos
Aug 1, 20193 min
“Look at everything as though you are seeing it either for the first or last time, then your time on earth will be filled with glory” .
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Come along with me on a bit of my journey as an artist...
You may have seen the image I'm featuring on this post on my Facebook page, but I thought I'd tell you a little more about how I created it. I'm writing this post to the casual photographer, or someone who just has a passing interest/knowledge of the details. I won't go into a tutorial here.
I recently purchased a new lens. I've been coveting it for years and finally had a good reason to buy it as we're planning a family vacation. Those of you who have been seeing my photos know that I tend to take close in pics. I like seeing the details and have a fairly narrow angle of view.
Well, I bought a wide angle lens. For the non-photographers out there, that means you see a lot more out to the sides, top and bottom. If you imagine looking through a cone, this is a wide cone and all my other lenses are varying degrees of narrow cones. This different field of view requires envisioning the world in a very different way. Many of the vast landscape shots you see are taken with wide angle lenses.
Order a set of nature notecards
I know that I need to get used to this new lens before I take family vacation pics with it. Those memories can't be recreated, so I'll need to be an expert. So I took the lens out to a local park. This lens is great for landscapes, but I have to admit that our "beautiful landscape" shots in Naperville, Illinois are relatively limited. However, there's a bridge at our local park that has intriguing lines. I normally shoot pics FROM the bridge, not OF the bridge. But this new lens - a 16-35mm - offered a perspective I thought would be interesting.
I shot from below, at a point on the river bank that's down about 1/3 of the length of the bridge. I took a few shots focusing at different points on the bridge and with different apertures - meaning different points and portions of the bridge would be completely in focus.
When I got home and pulled them up on my computer, I felt the compositions were ok, but that they were busy and didn't project the drama of the bridge the way I wanted. So I decided to try a black and white version. I picked my favorite of the four images and started playing with some different black and white settings. I wanted to highlight the clouds and pull out the shadows of the bridge deck. I wanted the reflection in the water to show, but not be immediately obvious. I was going for drama and mystery. I wanted a picture that drew the eye in, rather than just allowing a glance. This is what I ended up with...
It's quickly become an image that I enjoy looking at over and over. And that to me is the threshold for the images I offer for sale on prints, cards or gifts. After all, if I don't want to look at it, how can I ask someone else to pay their hard earned money to do the same?
I hope you found this foray into how I created this image to be interesting. Sometimes our favorite shots are not specifically planned, but rather just happen (with a little help). Every time I get the camera out I try to see the world as if it's the first time - and sometimes magic occurs!