Friday Morning Photo Walk

Each Friday, I meet with friends who are fellow photographers at a downtown coffee shop. Normally we discuss a variety of subjects ranging from photography and photo gear to local events, family, and the price of coffee. In other words, mainly old fart stuff. During the previous week we decided to take a short fifteen-minute photo walk prior to coffee. Our walk was limited to just the area around the cafe, and we were free to choose whatever subject caught our attention. We placed a limit of three images for each of us. Part of the exercise was to become selective in what was photographed and enjoy time photographing with a partner. This was not a competition; rather, it was a search for what we would take to "show and tell" time next Friday. I will be interested to see what compositions each of us found worthy of our attention since this is the first time we have ever done such a photo walk.  

While I enjoyed the experience, I was disappointed to learn that I have developed some sloppy habits that have crept into my photography. One of them is how lazy I have become in composing a photo by not using my feet. Shooting with a prime lens this morning instead of my regular zoom lens made me remember how important it is to move when framing your subject to utilize the best light and best lines. My first photo was of an architectural feature where a tile design was incorporated into the brick exterior of a building. After looking at my photo, I discovered that I should have selected a different section of tile to find a place where the mortar was intact. My second mistake was to take this shot with a 90mm lens that would need a different angle to create perspective or to photograph it at an exactly 90-degree angle to make the mortar lines appear spaced evenly. 

The second photo was of a bust inside the window of a cosmetology school. The bust was resting atop some textbooks and was wearing a dark wig that was partially in curlers. I chose to photograph it mainly because it was weird, without thinking about what message I wanted to share with the viewer. I failed to adjust my exposure correctly to account for the dark background window reflections of the parking lot. Those dark background reflections failed to provide any separation from the dark wig, giving the appearance that the cosmetology students performed a lobotomy instead of the traditional perm. 

The photo that appears in this week's blog is my winner by default. I like it because it displays a rainbow of spring colors that are not overpowered by the reflections from the street. The walk experience is worth repeating for instructive purposes. This short walk around showed me how easy it is to allow bad habits to spoil the opportunity to create an interesting photo, although it was fun to shoot with others since most of the photos that I take are when I am alone.