Tag: photography

Rediscovering an Old Passion

Before we left on our vacation to tour the Northwest, Craig decided to look for our cameras and bring the nice cameras on the trip with us. I didn’t think it was a bad idea. The cameras are nice, and haven’t been used in years. However, I didn’t care that much. I enjoy taking photos on my phone, and  the editing apps I like to use are all on my phone. I really like the results I can get on my Galaxy, and using an actual camera just hasn’t been on my radar.

Using a camera takes more work and dedication then using a phone camera. Aside from the fact you have way more settings to learn, if your camera doesn’t have wifi (and mine doesn’t) you have to take the time to clear out the memory card and dump the files onto your computer. If you love your phone editing apps, as I do, then after that you have to hook up your phone to your computer and transfer them there for editing or sharing. It also gives you one more device to have to charge. Basically, it is kind of a pain.

I Love my Camera

It is so worth it! The photos I got were so much better than what I typically get on my phone. Portraits were crisper and cleaner. The high contrast black and white setting created some stark, moody images. I got to experiment with long exposure. I still have a long way to go with that, but just experimenting with the possibilities awakened something in me.

Miniature Photography

My favorite thing, by far, was playing with miniature mode. I can get some decent black and whites on my phone. The portraits it takes are not always stunning, but do the job and can be edited. However, for taking miniature photos (or tilt shift, as they are otherwise referred to) I have found nothing on my phone to even remotely measure up to my camera. The miniature photos I took on my camera were miles ahead of the miniature images I have created on my phone. The phone camera apps that do miniature are clunky and unsophisticated. The other miniature/ tilt shift photography apps that turn photos into tilt shift images after you take them with your regular camera app just don’t do a spectacular job. The finished look is never that beautiful. Some apps are certainly better than others, and will do in a pinch, but after spending days using the miniature mode on a decent camera I will never look back, and I can see clearly a difference between miniature photos I’ve done with my phone and the ones I’ve taken on my camera. Miniature is my absolute favorite, and I have lost sight of that over years of using a cell phone camera for convenience.

My Love of Photography Has Been Rekindled

Years ago, in college, I spent a lot of time on photography. It was what I did the most, besides writing. Every weekend and some weekdays were spent photographing the world around me or editing photographs I’d taken. After that, when I was using a cheaper camera and had not yet fallen into the habit of using a cell phone, I fell in love with tilt shift photography. I saw some miniature images online and knew immediately that I wanted to do that.

Recently I have gotten back into photography on my phone after a long dry spell. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my phone camera and I’ve seen people make gorgeous art with their phone cameras. My favorite editing app of all time is on my phone, so I will have to transfer my photos to it. But there is something so special, artful, and magical about using an actual camera, and the detail and lighting and miniature mode on cameras outdo phone cameras by a long shot.

Being able to take good tilt shift images again has reignited my creativity. Long exposure is something I’m dying to get good at, and to use to create really surreal and sublime images. There is so much to discover on my camera, and I am only scratching the surface. I definitely want to build my skills with macro mode. Having a new creative outlet, especially one that gets me in touch with my past self and which sparks an old flame, makes my soul sparkle with excitement and glow with satisfaction. I’ve been dipping my toes in the water of photography for a while, but now I am going to slip beneath the surface. The water is like silk, the waves a tender, clean coolness.

Gorgeous Antique Mall

Craig took me to a gigantic antique mall to browse for some beautiful odds and ends. I took some photos while I was there. I got some lovely little things and I even got a fan and a beautiful gold glittering iridescent dish. I also got some magazines to use for Erasure poetry. I don’t have pictures of what I bought but I have some gorgeous pictures of other things.

I Need a Kindred Soul

I need a friend. I have friends, a few at least. And I love them. But what I wish I had was one more friend, a friend who likes phone photography or writing poetry or taking still lifes or journaling or painting or collage. A friend I can do creative challenges with, or even start a separate blog with to post collaborative work or stuff that follows the same sort of theme or concept.

I think that working with someone and bouncing ideas off each other would make my creativity stronger. I would certainly love the companionship and having someone to talk to about creativity, either written or visual. It would be fun if we were doing the same thing, but it would be equally great if we were doing two different creative things and just talking about them with each other, and giving each other suggestions and keeping each other posted with our progress.

I feel like I run on and on about poetry and other artsy things to friends that aren’t interested in them. And no one wants to be the person in the room who talks for an hour about something no one else in the room is interested in! But it’s hard when almost no one is interested in something that you really love.

So many creatives throughout history have been shaped by other creatives that they were friends with. I would love to have someone like that in my life and I would love to be that someone for another person.

I am not an amazing artist or photographer, but I really like designing images. I wish there was someone I could talk about it with. Maybe we could inspire and challenge each other. Perhaps we could give each other ideas outside of one another’s usual subject matter or mode of creating in order to sharpen one another’s senses. Why not try mixed media? Or instant film and toy cameras? Or ekphrastic poetry based on one another’s photographs? Book binding? Incorporating ephemera into our art?

Blogging helps me work some of my Creative Energy out. Blogging is extremely important to me. But maybe through my blog I will make a serendipitous discovery of a kindred soul who might want to be an angel in my life and let me be an angel in theirs.

This is probably a long shot, but maybe someday somebody will find this post and a beautiful friendship will spark. I know it’s unlikely, but it’s always worth a try. If nothing comes of it, my life will continue in much the same way and I will not have lost anything. And I have a good life. But if I do find that kindred soul, how happy I will be! If I don’t open my doors no one will know that they are welcomed into my life.

Iron sharpens iron, and friends are priceless. Is anyone out there? Hello….Hello……

Pike’s Peak

Today my wonderful family and I drove to the top of Pike’s Peak, a 14er in our town, Colorado Springs. The views were breathtaking. We stopped at a couple of pull offs and got some really pretty shots, and we spent a little time at the shore of the reservoir.

Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures at the top because there was no view. There was thick cloud cover at the top. But I got some other pictures of the family and a couple of other nice ones looking down from various points on the drive.