Reflections of an Artist: Fine Art Photography with a Splash of Prose (41) – Fall Spectrum

Want this hanging on your wall? Click the photo to buy now!

Want this hanging on your wall? Click the photo to buy now!

When the idea for these photos struck me I imagined exactly how I would do it. I daydreamt of twirling around like the lady from The Sound of Music; minus the beautiful hills and plus dodging headstones as I deathgripped my camera.

When it came time to shoot, I’m sure I looked more like a dizzy delinquent high on LSD than a blonde nanny in a musical. Luckily, though, only the dead were around to criticize and they don’t say much.

It wasn’t long before I figured out that moving my camera had to be a lot less carefree than playing ring around the rosie with myself. I settled on 1 second exposures (rather than the 4 that I started with) and panned the camera slow, steady, and straight across the horizon.

I got kind of addicted to the process and the surprise of seeing the resulting blend of color. The rainbow background above was my favorite surprise. Below is a snapshot reference of the scene before I spun it away in my camera.

What do you think?

The scene that I motion-blurred into a rainbow background for the photo above.

The scene that I motion-blurred into a rainbow background for the photo above.

 

What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!

 

Reflections of an Artist: Fine Art Photography with a Splash of Prose (40) – In the Graveyard

Want this hanging on your wall? Click the photo to buy now!

Want this hanging on your wall? Click the photo to buy now!

The air was as crisp as the leaves that crunched below my feet. I weaved between gravestones and the wind whipped up a storm of static in my ears as the leaves shivered against one another. The wind’s cool caress has always evoked an unusual calm in me.

Hypnotized by the wind, I didn’t notice that I’d come up to one of the paved pathways and I stumbled over the edge. I juggled my camera from hand to hand and eventually held onto it long enough to save it from smashing into the asphalt below. As I caught it, though, I hit the shutter by mistake and took a photo.

The photo below is what I found when I developed the film. I couldn’t tell you what other photos I made that day, but this one is forever etched in my memory as my favorite mistake. The tilt, the long shadows, and that one leaf that flew into the shot are all so magical to me.

The photo of the week, above, was made in the same cemetery more than a decade later… it seems like time can blow away so quickly with the wind.

autumn graveyard accident_sm

What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!

 

 

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