I'm happy with these images. I remembered a set of cards I had to help inspire some creativity called Oblique Strategies. I pulled out a card that said "Be more Bold". With being more bold in mind, I decided to be more bold in my compositions and also the editing. I feel in the past I had fallen into a self-imposed trap of deliberately creating subtle compositions of subtle subjects, subtly edited. Bold compositions are sometimes easy, like you're cheating the subtle beauty of the scene by graphically cheating, Im now trying to let that feeling go.
Again Im feeling the importance of good lighting, it really does make a big difference. I started shooting at 10am, but now it is almost November it's actually looking great. I've touched upon my desire to only shoot in great light, in reality that's hard to consistently achieve.
There is a few compositions where I noticed after the fact, quite nice graphical elements. I wish I could spot them before I take the image, maybe try to build upon them. The skylines and arcs of tree trunks grabbed me, but at the time I wasn't quite as aware.
I feel that the place does matter, especially a new place I haven't photographed which i seem to work with more creatively. Any interesting elements in a place make a difference to an image, the swans or the hand-turned wooden machine add a nice sting to an image that without such elements have less life. My previous images of empty fields seem quite bland in contrast to this better location.
I also had an accidental experimental image, the photograph of the dead tree, as i took the shot lots of leaves were falling. It gave the image a curious imperfect look. I really do need to be more creative!
After developing these images, I feel like I want to do a model shoot. The idea of really working with graphical elements in nature, kind of reflected or played upon with the placement of actions of a model, I feel that could be really interesting.
