What I Saw/What I Made

When it's overcast here on the Oregon coast, I find myself drawn to photographing piles of fishing nets and buoys. Why not shoot them in bright sunlight? Because then there are way too many dark nooks and crannies, way too much light reflecting off the plastic buoys, and the colors appear washed out.

On overcast days, there are still darkish nooks and crannies, but there's enough light that we still see some details and (quite importantly) some colors back in there. And there are no ugly hot spots on the buoys, enabling the colors to look rich and saturated.

For this "VisuaLeigh" blog, I try to take a photograph and then step back about 15 or 20 paces so you can see what I saw, how I saw it, what caught my eye, and how I framed it.

Here you see stacks of fishing nets (are they not cool, or what?). My job is to figure out what catches my eye and then how to frame it so that what attracted me is all you see.

I had a lot of photo possibilities with these nets, but I particularly liked how the buoys stood out, big round orange circles against a colorful and cluttered background. I moved in closely, selected three I thought looked particularly good, and shot.

(A side note: We use contrast in our photos to create interest, to create a focal point, to create depth. Contrast isn't just about light and shadow. Contrast can be about sharp focus against soft focus, one color isolated in a swath of another color, something circular against a background of linear elements. In this case, it's clean orange color against chaotic colors. Smoothness against texture. Roundness against long skinny lines.)

I used a 24-85mm Canon lens on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera body, ISO 100, 1/200 second at f/7.1. I was probably also using a polarizing filter because, even though the light was overcast, there still might be some reflections off the buoys, and a polarizer will help eliminate them, allowing even more color to come through.

So there you have it. An overcast morning on the Oregon coast -- perfect for photographing nautical paraphernalia such as this.

©Carol Leigh

What I Saw/What I Made

I was walking on the fishing boat docks in Newport, Oregon and the only lens I had with me was a 24mm-85mm on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II. I took an overview of a boat hull so you can see what I saw. I set my lens at 24mm for this one.

I wasn't interested in the whole hull (love that word combo!), just one abstract section of it. So I zoomed out to 85mm (second photo). Although I sort of like this composition, I wished I could move in closer, but I was limited to the lens at hand.

Later, in Photoshop, I cropped the second image to a square format, which contains the "meat" of what I liked most about the boat hull (third photo).

I like the colors, the diagonal lines, and the vivid reflection in the water (reflections are usually darker and more saturated than what is being reflected).

©Carol Leigh

Train Scratches

Traveling home from Astoria yesterday, we passed some old train cars. How could we not stop? Here you see the train car that I saw. And here are three examples of the types of things I extracted from the scraped, scratched, and scuffed paint. Woo hoo! ©Carol Leigh

Boat Scratches

Here's what I saw on the docks — scratches on the side of a fishing boat. By moving in as close as I could (without falling in the water), I isolated a couple of abstract images from those simple scratches.

When composing something like this, I think of it as a little landscape, so in photo #2 you see how I placed the "horizon line" down low as well as placing the wider, darker part over toward the right, which gives the smaller bits room to fly diagonally into the frame.

In photo #3 I divided the scratches into layers, into horizontal bands. The black strip up top and the dark blue strip at the bottom "frame" the lighter, airier  center section.

©Carol Leigh, celebrating the ordinary

What I Saw/What I Made

Making something from what might appear (at first) to be nothing is what I take especial delight in doing. And yesterday, at a boat yard (my playground), I found a lot of nothing to shoot. Here are two examples of what I found "hidden" on a boat's rudder. I've also included a shot of the rudder so you can see what I saw.

You know, it's like macro photography on a larger scale. When shooting close-up, we find something small to fill our frame, something extracted from something larger. Here I zoomed in on just part of a larger whole, making what I think is a pleasing design. Ah, but then it's also like landscape photography, isn't it? Out of everything that's laid out in front of us, we extract from a larger whole, choosing which mountain to include, which grove of trees, which barn, etc. Taking this to the absurd, it's like celestial photography, isn't it? We select out part of a larger whole, creating compositions that are pleasing to us... And on it goes.

Anyway, this is what I was doing yesterday. And now you see what I saw, and you see what I made.

©Carol Leigh, seeing the big picture in a very small way

The greatest value of a picture ...

"The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expect to see." — John W. Tukey, "Exploratory Data Analysis" 1977

What I Saw/What I Made: Rock Abstract

There are certain beaches here with large bluffs rising above them where, at certain times, under certain light, the rocks glow a beautiful, warm orange color. In these two photos I show you what I saw and then what I made.

The first photo is an overview of the bluff face, rising up from the sand. See the big swath of orange? Moving in closer, I focused on just a little section of that rock face. The bluff is maybe 30 feet high and the orange rock area is around eye level.

My talent — and my downfall — is that I rarely see the "big picture," but I'm good at finding little things to zoom in on. This is an instance where I forced myself to take more of an overview so that you could see what I was seeing. Click the images to see them larger.

©Carol Leigh, who is now trying, for the purpose of this blog and subsequent eBooks, to take overviews

Summer Light and Shadow

Right now, here in the northern hemisphere it's full-blown summer, which usually means lots of sunshine, lots of light, and lots of shadows. Got shutters? Got mini-blinds? Look at how early morning or late afternoon light pours in through the windows, the blinds/shutters creating dramatic shadows. When you see that light, those shadows, find SOMEthing, ANYthing to put in that light.

Your light may be fleeting, so you'll have to act fast. Here you see two photos I took in my kitchen a couple of years ago. I quickly hung a straw hat on a cabinet knob to create a summer-esque photo. And then opened another cupboard just to see what was there that I could use as a subject in the sunlight. A bag of coffee and a canister in the back was what I could find and shoot before the sun dipped behind the offshore fogbank and was gone.

If I could paint, the subject matter of a straw hat and bright, stripey light/shadow would be a wonderful composition to attempt.

Ordinary subjects in extraordinary light. That's what we're looking for!

©Carol Leigh, always happy to see light here on the Oregon coast

View From the Couch

A couple of years ago I was sitting on the couch, getting acquainted with a camera, and I quickly took a few photos. I realized tht for just sitting on the couch, snapping away, the photos aren't bad. They're not great but — and this is important — I made the most of the situation. I looked, composed, and clicked the shutter.

Abby across the room stayed put for a few minutes. A vase of dried poppy pods on the "Holly Cabinet" caught my eye, as did the way the sun shone on a floor lamp, the shadows on a knob, and the simple inlay on a cedar chest.

Could I have taken more? Yes. But photography wasn't my goal right then. Figuring out the functions of the camera was what I was working on.

The point of all this is that SEEING, LOOKING, NOTICING are the quietly important aspects of photography (and this applies to sketch artists and painters). Cameras do so much for us and so easily that we often forget the human behind the viewfinder, our unique vision, the thing that makes our photos ours.

Teaching someone to see is the most challenging part of my job. But sometimes it just requires sitting on a couch, looking around.

©Carol Leigh, who overachieves in couch-sitting . . .