Original Post: 30JUL2016
Like any true photographer you sometimes become stagnant on shooting your style. And by you, I mean me. Not because I was lazy, but because it is really difficult to photograph the same people in the same small town. I need to travel to the big cities a lot more frequently.
In the mean time I needed to try something different, I needed to try to take some landscape photos.
I usually look at landscape photography as something anyone can do. Anyone with a point and shoot and a beautiful scene. There are hundreds of those online, a quick google search can show you all of them. All the sunsets and all the mountain sides, beaches and sunrises. And they are beautiful. I love them. But it is something that I don’t want to photograph particularly. What am I to do?
I go ahead and test out some landscape photography…
For this particular shot I was driving back from Bellingham, WA after shopping at the farmers market and visiting vintage thrift and second hand shops. Yes, I am that person. As I was driving, I was on the phone with my mom (hands free!) and immediately had to tell her that I would call her back. “Mom, I got to go, there is something I need to photograph!” Click.
I got out of the car, posted up my flimsy tripod and started to take shots. I realized that shooting landscapes is a little more of a challenge. I took several photos. I shot with my 50mm and I didn’t like how they came out. So I reframed and moved some. I switched to the 85mm and moved some more then I nailed this shot.
It was a rewarding feeling when I got to look at the photo in post processing. Choosing the right one from many taken is always a difficult and long process. Editing is another, but, it gets easier because you find a style that matches you and you go with it. For this one particular picture, the contrast was so perfect that I looked its best in black and white.
Then there is still life…
“Still life” is slightly different from landscape in the sense that, for me, it is almost close to being street photography. It is something that is happening at one moment in time and you happen to be around to take a shot of it. The only difference is that there aren’t any people in the picture to consider it street in my terms. But a person wouldn’t have made a different to this picture. In the end it might have taken away the impact of this one. It would have take the focus away, of this beautiful abandoned grill.
So far you have seen photos of Japan and on this post you have seen some from Washington. I plan on showing more of my other travels and my other projects separate from street, still, and landscape photography.
-Franco Pisano
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