light

for Kat Sloma's Find Your Eye course i collected some of last month's favourite photo work in an 'inspiration folder.
here are three photographs that made my heart jump while browsing my Lightroom catalog.
all three express my fascination with light.

light falling through a yellowed leaf and a tangle of spiderwebs in the park

light falling through the stained glass windows of an old church

lights in the night, reflected in the dark river, just after a boat has passed

i seem to love light a lot ;-0

photo heart connection august

these two images represent my most inspiring and exciting event in august.

after meeting at one of Kat Sloma's classes last year, Elsie and i started a collaborative photoblog. 

on the 30th of august we met each other in person for the very first time in Utrecht.

we had an amazing day together.

dynamic diagonals

exploring direction and movement within the frame

Kat Eye Studio's monthly theme for april is the function of diagonal lines within an image. When I read her post i had just come back from my dad's with a camera full of shots filled with horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines, so I picked a couple of them to further explore the theme.

My favorite subject is reflection, and the office building behind my fathers apartment, standing in a big square pool of water, always provides me with multiple reflective surfaces. The straight horizontal and vertical lines of the buildings become diagonal and slightly curved when reflected in the windows, which has an interesting visual effect.  I tried cropping and straightening the shots in different ways, first straightening along the horizontal lines of the office building, then straightening along the horizontal lines of the reflections. 

The middle image is not a reflection, but an example of converging lines, that create diagonals within the shot. I straightened the first shot along the white balcony on the top of the left building, the second shot along the top of the roof of the house in the background, behind and between the two buildings. I like the extra diagonal created by the shadow on the bottom right, it adds more energy to the image.

Here are some horizontal shots, the first one straightened along the left vertical line of the building, creating several diagonals: from top left to bottom right (the window and blinds) and from bottom left to top right (the reflections). The second one was straightened along the horizontal line of the reflections, creating a whole different set of diagonals, mainly from bottom middle to top right, but also in opposite direction on the building at the left.

balancing shapes pt 2
arranging moving objects


Kat Sloma's theme went with me on my photo journeys these past days. Every time i took a shot i was considering balance. Today i stood at the shore of the lake and took pictures of the ships sailing by. I usually wait for a boat to 'enter' my frame and shoot as soon as it has reached the right position. This time i tried to wait for the right balance.

In these shots the division of the frame is the same: two thirds is taken up by the sky and one third by the water. I followed the boat with my lens and kept it close to the middle of the frame. The difference in these images lies in the orientation and distance of the boat and the size and shape of the horizon.

For me this shot has the right balance. There is movement: the boat is sailing out of the frame and the sails are nicely curved by the wind, the horizon has no distracting shapes, the mill is a nice bonus and exactly in the right position and the blurry reeds in the foreground add a subtle touch.

Here are some horizontal shots with a completely different impact. Again the sky and the water are divided into thirds, but there is a lot more space for the boat, so it needs to be in a different position in order to create a well-balanced shot.

This one is my favorite. I like the boat in the first third of the space, with movement implied by the diagonal line of the sail and the wake be hid the boat, and at the same time a lot of space to the right (two thirds) suggesting a wide open space beyond the frame where the boat will go on sailing indefinitely.

balancing shapes
arranging space within the frame


KatEye Studio's theme this month is about composition. About balancing the space, objects, colors and shapes within a photograph in different ways, trying to create an arrangement that catches the eye. 

Some weeks ago I visited my dad and saw an almost empty office building standing in a square pond with lots of dead leaves in it, big red 'for rent' posters behind the tinted glass windows and a red plastic bag floating around on the water. I was immediately drawn to this interesting combination of shapes, textures, elements and colors and took a couple of shots, trying to create a compelling image.

Browsing through my shots i chose the one below as my absolute favorite. All the shapes and colors are in perfect balance, a perfect example of the effectiveness of the rule of thirds.  What i like most of all is that this balance is slightly disrupted by the red plastic bag floating on the water: it is the same color as the two posters but the only object in the image that doesn't have a reflection. It stands (or rather: floats) on it's own. I really, really like it when rules and conventions are broken like this....

capturing silhouettes


This month's topic for Kat Sloma's 'exploring with a camera' series is silhouettes


Browsing through my most recent work i found this wonderful image

Looking closer i realized that this is not a 'genuine' silhouette, but a reflected one. While composing this shot I deliberately left out the bridge itself and the person walking on it, and focused on the way they are reflected in the water as dark shapes, slightly distorted by the movement of the water.

I discovered some great silhouettes among my nature photographs

Somehow i seem to always combine silhouettes with some kind of reflection, probably because reflections are my favorite subject and i tend to see them everywhere.

Dusk is a great time for capturing silhouettes. Here's a shot taken with my new Olympus PEN in 16:9 format, which suits this subject perfectly. (notice the reflections of the lights in the water? like I said: my favorite subject....)