Bold bits of color

Remember slides and light tables? Such a great way to see an overview of one's work, to immediately spot images that work well together, and to quickly pick out the keepers and the losers.

That's sort of what using Bridge in Photoshop does for me now with my digital images. So when I was thinking about today's blog post, and went to the potpourri of images I have in my "May" directory, these two stood out immediately because their blue and red colors were remarkably similar.

A blue buoy looks great against a bright red fishing boat in Anacortes, Washington. And a red-rimmed taillight echoes that blue/red color scheme on a vehicle here in Coupeville.

What's my point? I don't have one, really, except to show you the nice little surprises you might find in your own stash of photos once you become more aware of colors and color combinations.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone photos of the day . . .

Having fun with this . . . Took photos this week of:

Penn Cove on Whidbey Island
Decorative gourd detail
Car taillight

I've got three different photo projects in mind to play with between now and the end of the year, but still haven't unpacked my DSLR equipment, with the exception of a few lenses and two bodies. Haven't found the battery charger for one of the bodies, which is just a momentary speed bump.

This is where being cautious bit me in the butt. I didn't want to label certain boxes "EXPENSIVE CAMERA GEAR. DO NOT DROP!" when we moved because that's just asking for problems, isn't it? But I THOUGHT I would remember which boxes the good stuff was in . . . apparently memory's the first thing to go . . .

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

Car art . . .

Walking through a parking lot the other day, I saw the back of this really colorful car and, thinking of my upcoming class where one of the lessons is "car art," I had to stop and shoot.

What caught my eye was the big, bold red and chrome triangular form of the car's taillight, so I filled my frame with just that, composing to emphasize the diagonal lines and the triangular form.

Later, in Photoshop, I noticed how part of the taillight looked sort of like a bird's beak and eye. I cropped the image into a square, which really emphasizes the bird vibe.

Which version is better? I like them both. There's more horizontal movement in the original photo, but more "birdyness" in the second.

Either way makes me happy.

©Carol Leigh

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. — Edgar Degas

Car taillight. ©Carol Leigh

Taking a second look . . .

For the past two weeks my online class students have been working on finding and photographing automobile headlights and taillights. It's all about composition, mostly, trying to make something with balance, movement, a focal point, rhythm, etc. They've come up with phenomenal photos, some of them much better than these of mine.

Headlights and taillights ... we see them every day ... now's the time to take a closer look.

©Carol Leigh