Post-Post week 4--photos with reflections

Post-Post week 4--
Take a set of nature photographs. Take as many as you can. Post selected ones with brief captions and a brief introduction to explain the context of your photo shoot (where you went, what you experienced, how many photos you took, how you are pleased with the results, and so forth).

My favorite part of the assignment was walking and enjoying being present to the cool, early morning air beginning to fill with light and the songs of waking birds. But I also was excited about the idea of trying out some of Chad's suggestions for taking my pictures—use odd angles, focus on close-ups with receding backgrounds, apply the rule of thirds, etc.

The cows I love weren't around for their photo op, so I took some funny pictures of mushrooms, and a couple of odd ones of flowers near a wire fence.

Mushrooms in the grass. I got down on my knees to take this photo. I knew I was choosing an odd angle while also trying to use the rule of thirds with the more interesting main subject in the front corner.














I noticed the flowers, the fence, the fog…and the missing cows







I tried to capture what I thought was a telling photo of too much algae covering the pond, but it just looked like regular water. (So much for photo journalism truth telling.)












But maybe there is way to get at another important truth. This morning I popped the whole set of photos into the computer to see what I got, and although it was full light when I was photographing, too many of my pictures came out looking dark. But maybe dark fits best, because this morning's front page story is about budget cuts for the disabled, and I'm feeling the dark creeping up on me. I say this because photographing this pond brings back the memory of the day my severely autistic five year old went swimming here. That was a hard day for many reasons, (the short version of the story is she was rescued), but this morning the memory of that ache and future concerns for Catherine are reflected in the dark edges of my photos.

Overall, I loved the activity, and I look forward to experimenting with a photo-walk another day. I think taking lots of photos I know I won't use is very freeing--it takes the pressure off of "getting it right". It is a bit like the writing process where I often write lots of extra words for an assignment. Later, I go back and pick and choose the best stuff. Hurray for process!