This week lens artists photo challenge is ‘that special place‘. The empty branches of a tree in Winter. During this pandemic I realized that the immediate outside of my house is an inspiration for photos. During the seasons and days it is always nice to look out and sometimes catch a nice view. Looking back over the years I realize that I have always been intrigued by little details near the places where I lived. Making these places special in a certain way.
This weeks challenge #186 is ‘Low Light’. Modern camera’s and even smartphones offer possibilities to take photo’s in poor light conditions. That can be at night or dusk, dawn, but also in poorly lit situations like a museum, church etc. In the old days of film the limits where much tighter. When light was not plenty available there were two options: making the film more sensitive (a few stops) and develop longer. Or flash. I hate flashing, so I always tried to work with existing light. Nowadays that is much more easy with digital technology. Here a photo mady by iPhone on an evening just after dusk.
A grey morning with fog in Winter. If the pandemic learned me something, it is that you do not have to go far to find beautiful items for photography. I can not wait to get out in the world again, but this is 500 meters away from where I live, on route to the supermarket. This week’s theme for the Lens Artists Photo Challenge #184 is ‘Travel has taught me’.
One from the archive. Père Lachaise is a famous graveyard in Paris, with lots of celebrities being rested there; another one for this week’s lens artistists challenge #168: seen better days. You can buy a map with the names of the famous on it, to find their graves. One of the youngest to be buried there was Jim Morrisson. Lead singer of The Doors, icon. The first time I visited Père Lachaise was early in 1985. Together with a friend we took a look at his grave; which was not that difficult to find because ‘helpful’ signs on gravestones, with arrows, pointed one in the right direction. At his grave we found a very young girl mourning. I asked her why she was so sad. “Jim is gone!”, she said. She must have been very young when he died in 1971. But her grieve was real. And years later in 2021, on a walk around the local lake, young people were playing The Doors loud on a big ghetto blaster like device. They looked at me as I walked by, smirking at me because they thought I did not like the loudness nor the music. “Great music boys”, I said as I walked by. They were surprised and replied: “Yes, this is great music sir!”. We grinned together, two different generations but the same love for The Doors. Break on through to the other side.
About the B4 retouch series: I browsed my archive for pictures to publish. Some of them are partly retouched but most do have scratches, dust and stains.
Originally shot with Nikon F301 on Kodak TriX, scanned from negative and tweaked using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
What's (in) the Picture? 