It struck me today that I’ve been taking a lot of sun based photographs of late, and having seen on the news that the UK is experiencing a record breaking February in terms of heat and day light hours, maybe that’s the reason why.
In fact, it’s a record breaking February in terms of temperature, with some areas seeing over 20C, which is amazing considering we are still in the traditional winter season.
For me, this is a double edged sword, because as much as I love the warm sunshine as the next person, the ever stronger shifts we see in the traditional seasons is also a deep concern.
Are we experiencing global warming taking effect? Traditionally the UK sees these temperatures in summer, not winter; so it is a complete flip of the seasons. It concerns me that the natural balance of things is inevitably and irrevocably being negatively affected.
What will become of the natural world when the seasons are all arse about tit, if you get my meaning!
Continuing with this natural theme, I thought for today I would leave my pictures in their raw, “natural” unedited state.
So today’s pictures have not been edited, save for a crop to size.
The shots are looking through my open office window, as the sun set, and are only different through angle, framing and camera settings.
This restriction in editing gave me some interesting challenges, and forced a more focused attention on the light framing itself.
In the shot above you’ll notice the small lens flare in the sun beam, centre of the shot. Personally I don’t like this, and normally I edit it out, I know some people like it, but not me. That’s the beauty of human taste, we are all so very different, and over the years I have learnt to embrace my personal taste rather than to conform with whatever is trendy.
These days I’m not ashamed to say what I like and what I don’t, and in any form of art I feel that is extremely important. If your going to express yourself through whatever medium you choose, it should be a true expression of yourself.
The framing was actually the hardest part, because I liked lots of elements in the shots, but not necessarily how they all worked, or didn’t, together.
More lens glare, but I like the very subtle shine on the post far right. Isn’t it strange the things that catch your eye!
In this shot I drew the camera back a little, and focused on the window frame to force the sun into a blur. It’s interesting, but I’m not overly keen.
Learnings – more constraints have again forced some more learning, at a steeper curve. I may revisit some past shots and take them “raw” too, it’ll be interesting to see how I’ve evolved so far.
Onegav 