In week 18 of our 52 week challenge, we are to use diagonal lines in our images to create energy and lead our viewer through the image. As many of you know, I am fairly new to photography so I've been working pretty hard at honing my skills. Part of the process for me has been trying to figure out my style or perhaps I should say develop a style. I have been on a journey (literally to Spain) to help me figure this out and one of my "ah ha" moments was meeting and getting to know Kaylee Greer of Dog Breath Photography. I've seen and admired her work and as I got to know her, it hit me like a ton of bricks that her personality shows through in her photography. She is fun and gregarious and truly one of the most sincere people I've ever met. To me, her photography is fun and gregarious and there is also a sincerity about it. When I look at the images I took in Spain under the direction of the three instructors, the images that are my favorites are the ones that are clean, simple, dreamy, natural and calming. Most of those words are words I would use to describe myself. Perhaps I am onto something here. Progress feels good.
I believe my style doesn't lend itself to a lot of lines in the actual photos. I see images that others create that contain a lot of lines and I like some of them but I generally prefer a more understated image.
I'm cheating a little here because I am posting a photo I took in Spain of a dog named Pepa. (We are supposed to post photos we took this past week, see below for those. :)) It is one of my favorite images that I took on my trip. I like the simplicity of it and the white wall behind the mostly white dog (and the white wall has very subtle leading lines.) In looking at the photo, I noticed today that Pepa is lying on a brick floor with a diagonal pattern. I'm not sure that these diagonal lines add much to this image because they are fairly faint (and perhaps that is why I'm not bothered by them.) In this image, Pepa is lying at an angle to the camera... hence she is the diagonal. :)
I had a photo session at the end of last week and I set the puppy up on some moss growing in between the pavers. I was hoping to use one of those photos for my diagonal lines shot but in my photos, the puppy is sitting so that the lines are not diagonal at all, they're straight so I needed to come up with another plan.
Enter Howie, Lola and Otis. I was pet sitting for them earlier in the week. They are Malteses (should that have an 's' on the end or no? Anyone know what the plural of Maltese is?? :)) Otis is the old man of the crew, Howie is the young pup and Lola is the sweet girl that is happy to play or be loved on pretty much all the time! They have brick pavers in their yard so my thought was to try and get shots of them with the pavers coming towards me on the diagonal and in this first one, Otis is diagonal too. I know this probably a stretch for this week's assignment (sshhh don't tell anyone!)
Otis doesn't hear well (if at all) so I was lucky to get a shot of him with the brick pavers going the direction I wanted. Howie is VERY food motivated and sat nicely for a treat while I took his photo. :) I was also able to snatch a few photos of Lola.
This is a blog circle so click here to go to Pet Love Photography, serving Greater Cincinnati and the San Francisco Bay Area . If you continue to click the links at the end of each post, you'll end up right back here and you'll get to see some cute furry kids along the way.
