Wood in B&W

November 6, 2009

Again, the last Sunday, in the yard of my brother’s new house….

In May in the yard of my family country house

For some weird reason I love wood in B&W

Cleaning up my pictures…

November 5, 2009

Cleaning up my pictures is even more difficult than cleaning up my room… the big problem is that as soon as I start cleaning up I find pictures that “look unusually interesting”.

Indeed I find pictures that at a first sight  considered “not good”, while when I clean up I decide “to play” with them and got it…

Just for example

This is my brother, using his cellphone while lying on the floor of our country house. It was the 9th April 2007.

I took 2 years and 7 months to understand this picture.

Who knows if I’m wrong now or I was  wrong in April 2007.

Strating from the color to (occasionally) end up with B&W

November 4, 2009

I love colors and till a few years ago  I’ve usually considered kinda ridiculous to take pictures in Black and White… unless there is a specific will, for example:

-”I want to make the picture look old”

- “I want to play with editing photos program”

- “I want to see how it looks like”, etc…

I found pretty annoying people that say “B&W is MORE artistic…”. Every time some told me such a thing I had to “bite my toungue” to not start asking: “What do you mean by “more artistic”? Why don’t you just say “I like B&W more”?”

I don’t have many B&W pictures… except those one that are”low key shots” (or kinda) like this:

or because, for some reason that I don’t know a picture seemed telling me:

“I might look nice in B&W, try”.

Thanks Lord taking pictures is not something that follows a 100% logical path, it’s a lot based on instinct (or feelings if you wanna be a little more “romantic”).

I NEVER take shots directly in B&W, even when I think that I’ll  turn that picture in a B&W one. Why? 2 simple reason.

1) A man I trust a lot (as a photographer) once told me that it works better if you take your pictures in raw and color mode. So the first cause is that I’m able to “trust”.

2) I’m a dreamer (or unsure) kind of person: I always think that later I might enjoy that shot more in color than in B&W, so “Why should I cut a chance of a better beauty in my life?”

Here I’m just telling my “way to be” with no intention of teaching something… How could I?
I’m the “living abortion” of a physicist and an i-photographer (imaginary photographer) who knows pretty few about post production and quite nothing about photography history… therefore my words worth quite nothing in both worlds, but I do think that I might share “Beauty I see”, therefore I’ll keep on taking this blog. At least it helps me to not get crazy and start hating life

Enjoy your life!

The covered past

November 3, 2009

On Sunday I’ve seen a lot of old things, a lot of things I have not seen since I was 15-16. A lot of things coming from the past, before my father was born.

Among these things there was this sideboard. At least I think it’s a kind of sideboard. It was in my grandma house and now was covered by plastic to avoid it gets ruined during the various improvements their are doing to the house.

I don’t know why but I’ve taken several pictures to it, in order to do at least an “HDR version”. (This could make me explain you how I take B&W pictures… but I’ve no great will to write today).

It isn’t a great shot, probably, but it’s like those good friendship. You understand you are going to live really pleasant moments, as well it has been pleasant playing with lights and taking pictures to this old sideboard… and realizing that before Sunday I’d never take a picture of it… it reminded me that at times we’ve to (at least partially) cover/lose/bury things to understand what is good in them.

Beyond the cleaning up!

November 2, 2009

My mind probably will never fully understand the meaning of the word”storage”, especially if “storage” implies you put things away with order… in any language you say it, I think that I’m probably unable to understand what “order” can be, for more than 2 seconds
It is a GREAT and BIG problem for my studies, especially now that I’m studying physics. Physics is something that requires a certain level of mental order… well, actually most of the best physicists are REALLY crazy, but it’s another kind of craziness.

I spent most of my life in my room. A little room in a little apartment placed in a building of a little city. Ok, I guess at this point I can be asked “Are you a smurf”?. Who knows?!

I live in “small” places and in a situation of “little chances”, but I do dream big and love photography… then, for my 21st bday I asked my parents an iMac 24”.

Their reaction: “WHAT?! 2,000 euros for a computer?! Are you crazy? Can’t you, at least, get the 20” one?”

At the end “I won”. I mean, I got the 24” iMac, my parents paid the whole thing, but for the following 12 months I had to give back the 90% that wasn’t included in the 21st  birthday present. Isn’t it “lovely”?

At this point, people with tidy minds could wonder: “Which is the relationship between her messy mind, her room and her 21st birthday “present”? “

SPACE and DISORDER!

The coming of the new computer made me doing a little revolution in my “computer station”, that is actually on “wheels” as moths of the thing in my room…
[For those who are computers geeks: "Do you recall the game named Sokoban?" That's how thing are "placed" in my room ]

Consequence of the revolution: something had to move away, therefore, for almost 18 months 1/4 of my table has been “occupied” by those objects that “moved away” when the new computer came. They were like clandestine on it.  My mother complained a little and I answered back: “When I can I’ll put “the alien” away and  clandestine stuff will move to its place”. The moment came 18 months late… C’mon, it isn’t such a big period of time if you consider that in the meanwhile I studied, failed or half-failed a lot of tests and got depressed

Here is “The alien”:

who “kindly” opened its mouth when I wanted to download pictures…

He left the room. My room.

After at least 6 or 7 years it has been in it…My first pc is leaving forever. Sniff! The pc that I used when photography passion started hitting me very hardly, the same PC that allowed me to “meet” that men who become a really good friend, the PC that… was just my first “all mine” PC.

It’s leaving a part of my history… I took away from it the 2 HD and put them on my table in the hope to buy (someday) 2 little “proper boxes” to make them become external HD. While saving the HD I thought: “It’s like preserving a working brain of a dear person…” moved away from this thought a second after I started it

The “The Alien’s place” before it left:

As you can see beside “the alien” there were, beside a lot of mess, a lot of dictionaries and grammars and English language related stuff. I could write 2 other posts about those books, but I’ve wrote already too much today.

Now the place looks this way:

Once again physics (and it’s only a little part of my books and copybooks!) occupied most of my life spaces with less funny and colorful things… it’s fine… It’s what I decide for my life 3 years ago:”studying physics”. Probably an huge mistake but I’ve to deal with it, I like it or not

More powerful passions didn’t totally move away. On the “upper” level there are still 2 dictionaries, a grammar, the external HD (at the moment just one because the other one is in the “electronic stuff sickbay”=”boyfriend house”) and other photography related things and a few of “old” CD-ROMS.

This is just a spot of the revolution, tomorrow I’ve to keep on changing thing in my whole room. I’m extremely tired, but it’s worth. Changes can be good too.

November in Black&White

November 1, 2009

A good aspect of being forced to repeat an year at the university is that I don’t have to listen to any lectures and I can study at home and decide when and how do it… this means I’ve more time for my pictures (when I get my relax days after a test) and for friends.

This year I decide to “join” my friend Maya’s November in Black&White project.

Maya is a wonderful woman that loves her family and takes very nice shots…
Well, I’m not good with English and I don’t want to waste such a beauty, so just visit her blog.
I’m sure you’ll agree it’s like slice of heaven showed with the whole world.

Here is A picture I took today thinking about her project.

I spent the whole Sunday with my family at the country house that was built by my great aunt and uncle, that belonged to my uncle and now is the place where my brother is moving to.
The problem of that house is that it needs a lot of works (started by my uncle) and there is still a lot of mess, and weird objects all around.
That’s how I found this anchor and the beside pan.
In a first moment I wondered why my uncle hanged them outside, but soon later I thought:
“He was my uncle so it isn’t strange  if he did something of crazy”.
I love to think that while I was taking this picture he was there, beside me, smiling for his crazy niece enjoying her uncle’s craziness.