Share Six – Contrast – March 2018

For those of you who may not know, I teach High School Digital Photography. This semester we are doing a lens distortion project and learning about Pictorialism. An art movement during the later 19th and early 20th centuries, Pictorialism, represented both a photographic aesthetic and photography’s role as a fine art. Pictorialists believed that photography was as a vehicle for personal expression and not just a means of documenting events, people, or history. Pictorialist photographers wanted to capture expressive and emotional artwork by concentrating on the feel of the image rather than just the subject being recorded. Many of the Pictorialist images of the time had a soft feel to them, graininess, sepia tone, and blur. Fog, humidity and rain also added an additional emotional element.

Edward Steichen: The Pond—Moonrise 1904

The year before he created Moonlight, Steichen wrote an essay arguing that altering photos was no different than choosing when and where to click the shutter.  “Once you really commence to see things, then you really commence to feel things.” ~ Edward Steichen

I am drawn to images that have blur, contrasting light, lens flare, and bokeh. I seek out ways to create images that are expressive and artistic rather than just snapping the shutter.  I love to freelense! I have several different lenses that are creative lenses that purposely capture the scene with an extreme shallow depth of field and swirl effect. I am always looking for new ways to capture images using creative techniques. I have been collecting all sorts of objects in preparation to teach my students about lens distortion such as vinyl tubing, tulle, plastic, glass, panty hose, bling ribbon, plastic bags, plastic wrap, and the list goes on!

So, for this months Share Six theme, contrast, I decided to create high contrast images using different objects to distort the way my camera captured the scene.  Each image below was captured using something different!

Join us for this month’s theme by posting your Contrast images on our Facebook page at Share Six and to our Instagram gallery,  by tagging #sharesix and #sharesix_contrast.  A new theme will come out on January 6th.