Photographing life’s everyday things
Published 12:10 am Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Isolate your grandmother's old handmade quilt from the busy background in a beam of sunlight for a photo. Wayne Hinshaw, for the Salisbury Post
See the small pieces of pottery sitting on the windowsill silhouetted again the blue sky with the texture of the screen wire. Wayne Hinshaw, for the Salisbury Post
Have some fun with an apple sitting on a red plastic container in the evening sun by looking through a glass bottle. Wayne Hinshaw, for the Salisbury Post
Isolate your wife's sewing basket with all the needles and pins against a black background with the soft evening sun Wayne Hinshaw, for the Salisbury Post
Look for the shadowed sunlight bouncing off a straw hat next to your wife's cookbooks and a collectable from years of teaching school. Wayne Hinshaw, for the Salisbury Post
By Wayne Hinshaw
For the Salisbury Post
You don’t have to travel far and wide to discover interesting photos.
You don’t have to climb mountains or cruise to the Pacific islands. Look around at the things you see every day in your home.
I love photography, and I seem to see photos everywhere I point my eyes. My blessing and my curse is the same talent of being able to see photos everywhere.
I have an impulse to photograph things. I can’t explain the impulse. Is it a psychological defect or a golden nugget? Is the impulse unique, or do others just not take the time to experience the vision that I think they have coming from deep in their brain or their soul?
When your head has an itch, you don’t think about it. You scratch it. When you have an impulse to make a photo, you make a photo. Pretty simple to me.
Photography is all about light. It can be a special light, colorful light, a beam of lights or soft light. It can be a flashlight or light shining through a window falling on a piece of pottery with apples or striking a flower or a special glass dish or your collectibles. That special light hits something that you love or value.
Do you stand above the object and look down on it? Do you get down low at eye level? Do you look at the object though a glass or through a transparent colored filter? Do you see an apple sitting on a red plastic container looking through a glass bottle? What is your perspective on looking at your object?
Single out your subject. Isolate your subject to get rid of all the worldly clutter.
Rest that old family handmade quilt that your grandmother sewed in a beam of late evening sunlight. Isolate your wife’s sewing basket filled with all the needles and pins against a black background. Sometimes your subject gets lost if your vision is too big or too wide. Isolate the wooden boards of an old chair with peeling, chipped paint on your porch or a spoon in your kitchen and look for the details while remembering your light and your perspective.
Scratch that itch.
See the small pieces of pottery sitting on the windowsill silhouetted again the blue sky with the texture of the screen wire between the pottery and the sky.
Feel that impulse, see that vision, blessing or curse.
See! See! See!
There is beauty all around us in the ordinary things that can make extraordinary photos or memories. Even if you never pick up a camera and make a single photo, you can observe and enjoy the beauty. You can pick up a pen and write about the beauty that you see. Sometimes you can touch and feel the textures or the curves in a glass bowl and enjoy feeling that beauty. You don’t have to make photos of the things around you, but take the time to enjoy what is before you in this world.
Blessing or curse? I will go with blessing.
