I’ve been doing a lot of off-the-beaten-path photography over the past several months. Star trails in the Rocky Mountains, sunsets and moonrises at the Florida coast, close-up shots of fidget spinners with glass-ball reflections…it’s been fun, but it’s also been a bit exhausting. Not in terms of effort and excitement, but I can just feel the sense that the creative muscles in my mind have been stretched a bit beyond what I’m used to. If I didn’t enjoy taking photos, I just wouldn’t do it. But I feel like the most recent spate of images I have posted have been well beyond the norm compared to what I usually create with my camera, and sometimes it helps to just re-center things a bit and get back to basics. This picture, then, might be seen as somewhat of a reset. A course correction, if you will, and a chance to stop, take a breath, and return to the familiar: my D750, a prime lens, and a walk around Theta Pond at OSU.
If I had a particular style, or a type of image that could serve as a representation of the images I am fond of creating, this shot would serve as a prime example. It’s a clearly-distinguishable subject just off-center, augmented by bright, distinct colors and a blurry background. Shots like this aren’t complicated and won’t win any awards, but I enjoy them and feel like I either learn something new in situations like this or, at the very least, get to practice and refine my skills. The seed pod you see here, that of a Golden Rain Tree, is about one inch tall so I had to get kind of close in order to have it fill half of the vertical portion of the frame. That’s not difficult at all with a macro lens, but what is a little tricky is choosing the right exposure settings–especially the aperture. I wanted to completely blow out the background while still getting the veins of the seed pod walls as clear and sharp as possible, so I settled on f/6.7 as a compromise and I think it does the job nicely. I specifically positioned myself so that the seed pod was not only on the right side of the frame, but slightly slanted while also getting some sunlight on the left side. It’s simple, almost classical, composition and it gets the job done quite nicely if I do say so myself.
It has been fun to try so many new things over the summer, photographically speaking that is, but taking a picture like this feels like slipping on a pair of old jeans in the morning after spending the previous day all dressed up to attend a wedding. This photo is enjoyable, comfortable, and reminds me what I like so much about photography in the first place.
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