July is long gone and we’ll be back to school in the blink of an eye, so it’s about time I share my images from July. It was a month of two halves: waiting to be home and being home, the home that is England. We spent precious time with so many loved ones. If you’ll watching carefully you’ll see a few of them in these images.
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This post is part of the Inspired by Life Blog Circle. Please continue around the circle and support to my talented friends. Next up is the wonderfully talented Sharleen of Sharleen Stuart Photography. CLICK HERE to see what she has to offer this month.
Thank you for joining me for another month of images.
The theme for this month’s Share Six blog circle is {Curves}.
My take on the theme may be a little tenuous but I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to share some images taken with the latest addition to my lens collection: the Lensbaby Burnside 35mm. The Burnside not only has gorgeous creamy tones, with the right application it creates beautifully curved bokeh. See what I did there? Look for the swirling curves that draw your eye to the subject:
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Thank you for joining us for another month at Share Six. Please continue around the circle by clicking HERE. I can’t wait to see how the exceptionally talented Kathy of KG Ledbetter Photography interpreted this month’s theme!
Join us for this month’s theme by posting your {Curves} images on our Facebook page at SHARE SIX and to our Instagram gallery, by tagging #sharesix and #sharesix_curves. A new theme will be posted on 6th August.
I will admit, this month’s colour had me completely stumped. Unless I really go hunting there is nothing grey here, just the desert. So if it is not here right in front of my eyes, what is it fundamentally? Grey is black and white. I almost said “merely black and white”. But in photography black and white is everything. It is the crux and backbone of it all so I should not say “merely” at all.
With that in mind, I would not be me if I did not take that as an opportunity to try something new. You see, these two boys in this desert location, I would never see a black and white image. I am just not that photographer. Some photographers, some very wonderful talented photographers, see their images in black and white before they have even taken them. To me that happens but only occasionally. These boys to me are life. They are bounds of energy. They are love. They are colour. Similarly, so is the desert. I moved here expecting a barren wasteland but I was so wrong. There is a full spectrum of colour (just maybe not grey) and so much life, I struggle to see it in monotone.
And so I took a walk from last month and made it {grey}. (And I did the conversion in a way I had not tried before, because, hello my name is Ceri and I can’t help but experiment). In the process I had a lightbulb moment. I see texture. I see connection. I see I need to make more effort to love the black and whites in my life.
This blog is part of the Artists Inspired Blog Circle series. Click here to continue the circle and see how talented photographer, Brandi Geoghagan, interpreted this month’s theme. Be sure to follow the links all the way round to complete the full circle.
The Artists Inspired Blog Circle is made up of an exceptionally talented group of photographers from all walks of life, from all over the world. They are wives, mothers, friends, daughters and visual storytellers who draw from their own experiences to create art that is inspiring, unique, beautiful and thought-provoking.
To be {inspired by…} great photographers is not to imitate; it is not to impersonate. It is to look at their art, to soak it in, to think about their thought processes and let those guide you in yours. It is not to copy but to allow your style to be influenced and to open your eyes to new possibilities.
By HeArt, a wonderful online community of photographers, hosted an entire month of {inspired by} themes. I was so inspired, I felt compelled to put my submissions into a blog post. So here it is!
Francesca Woodman ~ Francesca Stern Woodman was an American photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring either herself or female models [Wikipedia].
Inspired by Francesca Woodman
Check out the winners for this theme (not mine, but the winners truly are stunning) here.
Imogen Cunningham ~ Imogen Cunningham was an American photographer known for her botanical photography, nudes, and industrial landscapes [website].
Inspired by Imogen Cunningham Theme WinnerInspired by Imogen Cunningham
Ansel Adams ~ Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist. His black-and-white landscape photographs of the American West, especially Yosemite National Park, have been widely reproduced on calendars, posters, and books [website].
Inspired by Ansel AdamsInspired by Ansel Adams
Check out the winners for this theme (again, not mine but the winners are inspiring in their own right) here.
Henri Cartier-Besson ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35 mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and conceived of photography as capturing a decisive moment [Wikipedia].
Inspired by Henri Cartier-BressonInspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson, theme winner
I hope you enjoyed this look through a month of my image submissions. People often ask what the benefits are for submitting to By HeArt, other Facebook-based communities and their weekly competitions. To them I say this: researching and studying these photographers has given my own work a new lease on life, I have been inspired to try new things, I have found a new method and a new confidence for creating for black and white images. These pages are integral to my photographic and artistic development. They push me to be the best that I can be. I will be forever grateful to these pages for their support, their encouragement and the inspiration that they provide.
