documentaryphotography Archives - Page 7 of 7

August 2, 2017

Share Six Blog Circle – Artificial Light | July 2017

Massachusetts Photographer | Share Six Artificial Light | ©CeriHerdPhotography

This month’s Share Six theme, {Artificial Light}, was my choice! OOohhhh….! Does that surprise you? I’m certainly not known for using artificial light in my images and it’s probably the area of photography where I feel least confident. I use studio lighting for my newborn work but that is always the same, a predictable, reliable and simple set up. That said, I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t pushing myself to learn something new or to broaden my horizons. So here I am stepping outside my comfort zone, sharing images I wouldn’t normally pull from my files and dragging the rest of you along for the ride!

There are a few other reasons I chose {artificial light} for our latest theme. It might seem contrary to normal documentary shooting of the summer months, but I was living with the prospect of 120°F heat and being confined to the house during daylight hours for the summer months. That is perhaps fairly superficial reasoning, but in truth {artificial light} gives us so many options: to document in our homes, in places we visit, on the street after dark, in studio, on camera flash, off camera flash…the possibilities are endless!

This is the image that sparked the idea for the theme. I adore him:

And then I found that I had a similar image of his brother! There are hi-tech kids, that’s for sure!

This image was taken at the Reunion Tower in Dallas, TX. He could’ve played with the light show and “About Dallas” touch screens all night!

These next two images were taken at the same place on the same night: ‘the Dallas Skyline with the reflection of sunset’ and ‘light painting’ (which uses a slow shutter speed and intentional camera movement).

For my last two images for this month’s theme I chose a couple of recent unshared favourites. There is something haunting about each of these for me. I wonder if you see it too?

I hope you have taken this theme as a chance to learn or experiment, to try something new or step outside your comfort zone. I’m posting this blog almost a month late, right at the end of the theme’s cycle, because personal life things got in the way. There are just a couple of days to post your {artificial light} images to the Share Six facebook wall or use #sharesix_artificiallight on Instagram. I’m really impressed with all the submissions I’ve seen so far. You have until August 5th, 2017. Keep them coming!

~Ceri

June 3, 2017June 3, 2017

Life Unscripted | April 2017

Unscripted | Scottsdale Photographer | ©CeriHerdPhotography

Another month has been and gone. Yet another month that has flown by in a whirl of I don’t know what.

We started April in Boston. If you follow my Facebook page you’ll have seen that we will be moving to Massachusetts in June. We were decision-making, looking at houses and schools, exploring different neighbourhoods, visiting friends, and getting used to real weather again! Since that week life has been moving a pace: planning and researching, securing a place to live, signing paperwork, clearing through boxes and all the other mumbo-jumbo that comes with moving a family across a continent.

We’ve done it before. We can do it again. Right?!

Since that trip is shaping and driving our next few of months and our next couple of years, I want to share some of our Unscripted moments from that week. This is where our lives on the East Coast begins.

Thanks for stopping by!

~Ceri

May 6, 2017May 5, 2017

Share Six Blog Circle | May 2017 – Street

Street Photography | Share Six | Scottsdale Photographer | ©CeriHerdPhotography

This month’s Share Six theme is Street. Oooh, it’s a good one!

I have appreciated the art of Street Photography for as long as I have appreciated art itself. But since I have been able to call myself a photographer, Street Photography is not an art I have mastered. So I want to take this theme as a chance to encourage anyone reading this who is new to photography and/or new to street photography in particular to say this:

“Get Out and Explore”

You may think of Street Photography is an artsy black and white image of a busker on the subway or moving depiction of homeless man sleeping in a shop doorway. Yes, but Street Photography is that and more. Street Photography is capturing passing moments and freezing them in time. In the hustle and bustle of daily life, we all need to stop for a moment and look and you don’t need to be a photographer to do that!

Whatever and wherever your “street” is, you don’t have to label yourself as a “photographer” or an “artist”, you don’t have to shoot in manual or even own a fancy dSLR, to open your eyes to your surroundings and give street photography a try. The images I’m sharing with you today are from 2014. I had an entry level dSLR and I was only just learning how to use it properly. I was a tourist in Italy, documenting our trip. I was just starting out.

You too can capture images like this, simply by getting out of your house and allowing yourself time to explore. Whether it is somewhere you’ve never been or somewhere you go all the time, whether you’re taking a break and being a tourist, take these simple ideas to view it in a new way:

#1 Soak it in: how does the place make you feel? If you were a tourist, what would you see? What would stand out as different to anywhere else?

#2 Observe: watch the flow and movement of people, of traffic, of birds or flowers in the breeze. How do they enter your view, how do they move across the frame?

#3 Position yourself: think about angles and architectural leading lines, textures and framing, light and shade.

#4 Include people: don’t wait for a gap in the crowds. People give you a frame of reference. They give an image life and scale and perspective. They tell their own story.

#5 Details: if you struggle to narrow down you vision, focus on finding a particular colour or type of texture. A colour story is a wonderful way to get started and explore.

I hope these little tips help you in some small way!

Please click HERE to see how the talented Tori of Roots & Twigs Photography interpreted this month’s theme.

Join us for this month’s theme by posting your {street} images on our Facebook page at Share Six and to our Instagram gallery, by tagging #sharesix and #sharesix_street. A new theme will be posted on 6th June.

April 12, 2017April 17, 2017

Life Unscripted | March 2017

Massachusetts Photographer | Share Six Collections | ©CeriHerdPhotography

Welcome to the next edition of the my month Unscripted!

March has been a bit of whirlwind around here, I feel like my feet haven’t touched the ground. We’ve taken a week long road trip to Texas and back, spent a weekend in Page to visit Antelope Canyon, and at the end of the month we headed to Boston. If I’m honest, almost everything about those trips was really far from Unscripted. For literally very minute I was thinking about capturing the incredible destinations, the iconic scenery, and so my photographic expectations were soaring high. There were nights I barely slept because I was anxious to see what I had captured the previous day or nervous about my self-imposed pressure for the following day. But between all the big moments, there where also plenty of little ones. I hope you enjoy a few of our Unscripted moments from March: