freelensed Archives

March 6, 2017March 3, 2017

Share Six Blog Circle | March 2017 – Restore

Scottsdale Creative Photographer | ©CeriHerdPhotography

I am thrilled and honoured to be to joining the talented Share Six team! Share Six is a group of photographers who blog 6 images each month; each month is a different theme. This month our theme is {restore} and what a wonderful theme to kick start my involvement!

As 2016 came to a close I was competing my 365 (in fact 365 + 3 months). I was completely burnt out from the pre-Christmas rush and the endless months of daily shooting. In the last days of December and moving into the New Year, I was not thrilled with anything I produced. I couldn’t find any artistry or *see* what I was looking for. At all.

As January passed by and I took some time away from the camera, I continued with the struggle. My desire to create was still strong but my fear of failing stopped me from picking up my camera.

At the beginning of February I had a sudden realisation that I needed to make an effort to change my mood. This funk was not going to go away by itself.

In order to love the final image, I need to love the process of creating it.

In these past few weeks I have been attempting to {restore} myself. I took some time to focus on the specific aim of “creating.” My Share Six images where not specifically taken for this blog but they were taken specifically to restore my artistic soul. I played with each of my favourite creative techniques, techniques that push me technically and artistically. All of these images (apart from one) was taken within a one hour time frame around noon on a bright and sunny day. You’ll will see which is a different time of day (it was the following afternoon, with much lower and more golden light).

Freelensing

ICM – Intentional Camera Movement

In-Camera Double Exposure

Shooting Through : Prism

Macro

Shooting Through: Convex Lens

Over the coming months I’ll be doing a series of “how to” blog posts explaining how and why I do these different techniques. If you’d like to keep up to date with those posts make sure you subscribe to have them delivered them directly to your inbox >>

I hope you enjoyed seeing how I {restore} my creative soul. Time to stop being burned out and overwhelmed with the catch-up task ahead!

Please click HERE to see the talented Aubrey Dettmer of Applewood Photography’s interpretation of this months theme.

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

September 14, 2016September 14, 2016

Artists Inspired Blog Circle | September 2016 – Gold

What does {gold} mean to you? Wealth, prosperity, pretty shiny things? Gold for me, and photographers all over the globe (and a large chunk of this blog circle I expect), means golden light and the golden hour, that short window of time where the sun is low enough in the sky to bathe everything with a delicious, warm, golden glow.

Last month I took images specifically for the Artists Inspired Blog Circle; this month I want to look back at my most favourite ever golden hour images. More specifically, I want to share with you one of my passions: my creative take on golden hour at the beach.

As I approach the end of my first Project 365 (goodness, I can hardly believe it) I find myself searching for ways to stay inspired. I am constantly thinking about what I can do to step it up creatively, be it in-camera double exposures, freelensing, intentional camera movement or shooting through objects. As you’ll see from the selection below, in the past few months I have rarely taken an image at the beach that is just ‘what you see is what you get.’

A word frequently used to describe my photographic style, and a metaphor I certainly aspire to, is ‘dreamy’. I aim to create images that feel like they’re part of a dream, that are memories before they have even departed, where the sound of the waves and the colour of the sky sweep you away and you feel like you’re floating in the moment. My aim is to capture that in-camera in a single image, using layers and textures to give you the sense of how a scene looks and feels. I hope to create a visual depiction of a memory, not purely what that memory looks like, and certainly not simply what it looks like now, but how it will look and feel after the blur of time. I want these images to hold the viewers gaze, to capture their imagination, to send them on a nostalgic journey, to make them feel the moment a little longer and a little more sincerely. I hope that the images I’m sharing now do that for you.

This blog is part of the Artists Inspired Blog Circle series. Click here to continue the circle and see how talented photographer, Channon Williamson, 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.

August 1, 2016July 31, 2016

Spring Freelensed Part I | Scottsdale Photographer

Spring in Scottsdale, AZ is a wonderful time to be a photographer. The blooms, the blossom, the outdoor lifestyle, the light. Oh, the light! The perfect time for another freelensed project! A freelensed picture every single day, from the first day of spring to the last.

“Ok but hold up, Ceri! What is freelensing?” I hear you cry. Simples. It is a technique that can be done with any camera that has interchangeable lenses. Detach the lens, hold it close to the camera body and manually focus by tilting and adjusting the position of the lens. Using this technique, you can create really interesting slices of focus, extremely shallow depth of field and amazing sun flares. It takes some practice, believe me it did not come easily to me, but with perseverance your results can be magical!

As I sit here in the sweltering heat of the summer, avoiding the outdoors at all costs, I am finally finally finding time to share a few of my favourites. First up, a blog post dedicated the best of the natural world. Enjoy!

If you’d like to see all of the images from my Spring Freelensed Project, click here. If you have any questions or you’d like to share what you like (or don’t), please feel free to leave a comment.

Thanks for stopping by,

~ Ceri ~