Tag Archives: photography as art

Ann’s Office through the eyes of Color Sketch

Posted on by annandmeg

Color sketch is a so-called “effects mode” on my Nikon.  Described by photography writer, Chris Hall, as “making something out of nothing”, these photographs prove you can create art out of everyday things.  The first photograph is the view from my office chair.  You can see my clock, weights, M&M machine and books.  In the upper left hand corner is a calendar Meg gave me for Christmas.  The cover is a photograph of my husband, Terry, sitting in the back yard.

The beautiful flowers in this shot are really ink pens Meg gave me for my birthday in 2009.  She was  in the midst of final exams her first year of law school.

These photographs include some of my favorite reminders of Meg and Terry. But color sketch sure does make my office more fun for those who don’t understand the pure pleasure I get from the treasures with which I have chosen to surround myself.

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Mom goes back to school again: my introductory photography class

Posted on by annandmeg

There is so much to learn with a new camera.  As soon as I bought my Nikon D5100 DSLR camera I signed up for a three hours class with a wonderful Kansas City photographer.  It was one of those classes where you pass the course just by attending and not dropping your camera.  With only those minimal requirements for success, I squeaked through.

I learned far more than I expected and gained some sense of the ways to improve the photographs I take.  But there is oh, so much more, that was totally beyond my feeble attempts to understand. All I can do is practice, practice, practice.  I am sure I wasn’t the only member of the class struggling.  But we had lots of help and explored nearly every gizmo on our cameras.

As grateful as I was for the technical information, I was more excited by the instructor’s obvious passion for photography as an art form.  He encouraged us to look at ordinary objects and to envision them as art.

Among the ordinary objects in my life are the stairs where I work.  I walk up and down these stairs day in and day out.  But art????  I decided that if he can make art from the ordinary, I can try to do the same thing. Here are my efforts to turn stairs into art.

Stairs up:

Stairs down:

If nothing else, the photographic images, reveal that photograph is a lot like our everyday experience, it is a lot easier to see life looking down, than envisioning life looking up!