This beautiful Saturday morning after an early morning visit to the Hopkins Farmers’ Market I took a
Mid-morning Walk with Camera
I wanted to see how my new camera held up in the challenging contrasty light of a cloudless bright sunny mid-morning.
I told myself that I was going to live the rest of my life as if it were Saturday.”
― The Magnolia Story
One of the first things I noticed was that the electronic view finder on my camera (Olympus EM-1 Mark III) did not represent the colors or bright light and shadows at all as my eye saw it. Instead everything looked blown out or too dark. But when I examined the photo later, I was happy to see that the images were what I would expect when shooting in the high contrast bright light.
This photo of a family of basswood trees near my house shows the bright light conditions but none of the brightest areas were blown out. Though it’s not my favorite photograph because of the bright contrast, that is a factor of the time of day and the light conditions, not how the camera handled the light.
I had hoped that the flower-filled yard of a neighbor about a couple of blocks away would be in the shade. Unfortunately most of the flowers were sun-lit.
Here is another view of their colorful front yard.
Don’t fight the light
If I want to make photographs this time of day that I like, I need to find ways to use the light conditions that exist rather than try to fight them.
One of the ways to avoid the strong contrast is to find subjects in the shade. Another is to take advantage of the strong contrast to create abstract interest.
These ferns that I usually love to photograph are showing signs of the heat and dry weather we’ve been having.
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. This dad out for a jog with baby in stroller and pre-schooler driving an electric car made me smile.
There was nothing like a Saturday – unless it was the Saturday leading up to the last week of school and into summer vacation. That of course was all the Saturdays of your life rolled into one big shiny ball.
― Rising Tides
Wishing you a lovely weekend.
May you walk in beauty.
Late evening light through my living room window
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