Notebooks of Scott

Sunset Station, originally uploaded by smckittr.

I have noticed, that for me, the most dramatic shots I’ve seen tend to be shots at night, in the evening, or under other such conditions where the lighting is not uniform daylight. For me the most interesting pictures involve selectively lit subjects, where only parts of the image are lit so as to effectively guide the eye to the proper place. A lit subject in a dark background also tends to be more dramatic because it seems to be emerging from the darkness.

CLA Building, originally uploaded by smckittr.

One thing I’ve noticed about my shots is that I like to get down to eye level with the subject. Most of my shots tend to be low to the ground in relation to the subject. For example, the picture featured here could have been taken from the nearby library. However, I think that looking at the building from a lower angle presents a more dramatic shot.

With model trains I like to try to get down to the level that a model person would be looking at them.

It would seem that, at least in many cases, being lower relative to an object will lend more drama to the shot.

A couple days ago I was thinking about the rise of modern consumerism, and the demand for instant gratification. Practically anythig you find in a store can also be found in an instant form. Walk through any grocery stor and you will see hundreds of examples. Frozen pizzas, instant oatmeal, etc. Just pop ‘em in the microwave and there you go. Yet despite this insistence on the word “instant,” there are a great number of people in this country that have hobbies, most of which involve taking large amounts of time to create or do something, along with taking the time to learn the necessary skills.
So,even with the emphasis on “instant,” many of us are striving to find things that take lots of time to do.

One of the things that I like to do as a hobby is steal my sisters camera and dabble in a little artistic photography. Of course, since it is simply dabbling, most of my photographs came out mediocre at best. However, that was before my mom pointed out a post by the blogger Pioneer Woman. She uses photoshop to enhance nearly every picture she takes. Nothing fancy mind you, just a little contrast here and and a little saturation there and some other minor tweaks that I have yet to read about. I thought, “Hey. Why not try it.” In doing so, the quality of my work has increased quite a bit. It isn’t quite professional quality yet. But its certainly better than before. Perhaps Photoshopping isn’t all that bad after all.

Some of my pictures, some ‘shopped and some not are on my FLickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/smckittr