I started to write this last month, right after the presidential elections, but I never posted it. So now I'm posting it.
Something that I absolutely love to do: Read the New York Times online and when I come across a striking photo, I look up the photographer's name online and see what else I can find out about her or him. I always hope I will find their blog, but I never have, but I usually find their website unless they have a really common last name. One of my many kazillion dreams?: go back to school and become a photojournalist!
Here are some photos by photojournalist Damon Winter . He got to follow Obama's campaign all over the country and took awesome pictures---I am absolutely crazy about how he seems to get these little details, these little quiet moments that everyone else probably missed. I always pay extra attention to photos with big cameras in them, trying to figure out what lens they might be using and if I can learn anything else just by looking at the picture. I don't think I have ever held my arm out that far to get a shot, like the guy in the pic below, but after looking at what he is doing, well now I will maybe think to try that someday if I ever can't get closer to the subject.
This photo (below) is by Doug Mills, for the New York Times. (I wish I could link to a website of his, but I can't seem to find anything.) When I am looking at these photos I am running down this check list in my head trying to see what the photographer did and always asking myself, Okay, so you really like this photo, but WHY do you like it so much?
This one below by Mills has everything you always hear to look for: leading lines in the podium and cloud contrails, framing of the people below the stands, rule of thirds with Obama on the further side of the walkway, an unusual angle.
This past Saturday, before I went to shoot a quincenara with a co-worker friend, I told my sister to call me and remind me of anything I might forget to check. So later when I was going back out to my car, I saw this text: "Check your Iso, awb and remember leading lines, framing, rule of thirds + shoot raw".
Okay, check, check, check, check, check check! I was remembering all of that and more and seriously having the best time ever! Can I even begin to tell you how glad I am that I have gotten back into photography this past year?!!!
