03-28-13 Energizer Candle Accents #3

I know the meaning and intent in this arrangement. But who cares what I think. How about sharing your interpretation?Canon 5dIII 1/25s f/3.2 ISO250 50mm

03-27-13 Alienation

I guess my title tells you what I was thinking when I staged this photo (#2 in a series of 3?). I know that most artists don't want to be quite so blatant in expressing their meaning. I suspect a proper title might have been "Energizer Candle Accents #2."Canon 5DIII 1/250s f/1.2 ISO640 50mm

03-26-13 Luminaire

I knew when I saw these "candles" (made by Energizer) at Target that I had to have them and that they could provide an interesting photo opportunity. Frankly, this shot isn't what I had envisioned when I was walking out of the store. But it's what I ended up with in an impromptu photo session last night.So what are we to make of this tableau? It could be that, to paraphrase Macbeth, it "[signifies] nothing." And it's no accident that I mention Macbeth, since in the speech where that phrase is borrowed, he also talks about a candle. Though his candle is "brief"; these Energizer candles are supposed to last 90 hours.Maybe its about loneliness, alienation and the meaninglessness of life. Yes, Macbeth talks about that too. ("[Life] is a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing.")And maybe I'm asking you to think too much. (At the end of the play, Macbeth probably thought too much; he should have put more thought in to his scheme to become king at the beginning of the play.)Maybe this photo tells the story of a photographer who should have been doing something more serious than playing with Energizer candles and his prized Canon 50mm f/1.2 lens.

12-09-12 Experiment With Bokeh and Water Glass

As far as photographic experiments go, I would say that this photo represents a successful failure. I spent time yesterday learning about the quality of bokeh produced by various lenses at various degrees of focus. In the midst of this, I had the idea of putting a full glass of water in front of our Christmas tree. I imagined that the round bokeh would show up in the water glass, given the lens effect that water can have. But I imagined wrong. Oh, well. . .What I like about this photo is that everything is soft and round - except the way the light shows up in the water glass. Here, it is sharp and linear. Too abstract? Boring? Maybe. I suspect I will revisit this idea to see if I can end up with something better.

Window Light

There were three of us photographing Kendra and Brandon's wedding today. My self-assigned mission was to capture architectural details. In the nearly-empty sanctuary hours before the wedding ceremony, I found this stained glass window casting its colored light onto the wooden pews of St. Anne's Catholic Church in Miller, SD.Visit our MobileMe web gallery.

Mysterious Lights

Deb and I were at the end of a short trip to visit my aunt in California. In a restaurant in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport I pointed my camera up into an unusual lighting fixture, and this is what I got.

Details

By Scott Shephard

View fullsize

Most of the photography I do is very personal and maybe even selfish. I rarely think, "What will they say about this one?" when I push the shutter button. When I frame something, I am more often studying the object being photographed than I am recording it for posterity.Thus, the details that I often capture, such as the back of my daughter-in-law's wedding dress, are nothing more than . . . details. Later, when I am sifting through my photo collection, some of the details jump out at me. And so I present today's Picture of the Day.What I like about this picture isn't my doing - I like the symmetry of each button and loop and their symmetrical relationship to each other. I also like the curves and lines that adorn this dress. Finally, I like the warm, soft light that plays on this subject.The light wasn't my doing either. I just found it. And often that's what photographers do best.

Canon 5DII 70-200mm 2.8 1/250s f/3.5 ISO400 200mm