Abandoned

You see me as useless. But, oh, the stories I can tell!

The jokes made around a coffee table.

A child’s laughter at playtime.

The family dinners around the television.

A mother calming her child as thunder shakes the windows.

The drunken arguments.

A father’s soft kiss goodnight…

Though my shell is decrepit,

Forgotten,

Abandoned,

The memories I hold within my walls will forever accompany you.

For a wooden frame and papered walls do not make a home. It is the years spent and memories made that add life to these hollowed halls.

via Abandoned — The Daily Post

Final: Home/Country Roads

This gallery contains 21 photos.

Experiments with: 19th Century Tintypes

This gallery contains 5 photos.

Shorpy.com

This gallery contains 4 photos.

Experiments with Manual Mode – Glendale Shoals

This gallery contains 20 photos.

Blogger’s Shots: A Day in the Garden

I spent the day walking around my grandparents house taking photos, experimenting with full manual mode, trying to get bees and butterflies to stop flitting around long enough for me to catch a good shot of them, and discovering things I didn’t know were there. So, welcome to my day in the garden! Spring has just sprung and everything is blooming with glorious color!

The first photo took forever to capture. I really wanted to get a still of a bee mid-flight, so I switched to shutter priority and put my shutter speed on 1/4000 sec. and waited for a bee to come by without flitting away before I got the shot. Then this little guy showed up and practically posed for the photo! He hovered in front of me for several seconds, folding his front legs together like he was patiently waiting for me to take the shot. I think I’m most proud of this picture.

The butterflies were much easier to capture. They spent a lot of time resting on the flowers. I love how vibrant their colors were. The yellows were so bright and I love the little pop of blue in the butterfly’s tail in the third photo.

I loved the photos of the dandelions because they remind me of a fairygarden. I lowered the camera down to the ground and took this shot. From down there, the dandelions look more like trees than weeds. I also loved the way the grass kind of splits in between them like a path.

My favorite photo in this gallery is the one of the two butterflies flying around each other. Someone once told me that butterflies are the souls of loved ones we’ve lost. Throughout the week, I kept seeing these two butterflies, always together and always dancing around each other. They reminded me of my grandparents. I’ve never seen any couple more in love than my grandparents and these two butterflies reminded me that their love will always be with me.

Photographer of the Week: Ciril Jazbec

These photos are from Ciril Jazbec‘s award-winning photo documentary “On Thin Ice”. This series reveals”human face of climate change as it threatens various low-lying regions” of Greenland. I loved the way Jazbec captured the lives of the people of this remote village. The series shows how they live off the land and make use of what little they have. These are three of my favorite photos of the series. I loved the way he captured the reflection of the man in the ice. It almost looks as if he is trapped in there with the fish. I also liked how small the people looked compared to the ice. I also loved the way the blue of the water comes through the ice. I chose the last picture because of the fact that the foreground is blurred. I think the choice to change the focus of the photo really emphasizes the power of what’s in the background. This really makes the blood trail on the left stick out and I think that makes the photo extremely powerful.

Blogger’s Shots: Land of the Lost Toys

The kids that live next door to me have made a habit of kicking balls into the woods and leaving them there. The result was this series of shots of these dingy, long-forgotten toys. I thought the fact that each of the balls was left in the shadows of the trees really emphasized this. I also think the cool, blue tones help to add to the ghostly, “left-behind” effect. I’ve always loved taking pictures in the woods because of the way the light refracts and bounces down through the leaves and creates such cool effects on the objects. Here, I think the angles of the light make the balls seem even more forgotten.

Photographer of the Week: Henri Cartier-Bresson

SPAIN. Madrid. 1933.

FRANCE. Paris. Montmartre. The visit of Cardinal PACELLI. “The crowd was outside of Sacré-Coeur waiting to see him and to touch him if possible. People were shouting “Vive Dieu”. From where I stood in the crowd I could see only the top of his head, so I held my camera high above me and shot.” 1938.

USA. Illinois. Chicago. 1947. A child playing baseball alone beneath the Elevated. Probably my expression was just as strange as his, for I certainly didn’t expect to see a human being here.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French film photographer. He’s most known for his candid shots, like the ones above. He focused a lot on making a decision in the “decisive moment” and was one of the pioneers of street photography. The photos above were taken from his website and the captions are his own.

I realized that I hadn’t really looked at any black and white photographers on this blog and decided to post some. I feel like many people write B&W photos off as boring, but I think these photos show otherwise. Cartier-Bresson was able to capture such intense expression and emotion in his photos without a lick of color. My favorite one of this gallery is the last one. I love the shadows that the bridge creates and how small the boy looks against the background. I think Cartier-Bresson’s photography is absolutely stunning and will last for ages to come.

Blogger’s Shots: Easter Sunday

I wanted to upload this photo because it has a lot of meaning to me. This year was the second Easter that we celebrated without my grandparents. This was the time of year that I would help my grandpa plant flowers for my grandma’s garden. They’ve had this garden stone since I was a little girl and I’ve always loved it. Taking this photo took me back to much simpler times. I love this because, for me, it’s a reminder that my grandparents are always with me.

The bright reds and yellows of the flowers really caught my eye as I approached them. In editing, I didn’t want to brighten up the inside of the planter too much because I wanted the real focus to be on the garden stone. I also wanted to take a picture at a different angle, since I usually take photos either upwards or straight on.