For the past two months I have been working hard trying to restore the photos to all my older posts. I don’t have a complete understanding of what happened, why the photos started to disappear – but by going post by post; pulling them into Windows live Writer, locating the correct photos in my extensive archives and reinstalling the photos onto the post, I was able to re-load all but 5 or 6 photos. Those that I couldn’t find, I substituted another similar one. The benefit to all of this work is that I re-read all the posts; corrected (well tried to correct) sentences, punctuation and spelling errors, and I was able to enjoy all over again what I’d thought, then wrote, re-living as you will, the experiences.
The posts I wrote in 2007 and 2008 while with RioRose, tended to be short and not particularly well written. During those years, I was posting directly from Blogger and writing in English from Brasil and Blogger would spell check in Portuguese – effectively making spell check unusable. Then in 2009, I began using Flowers and More exclusively and creating the posts in Live Writer most of the time. By March I had joined the Friday, My Town Shoot-out gang and as the year progressed, I seemed to write longer posts and they seemed to have more thought given to the structure of the post. I am sure that this is because I now had an audience that was made up of good writers and photographers…. and I am competitive by nature…. so I made more of an effort to be understood. I still had a gazillion typos – spelling – wrong word usages but the posts were definitely better written – being competitive apparently does not equate to being detail oriented. Actually my most major flaw is that I think I do it right so I don’t check my work, always has been my problem and I’ve not learned to correct my behavior over time. Just getting older not wiser…
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Beautiful set of photos. Happy weekend!
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Wow it sounds like you've been working hard with your photos. I think you're right: the rule of thirds is a natural way to organize a composition.
ReplyDeleteLove those mountain shots.
Okay Ginger, this is my third time trying to post a comment. I hope it goes through this time. I think all of your photos are amazing shots. The mountains and the sky are beautiful. I see just subtle changes in the first few photos when cropped in, however, the last photo when cropped really does change the photo and adds more impact. I think it makes it more interesting and it is my favorite one from this batch. Well done. Also, thank you for your kind words and for encouraging me to get out of the house.
ReplyDeleteI forgot I was even looking for the application of the rule when I saw those mountains with the mist hangily lazily in the valleys! I find the first two are really powerful shots, the composition must be the explanation.
ReplyDeleteWell done, you, putting all that work into your blog and photos.
I always think your photos look great. But then, I also know that most of us don't realize how hard someone works to get great shots.
ReplyDeleteI admire your ambition. I should go back to edit my past posts, but it seems like such a monumental task. I also assume I have written my posts well, but if I reread one a month or a year later, I almost always find at least one flaw.
I learned the rule of thirds in art school, and it was emphasized in the photography class I am taking now, but then I also learned that, at times, you can throw out the rule. I often love photos that are symmetrical. Sometimes they have an impact that "thirds" photos don't have. I have a bit of an artist's eye, so I usually just fiddle with cropping a photo until it looks right to me.
As a right-brained artist, one thing I tend to do when taking a photograph is focus on my main subject and unconsciously ignore everything else. Later I see that if I had moved just a little to the left or right, I might have avoided those ugly power lines or a trash can in the background. I'm good with Photoshop, so sometimes I can eliminate the offending objects, but sometimes it is too difficult or time-consuming. I also struggle sometimes with whether I should leave the photo as is ---because that is how I found a scene ---or if I should "fix" it. Generally, if my eye keeps going to something other than the main subject, I fix it.
I can set Photoshop to do a set of actions, so I do the same set on every photo: resize, correct colors & contrast, lighten (my camera tends to take photos that are slightly too dark,) If it's too much on a particular photo, I can make a layer transparent so the effect has a lighter touch or start over and do what needs to be done manually, but telling it to do all of those things on each photo saves a lot of time. On 8 out of 10, that's all I need to do to make my photos look better.
Your header photo is stunning! The others are all great shots and the subtle shifts you made do change the perspective. While it's most noticeable on the last, I think it makes a nice difference in the 3rd and 4th sets too.
ReplyDelete(I accidentally deleted a ton of photos that were attached to my blog back in 2010 and there's no way I was going back to reinstall them. Kudos to you for making that effort.)
I love all your photos, they are so stunning! and I'm mesmerized by those mountains and clouds shot.
ReplyDeleteThe mountain and mist shots are beautiful, it's a good learning tool seeing the before and after photos.
ReplyDeleteQuite an amazing post, I think. I really appreciated the before and after approach which caused me to really look carefully. It was fascinating to see how very small, subtle changes could have a large effect, particularly in the mountain shots. I have mixed feelings about the last one because the after shot has a better composition but losing the cross takes away some of the emotional impact. I am also in awe of your project to go back and repair your old posts. I don't think I would have had the patience for such an endeavor. One of your best posts, I think. And, while you may not want to do so, I think you are definitely a photographer.
ReplyDeleteNice image !! thanks for sharing us.
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