Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
I couldn’t decide if this was a moment of zen photo or not. That character is pretty odd. I decided to blast the heck out of this photo with a cross-processing effect and play up the other-worldly look to support this odd graffiti.
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
Railroads are a great source of abstract photos. This one was caught on the move; you can tell by the blurred grass on the far side.
Everything on a train is there because it’s supposed to be there. There’s very little decoration, it’s all working mechanical parts, which make for great abstracts. For a tutorial on abstract photography, check out my post from Monday. Basically, you are making the compositional elements prominent and reducing the realistic elements. Railroads and other industrial settings are great in the sense that these purpose-built machines are very simple in their design. Large solid parts, little detail or at least consistent repeating details.
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
Spring thaw has come, but little traces of fall remain. This was taken in the bog at Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis. The frogs or toads were making quite a racket! I had to keep moving or I would sink in. It’s an interesting area right in the city.
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
The setting for yesterday’s photo, this is the Linden Yards Depot with Interstate 394 in the background. Rumor is that they are going to demolish this sad little shack and put in luxury condos here. Good luck getting all the hobo ghosts out.
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
Behold, the majesty of the Grand Lighting Tower of the Linden Yard. Ok… so the yard is now a city dump and the lights haven’t been on since we stopped building nuclear reactors, but still, from the right angle, it’s pretty cool. There is a lot going on in this shot, and I had fun at every step:
This is a classic pyramid composition, offset to the left to follow the Rule of Thirds. Pyramids are very common compositions in design and painting. they draw the eye in and focus it to a central point, giving depth to the image. One of the great things about photography is that you don’t have to convince the viewer that it is real. This would make a lousy painting because it is abstract to the point of being incoherent — it would be dismissed as abstract. As a photo, you know it has to be something, so you figure it out. Abstract images loose their sense of space because the geometric shapes and strong lines destroy the organic real-world cues. By finding objects with simple lines and shapes, you can compose and image in which they dominate the space.
This was shot with my Nikon D200 and the Nikkor 70-300mm VR f/4.5-5.6. Settings: Focal length 70mm, ISO 100, Aperture F/16, Shutter 1/80 sec, no flash. I placed the camera against the tower and worked out the composition. I took several photos at different settings with different compositions.
One of the big mistakes many amateur photographers make is that they don’t look at the entire image. They center the subject and shoot. I really enjoyed how I was able to get the top left light to fill the corner. Digital photos are free: take as many as you can. Keep moving the camera around and see what you can make.
I love Adobe Lightroom. I can change an image in so many directions quickly without damaging the file or having oodles of layers to manage. I increased: exposure, recovery, blacks, vibrance, contrast, clarity and… Cranked the tonal curve and increased the luminosity and saturation of some colors. Add in a little Lens Vignetting and it’s done!
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
What’s Cell Phone Sunday all about?
Remember the Ice? The lakes were frozen solid and you could walk on them but a few short weeks ago. Now the Lake of the Isles islands are out of reach of the pedestrian and have safely returned to the birds. Both Mike’s Island and Raspberry Island (shown above) are out-of-bounds as bird sanctuaries.
Tune in tomorrow for some much-needed abstraction.
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
If you don’t have a fear of heights, this will give you it. Think of it as a bus stop 75 feet in the air. More Zen.
And now for something completely different…
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