Photos (II)

I have been taking a few photos with my camera again. Much to my mother’s dismay, I did not leave my room to take these photos. Honestly, I did not even leave the house, even though there are some places I really want to go to like for example Madrid or Hawaii but after being stuck inside for a year I believe that Cologne will do as well. Back to reality. This time I wanted to share more nature-focused pictures with the obvious exception of the watch and the bear (yes the bear again). Normally when I upload pictures, I tend to not have a theme and I have a long proud one-time history of doing that. This time I wanted to have a theme but thanks to my indecisiveness, the watch and the bear joined the nature-themed collection. Therefore, this article will contribute to my long proud history of pictures not having a theme. Full disclosure, the pictures are not ordered chronologically like last time but are sorted in a logical order so that there is more of a structure and flow throughout this article.

 

This is one of the not landscape picture which I found good enough to publish with the landscape photos. Honestly, it depends on the definition of good enough. In my opinion, the lighting is a bit off but that is just me. I´ve taken photos worse than this one but in comparison to the good pictures I took, this one does not look so good. Hate to get psychology involved but this may have something to do with the social comparison theory and instead of comparing myself with other people; I am comparing photos with other photos. As promised I won´t get into psychology in this article but I just wanted to mention it.

A bit of background information: The watch was a graduation present from my mother since I graduate in 2020 from high school and I just thought the watch would look nice in a picture. When I first wanted to take a picture of the watch, I did not intend to take this kind of picture. However, now looking at it, it was not a bad idea. Behind the watch is just tissue paper. I have a tendency to use tissue paper while drawing with watercolour to clean up the watery mess. I forgot what I was drawing that day since I did a lot of painting during the lockdown. (Just a small side note: I plan to share some of my watercolour art in the future but in this article, I solely wanted to focus on photography.) At the end of the day, the watercolour artwork pales in comparison to the cleaning tissue. The soft tie-dye pattern and the tissue paper texture just makes it look like an artwork on its own. Maybe I should have chosen another tissue paper since blue and (what is supposed to be) pink does not look good together but it is too late to change it now anyway so... The rest is just a white background and terrible lighting.

This is the second and last not nature-themed picture of this ten picture collection. I am fully aware that I already shared a photo of this teddy before but this time I changed it up a bit. Last time had a rather darker theme and I also explained why I decided to do that. This time I wanted to show the lighter side of this toy. As one can see in this picture, any irrelevant accessories have been removed such as the button and the choker necklace. Full disclosure, I do not even know why the teddy has a necklace in the first place since it already had a massive ribbon. In this picture, I also readjusted his ribbon. Last time looked a bit messy and just in time for this little photoshoot, I learned how to properly tie a tie in ten different ways. Teddy bears and ties are an adorable combination. The tie made the teddy look like a fluffy professional, which is just so cute and even just the thought of it warms my heart. Quick side note: The tie tying skill may never come in handy but it was a fun thing to learn just like how it was fun to learn the Morse code. Learning different skill just broadens one's horizon and allows one to see things completely differently. Back to the picture. This time I also chose a high view perspective instead of an eye-level perspective since this angle just brings out his eyes. Unlike the last time, I chose a more normal approach to take this picture. Instead of using a vintage toy filter (which was an available option on my camera. It was just heart-warming to see a teddy with rather depressing memories tied to it look so normal. While taking this picture just reminded me of the good times at that school. In this new light, I saw teddy with a new not so depressing perspective. I saw it as another toy that brings me joy.

 

Honestly, I have no idea why I uploaded this picture since there is nothing particularly interesting in this picture. It is just a stone and vines. It is also not as if the vines decoratively grew around the stone or something like that. The picture just simply depicts a stone and leaves around it. Again, I have no idea why I uploaded this picture but for some unexplainable reason, I just wanted to upload it. Maybe it is because of the plainness of this picture or the structure of the stone. Maybe it is the colours of this picture or the texture of the leaves. Maybe it is the emptiness of this picture that convinced me to upload this photo. It feels empty and yet is full at the same time. From a graphic designer´s perspective, I somehow just see the empty space as untapped potential, a space where I can let my creativity run free. From a photographer’s perspective, it just looks interesting with the depiction of depth and the shadows surrounding this picture. (In no way am I saying I am an adequate graphic designer or photographer but I just wanted to share my not so professional opinion.) Since twice is not enough, I wanted to say this a third time. As mentioned above, I have no idea why I uploaded this but I am to a certain extent glad that I did. I am glad I took the chance to share the good and the confusing photos I took. With this picture, I guess, I just wanted to say that we do not always have to share the best of the best but we should just share things we want to share even though we may not even understand why.

 

 

I took the two of these pictures on a snow day in Germany. Oddly enough, I woke up pretty early that day and my sacrifice paid off since the snow day pictures look amazing. Now I try to make it a habit to wake up earlier since mornings and sunrises are just so beautiful even though they are hard to capture with my camera. In the first picture, there is coincidently also a bird. I am not sure if the bird is a good addition to the picture or not. On the one hand, it’s a bird flying away that is just beautiful. On the other hand, the bird´s wings are not visible therefore, the bird just looks like an unwanted blob. What I do like about this photo is the background. The cloud formation in the background emits yellow-orange light and some other parts are just blue. The blend of the two looks good. There is also the snow on the tree branches, which look so calming. I did not see snow very often in the past; therefore, I always like it when it snows. Just how the snow brightens the one-colour trees. To a certain extent, I believe that I only noticed the trees in the backyard because the snow was on the trees. Let’s just say that I normally overlook the trees and it surprised me that the trees I normally overlook caught my attention. At the end of the day, I am glad that the trees caught my attention. The pictures look calmingly beautiful. The second picture was taken closely after the first one. It even depicts the same trees but I just believe the focus on the trees specifically makes it look as if one is lost in the forest since the trees just seem closer and there is not much sky. What surprised me however is how different the first picture and the second look and feel. It just depends on the perspective and other aspects such as lighting and camera setting. Even though both photos show the same trees, each picture looks unique. I guess this is just my way of saying that everything is unique even though it shares certain similarities. Honestly, I am not fond of either picture since the snow was so white but in the picture, it is just blue. Sadly, the camera did not manage to capture the real image I saw. However, if I had to describe it, I would have described the snow as this white powered that covered everything it touches. (Poetry is not my forte.)

The last few pictures are all taken from my window. Therefore, they are all very similar and show the same trees. Just like the snow photos, they depict the same trees but the focus is on something else in each picture. I did not use some kind of colour adjuster tool or something like that to only edit the background and keeping the trees. All I did was enhance the colour of each picture. I wish I knew how to manipulate the colour in photos though. It would be so cool. Each picture was taken on different days. Since it was February when I took those pictures, these pictures really brightened my day. February is always so cloudy and rainy; therefore, a colourful sunset is a rare and appreciated sight. My neighbour’s houses are also in the picture but I am not sure if I should appreciate their houses or not since the obvious house outline is missing. Therefore, I am not even sure if those are recognized as houses in the first place. Either way, I just love how sunsets have different colours each time. It just fascinating how the same view can be so different each time. The colours also look beautiful. I also adore how the trees are completely black and show the colourful sky in the background. I guess one should always enjoy the smaller things in life.

All my pictures are available for download. Just follow the link below:

https://pixabay.com/users/aureliajh-18994837/

More pictures will come soon.