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Photography Adventures From Home

Posted by Marlene Hutchison

If you’re not-so-young anymore and your roaming days are behind you, you’ll find plenty of adventure online while you sort through your lifetime of work or concentrate on close to home photography projects.

Travel with me from the Comfort of your Armchair to My Favorite Photo Sites and New Exhibits

 Wildlife Photographers should enjoy the Site Below

I just saw an aerial panorama view of 8 million flamingos  about to take flight. There are both urban and nature panoramas on this wonderful site. Click on all panoramas

Click full screen and then a thumbnail on the right.   I like #5.   Wait for the panorama to load and then use your scroll button to zoom in and out and wait again.

 

My Close to Home Wildlife pictures from the Suburban Fringes

 

Jack Rabbits in adjacent lot to SAP Software Co.

Ducklings with Mother at Alamo Creek, Dublin, California
Copyright© 2013, Marlene Hutchison

When Photographers Cease to Roam

Posted by Marlene Hutchison

Chance and the Unplanned Retirement

Don’t just sit around and fret if you left your retirement up to chance and are now forced to spend your final days close to home. If you can  find your way to a bus stop or still have your car keys, there are many photo subjects to explore near home. Even your house or room can make an interesting subject with a little imagination.    

Voyage Around My Room in 42 days 

is a delightful free e-book on Google Books by a mid-eighteenth century writer Xavier de Maistre who wrote it while confined to his room under house arrest for dueling. There he plotted the room’s latitude and used  compass readings to give directions to various items in his richly described room.

Expect Hometown Photography in weeks to come–

I have lived in this suburban town of 46,000 for the past six years and have photographed what I think are the  highlights. You’ll see the best of my Dublin, CA wildlife and park photos, plus my series on new house construction. Think about bread for the ducks and geese, but never the wild turkeys.

Wild Turkeys at Dublin Apartment Complex
Young Wild Turkeys at Dublin Apartment Complex

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Do you believe in the life to come? Hum: mine was always that.” from the Samuel Beckett play Endgame (1958)

 

Copyright © 2013 Marlene Hutchison

Photographs through an Indoor Window

Posted by Marlene Hutchison

A Strategy for Staying Home

Susan Sontag once wrote that travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.  Why not  save the planet and shoot your pictures from a window at home.

Photographer Andre Kertesz shot many photographs from above or from a window. 

Also, I remember a New York City woman in her eighties who rarely left her apartment, but shot memorable street photographs from her apartment window.

“When I was young, the Dead Sea was still alive.” George Burns

 

The most famous use of through a window photography was in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “Rear Window”(1954), where a photographer with two broken legs is confined to his apartment. The photographer, played by Jimmy Stewart, even discovered a murderer while spying on his neighbors through an open window with his camera.

See a clip from the movie “Rear Window” below: ( Grace Kelly plays the girlfriend)

 

Photo Tips for Shooting through a Window at Home

  1.  Open the window if possible to avoid glare 

  2. If you can’t open the window, get as close to the glass as possible or put your lens against the window to cut down on glare

  3. Turn off your flash 

  4. Use exposure compensation to underexpose (-) the scene  by a third to one stop

  5. Follow the general photography rules and don’t shoot outdoor scenes between ten and four unless you’re shooting through tinted glass.

  6. Hold your camera with two hands and keep your arms close to your body when you don’t use a tripod

Photo Tips through Windows when You Must Travel

Scenery from Moving Bus
Arizona Scenery from Moving Bus

If you must travel, take a bus or car. I shot this photo with a high shutter speed late morning  from a moving bus in Northern Arizona. When you are moving, use a high shutter speed to keep things in focus.  I like the reflection in the window, but you can avoid it by pressing your lens against the window. Unfortunately, you will also pick up more motion from the moving bus when you lean your camera against the glass.

 

When you stay in a hotel, always ask for a view and change rooms or hotels often for the best variety of shots. The following photos were taken from windows in two different rooms at the Miyako Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

For the richest colors, take advantage of the golden light up to an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset as in the above shots

Copyright ©, 2013 M. Hutchison