Shooting the Shooter

I know I’ve been a bit negligent in adding to the blog lately.  I’ve been wanting to spend so much quality time with Ann that I simply don’t think about doing a blog post most of the time.  The other day Ann mentioned an idea that the two of us had discussed earlier this summer about a series of blog postings that would probably be a good thing to start now.  It will be a great way to document some of the places we’ve been to while we’ve been out and about in Oregon (I really didn’t want to write long posts about “we did this, we did that . . .”) and to do it in a way that lets you know what we’re up to these past few months. Hopefully it will make it a bit more interesting for me to actually write a few posts (motivation gets tough when you’re looking for a job and it is taking longer than you expected) and to keep folks following the blog until my next big adventure comes along.  Anyway, we’re calling it Shooting the Shooter.  Photographing the Photographer sounded a bit too pretentious and, well, I won’t put down some of the more “interesting” (read: funny, obscene, obscure or any other adjective of choice) titles we came up with.  

As I said, it was an idea generated this summer when Ann showed me some of her photographs and they included ones of me photographing.  I looked at one and said, “I know the image I was making when you shot that.” Ann said I should combine those images and it might make an interesting blog post series, so I’ve also occasionally remembered to photograph Ann when she’s been photographing so the blog can cover both of us! 

So the way this will work is I’ll start with a photograph of the photographer, tell a bit about the location, day, trip or subject, then show the photograph.  Now I just have to do the work and get the series started!

Since the idea was Ann’s, I figured I’d start with one of her images, one from this summer when the concept for the series was originally developed. 

I’ve previously blogged about our trip to the Japanese Gardens and the range of successful images we made there despite the fact that it was brilliantly sunny that day.  This was our first stop to photograph at the gardens and I believe Ann produced a truly stunning image.  I photographed the same tree from a slightly different position and, while a very different image of the complex spread of branches was expected, the totally different colors that resulted from pointing the camera in a slightly different direction wasn’t.  The sense of light and the brilliant colors Ann captured was simply amazing.  And you can get totally lost in the branches and leaves.  There’s not much more to say other than Ann is officially now a photographer in my book.

And she’s not your typical photographer - did you notice how her shoes, camera bag and subject matter are color coordinated?  If we could all be so talented.