Shooting the Shooter - Q2MR First Shots Edition
Ann will readily confirm that, when I get focused on making a photograph, or even shooting in general, I get totally absorbed in what I’m doing. I pretty much tune out everything other than: (1) how do I make this a better image?; (2) Am I going to die if I get over there to make my image?; and (3) Is there another image here to be made? Sometimes I forget #2, as Ann will occasionally remind me. Everything else pretty much goes into one ear and out the other, or probably more likely, never makes it into the ear in the first place (and you can freely insert eye or brain for ear). So I was kind of surprised when looking at Ann’s photographs from Munich that there were a couple of photographs of me. And me, being me, instantly thought, “Great! I bet I can get another blog post out of that!”
Our images for this post come from the morning after I bought the Q2MR. The evening before, I had quickly gone through the camera menus and configured it so that I wouldn’t be lost the next morning when we set out to go photographing. The only thing left to do was to see what the camera could do.
The first of the image pairs comes from that indoor-outdoor mall I mentioned that we found so interesting (photographically). And before I get to the “shot” images, I want to reiterate something I’ve said before that is plainly evident in the “shooter” image below. From the framing of the circular light up top, to the repeated circles in the image, to the reflected person walking down the aisle, and to the multiple reflections and lights throughout the frame, this is a photograph that goes well beyond documenting some old guy with a new toy making a photograph. Ann is a photographer.
My image below plays with the same elements as Ann’s image - curves, lights, reflections, textures - without the goofy guy with his arms up in the air to distract you from the graphic elements in the frame.
The second image comes from the Rathaus. Ann’s image was taken as I was exploring what various details in this beautiful door might look like when framed in an image.
The actual image below comes from a few moments later when I’d settled on framing one of the individual door panels that was framed in a rectangle and that had a single element within the frame.
As I mentioned in the “Once in a Lifetime” post, many of the images I made that day were to see what the camera and sensor could do and to remind myself that photographing in color is not the same as photographing in black and white. I think the tonal values of this image are simply lovely, but it just might have been better if it had been in color. I think the yellow panel contrasting with the reddish rust on the black metal might have added to the image. I will need to learn that with the Q2MR, color is not an option and that I should pull out the color camera when the image calls for it. Or walk away from it if it’s not what I want in black and white. Still, the tonal values from the Q2MR are more film like in the smoothness in how they transition between tones, which is a very good thing to know.