PHOTOGRAPHY CHALLENGE
Contrasting Elements of Nature and Pictures and Ideas
And PupperJack
Following on from Anne’s story (see below) these photos show contrasts, many kinds of contrasts.
Only a couple of weeks ago the blossom was frothing and flying from the trees, fluffyfying and perfuming the neighbourhood.
Now it’s being turned to mush on the pavements, going brown and rotting into compost. Even PupperJack is sad at its demise.
The same thing has happened to the tulips in next door’s garden — lovely, colourful blooms one minute, and bare seed-heads the next.
I spotted this antique Riley car on the next road over from ours. Bristol holds many exhibitions of classic and vintage cars so I’m assuming this one was passing through on its way to a show. On the right above is my car — a totally different era of vehicle.
Well — it turns out I have a ‘thing’ for contrasting the old and the new — and always have had by the looks of my photos, but hadn’t really realised until Anne’s contrast challenge.
Above is an ammonite which is anything between 66 and 201 million years old. It is sitting on a filigree table that has a little solar panel in it so that during the night, after a sunny day, a fancy pattern is thrown into the dark.
On the right, the ammonite, a creature from the time of dinosaurs, is reclining on a modern outside pouffe about which there is nothing natural at all. It’s even possible that in about 70 million years' time archaeologists might find my ammonite resting on my garden pouffe and think the whole thing is some ancient, previously unidentified creature, maybe a cross with a giant sea-urchin.
A hydrangea with the deceased dried out flowers sharing the same stem as the new, juicy buds.
A naturally contrasting shrub — variegated pittosporum — a florist’s delight for foliage — the dark stems showing up the greyish-green, creamy-white edging to the leaves
Another ‘new-old’ photo — contrasting a new TV standing on a chest from 1697 — 21st century technology looking right at home on 17th century workmanship.
A contrast of expectation because it’s not what one might usually see out in the street — a bath where no bath should be.
One of my favourite contrasts, as illustrated above, is that between light and dark. Above left there are clouds and sun in the same sky at the same moment. And, on the right above, the shade thrown by the trees gives way to the sun warming the grass.
This is a contrast that amuses me as PupperJack and I walk around the neighbourhood. On the left above is someone who maintains rigid control over his front garden. In the middle above is someone who’s not interested in controlling his front garden. It can do just what it likes!
On the same theme, I like seeing cheery dandelions growing exactly where they know they’re not supposed to grow! Yay for dandelions!
I agree with Anne (see below) — contrast in many and varied ways adds interesting observations to everything.
In Anne’s story, ‘Contrast is What Makes Photography Interesting’, she says: “And this is exactly what our new writing prompt is about. The photography challenge I started a few weeks ago with Shruthi Sundaram brings us a lot of new ideas.
The theme for this week’s challenge I got from Kim‘s article “5 Fabulous Life Lessons from Travel and Photography”
“Look for contrasts today while you enjoy wherever it is you are. You can take an image that contains two contrasting things or take two images that contrast with each other.” — Kim Baker
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