~One Year Ago~

~Environs Project Summation~

One year ago, on the 29th of February, I shot the last image in my Environs Project. For the entire month of February I only photographed in my yard. Never leaving the confines of my walls. My camera was under house arrest. What an experience that was! In rereading my blog I noticed that by the 15th I was getting photographic cabin fever. I could hardly wait for the short, thank goodness, month of February to end. In the beginning I wasn't quite sure why I'd start the Project. I felt that it might interesting, and it might help me to grow artistically. It might help me become a better photographer, it sure couldn't hurt!

The reason I'm writing this now is that a week or so ago I received an email from a fellow Blipper. She asked if I ever did a synopsis of the Environs Project? No, I had completely forgotten that I was going to do that when it was finished. So here are a few thought on what I learned during that month.

When I found myself confined to photographing just one subject, my yard, I really learned to look at my subject. To look with my eye and my camera. If I were shooting a cactus I would study it for quite a while before putting camera to eye. Then I found that I might take two or three hundred shots of that cactus. And if I was lucky I might get one or two good usable image. That was at the beginning of the month. By the end of the month my ratio improved 8 or 9 acceptable image out of a hundred or so clicks. So the Project improved my photographic seeing more than anything.

And a totally unexpected result was that once I was allowed out into the world again, wow! I saw things that I had never seen before. It was kind of like looking at my surrounds with the eyes of a child again. Everything was new and untried. That twig by the side of the road was no longer a twig by the side of the road. It was a thing to be explored and studied, there was beauty there, just waiting for me to find it.

I could go on and on about the things I had learned, but I won't.
Well I lied, just one more thing I want to share about me and my art. The images that turn out the most successful are the ones where I fell in love with my subject. What was it about my subject that I wanted to show others. How best to convey the essence of what I found so appealing. Some techniques and tools that I found useful in translating my image to the viewer were camera settings, light, shadow, composition, and a love for my subject above all else!

Thanks and if you read this, a double thanks!


Edit: This succulent is the Euphorbia rigida,
but better know in these parts as the Gopher Plant.
Its sap is a latex type of compound and is poisonous!
It is indeed growing in my yard and in late winter
I look forward to its flowering, a very beautiful sight!