June — A Year in Photographs

Light, shadow, lines, structure.

Arch, Chicago, 6/11/2017

Chicago is one of the architectural capitols of the world. With not only a long history but also famous architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Chicago has a rich landscape of buildings both old and new. 

Architecture is by far one of my favorite subjects to photograph. I love symmetry, geometry, patterns, and the interplay between different materials. There is no shortage of buildings in Chicago.

While May was a challenging month from the standpoint of executing on a daily basis, I chose this month to focus on a strength.

Commonly, architecture photography is about an interior or entire exterior of a building. While I certainly have many photographs of entire buildings, I am very drawn to the details of the building. So much so that sometimes one may never know what building I photographed even if famous. 

Arch, for example, is a building that people come from miles around to visit. It is a famous building as part of the worldwide brand. Using my technique for photographing Geometry Series, Arch is much more minimal but one favorite from this month. 

Uptown, Chicago, 6/30/2017

Much Architecture was captured using my Olympus E-M5 with a 45mm (90mm on 35) lens allowing for me to focus on the details of buildings. The Olympus 45mm f1.8 is a favorite lens of mine. While some use wide angle or perspective control lenses for architectural photography, I lean toward longer focal lengths. Wide angle lenses are a favorite of mine but in Chicago, wide angle lenses rarely only give a field of view for one building. Chances are two or three will show up in the image. But, as with all tools, using it the right way, one will achieve the desired results.

The month itself wasn't a challenge as many in the past but I enjoyed it immensely. A Year in Photographs launched as an endeavor into uncharted photographic territory but entering into the half-way mark, I wanted to included one of my favorite subjects. 

July is upon us and with that I starts a new subject. As focusing on building details, I will be focusing on urban and cultural details. Some things are so common and seen so frequently, they are effectively rendered invisible.

I once argued that photographers are those who define objects that otherwise would not exist because language or commonality ignores said objects. These things are that which are completely obvious but ironically are not seen. The Blue of the Universe shares my theory of how one can define the ordinary making it extraordinary. July surely will be an exercise in photography's supernatural abilities. 

Up next: July – Signs and Symbols

Architecture in June

One Photograph a Day is not Enough

Medium Carmine, Chicago, 6/8/2017

RGB 175, 64, 40
CMYK 0, 63, 77, 31
HSB 10, 77, 68
HEX #AF4028

A Year in Photographs has been an exciting, challenging, and occasionally frustrating project but I'm seriously enjoying it. To find a photograph every day for a year is a huge commitment. Though, it has become routine in the sense I no longer need to "think" about what I'm going to photography but the image more and more just jumps out at me.

In the beginning, I would spend hours sometimes wondering around until I found the photograph for the day. I ended up shooting hundreds of photos in a day. While quality is important in some circumstances, I simply do not want to store, manage, edit, organize, and keep all of them.

Part of my personal growth during this project has been reducing this time and volume. I have found I can imagine what I want to get for the day and go out and find it in sometimes only one photograph. While it is rare, several days over the past few months the first picture I captures ended up being the photo of the day.

That said, I have shot many more photographs than what one seeing in the daily sense. It has been hard to decide sometimes, too. And at the end of many months, People, for example, I wanted to continue that journey but a new month brought a new theme. But I have continued these themes as branches of my work and would like to share some that have not been seen.

Please continue to follow A Year in Photographs. I do enjoy sharing my work and hearing what people think of my photography.

More from A Year in Photographs

May — A Year in Photographs

A month in color.

Honolulu Blue, Chicago, 5/4/2017

May was a particularly challenging month. The theme: Color. The challenge: sharing color images, only, but the subject must be a different color than the rest of the image. Each image named after the color and their color values as just a bit of trivia.

Starting out, I had a rather tight beginning to May and my schedule. I didn’t quite get off on the right foot. In fact, this was a month of mild frustration when is came to photography. I felt the most out of my element since the beginning of this project.

Candy Apple Red, Chicago, 5/1/2017

I find my color photography only lends itself to color when the photograph is best in color. In other words, as I’m capturing a photograph, I usually know then and there whether it will be black and white or color. Black and white is a comfortable place for me to photograph. I can “see” in black and white and I know what to expect when I convert my color image to black and white.

Color is really the same way. I literally see in color but there is a twist. I color image right out of the camera is rarely compelling. Why so many people use or used different film stock is to gain a certain style or look to their image.

The beauty of digital photography is one gets pretty much what one sees and then has the opportunity to apply their style to the image in post production. There lies the challenge. With black and white, the image might have a red filter or blue filter applied, higher or lower contrast, but over all, it will simply be black and white. That statement belies complexity of shooting black and white but color has a wide range of variables much harder to imagine.

Urobilin, Chicago, 5/8/2017

The frustration was more or less the time I did not have to pursue this theme to my perfectionist conclusion. However, I found it compelling because I had to use several past themes to help sort out my vision. One theme in particular, April’s theme, Minimalism.

To have a subject stand out from the background as the only object in the image to maintain its color is a challenge. Urobilin, brought minimalism and color together. It ended up being in the middle of the pack when it comes to my favorite photographs of the months but it exemplifies the essence of the theme of Color.

On the other hand, People was my March theme and occasionally also popped up as with Sinopia, KU Crimson, and Portland Orange.

Sinopia, Chicago, 5/17/2017

There were numerous automative images and staged photographs. Many food photos worked their way in which I rarely shoot but one’s kitchen is full of color. And the one thing I noticed most about this endeavor, aside for the challenge, it how little color people wear, or things in the city appear in color. There are places in this world where the lack of color would be the exception of the rule but, here in Chicago, while the city is beautiful, it does not share of the color of say Old San Juan, Puerto Rico.

While this month did not bring as many outstanding photographs has past months, two valuable ideals came from this theme.

1. Learning what you don’t want is equally as important as what you do want.

2. Being the most challenging theme thus far, it was a huge learning experience and honed a certain virtue of minimalism, in which I had little experience.

Like People, I will continue this theme as a branch of A Year in Photographs but June is here and, as such, a new theme: Architecture. I am certain to enjoy this month in one of my favorite subjects of both photography and vocations and can not wait to start sharing photographs of June.

Up next: June – Architecture

Color — May