12.27.2015

Austin is an interesting town to walk around in. Beautiful in its creative energy.

I was walking around the Clarksville area when I saw this. I thought it was beautiful. I walk around here a lot and had never seen this before. Normally it's the kind of shot I'd make with a longer lens like and 85 or a 100mm. But today I had only the 28mm lens I was testing with me. I got pretty close to the painted rock and that allowed me, at f5.6, to take the sharp edge off the leaves in the background. I'd put little red arrows on the image and lie to you about how I spent a couple hours with a calculator and a protractor computing the various angles that might best draw your eye into the picture but that's such rank bullshit you'd probably never believe it.

I saw it. I responded to it. I shot it. Any pretense to pre-shot analysis and planing is just  Monday morning quarterbacking. Anyone tells you they planned it all out is really just saying, "I got lucky and there were some diagonal lines that worked for me."

There's a time for deep dives into design and a time for reaction. The time for deep dives into design is mostly when drawing out the plans for a house or office building. The time for reaction is when you have a camera in your hand and something interesting in front of you to shoot. Go. And try a few variations while you are there....


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