Things Around Home

I made a conscious decision not to bring my camera along on my first day foray into the city on this visit to Hong Kong. It is very distracting having a camera - I decided that I would take everything in without documenting it. Next week I will make specific phototrips, and I will give myself little projects, e.g. storefronts, holiday decor, signage, produce. While on one hand having a camera is distracting, on the other, I've photographed Hong Kong so much that nothing is very novel and thus themes will help me focus my photo attention.

I photographed Things Around my Hong Kong home today. My Mom's orchids came to mind first; a great opportunity to demonstrate "bokeh", or the fuzzing out of background (or foreground) by having limited focal range. The thing with Bokeh is that what one chooses to be in focus is an important element of the composition. If I'd chosen the bottom left flower to be in focus, the photo would be strangely weighted. Even though many of the flowers are just blobs of color, they're still incorporated into the composition.

Photographing things around home makes me feel like a student photographer. The typical things to photograph as a student photographer are things that are easy to access and control, because it's scary to go into the unpredictable outside world to photograph (or draw, or paint, etc). If you see a portfolio with too many obviously Home Taken shots, tell that photographer to Get Out More.