Walking Around Downtown Nacogdoches-Color Photos

In my last post I shared the black and white photos from my walk around Downtown Nacogdoches, and in this post I’ll be sharing the color photos I took.

Before I Get Started with the Photos – A lil’ Artist Statement:

Lately, I’ve really enjoyed playing around with my in camera filters. The cross process, the toy camera, the low quality and high quality.

I’m also trying to just focus on things like shadow and light, sometimes overexposing and underexposing. Sometimes I’m focusing on the colors and the angles. I also shoot vertical just with the intention of shooting vertical instead of horizontal.

I’m just enjoying breaking rules and trying to capture something interesting. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a perfectly exposed or perfectly composed, I just want to grab something cool and hopefully different.

I’ll start off with the WoW building. If you read my last post, you got to see this bad boy in black and white. Nacogdoches has some great architecture. It’s one of the biggest tourist draws and very much worth it. I was standing further away and again, you can see the little black spots on my lens. It’s actually not too bad of a photo. I like that tree over on the right, and that fence at the bottom is apart of the Best Water Store. I purposely included both in the frame.

Here’s the Fredonia Hotel, which I shot from a different angle in the b&w post. I purposely included the power lines at those angles, and the trees at the top and bottom. I shot it with the cross process filter. And my dog was pulling and yelling at the dog across the street who was pulling his human and yelling back at my dog. I’ve gotten pretty good at shooting while she’s doing that. I like how it turned out.

Just shooting up at weird angles, vertical, including sky and shooting in cross process again. Not my most interesting, but I still wanted to include it because I like it.

I like this one a lot. I just love the pastel colors and I thought it worked well in vertical orientation. It’s just a banal photo with some pretty colors and textures. The window was actually busted and you could easily crawl inside the abandoned, gutted, historical building. I didn’t though.

I included this one in the b&w post. I took different angles for these so that I could include the white building, the green overgrown plants, the blue sky, and the red building. I liked how all the colors looked together.

I didn’t care for these two photos but I included them so that you could see the colorful setting. Usually this place is so packed with people, that I can’t just go shoot in peace. People are always questioning me and taking me out of the photographic process. So, thanks to the lockdown, I grabbed my chance. I liked the pretty blue on the right, at some yoga studio, but the photo wasn’t very interesting. I just love the blue.

And here we have a green door. I took it both in vertical and horizontal. (Portrait and landscape.) I liked the lamp because it was made from an old bucket. And I thought it was casting a good shadow on that bold green. I just love how old and worn everything looks too.

And here we have a bright red wall and door. Another banal subject, just a bench with some flowers. I really liked that big ole’ shadow that I put smack dab in the middle of the image. One of those rules I was breaking, where you really shouldn’t put something in the middle like that. You need to obey the rule of thirds and all that. But, I like it.

I found this fancy gold doorknob on the back door of a hair salon. I thought it looked neat shining in the light, and I used a high quality filter. I don’t use this filter a lot but I think it works well for this one. Not one of my favorite photos, but I still like it. I struggled to get an angle I was really happy with.

Well, that’s all the color photos I want to include from that day. I hope you enjoyed them and I think for my next post I’ll share some more pictures I took around Nacogdoches.

Walking Around Downtown Nacogdoches-B&W Photos

Usually downtown Nacogdoches has so much traffic zooming by that I don’t really like walking around taking pictures. It’s just so loud and stressful. But during this coronavirus lockdown, the town has become so much quieter and I was able to take some peaceful walks with my dog and my camera.

I call it the WoW building, which stands for Woodmen of the World. Built in 1923, it’s one of the popular historical buildings in our area. It’s been photographed so much so I think it’s good to try to think of a creative way to capture it. I like that the building is too dark and I also like that I have three black specs on my lens that showed up in the image. It can be fun to shoot weird angles and let so much of the sky take up the image.

I like how this one turned out. I like the angles and the way the light and shadow, and black and white alternate.  Another popular photo subject, the Historic Fredonia Hotel. I had some school events there, one in 8th grade for an etiquette class and again for some band competitions in high school. It’s been used for many things. I think it actually closed down for a while and was remodeled and reopened and is doing well again. It was built in 1952 and was called Hotel Fredonia. I think I like how that sounds better than it’s current name.

Just a door in the back of one of the closed small businesses. I love how doors look. And I really like how the light and shadow turned out. I like how dark the shadows are and how bright the light is.

Another door at The Best Water Store. I was playing around with the lens flare. Also, I’ve been trying to take more vertical orientation photos.

 

There’s nothing particularly exciting about this one. I just like how it turned out. I like banal subjects like this and the shadow caught my eye. There were some construction workers to the left shakin their booties to some upbeat Mexican music.

I was walking along this old historic building and I saw this through the window. I just thought it looked neat.

Another vertical picture. And I love playing around with overexposing my light and underexposing my shadows. I was also careful to include those power lines in the corner. I really like how it turned out, it’s one of my favorites from that day.

The last photo I’ll be sharing from that day, and one of my favorites. It’s just a chair with the light casting an interesting shadow.  Right after I took this photo an old truck slowly pulled up next to me and stopped. They took their time rolling down their window, and I have to admit I was feeling a little nervous. It was an old man, probably 80 something. He didn’t speak so I said, “Hello…”

Then he pointed at the business behind me and said in a slow East Texas drawl, “They’re closed…” I giggled and responded that I knew that, then he drove away.

I saw this Mermaid Today

 

I saw this mermaid today

I waved and said, “hey”

but much to my dismay

this fishy girl wouldn’t play

she flashed a smirk, and just swam away

Red Morning Pictures

I was headed to the kitchen this morning when I saw a red glow shining through the windows. I grabbed my point and shoot camera and headed outside hoping I was quick enough to capture the red hue before it went away.

Light changes quickly so I only managed to get one decent picture. It was a tad bit redder when I first saw it, but that’s still pretty red. I wonder what kind of particles were in the atmosphere to cause that color.

Lo-Fi Time

For this picture I activated my “toy camera” setting and it gave me the option of choosing a warm, neutral, or cool tint . . . I went with warm. The warm glow in the sky was pretty much gone by this point, but maybe that filter helped some. I positioned my camera at my hip and snapped the picture.

I like how it turned out. I like all the vertical lines created by the trees in the background, and the variety of diagonal lines created by the yucca plants and that stick in the foreground.

LOMO Rules Followed

So, is it LOMO? I followed rules 1-3 that are specific to all photography, and I wont list them. Rules 8-10 also didn’t really apply cuz I didn’t worry about what I shot which means I obeyed them. I am focusing on the Golden Rules though, so I guess I broke Rule 10 a bit. Aside from them, I’ll focus on the following Golden Rules of Lomography:

4. Yes, I tried the shot from the hip. The composition turned out pretty interesting.

5. Approach the subject as close as possible. The sharp pointy ends of the yucca got me so I definitely obeyed this rule.

6. Don’t think. Done.

7. Be fast. And done.

Pics Before Coffee

My coffee was ready for me when I was done shooting. I love the feeling of productivity and creativity before I even get coffee into my system. Makes the coffee that much more enjoyable.

 

My LOMO – Inspired Digital Photography Manifesto

I knew a photographer who loved shooting on her Holga toy camera. At the time, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of a toy camera, but her pictures always turned out really cool. A few years ago I purchased an Action Sampler.

Action Sampler, photo from lomography.com

It takes four pictures per exposure. I carried it around for a while and shot pictures obeying The Ten Golden Rules, and the promises that are specific to the Action Sampler. I still need to finish my rolls of film and get them developed. Until that happens I have a burning desire to take the kind of low fidelity pictures you get with toy cameras.

Can LOMO be Digital?

A lot of my digital photos remind me of the pictures that you get from toy cameras. So, I’d like to work on an on – going series of pictures inspired by the LOMO – style. Both in camera and in post processing. With my DSLR and with my point and shoot. Any way that I can achieve the style is acceptable, with the goal of staying as close to true Lomography as possible. So, Let’s take a look at the 10 Golden rules.

The little handbook that came with my action sampler

the ten golden rules of lomography

The 10 Golden Rules of Lomography

1. Take your camera everywhere you go.

• Not a problem. All photographers should make this a rule. The moment I leave home without it, I’ve missed picture opportunities.

2. Use it anytime, Day and Night.

• Another easy one. Both day and night offer all kinds of different lighting and subject opportunities.

3. Lomography is not an interference in your life, but a part of your life.

• Done. Photography is a part of my life.

4. Try to shoot from the hip.

• A lot of toy cameras don’t have a viewfinder. So, it became popular to shoot from the hip. I do it sometimes. I also try to shoot from above, from the side, and upside down. Being open to any vantage point can produce interesting possibilities. But for Lomographic purposes, it’s gotta be from the hip.

5. Approach the objects of your Lomographic desire as closely as possible.

• I often try to get close to my subjects. I might be able to get closer though.

6. Don’t think. (William Firebrace)

• This one is hard. I can’t help but think. I’ve got a brain and I try to use it. But, this is a great rule to attempt to follow. If you don’t think, you just shoot, you’ll end up getting some cool surprise pictures that you wouldn’t get if you sat there thinking. Sometimes, you can think too much.

7. Be Fast.

• Sometimes you gotta shoot fast or you’ll miss it. This world speeds by and everyone tends to rush through it. There’s a time and place for waiting for the decisive moment. Just like there’s a time and place for those quick pics.

8. You don’t have to know beforehand what you’ve captured on film.

• This is inherent in film. You just don’t know what you’ve got until you’ve developed your film and spent time in the darkroom making test prints. You can also do this with digital. That little screen isn’t giving you an accurate view of your image anyway. Ignore the screen and the histogram and just shoot. The surprise is really fun when you’re checking out your shots later.

9.  And you don’t necessarily have to know afterwards either.

• This is something inherent to Lomography. Often times, you’ll produce images that are abstract, blurry, out of focus, strange colors, etc. You might never know what that photo is of and that’s part of the beauty that attracts me to this type of photography.

10. Don’t worry about any rules.

• Being a practiced photographer, some rules just get obeyed naturally. But I love the idea of letting go and just shooting. Forget rules. This ain’t Group F. 64.

Rules are Meant to be Broken

Since rule 10 says not to worry about rules, then I have the right and the responsibility to break the rules. Which means that shooting an analogue style of photography with a digital camera is a big rule breaker. I think that as long as I try to stick with the original idea of Lomography, which is basically experimental and creative, then I’ll be ok.

Before – Through the Windshield

This picture reminds me of Lomography. I took it through the windshield of a car and I didn’t do anything to it. It’s straight from the camera. In the photo below, I adjusted the exposure and color temperature in Lightroom using the “auto” feature.

After – Through the Windshield

I like them both and I think they qualify as LOMO – inspired Digital photos.

Have you ever shot on a toy camera, or have you ever made your own pinhole camera? Do you think that an inherently analogue style of photography can be created digitally and be taken seriously? I guess we will soon find out . . .