When I started exploring photography beyond the requisite vacation photos and pictures of family/events I was looking for everything I could find on the subject. I read a few books, I played with my point & shoot and started to grasp what I had read. Not too long after this journey started Google+ was launched and I was fortunate enough to get an invite from a relative shortly after the start. It opened my eyes and widened my journey into photography faster than any amount of effort I had put in up to that point.

A big turning point was the discovery of photography themes on G+. I was not very confident about my images but I started participating in a few themes; Grass Tuesday, Floral Friday, Ministract Monday, etc. These were once a week themes and allowed my to search out some interesting subjects for each of the days. The responses I received (limited as they were) did a lot for my ego and my confidence. The next leap forward for me was the poker games. Very similar to the themes but not limited to a single day. I loved Grass Poker, Dandelion Poker, and a few others. The participants in these poker games seemed much more involved than the theme days. Maybe it was the almost instant feedback and the ability to post multiple images that has slanted my view, but these poker games really brought out the photographer in me.

I’m not sure what kind of a photographer I am, I’m still playing with different styles and forms. I love to photograph landscapes. Capturing the light as it plays across the land just sits well within me. It allows me to explore the world around me and create images that capture the wonderful vistas. I’m very much enjoying the creation of monochrome images. I’ve gotten much better at recognizing the conditions in the field that will help me create the best B&W image I can. This was greatly helped out by my Monochrome Winter series.

Different image formats fascinate me now. My Squared project has really helped me see differently when I look at a scene. I compose differently in the camera and I look beyond the obvious for the more subtle image that will be enhanced by a square crop. I have also found that I am a fan of the widescreen 16×9 format. Most of my landscapes end up that way which to me helps increase the grand scale of the image.

Going hand-in-hand with my square project is a resurgence of another style of photography, minimalism. I discovered it early on from a photographer on G+. Tom McLaughlin curated one of the daily photography themes, Ministract Monday. Ministract is a creation of Tom’s which combines minimalism with abstract. If it is something you have not experienced before I encourage you to check out his website ministract.com. Once you visit this site you will see some of his influence of the images I have been posting lately. I’m still playing and learning but that is really what makes it fun for me.

Another influence, one I discovered in an interview with Tom McLaughin done by Nathan Wirth for his a slice of silence website, is Steve Johnson, The Minimalist Photographer.  A happy coincidence to this discovery is that I had purchased his book The Minimalist Photographer a few weeks previous and had not found the time to read it. Needless to say I have read it and I’m still processing some of the concepts. Hopefully I will have some more thoughts once I do.

Maybe I’ll never settle on a style or maybe I have one but have not recognized it yet myself. For now the journey continues and at the moment it is influenced minimally by the photographers I mentioned above…

Contained
Nikon D5100, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8, 1/100s, f/4, ISO 200

Light and Dark
Nikon D5100, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8, 1/250s, f/4, ISO 200

Handle in Concrete
Nikon D5100, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8, 1/160s, f/8, ISO 200