Home #2

I was at home over the spring break, and I have always been inspired by the landscape there. In one of my previous blogs posts I was complaining that I had a hard time with my school assignment titled Home, since I was 700 km from there, so now I will try and make up for that.

It is not exactly a story or anything, but going through the village with my camera made me realize that there are a few interesting elements that can structure a photo series.

One of them was the branches that were everywhere. I had a hard time managing for the branches to have enough details and still the sky wouldn't burn out. I have partly achieved it by setting a small aperture, but I still had to retouch it on the computer, by reducing highlights and contrast. I have even tried a little game with them, for example on the second one the branch seems to follow the line of the mountain, or on the third one the breaches constitute a gate, under which the cross is situated.

Among the recurring motifs were the windows that I have shown in the previous entry. Another concept was the various gates, and what they were separating from the outside world. In the case of the cemetery gate I have tried to leave enough in both the fore- and the background, so the separating function of it would be emphasized. Also the patterns were very nice too.

Another aspect I wanted to capture is how spacious it is down there, and just how close nature is to the everyday living environment. In order to achieve this sense of space, I have set a wide aperture in the first picture, so the background gets a blurry green-blue atmosphere. However, with the second one I needed a small aperture and fast shutter speed, so the whole picture is as sharp as possible and the movement of the lambs doesn't blur.