Blog Ring

The 52 Week Project is a blog circle with a theme for every week (which means we all link to each other, links are found at the end of the post).

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The theme for this week’s 52 Week Project was minimalist/minimalism.

The wiki definition of minimalism: Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts.

While the Webster dictionary defines it as follows: A style or technique that is characterized by extreme spareness and simplicity.

A tricky concept when it comes to adding dog into the mix as most dogs consist of complex parts – ears, noses, legs, tails, coloration. My aim was big spaces to emphasize the contrast of shapes of Bender (especially his ears and profile) against the static backdrop of the buildings. Bender on the other hand, thought the sidewalks were cold on his bum, the weather was cold and wanted to smell all the smells instead of holding a sit for more than 2 seconds.

We managed to get a couple keepers.

Next visit Little White Dog Pet Photography – Sioux Falls, SD to see her interpretation of minimalism.

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The 52 Week Project is a blog circle with a theme for every week (which means we all link to each other, links are found at the end of the post).

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The 52 Week Project theme for this week was wide angle. Wide angle refers to the field of view by which a camera sees the world through a lens. Wider = a wider scene, while narrower = a magnified, smaller scene (aka zoom!).

Enter in the Creakasaurus.

Years ago (indeed within the first year of use, in the realm of 2011) the Creakasaurus lens was created. The setting was a bumpy barely maintained road that wrapped around the outskirts of the Great Sand Dunes. A resting spot on a handrail no longer was at rest on a particularly lumpy bump. The lens, a Tamron 10-24mm fell, impacting heavily onto the floor of the vehicle front lens element down, effectively jamming the barrel of the lens, rendering the lens useless (and only a day into the trip).

(Insert swearing and massive anxiety)

Some crafty manipulation and the barrel was unjammed. The tradeoff, the lens now sported a VERY noisy autofocus and an occasionally touch of loosing its mind. The dreadfully noisiness of this lens keeps it in the lineup as a landscape/cars lens. Also it is a crop sensor lens, so on a full frame camera there is MASSIVE vignetting at 10mm that doesn’t clear up until 15mm. And barrel distortion especially on the edges.

But it sure is wide…

(Above: I’m not exactly sure if the light is reflecting inside the barrel of the lens or if its reflecting off the smaller rear mount area)

Bender was not impressed with the noise, nor how close I was to him (minimum focusing distance is 9.45″ inches aka VERY CLOSE!) even though I had a tasty treat in hand. Also, that’s his classic “mom’s in my face old man no ears look”…

Since the weather was on the cusp of warmish, with no breeze, Bender & I departed towards the downtown area to use the Creakasaurus. There is no discretion of noise for this lens, so luckily downtown was quiet (as small towns are) and no one paid us any mind.

Across the street from the brick wall above is wall that once sported a playful mural for the little local bakery (bakery is no longer, nor is the mural), it now has a crisp white color from sidewalk to roofline. A weathered bench sits against it. I wanted to emphasize the space being bigger than Bender so he was positioned on the bench, (from his pout, I’d say it was cold on his bum), the Creakasaurus zoomed out to 14-15mm (hence the touch of vignetting). 

I moved back slightly for a little more space and to center the bench on the wall. (The curve of the snow is from the barrel distortion of the 10-24mm at 15mm). I kind of want to print this as a giant piece and have in a gallery somewhere…

Next visit Little White Dog Pet Photography – Sioux Falls, SD to see her take on wide angle.

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The 52 Week Project is a blog circle with a theme for every week (which means we all link to each other, links are found at the end of the post).

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This week’s theme was silhouette. A rescheduled session on Saturday meant that I could go questing for a sunset and a crisp silhouette (sunset is approx 5:45 pm here in the frozen North). Bender was happy to go for a car ride and we traipsed to a one of my go to areas just outside of town that was a vast flat field with some concrete rubble (former turkey barns) that could be used for height.

From last July, 2017.

WHOA! It changed! A quaint series of streetlamp stood in a line in the middle of the road, the rubble had been removed and replaced with a GINORMOUS dirt pile that looked like a huge pyramid in the distance.

We departed the warmth of the car and were greeted by a brisk winter breeze that skirted across the open field. There was a smidgen of clouds on the cusp of the horizon and the sun was just above the trees. We paused to pose on a rounded concrete form for a bit of height. Shooting wide open on the 20mm was pretty, but without clouds in the sky I wanted a little extra pizzazz from the sun. Stopping down to f/9 gave me some pretty sunbursts (aka pings).

Bender’s bum grew cold so we shimmied to a pair of pallets in a small stack which were a little closer to the pyramid of dirt.

We moved to the massive pyramid of dirt. It was sharply sloped and inspired a fleeting thought of climbing to the top, but with the briskness of the wind on the ground, it would have been much worse at the top. There was a smaller sub pile of dirt that was slightly higher than hip level that Bender obliged in climbing onto.

The light was low, the grasses were backlit, so we attempted a few ground level images. Not exactly what I had hoped for, but silhouettes none the less.

Not the last image, but my favorite of the evening. The ping, how the light tickled the edges of Bender’s face, the spill of light on the touch of grass leading away from the horizon…

Next visit Pet Love Photography, serving Greater Cincinnati and the San Francisco Bay Area to see her silhouettes!

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