2022 Photography Resolutions
I am in a much better place this year than I was at this time last year. In January of 2021, the people of Nashville were in shock and pain because of the Christmas bombing of the ATT building on 2nd Avenue North. The good news is that no one was hurt except the bomber. But the bomb took out a couple of blocks of our entertainment district, damaging many beloved and historic buildings. It has been gratifying to see them repaired and the businesses reopened. We are down to just one block that is still closed off because of reconstruction. I went downtown on Wednesday, 1/5, and the road through that block was open to one lane and pedestrian traffic. That feels like a huge step forward. I can now resume my walk down 2nd Avenue without any detours.
This year, in spite of the continuing pandemic challenges, I can look forward with some hope. That is what it takes for me to make New Year’s resolutions. So here we go, 2022.
Family photography is particularly challenging to me. It is very hard for me to catch what I see and feel.
I re-commit myself to going out to shoot at least twice a week. Nashville has crummy winter weather this week, but I did walk around for one hour in the city. For the time spent in NYC, the appropriate resolution would be to go out maybe 6 days a week. It is a bit of a hassle and a bit of expense to drive into Nashville. Nevertheless, this year, my street photography is going to be prioritized. I deserve to do something that brings me so much satisfaction.
It has been weeks since I have been out shooting, as our family commits to quarantining before the holidays. It is hard to get back in the saddle, but if I get even one photo that I like, I am happy. I got just one this week.
I am going to be a little more flexible about what I shoot. It used to be that most of my photography was taken during travel. While it was generally candid photography of humans, it also included architecture, nature shots and some landscapes. When the pandemic started, and there was really no possibility of candid human photography, you would think I would have cheerfully picked up the pace of other kinds of photography. But that was not the case at all. I could not bring myself to get out my camera and take pictures of anything. Now if I see interesting light in my house, I go get the camera. It is my plan to take pictures of all kinds of things this year.
I want to take more pictures out of windows.
My appetite for international travel is small, to say the least. Instead, I hope to do some photography travel. Perhaps that will include staying in NYC for a couple of weeks at a time. Then that resolution to shoot at least six days a week will bring up my yearly average of shooting days in a week. Perhaps there will be travel to take workshops. With some real luck, the Miami Street Photography Festival will resume in December. I am determined to never miss it.
I don’t want to forget to look up.
It is clear to me that my skills in Lightroom have faded with the use of Snapseed as my main post processing program. Snapseed has real limitations when it comes to printing an image because the files are fairly small. Julianne Kost, the Lightroom and Photoshop guru, and I are going to spend some quality time together, meaning I watch her uTube blogs. She knows my attention limitations with regards to the amount of training that I can take in one sitting. It is my intention to march through the Lightroom Classic tutorials on her blog.
I want to look for the found still lifes.
Finally, I plan to participate more widely in the Photo Salon that I joined last year. I am definitely going to submit work when there are gallery opportunities in Nashville. And by hook or by crook, I will continue to write the blog. Heavens only knows what the topics will be.
And I always want to make time for light.
Now for a little color theory.
The Color Space of the Human Eye
There is absolutely no color space of the human eye, but it does seem appropriate to discuss how a human sees color, so please bear with me.
A Very Short Summary of How Humans See Color in Objects
When you look at an object, it reflects light that enters the eye.
The light gets focused in the eye first by the cornea and then by the lens.
It moves back into the eye onto the retina.
The retina has, among other types of cells, three kinds of light-sensing cells that are called cones.
They create a three-digit electrochemical code that represents how much long-, medium-, and short-wavelength light is bouncing off the object that you can see.
These codes are sent to the visual cortex in the brain to decode.
The brain interprets them as a colored image.