Day 362 - Another happy photographic accident

Add this one to the list of photographs that, at first glance, seem not to have turned out but then, when you look at them more closely, you find that they are better than you could ever have imagined (or planned).

This is Emily. She's skating at the Lady Beaverbrook Rink during one of its daily free skates. There's not much light. Emily is moving pretty quick. And the Olympus is having a mess of trouble adjusting for it all. I set it at the slowest shutter speed that wouldn't show the shake in my hand (1/60th of a second) and opened the aperture up as far as it would go.

It's a recipe for disaster and that's what, at first glance, I thought I had gotten, even after I worked on the picture in iPhoto. Emily is not in focus (the guy in the coat behind her is, however), the contrast is terrible, and there still isn't enough light. I was ready to discard it.

Then I looked at her face. The concentration on it. The peaceful concentration on the act of skating. And I realised that the fuzziness of the image, the low contrast and the darkness all add rather than detract from the effect of the shot. So I kept it. I showed it to Emily and asked her permission to post it here.

"As long as you don't mind me copying it onto my Facebook page," she said. No problem, Emily. Enjoy. And thanks for being a part of another happy photographic accident.

Day 252 - Couch, sofa or chesterfield?

I'm beginning to wonder if a trained psychologist could find out a lot about me from the photographs I take or, even better, figure out the kind of mood I'm in from the photographs I post on a given day. Not that I'm suggesting any trained psychologist would want to waste a lot of time on the likes of me but still...

Today, I feel like garbage and I'm in a bad mood. I'm sure the latter is related to the former but it doesn't make for a nice combination. So what do I choose from the photo library for today's shots? You guessed it: photos of garbage. I'm sure every city and town has scenes like these scattered all over the place but I have to admit that I find Fredericton's little dumpy scenes all the more shocking because of how pretty the rest of the city usually is.

The top image comes to us from the alleys of downtown Freddie, where it looks to me like some kind of renovation is going on in this building. I mean, what other explanation can you give for leaving a lidless toilet out in the open like this? I kind of like the composition of this shot, including the fact that the toilet is facing away from the camera.

The lower shot is intended to be a reminder that the university students are back in town and, with them, scenes like this one. Apparently, someone decided that their second-hand, battered couches were a heck of a lot better than these battered old sofas and dumped them in a clearing behind the Lady Beaverbrook Arena. I guess that's an improvement on the old way of getting rid of old chesterfields: putting them on the front lawn of your house and setting them on fire. That particular method of tidying was quite popular in New Brunswick's capital a couple of years ago.

I can't say that this second picture has that much going for it, artistically, but at least it captures my mood. And gives me a chance to use all three words that I know for this type of furniture. By the way, which word do you prefer: couch, sofa, or chesterfield?