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A post on the role of photography in telling fictional, make-believe stories, and the recent Of Many Minds exhibition by sculptor Michael Alfano, which captures both reality and fantasy.

On photography and visual fictional stories.

The partial solar eclipse of 2024 photographed w/ a Nikon Z30 and iPhone15Pro Max in black and white and color. Read more at https://alinaoswald.com/2024/04/09/the-partial-solar-eclipse-of-april-2024/

When photographing, we often strive to keep our subjects in focus, and our image sharp. And yet, sometimes, we tend to use blur as a visual effect in order to emphasize a mood, look, subject or the visual story itself.

Hence, the use motion blur aka long exposure aka “dragging the shutter.”

Motion blur can help create ghosting effects, and make objects and subjects disappear (and eventually reappear), depending how much or little we drag the shutter. All in all, experimenting with motion blur can be a fascinating photography exercise.

[Note: when using a very long shutter speed and camera, it’s often a good idea to also use a tripod, to avoid unwanted camera shake.]

Here are a few examples of motion blur (aka long exposure) images captured with the iPhone 15 Pro Max:

Read more at https://alinaoswald.com/2024/04/02/motion-blur/

Read more at https://alinaoswald.com/2024/03/05/iphone15-flowers/

“When words become unclear, I shall focus on photographs,” Ansel Adams once said.

A photograph is, indeed, more than “a thousand words,” and a powerful, visual means through which to capture feelings, thoughts, perspectives, opinions, mood, and so on.

Read more at https://alinaoswald.com/2024/02/27/more-than-words/

Read more at https://alinaoswald.com/2024/02/20/protest-art-revisited/

A photography blogpost on life, death, and love, Mardi Gras (City of the Dead) and Valentine's Day captured through a Lensbaby composer. And the deconstruction of Of Life and Death photograph. Read more at https://alinaoswald.com/2024/02/13/life-death-and-love/

On visual storytelling: the rules of image composition

Deadlines: you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them. …Or so the saying goes. The same is true when it comes to rules. And yet, deadlines and rules are intrinsic parts of our professional and personal lives.

Photography projects have deadlines. Photography has its own rules.

For example, the rules of image composition help us tell a visual story in the most powerful way possible. They are there not to confine us, but to be considered, and sometimes, even to be broken, in a creative way, that is.

Read more at https://alinaoswald.com/2024/02/06/back-to-the-basics-rules-of-image-composition/

Inspiring quotes on photography by famous photographers: Ansel Adams