[New post] 4-H Fair 2012: My Black And White Photography

4-H Fair 2012: My Black And White Photography

by nevillegirl

This was my 3rd year in the 4-H Photography project. I love photography because I'm terrible at any other kind of art and finally, I have some kind of art I can do. I have two exhibits of black and white photography this year. I love black and white because of the detail and the way everything just seems more serious, so I had all the photos I would use for these two exhibits long before I had my photos for the color exhibits.

I think black and white photography makes old weathered things look cool, so I snapped a few pictures of a birdhouse in front of our house. I had some photos with the birdhouse directly front and center, but I like this version better, with the house at a slight angle and part of it cut off. Both the Photography superintendent and my project manuals say that the most interesting photos don't usually have the object centered in the picture, so I guess that's why I picked this and not the other versions.

I took this photo outside the Dayton Air Force Museum in Ohio. Again, I like how weathered the plane was and I thought the propellers are quite striking. Literally, if you stand in their way while they're moving.

If this photo seems familiar, that's because I used it in the 30-Day Blogging Challenge. This is a photo of a tree in our backyard. I love the dots, lines, and petals - it kind of reminds me of lace!

Most years, I go to a few Photography workshops, but this year I was too busy and there was only one that I was really interested in. That was the still life workshop. The Superintendent sets up all kinds of things and gives us suggestions. Most of the other project members took color pictures, but I thought black and white actually made the colorful marbles look better. They appear shinier, as does the side of the glass.

This is J, the little sister of P, who plays on my softball team. I needed a photo of a person and she's really cute, so I asked I could take a few. It was a lot of fun, because she kept fidgeting, turning around so that I could only see the back of her head, and making faces. Cheese thank you, J!

Here's another one from the still life workshop. I guess I just like all the different textures and patterns. I like the detail of the seeds on the strawberry.

This was taken on our trip to Toronto in October of last year. I was trying to get some cool pictures of the Royal Ontario Museum, or ROM. Most of the pictures didn't turn out well, but I like all the changing lines and angles of this one.

This is another photo that you may have already seen on my blog. It's a post at the end of my neighbor's driverway. I thought the angles of the wood and the peeling paint wouuld look great in black and white.

This is a statue at the Photography superintendent's house. Whenever I've gone to those workshops, I usually get a few nice photos of all the props she sets up, but then I do my own thing. One reason is that you end up getting clutter in the background of your photos because everyone will cluster around one prop, and another reason is that I just don't like taking posed photos. I have some good posed photos, and I've used them for 4-H, but I guess I just don't like to mess with the stuff to figure out what looks nice. I'm more attracted to unusual but natural poses. So I roamed around her flowerbeds and found this statue. And pretty soon, some other 4-Hers realized that it would make a great picture, so I moved on and took pictures of those marbles and the ice cream.

This is the oldest picture I used on my black and white Photography poster. In September, my brother and I stayed overnight at my grandparents'. I can't remember for what, but anyway, that evening, they took us to a car show in our town. If I hadn't brought my camera and a bunch of books, I would have been bored out of my mind. Eventually I got tired of the books and wandered up and down the street taking photos of old cars. The best picture I took, though, was right next to my grandpa's car, where I'd started. The car next to his had a cool hood. It doesn't open up in one piece; instead, there are two pieces that slide up from the sides. I like the detail that this photo has. It recieved a gold sticker, which means I can enter it in the calendar contest.