SHADOWS AT HOME
In the winter I often lack something to photograph, and in Denmark it is often cloudy, dark and rainy during wintertime. One day, when the sun shined, I saw some beautiful light and shadow patterns that I started to photograph.
How to train your eye to spot possible subjects:
It’s no secret; I like photographing people the most. I’m not the kind of person who shows up at a beautiful landscape an hour before sunset and try out different camera angles, finds the right one, waits for the sun to set, and then takes a picture and is happy with that.
But something interesting can pop up unexpectedly, like these pictures. They say there are motifs everywhere, and it’s true, you just have to look for them. I once read about a photographer who set himself the goal of taking as many pictures as possible within a few square meters, and he reportedly got a lot of interesting pictures out of it. I think it’s a general truth, you just have to train your eye and brain to see.
When you have to photograph shadows in winter, as in this case, you sometimes have to be quick. I’ve sometimes seen the right picture in the viewfinder, and then a cloud covers the sun just before you can take the picture. Maybe the sun returns and maybe not.
It’s not just the subject that needs to be there. It all depends on your own mood too. I remember once I was in Prague with some photography friends. The first day I had put an infrared film in the camera, and I shot 36 absolutely fantastic pictures – I thought. When I had shot the 36 pictures, I wanted to rewind the film, and it turned out that the film had not advanced when I tightened the shutter and wanted to pull the film forward. I was inconsolable, and my friends tried to console me and say that there were plenty of subjects the next day too, but the mood was gone.