Over the past few years, I've taken literally more than a thousand shots of UNC's Old Well. It's my favorite photography subject in the world. The well is always a popular spot for photographers, but in mid-April each year, the blossoms around it peak, and on any given afternoon, you'll find five or six folks hanging around trying to take shots of campus landmark.
Today, class started at 9:00, and I decided to take the 7:00 bus to campus so that I could spend 90 minutes or so photographing before the crowds arrived. My goal lately has been to find new shots that I haven't thought of before. Today, I focused on this one. I must have taken 75 versions of this shot between my morning visit and then when I returned again after class in the afternoon. I could tell that it was a good idea, because many of the other photographers (even the ones with high end cameras and lenses) started coming over to my spot to take the same shot. All of us found it more difficult than we'd expected, and I left feeling like I hadn't quite captured the picture I had in my mind. However, when I got home and uploaded photos, I was very pleased with this one.
As it turns out, I took it in my morning session, during which I only tried this shot about 5 times. When I returned in the afternoon to take about 70 more, I didn't get anything nearly this nice!
8 comments:
Easily my favorite picture of all time! I love it and want it framed!
Here is the full size version of the shot if anyone is interested in seeing it at higher resolution.
I must say- it looks a lot nicer on my Mac than it does on my PC.
My Photography book says when shooting flowers, to zoom in to have the flower fill the frame and use a short depth of field to totally blur the background. You did neither and took a fantastic flower picture. What I like most about your photo is that the well in the background tells me immediately where it was taken. When are you publishing a book?
I usually do like flower pictures where the flower fills the frame, so I wouldn't throw away that book just yet!!!
Seriously though, some of my favorite shots ever were full frame or nearly full frame. I also generally think that it's definitely best to go with the short depth of field. That's what I generally try to do too.
This was just a funny thing... I really love taking pictures of the Old Well, and I do like to have it in the shots one way or the other. Of course, this is the kind of shot that probably isn't as nice if you don't know where you are... luckily, everyone who visits this site gets a heavy dose of Old Well shots!!!
I should add that getting the depth of field the way I wanted it was the hardest part of this shot. This picture is exactly what I was after (for better or for worse), but embarrassingly, I didn't get it right on my 74 other attempts. They all had a shorter or longer depth of field, and the shot doesn't come out the way I wanted.
Another comment on this shot, as I look at some of the shots from the afternoon (deleting most of them)... a real key was the lighting. In the afternoon shots, the dogwood blossoms in the background are not lit by the morning light, and honestly, they are just distracting. Similarly, the well isn't as striking in the afternoon light. The morning light let the out-of-focus features of the shot remain important components.
In other words, sorry Steph. I should've been home an hour earlier last night.
Dogwoods and the Old Well are two of my favorite things, and this shot is truly great.
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