Balance, symmetry and asymmetry - just for fun!

Life is a balance, take time for play not just work. – Catherine Pulsifer

True to my randomness, I decided to skip my lesson on "s curves" due to the weather.  I have a favorite curve in the road where I run.  It is the final curve on the last mile home.  I bet it is pretty with the snow that we've been so lucky to receive.  Until I'm brave enough to venture out in the snow we'll save that lesson for later.

Instead, I jumped to the next lesson on "balance".  For me, skipping around the lessons keeps it interesting.  I guess I'll find out if the order of the lessons is important or not?  Photography is my "play" and a fun break from work.  I do think art really isn't that rigid, neither is photography.  So here we go...symmetric and asymmetric balance.

Symmetric - two equal size objects on the two sides of the photo.  Depending upon the objects, this can be interesting.  First attempt...I thought that the objects needed to fill the frame and be of equal size.  I took a picture of two pieces of art that go together, but have different scenes in them.

There's some history behind the machine stitched scenes.   The company that made them has since gone out of business. They are a gift that my mom bought for my step-father years ago.  If I remember the story correctly, they are of UW Stout back in the time when he attended the school.  I still haven't decided if I want to keep them or sell them.  The frames are custom made out of barn board.

 Then I tried natural lighting with smaller objects.  I began the process of seeing when the asymmetry started to appear in the photo.  Simple little wine corks, and I added a little interest by taking a picture on the glass top of our wine barrel.  Our favorite local winery - River Bend.

Two of my faithful companions similar in size are always right there wondering what I'm up to when I grab the camera...so of course I just had to take an asymmetrical picture of them too.  Copper is trying to decide if he really wants to go out in the snow or not!   Tizzie is simply ignoring me at the same time keeping track of what I'm doing.

This morning as I looked at the pictures from yesterday's session, I wasn't quite happy enough with the pictures.  I've been playing with the ISO settings from previous lessons.  I learned the trick of blurring the tree lights in the background.  Simply set your ISO to 400, focus on the object in front of the tree and the lights will blur.  I redid the lesson with two little toys my mom had while she was growing up.   I can't decide if they are happy little figures or if they are just plain serious.  I wonder what it was like playing with them as a child.  What do you think?  I think taking pictures of them was a fun play moment!

Guy in the front, you can barely see the girl in the background.

Symmetry in the center, low in the picture.

Symmetry in the middle of the picture.

Girl in the front, he's starting to blur in the background.

Hand carved toys...I wonder if they were
stocking stuffers or if they were her big gift that year?

A holiday card moment...

The guy in the front.  She's a blur in the background.

Focused on the tree - missed the objects!

Symmetry!

Thanks for stopping by - enjoy your moments of balance between play and work!  I better get some work done now that I played all morning...  Next week, some other random photo lesson will be discovered.