On the Walls

[aggienaut]

   So I've been trawling through my pictures on flickr (there's 70 pages of them!), to try to find some to print out and put on my walls. I do already have an album of about a hundred of what I've considered "the best" I'm finding when I look at them with an eye to "would I like to hang this on my wall" a lot of pictures I otherwise feel are good pictures don't measure up, and pictures I wouldn't have previously thought of as among the very best I suddenly feel are.

   For example I've decided the one at the top of the entry is one of my very favorites, even though I think just looking at it on a computer screen without thinking about putting things on my walls I'd be like eh its just a mundane scene. But I like the colors and everyone in it seems so composed, and it reminds me of peaceful evenings sitting on that porch in Guinea. That fellow pouring the tea would pour it back and forth for what seemed like hours every day to make it just right. The other guy is the head beekeeping trainer there and I really quite like him. And the girl shyly peering around the side is Fatimatah, a sweet and shy girl.




   This is another kind of unexpected favorite, but again I like the color balance and moreover Aissatou and Kamera laughingly trying to pull eachother out of (and/or into??) the puddles I feel is evocative of their cheerful laughing demeaner and makes me happy when I look at it.




   Again I feel it seems kind of random that this of all pictures would come to be one of my favorite of all my photos but it is, and I actually already HAVE a large print out of this on my wall.



   This one I had printed out a few years ago but it came out with a green spot in the middle and I've been afraid to have it printed out again in case that's some sort of inevitable result of the way the colors are coded in the jpeg or something, but I quite like it and think I'll give it another go.



   This one I already ordered printed the other day as kind of a test to see how the k-mart photo printing comes out and how I feel about the size (8" x 12" / 20cm x 30cm). These are the two boats I sailed around on for seven months, up at peaceful Sucia Island (entire island is a national park and does not, I believe, had any regular public boat service so people can only get there by boating in themselves), with Mt Baker in the background, somewhere near Bellingham. I wish that modern boat wasn't in the picture, but its not even easy to photoshop out since its in front of a varied background with the shore and all (but if anyone wants to have a go at it I'd be extremely obliged!!)


   I also want to aim to get a variety of different places I've been represented. Anyway, the 8" x 12" photos are only like $3.95 while those nice printed-on-canvas things are around $50 so I think I'll print out a bunch on the cheap and one by one replace the ones I really like with nice canvas ones.



And probably this picture I took of ANZAC cove because, Australia.


   If you're interested I'm posting a few more photos I'm heavily considering as comments.

Comments

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Lake George, Uganda

[tigtogiba34.livejournal.com]

Ah this one I really like!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Remote bush school, Tanzania. This was the last semblance of "civilization" before we hiked the next day into Hadzaland.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Kyrgyzstan. It's pretty but I don't know, I'm not sure it really has a focus.

[lookfar.livejournal.com]

Very, very pleasing composition, because the eye travels along the road - not just because it's a road but because it's a stripe that goes from the foreground into the middle of the square - and then the eye travels back along the range of mountains on the left, because they are a similar warm color, light and jagged. My mother, who was an artist, used to say that a good composition encouraged your eye to travel all around the piece but not off it.

[lab-jazz.livejournal.com]

Beautiful photos especially the second and the third ones

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks! (:

[wpadmirer.livejournal.com]

These are really beautiful!

Someone who is really good with Photoshop could remove the green in the middle of that one image (because yes, I can see it), and the boat in the other photo.

That's Pat's specialty in his work. He does this freelance for people. He once removed a woman from a photo of three people standing together with their arms around each other so that it was down to just the two men. So he's good with that sort of thing.

But that's his freelance work. I could show him the photos and see if he'd be interested in the puzzle of it. (He finds it relaxing to do.) He's having surgery next month and has to not drive for four weeks, so he might be interested.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

oh yes definitely see if he's interested (:

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

Love your photos especially the ship and the sunset.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks! (: I hope I can get it printed out without weird green colors ):

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

When you visit spectacular places and know a bit about cameras you get spectacular photos.
:)

What we like in photography is as subjective as what we like in other art, I think. But I have to agree...the top three are wonderful! What kind of camera do you use?

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Let's see, these ones are a mix of my old point and shoot "canon powershot 720" (all the boat ones), and the Guinea ones were on my "newer" (I bought it used and its actually a bit old and quirky) actual DSLR, a canon D200.

[wantedonvoyage.livejournal.com]

Both of those, the tea photo and the splashing in puddles, are wonderful. Definitely captured a mood.

I have some pictures I took, mostly of owls, hanging in one of our rooms. I was impressed how sharp they are, enlarged that much. I need to get a decent camera and start taking actual pictures again instead of just cell phone snaps. Despite Apple's ads I do not get the same results.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I'm very curious to see how these look enlarged! Crossing my fingers they're good!

I'm also thinking about asking my uncle if I can use some really really nice pictures he has of Yosemite and other national parks in California. I'd kind of like to showcase the beautiful parts of California for my mostly-Australian airbnb guests, but I'm opposed to purchasing commercial photos taken by complete strangers d:

[ani-mama.livejournal.com]

I mostly use Photoshop for drawing, but I gave it a shot!

[lookfar.livejournal.com]

You did great, Ani_Mama! It's perfect!

[lenine2.livejournal.com]

Without having any personal connection, I love them all. At first I thought the couple in #2 were children because they are acting like children - it would make me happy every time I looked at it.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

It was a fun moment! And they're both ordinarily fairly serious... though most people in Africa I find are pleasantly quick to break out into a broad smile from apparent seriousness with the right prompting. (:

[notodette.livejournal.com]

Dear God, these are amazing.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Aw thanks! (: I just posted a few more as comments that I'm less sure about.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

That sunset picture of the billowing sea is gorgeous!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah I really like it. One of my friends described it as "it reminds me of strength, power, intensity, and the beauty of simplicity." I think what I like it is the contrast between the warm colored and soft looking clouds and the cold hard ocean, but also the way the sun is half obscured by the cloud in kind of an inverse of how you see it setting behind the horizonline also kind of makes the eye try to turn it upside down I think,

[belleweather.livejournal.com]

I like all three of the ones you posted in the comments -- I think they'd go well with the more blue-toned ones above. But yeah, the idea of printing them at 8x10 size and then looking at them for a while might be perfect. It's always really different seeing pictures on the computer screen v. on the wall.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I just posted three more as comments. The boat off Zanzibar I'm feeling definite about but the other two I'm really unsure about and would value feedback (:

[tigtogiba34.livejournal.com]

You'll have to keep us updated to show which ones you chose!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

And how big and where to put them! The other problem is that the places that do canvas prints generally do them in set prescribed common dimensions and nearly all my pictures are custom dimensions as I cropped them all in the exact manner I found most pleasing to the eye (I'm a firm believer that almost any picture can benefit from the right cropping, the standard rectangle isn't a cookie cutter that fits every scene!), so I'm going to have to crop them again to make them fit the available printing dimensions unless I can find someone who'll do custom shaped prints.

Also I just added three more photos in comments I'm less sure about, would value feedback! (:

[newwaytowrite.livejournal.com]

Those first two really tell a story.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah I really like them, can't wait to have them on my walls really. (: (:

[cactus_rs]

Your photos, plus the HBO/BBC adaptation of "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency," make me wish that (west?????) African prints and things like bright colors and prints were A Thing in Swedish/European fashion. I love the colors and the patterns and it's ugh such an improvement over a drab gray background!! If we all embraced that look the winters might be less brutal overall.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yessss, like look at these girls:



They're a bunch of teenagers. In the States they'd be wearing like jeans and drab hoodies or something!

Also I could have swoooorn someone had edited out the guy in the background of this photo for me but I can't find the edited version ): ): ):

[lookfar.livejournal.com]

I know why you like the top one best: the white wall draws the eye into the picture and it travels over the two men and stops at the curious girl. There's an interaction there, with the girl watching the tea-pouring and perhaps hoping to catch the man's eye or maybe have some tea. There's some depth, with the long line of the wall and then the green foliage behind it, which makes you feel as if you could walk right into the scene. This is my favorite, too.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I love the way you can breakdown what makes a picture compelling (: I really like your analysis of this photo. (:

[lookfar.livejournal.com]

Also, that ocean photo is amazing.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah I really like it. One of my friends described it as "it reminds me of strength, power, intensity, and the beauty of simplicity." I think what I like it is the contrast between the warm colored and soft looking clouds and the cold hard ocean, but also the way the sun is half obscured by the cloud in kind of an inverse of how you see it setting behind the horizonline also kind of makes the eye try to turn it upside down I think,

[adafrog.livejournal.com]

Great pics

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks! (:

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Another one under consideration:



Local fishing boats off Zanzibar

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

And this one even if it's gratuitously "African children" (:

(Uganda)

[tigtogiba34.livejournal.com]

Very sweet.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

And this one is extremely desolate. I had initially identified it as a contender, then decided maybe it wasn't, but then when my dear friend Kori singled it out herself from just looking at the 100 pictures in the the best album I'm considering it again:



Maasai in northern Tanzania

[tigtogiba34.livejournal.com]

I totally vote yes for this one, and the second one in the post playing in the puddle. And the teenagers those are my top 3

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

You have a bunch of really nice choices here. I think I like the sunset and waves, Kyrgyzstan, and the Maasai in Tanzania the most.