Re-entry into Photography

In the past, I've dabbled with photography. I've always found found photographers such cool people, to be able to extract such visually stunning features from places. Yes sometimes the place itself will sell itself, but at other times, things that are seemingly normal places, they can make it seem cool.

Well at Chateau Coliving, I met this amazing gem of a person called Beth (if you read this, hi :) ). While I could mention many cool things about her, I want to keep this concise - she travelled with a camera and one of her hobbies was taking portraits of people. We did a photoshoot together and it was a blast.

It started off with her having just done a photoshoot with another friend and the lighting was really good, so she ran in to see who else would be down for a photoshoot session so I thought, 'fuck it lets go'. My clothes were a bit shit so I ran upstairs to change into something half decent, and saw some of my accessories; a brown shawl and my random comic con finds of a leather bound flask and leather pouch. Not really thinking about it, I grabbed them thinking 'hey we might be able to do something cool with them'.

We get outside and get to taking pictures and it's a vibe.

But I quite quickly realised it would be more fun if I put my getup on so I ditch my over-shirt and get into my 'costume' or whatever else I'm meant to call it. Honestly I just wore those whenever I felt like it for the vibes.

Lots of running around to get nice shots with nice lighting later, followed by a quick break to rub dirt on my face (hey it could've looked cooler so who am I to say no) we finished the photoshoot and it was one of my favourite days that month.

Ok now I know this was none of my own photography here but I wanted to include the added context.

So jump forward a couple weeks, and I ask Beth if I can borrow her camera. I mainly asked out of curiosity of using a newer camera as the one I used as a kid was very limited. And these were my favourites from the shoot

I wanted to get a nice picture of the fire, and spent most of the night messing with settings to see how it could turn out. It took me a while to get settings that worked with the darkness of night while still seeing features of fire but even once I got it, the photos just looked a bit boring. There was no composition, yes it's a picture of a fire but nothing gave it justice.

I then saw someone put their wine glass down, and a couple shots later I had this. I love the orange gold glint on the glass, how you can feel the raw power and heat from the fire, but the glass quells it, and gives it more of a cosy yet sophisticated vibe.

This one I liked for how the composition attracts the eye down the bath to the second set of arches, and how the leaves frame the arch. It gives beautiful yet abandoned vibe to me, and I love it. Something about this area at the Chateau always intrigued me, and I think this shot reveals the beauty I loved about it.

Now this one wasn't really meant to be anything - it was me messing with camera settings to see what worked. But every time I looked back through my camera roll, I would stop and look at this. Something about the loneliness of it emerging through rocks just feels unique to me.

Yes this is probably a weed, but seeing it sprout from a random rock wall makes me feel something. I can't really pin down what, but I do like this shot. Maybe its the texture of the stone aswell? How intricate it all is, and the countless days I spent trying to 3D recreate stone textures at university when the reality is so small and intricate it could never hold up to the real thing. Huh...