Home

Silently she slips below the glassy surface. She is home.

The use of negative space can be powerful in an image. It can inform and create mystery, both. Here, the expanse of water and relative void of colour add to the silence heard in the whale's descent home. We understand that her home is greater in size than we see and we're also left wondering what home is like for her.

Moonlit Pass

This shot was taken near Oakville, Manitoba. It was a beautiful late autumn day. Many leaves had already found their way to the ground. The grasses were dry and the fields were mostly stubble.

Though pleased with the initial colours and tones in the daytime capture, changing this up in Lightroom also changed the entire mood of the image. Adding a moonlit preset brought a mystery to this scene that wasn't there initially.

Stories are woven. Imaginations soar. We play and explore.

There's a Castle in my City

Actually, we probably have more than one building that resembles a castle in Winnipeg. This one (the one on your right) we stayed at when we were first married. There were rumours of rooms being haunted but we didn't encounter any ghosts on our honeymoon!

I used settings f/9 and 1/160 and 100 ISO for this shot. Since I didn't have a tripod, holding the camera steady was important but a little easier with the faster speed.

Once on my computer I used a preset and then also brought it into Photoshop to add a layer to get some great lighting enhancements. I think the end result brings a bit of fantasy and mystery to this shot. Every castle needs a bit of mystery, no?

Mystery

Mystery. How do you capture mystery? Not all images need this to be part of their story but some do.

I have found that discarding colour can help focus the attention on what might be there, by way of lines and textures seen more prominently in black and white.

Less is more. Leaving out faces is a powerful way of conveying mystery. It leaves room to imagine and it also leaves room for the story to become part of the viewer's. We must be careful how we do this so the image isn't only an image without a face.

Here are two examples where I think mystery is found. In both images, the lines and textures, shadows and shapes all point to what is not there, but in a way that it is not missing. In the first image, we see some of the face in the shadows, just enough to speak of age and perhaps mood as well. In the second, we see none of the face but we see the earring and that is enough to open the door to imagine more.

Allowing the viewer to search for clues within the image and then piece the story together in their minds, colored by their own experiences makes room for a larger, ever expanding composition. The mystery grows for the photographer when the image begins to include more experiences and possibilities in what becomes a collaborative work with the patrons.

In writing, there is a saying that I think of often - Show, don't tell. In photography, it is also true in some cases. Like I said earlier, less is more.