Photo Project: Spring Is In Sight…

Every morning, between 6:30 and 7:30 am, I’ve been photographing the same scene outside the window above my kitchen sink. I’ve dubbed the project Kitchen Window.

With the turning of the calendar page to March, the morning light has increased a bit each day and I actually took some of the following photos before 6 am. I know that was before my chosen time slot, but the light was waking me earlier each day. I also decided to switch my constant aperture from F16 to F22.

Then came Daylight Savings Time…the clocks sprang ahead an hour and so did the sunrise.

Evidently, ten minutes can make quite a difference in the amount of available light around sunrise. Should I shorten my chosen window of time? Maybe. Will I? We’ll see…

In the meantime, the snow is melting. The trees are thinking about budding and I look forward to capturing the transition into spring, one day at a time.

Museum-worthy Inspiration…

Just the other day, I visited the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. http://www.pem.org/ When I was a lot younger, my mother and the woman down the street (along with some of that woman’s ten children) would take us on outings to the PEM. I have some vague recollections of viewing miniature ship replicas. Anyway, I’d only been there once as an adult, until this week. That first time, I had gone to see an amazing origami exhibit. It was fascinating! This time, it was a couple of their current exhibits that piqued my interest.

One of the exhibits was called “6:30 a.m.” Photographer Robert Weingarten had chosen a scene close to his home and photographed it every day for a year at…guess what time? 6:30 a.m.! The variations of light and color were incredible! Purples, oranges, blues… Only five of his photographs hung in this exhibit. The rest were available for viewing in much smaller dimensions in a hard-bound book. I would’ve loved to see more of them up close and enlarged.

But, I’ve been inspired. I’d like to try something similar, although I do have a few questions first. Did he ever go on vacation? Was he ever sick? Did he really take all 365 photographs himself? Did he stand outdoors in the changing weather or capture the scene safely from behind a window?

With these questions in mind, I think I’ll choose a scene soon and make up my own rules– call it “artistic license.” I’m tempted to try my experiment from a window, but my views are a bit limited. So, I’ll probably end up outdoors. And I’d also like a couple of vacations…away from home. So, I may not do it EVERY day. I don’t know that I’ll post every photo here either, but I’ll let you know…

OK, now I’m excited!