Vivian Challenge comes to an End

On our recent road trip, we found a few great windows that lent themselves for our Vivian challenge.

 

more vivian

outside on a sunny day.  My grandson thought it was the shadow of a Christmas tree.

Happy Birthday Vivian Maier

I just realised that Feb, 1 is Vivian Maier's Birthday. She would have been 90 years old.  A very auspicious start to our challenge -don't you think???

Several years ago, I took an SLR photography class at Niagara College. That was back in the day when I was clinging to film photography. What a fool!!

 I am not ever the first on the bandwagon when it comes to new technology. I wait a long time before changing or embracing. In fact I still have a flip phone and I was reluctant to get that until my family insisted.(and that was because I was driving perpendicularly to a tornado with my young grandson in the car--completely oblivious to all of the weather turmoil that was surrounding our lovely sunshiny drive and also completely unavailable and unreachable --but that's another story). My reticence  has recently become a problem since I am trying to join instagram. We went to the Bell store last night to see if I could change my SD card in the flip phone to Mike's old cell phone so that I could join instagram. Well--it turns out that my flip phone doesn't even have an SD card-does not work!! So that means that if I want to do some instagram photography I need to get another phone contract-more money. Or use My husband's phone. Might not happen.

Anyway, after the photography course, I spent the summer taking a lot of photographs. I remembered this photo when we started our Vivian Maier Challenge.

Detail

These pics were taken at Morningstar Mill in Thorold, Ontario. The mill is built beside Decew Falls, which is well worth the visit. It is a flour mill that is being restored. My father had spent many years as a volunteer at Morningstar mill. He was a carpenter and he helped to build and repair many of the buildings at the mill. He always loved to build stairs and he rebuilt the stairs at the mill. This doorway leads into the staircase.  Dad had been in school only to the fifth grade but the geometry of stair building was one that he understood and loved. Any staircase that he built were mathematically absolutely correct!!

After my father's death I felt very comfortable at the mill and I have several photographs that I took there.

The photos above were taken at the mill at the doorway to the staircase. That's me--neatly framed in the window pane and surrounded by the white building!! I don't know if I still have the negative. I just took a shot of the print on my digital camera.  I remember that I was disappointed with the hex flashes in the top corner. They don't bother me anymore-in fact I kind of like them now. And that was in the Red hair day!! You can have any colour you want!!

So this is the first pic that I am going to enter in our Vivian Maier Challenge. I think I am off to a good start!!

Thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to join our challenge and share with us.

Karen

How did she do it????

We have been exploring the work of Vivian Maier recently and have a little challenge going about doing self portraits in the manner that she did them, usually holding her camera at her waist and capturing a reflection of herself.


I took my digital camera into my bedroom and tried to do a pose similar to what she had done with her SLR camera.

Too low

Too high

better angle, too bright

too much flash

way too much light
I tried to turn off the flash but the camera refused to take a shot. OK got that!!

getting closer

tried it with no flash

This is going to be a real exciting learning experience.
To think that Vivian used a film camera to get those shots is boggling. She would have to shoot a roll, get it developed before she even knew if she had the correct focus.  I can take a lot of shots and choose instantly which ones I want to keep.


I have taken a few photography classes-mostly with my old SLR camera. these included developing my own prints in the darkroom. I was quite reluctant to buy a digital camera but finally gave in and bought a Nikon. The photography teacher at Niagara College used to say "Make every print count." Now I still try to make every one count but I have the luxury of deleting the prints that I don't like and only keeping the good shots.


I am looking forward to seeing what Al does with this challenge.