Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #154: One Photo Two Ways

28Jun
by Oh, the Places We See
Portland Head Light on sunny day

With a fabulous jump-start from Tina, this week’s photo challenge is a double take, in a sense. It asks us to share one photo that can be seen in two different ways. Although we’re novice photographers, we’ve found six simple maneuvers that show the same subject but in different ways using photos from a recent trip to the coast of Maine.

Life is like a camera. Just focus on what’s important, capture the good times, and if things don’t work out, just take another shot.”

Richard Branson

1. Change the weather

OK. So, you can’t really change the weather, but try taking the same shot on different weather days. Although we thought we’d only have one shot at capturing photos of the Portland Head Light (seen in sunny light above) at Fort Williams Park in Maine, we found that the morning we were to fly home the whole area was socked in by a glorious Maine-y misty kinda fog.

What to do? Well, head back to the light for one last foggy look, of course

Foggy day, Portland Head Light
On a foggy morning, the Portland Head Light seems shrouded in mystery.

2. Change your lens

At Cape Elizabeth, I noticed a white house standing tall on the craggy beach as if it were staring out to sea. Lonely almost. So I shot it with the only telephoto lens I own (Canon 55-25) and thought it might be a good little Maine house to sketch someday.

Cape Elizabeth white house on the beach
The white house at Cape Elizabeth.

But as I stepped back, I realized it was the whole that I was after. So, I reached for the lens I use most (Canon 18-55mm) and took it all in. Both photos have merit, but I think I like this distant one best.

Cape Elizabeth: White house in distance
Houses, beach and pretty rugosa roses make for a classic Maine scene.

3. Change your filter

A bucket on a dock in New Harbor, Maine, drew me closer. I wanted to see the chains rusted from years of use and the rope of many fibers all spun into coils languishing at the bottom. Color made the details stand out. But when I changed the photo to black and white merely by overlaying a computer filter, the ordinary became almost sinister and dark just with a touch of the screen.

Maine, New Harbor: rope and chains
Maine, New Harbor rope black filter

4. Change your position

Shooting from a boat as it passes a harbor can be tricky, but also quite interesting. The shot of these colorful red and yellow lobster buoys in New Harbor propped up against the traps looked different as the boat put me squarely in front of the whole lot of them and then moved so I saw only a part. Same subject but from different positions and shot vertically first, then horizontally.

Lobster buoys and traps
Maine: Lobster traps with buoys

5. Change your Zoom!

A golden-shingled building caught my attention in downtown Kennebunkport across the water from where we parked. I loved the colors, textures, and various components.

Kennebunkport gold shingled building
The gold building in the water at Kennebunkport.

But when I zoomed in for a second shot, I found that I liked this section best. It was propped up on wooden stilts, and its windows — almost hauntingly — invited me in for a closer look.

Kennebunkport - gold shingled building up close
Zooming in on the gold house in the waters of Kennebunkport, Maine.

6. Change your attitude

Sometimes, no matter how much we plan, our subjects just don’t cooperate with us, or we allow our expectations to run too high. Take this Hardy Boat Puffin Watch Cruise, for example, out of New Harbor, Maine. Weren’t those puffins guaranteed to be there? And wouldn’t they be standing on rocks like penguins do, waiting for tourists to take the pictures they’ll show back home? Well, we looked on the rocks with no luck and then in the waters where our guide pointed. I steadied myself, and readied my telephoto. But still, this was about as good a shot of those water-loving, tiny birds as I could get. (And believe me, I took hundreds of photos.)

Maine New Harbor puffin in flight
Is that it? A puffin in flight?

But fear not. Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve captured until you get home and use the cropper tool to isolate parts of the whole. The closer I got to the bird (using the cropper, of course), the more excited I became.

“Oh, my,” I said. “It really is the puffin we went to see!!!”

New Harbor Maine, puffin in flight
Worth the trip: a puffin in flight!

So take two photos of the same thing. Or manipulate your pictures so you’ll have two versions.

Or do as Richard Branson said, “. . . if things don’t work out, just take another shot.”

Many thanks to Tina for the challenge this week. You can see more entries here.

Travel dually,

Rusha & Bert

40 thoughts on “Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #154: One Photo Two Ways”

  1. Pingback: Beginnings With Beautiful Great Blue Herons | Babsje Heron

    1. Oh, the Places We See

      Thanks for this special comment. We have lots of ways we look at things, and I guess that’s what keeps travel and photography so much fun. Here’s to more good health so we can keep on!

      Reply

  5. Pingback: Two ducks, two views (PPAC #2) – Eat, Play, Live

  10. Toonsarah

    What a great selection of two ways photos! I am with you in preferring the wider view at Cape Elizabeth and the zoomed in one at Kennebunkport. And I think I like the colour version of that rusty chain and rope.

    Reply

  12. justbluedutch

    I noted on all the points and examples, i love the approach you did here, some are very basic but sometimes we took photography in such a complicated way…thank you for providing us a beautiful gallery.

    Reply

  14. Tina Schell

    A wonderful post Rusha, you’ve shown some excellent examples of the difference we can see when looking at the same subject in a different way. I loved the expansive shot of the white house and of course your puffin!

    Reply

  18. Nancy Stanley

    LOVE all these photographs as well as your tips! Makes me want to go back to Maine! ā¤ļø

    Reply

  19. Prior...

    Great tips to consider as you led us through your politics for this week.
    I smiled as you shared about the puffin and how you went to see that special bird – on a walk earlier this month I caught a hawk in air and later zoomed in to see he had a small something in her talons – that was a fun find that zooming in later allowed us to see

    Reply

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