Hello! I’m the_abecedarian and I do art with cameras and film in the Chicago area. I work mainly in street photos and portraits, with an ongoing series about Muay Thai boxers when I can attend a match. I love linking up with the photo community, so come find me in the discord or get in touch via the email on my website.
This week’s banner photo provides us with a peaceful, glowy forest vibe. Take a moment to meditate on that neverending quiet afternoon captured on film. Further on, there’s a bird of prey, street maximalism, a freaky mannequin head, and a beachy panorama. The One More Stop discord showcases an incredible diversity of styles and subjects, which lets me be an eclectic little magpie and bring back all sorts of shiny things to the blog for your enjoyment.
Also look for the Poke-a-Pinhole contest in the collaborations section, below.
Gallery Gems
What captivates me about this photo is not just that it’s a tack-sharp photo of a beautiful Red-Shouldered Hawk in flight against an empty void background. It is also the position of the hawk in the frame — at an angle and heading that imply that the bird is overhead, looking down at the viewer with one scanning eye. The composition feels almost like it was designed for the hawk, rather than for the viewer. Definitely check out the rest of the birds in siftu’s gallery.
Minimalism is everywhere, so it’s really refreshing to see a great maximalist project come together. Maximalists have an extremely tough job in creating an image that is rich, intense, made of many elements, and yet still comprehensible. Kelu Abstract’s shots do this by blending double exposures of blurred street scenes with street ads and signs. I’ve chosen what I think is the most ambitious one here, in which an ad’s image is overlaid on the street scene — the other images use text from an ad or street sign as their overlay. The composition here creates a triangle of points of interest for the viewer: the big ad face, the smaller ad face, and the passerby with the shopping bags. I love how this is framed by the two other, heavily blurred passers-by and the beige stone of the building’s corner.
Sometimes photography isn’t about composition so much as it is about documenting the weird stuff you find in the world. Is this just a gothed-out, grimacing mannequin head meant as a warning to trespassers, or is it the soul of a trespasser trapped on a plane of eternal torment? The washed-out polaroid look makes weird things just a bit weirder, as does the off-kilter framing. The window reflection almost gives the mannequin a head of curly, shoulder-length hair.
This panoramic beach scene intrigues me because it both follows the so-called “rules” of composition and breaks them at the same time. It’s got leading lines for days: the horizon, the edges of the clouds, the surf, the treeline, and the line of seagulls on the sand. Expecting a rule of thirds weighting of the elements? Sorry, the sand and sky are roughly 50/50, as are the surf and the trees. Subjects, to the extent there really are any, are small and placed in the center of the frame. The dramatic sky, mirrored in the surf, makes the image for me, and the placement of the birds and humans on the sea-clouds side casts them as part of that fluid-vapor world instead of the more solid, trees-and-buildings world on the right side of the frame.
Community Collaborations
Poke-a-Pin: Gotta Take ‘Em All!
Managed by @ezo
Get your hole-pokin’ pants on, because it’s time to make a pinhole camera! In this collab, we want you to submit your favorite pinhole photos, whether film or digital. With a submission deadline of May 15th, we’re giving you plenty of time on this one so that you can, optionally, build your own pinhole camera to shoot with. Be sure to tag your galleries with the Poke-a-pin tag! A full description is available in the Collaborations thread.
A huge thanks to everyone featured here for their amazing photos and to the tireless mods and curators who help make One More Stop an amazing place. There are lots of other great galleries, projects, collabs, and photos posted in the discord, so be sure to check them out! I’ve posted this gallery of foggy, grainy business recently, with more fun stuff to come.
Do an art today!
the_abecedarian
Please take a look at my website for more of my work!