Ordinary Spot, Extraordinary Shot

OS-ES is taking an ordinary location and turning it into an extraordinary shot.

Extraordinary Shot

Ordinary Spot

OS-ES stands for “Ordinary Spot, Extraordinary Shot.” In other words, it’s taking everyday objects and turning them into something incredible through the creativity of lighting, angles and perspective.

For this first shot, I had notice a lot of birds have been hanging out in the tree outside of my kitchen window. One day, I sat on my porch for about an hour just watching these birds come and go. Finally, with my telephoto lens, I was able to capture this shot. I had my settings at 1/320, f/5.6 and ISO 100. Later, I edited the shot a bit in post to really pull out the saturation in the bird while also toning down the environment around him.

Extraordinary Shot

Ordinary Spot

For this next shot, I really wanted to take something ordinary and get creative. I took to a greenhouse full of plants and flowers and a cheap mirror that I spray painted gold. I spotted these yellow flowers up in the tree and knew this was the spot. With a friend holding the mirror with my positioning help, we were able to create a unique setup to capture an extraordinary shot. My settings for this photo were at 1/500, f/2.8 and ISO 100.

Taking these photos really helped me to think differently when photographing different subjects. From then to now, I am constantly thinking how I can make a photo even better with different angles and thinking outside of the box.