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📸 Photo Essays: Make-up Edition

The Flask Half Full

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A little bit of housekeeping this week: I realized I forgot to post my photo essays from our Danube River cruise trip. Well, that’s not completely true. I posted my Turkey, Hungary, and Croatia photo essays, but then I got sidetracked with life, and forgot to post Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania.

In putting together my photography portfolio, I noticed some patterns in what I’m consistently drawn to photograph, and so I created separate collections for them: Cathedrals, Churches, & Mosques, Street Photography (Ken is really good at pretending to be my photo subject when I’m really taking a photo of someone directly behind him), and Street Art & Graffiti (I’m like a moth to a flame taking pictures of street art – drives Ken bananas).

Ken and I have had several lively discussions about what qualifies as street art versus plain old vandalism. I’m more generous in my definitions than he is – though I’ll admit the line gets blurry sometimes. Either way, a city’s walls often tell you things that its official monuments won’t.

There’s a story behind this little doodle in Vilnius, Lithuania, I just know it.

I’m also actively working on a few new collections for my portfolio, that I haven’t published yet: cats (no shortage of subjects anywhere in the world), doors and windows (which is either a legitimate art project or a mild obsession), and manhole covers, which I realize sounds eccentric but the craftsmanship on some of these things is genuinely extraordinary.

I’m curious. What types of things are you drawn to photograph when you travel?

Here are all of my Danube River cruise photo essays – the photos and country names link to the essays. And my entire portfolio is here.

Note: I took all of these photos with my iPhone 13 Pro Max. I just updated to the 17 Pro Max, and will be posting about those camera upgrades in a couple of weeks.


Türkiye 🇹🇷
Hungary 🇭🇺

Croatia 🇭🇷

Serbia 🇷🇸

Bulgaria 🇧🇬

Romania 🇷🇴

Cheers!

Comments

8 responses to “📸 Photo Essays: Make-up Edition”

  1. Toonsarah Avatar
    Toonsarah

    I will check out your portfolio properly one day soon, for sure! I’m interested in how you find it having a separate blog purely devoted to photography like that? It’s something I’ve considered, as an alternative to possibly creating a portfolio area of my existing blog. Can I ask what made you decide on the separate blog approach? And do you get much traction there?

    Also, I read your ‘Twist’ piece about photographing strangers and wanted to say that I thoroughly endorse all you say about the different methods of getting your shot. I often shoot from the hip – it’s amazing what you can do in editing to turn that bizarre wonky shot into a decent image! I also use my husband as a decoy, and I regularly wait for someone to walk into my street art shots as they help to turn them from a record of a piece of art (= the artist’s creative input) into my experience of the place (= my creativity as well as the artist’s).

    Reply
    1. The Flask Half Full Avatar
      The Flask Half Full

      I decided to keep a separate site for my photos for purely selfish reasons – I wanted somewhere for my photos to “live” altogether. It’s easier for me to go back to the photo essays when I’m looking for a particular photo. As far as traction, honestly not much, but I don’t keep track of it. Again, it was a purely organizational decision for me.

      I do love it when a wonky shot actually turns out well! I need to work on setting aside time to do more patience shots – where I wait for someone to walk into my street art shots. More often than not, I’m photographing street art as I’m walking by. I need to STOP more often.

      Cheers, Sarah.

      Reply
  2. Eha Carr Avatar
    Eha Carr

    Some delightful Easter-time reviewing and new finds ahead in this rich offering. Loved to travel with you on this journey as I had not been myself. My personal interests are hugely wide-spread – I am interested from everything classical/historical and already familiar to nature to food/drink (naturally!) to people to matters different one country to another – ie a ‘learning experience’ I may not have had, *smile* . . . so have very much enjoyed travelling with you but really have nought ‘helpful’ to suggest!

    Reply
    1. The Flask Half Full Avatar
      The Flask Half Full

      The learning experiences are so much of why we travel. 😎

      Reply
  3. Steve Hyde Avatar
    Steve Hyde

    I’ve tried having an online portfolio, like you said in reply to Sarah, just for myself. However, it’s never really worked. I find I take so many pictures of different things I just ended up with too many albums. I have a free portfolio site with Adobe, as a Photoshop subscriber, but I just don’t have the time to sort it all out. I’ve tried a new approach now using an old Flickr account to record images taken with my vintage lenses, using an album for each specific lens. It’s working ok for now but, as you said, I have to be selfish and not get sucked in to the Flickr community. I also use your decoy technique with Linda sometimes. I couldn’t fool the folk in Marrakech though. I came back with lots of images with woman holding handbags or hands in front of their faces 🙂

    Reply
    1. The Flask Half Full Avatar
      The Flask Half Full

      I’ve never thought of using the portfolio site with Adobe. If I didn’t already have a start on my portfolio here, I would look into it. I’ve tried Flickr, too. Just couldn’t keep up with it. My iPhone gallery just looks like absolute CHAOS. Thank goodness it’s organized by date, or I would never find anything!! Also, that’s interesting about Marrakech – did you try asking for photos? Did it work??

      Reply
      1. Steve Hyde Avatar
        Steve Hyde

        Yes, I normally always ask. If you’re buying something there’s normally no problem. I had a lot more refusals there than anywhere else we’ve visited. Other than that though, they’re usually really friendly. This is an Adobe site made by a guy who sells his images in a market in Bristol. We always have a chat when I see him and it was his site that got me thinking about using it. https://deanpackerphoto.co.uk/

      2. The Flask Half Full Avatar
        The Flask Half Full

        Oh wow, his images are beautiful. And I need to get better about asking for photos. I always chicken out and go in stealth mode. But one of these days that’s going to get me into trouble!

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