#291 ASSIGNMENT: VALÉRIE JARDIN #1
It’s assignment day where our special guest, Valérie Jardin sets a photography challenge or a way to think about your picture-making for the next week. Whatever photographically interests you, whatever camera you hold, film, larger format, DSLR, mirrorless, compact or smartphone – it’s all about the picture you see. Listen to the show to hear the assignment and find pictures that match the challenge embedded below as the weeks pass.
I would love to share the pictures you make for this challenge here, so please send them in: studio@photographydaily.show - 2000 pixels on the long side, any orientation you prefer; square, portrait or landscape.
Valérie has included a picture below to show her approach to the assignment set.
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Valérie Jardin’s contributions to the assignment self-set.
BY PHIL WAHLBRINK-LIVE
This was a fun assignment. Here are a few photos I took while nodding my head up and down instead of swiveling my head to look for shots.
BY GERI MATHEWSON
I spotted these guys when I was out walking my dog in downtown Ashland, Oregon. The morning light was beautiful and they were comfortably painting the building. They were about ten floors up.
Birds in flight; an overhead grab shot from yesterday. I was photographing dragonflies and this Crested Goshawk shot over me. Looking down, the spider is smaller than the nail on my little finger.
BY CRAIG HUGHES
Here's my photo for the assignment; some flowers growing in the courtyard of our apartment block. Looking up there is a blank wall then sky but looking down I see these flowers. To take the photo entailed getting my tripod out inverting the centre column and getting my camera so low it touched the floor, so for looking down this is as low as I can go in the down position without starting to dig…
Nerdy stuff: Nikon D700 with my Nikkor 55mm f3.5 macro manual lens shot at iso 200 f8 at 1/3 of a second.
BY COLIN MAYER
Looking down over Leura Falls, Blue Mountains, Australia-land.
BY SYLVAIN DUCH
Look ups and downs are always fun and I try to do them in every city I go to. The look down was in San Gimignano and the look up in Venice. With so many towers and churches and campaniles in Italy it was quite easy to find a look down. Every time I find myself up high, the first thing I look for is patches of sun on the ground. After that, all that is left to do is to find a nice way of framing the patch and wait for the subject(s). I obviously like that the couple is dressed in white which detaches them from the rest of the scene and that they are wearing hats, but also the long shadows on the ground and the out-of-focus crenelated wall in the foreground. For the look up (in the Palazzo Ducale courtyard), I chose this one because I really like the fact that it looks like the lady in the window is looking at me. I'm not sure if it is the case though...
BY JOHN GRINDLE
I was listening to Valerie explaining the assignment on my way to fish for trout in a small stream here in Dorset-land. I didn’t think any more about the assignment until I looked down at my feet surrounded by fronds of vibrant green water crow foot. (I have waders on) Ah ha, I’m looking down and this will be perfect for the assignment. I took/made/captured the image with my phone. Yes I did catch a trout, after admiring its beauty, I quickly released it.
BY ROBERT WEIGEL
I took a photo walk along a small creek that runs through our town called Big Creek. I just loved the colors and the texture of the water. There was no post-processing done and color of the water was truly surprising. My only filter was a polarizer.
BY CHRIS CANHAM
Lone working on Thursday so Oly came with me, he’s a bit long in the tooth now and can never scratch that itch as well as Fuji but has advantages. I digress, from plant room ceiling, outside under the shelter for a cup of tea and hand on heart not even a breath of mine touched that feather, it was just like that, at my feet, in the ground catching the morning sun, pigeon sent.
BY ANDY FISHER
X100V 40mm - 1/500, F5.6, ISO 100. I really liked the juxtaposition of the old and new here - the medieval keep of Norwich Cathedral and the crane sharing similar lines and angles but with very different places in history!
BY JOHN MILLAR
I'm calling this "Walk Tall" for Valérie's assignment look up/down. This image was captured on part of the walls in Chester, sort of a self-portrait of my shadow down steps from a higher section of the wall. The title works with the long legs made by my shadow and the elevated position I was walking over the city on the walls. Shot on my street set up of my little Lumix GX80 with Olympus 17mm lens.
BY CHUCK CUNNINGHAM
BY THEODOR STANA
The one looking down I call "Nothing to See Here", is next to a construction site not far from where I live. The one looking up I call "Max.se Fitness, 24/7". For those outside of Swedlandia/Sweden-land, Max is Sweden's very own version of McDonald’s.
I have a photography mate who is very keen on street photography and we often head out together in the streets of Brisbane, shooting for fun. He was the first to remind me to look up and to look down and it’s something I try to remember on all my shoots. It would have been way too easy to submit a drone image for this challenge but I chose this one instead. This was from a balcony of an office building in the city and I may have broken some occupational health and safety rules along the way. Apart from the strong definition between light and shade, I love the fact you can’t really tell what he is looking at until you look at his shadow and see it is his phone. It also had far more impact in black and white. I trust It meets the brief of this week’s challenge.
BY JASON PHANG
Here are a couple of shots from my morning ride into town. Just out of the train station, I looked down to snap the escalator and looked up to see a dangling trolley.
BY STEPHEN SINNER
BY ANDREW HARDACRE
Second set of images.
BY GERALD MURPHY
Valerie's assignment set me thinking, so I drove to Widnes to see what angles I could use with the Silver Jubilee bridge as a subject.
BY KEVIN SULONEN
Here you are, from Seattle Land. 1st: a warning that you are at the opening of a lake lock. 2nd: a great sequoia, at the Ballard Locks, in Seattle. Both taken with a Leica Q2 Monochrome on a walk with my dog Sammy.
BY IVAN CREATH
Here is my contribution to this week's photo assignment from Valérie Jardin. I happen to see this when I was leaving a car park and was looking down. It was taken with my iPhone Xs, ISO 25 f1.8 1/6000.
BY BRIAN LEONARD
While doing a photo walk in the seaside tourist town of Rehoboth Delaware, I tried to keep the assignment of looking up and down in mind. As I passed one of the many businesses in the area, I looked down and saw the miniature Jurassic park in the first image. A short while after the first shot looked to my left and notice this underground entrance to a restaurant.
BY MATTHEW HADDOW
Popped out the office at lunchtime, in an attempt to take a picture for this week’s photo assignment. I had my iPhone with me. First image (left) I raised my head a little and saw the structure folding out in front of me. (Right) Camera was placed against an old door in need of a lick of paint. I positioned so the lens was looking down the door towards the floor.
BY MARC ALMSTEDT
While walking through Georgetown in Washington D.C., I looked up and noticed that a particular alleyway had been decorated with umbrellas and Cherry Blossoms for the Cherry Blossom festival in D.C.
BY MIKE MILLER
A photo that made of my deck. The sun was lower in the afternoon and the breaks between the privacy fence made contrasting light lines across the deck boards.
BY KELLY MITCHELL
Ok, so I did do the image like yours but I decided to put my little twist on it. I know the horizon is tilted but it seems to add something, I think. I have had a bit of an obsession with the lens balls lately but I think they are fun and I have been a bit of a slump lately… I think mostly due to the weather here and work. But Saturday, the sun finally came out and some of the energy is back. :)
BY JENS ROHDE
I guess Valerie wanted us to look up or down to spot people in the city. But given that I live in the rural part of Denmark(land), other people are scarce on my walks. But lots of birds chirping away, and the early blooming trees in all their wonder :)
BY ADAM HANSON
BY VICTORIA ROBB
Along the embankment between Somerset House and Temple tube station I discovered there's an elevated 'Artist's garden' that was open this Easter Saturday. Currently it is covered with very colourful flooring, but looking down at it I noticed that my shadow was contrasting with the geometric lines, and shooting in B&W it looked rather graphical. So I tried to angle my camera to catch it (and keep the horizontal right which is hard as the lines play with the eyes!) Then I walked to the edge and looked down to see the outdoors newsagent at Temple closed but with Free Julian Assange messages on, which must be from some time ago now but not been painted over. While I'm not political, it struck me there was something symbolic capturing it with two people walking past with masks on.
BY ANDREA GILPIN
After taking the first shot I realised that I was staying in my comfort zone and not looking up as much as I could. So, I wandered around the gardens some more and started shooting to the top of the trees. I loved the shapes of the branches against the sky.
BY KEV BEACHAM
As well as enjoying the podcast, this week’s assignment was a revelation. I loved the new perspective and hope that my contribution although simple, demonstrated to me at least what a small shift to look up changed the ordinary post I’ve passed many times and never considered worthy of taking a picture of.
BY JOHN ST.JOHN SMITH
Lunch in the sun at Gunwharf Quays, looking up at Spinnaker Tower.
BY BOB DEMERS
I went up. This Saguaro cactus is planted in front of the elementary school up the street. Planted? This fellow sprouted long before the building went up and is at least 150 years old. Saguaro cacti are protected here. One must register Saguaros and obtain a badge to attach to them before removal and relocation. It’s an anti-poaching measure. They about 100 lbs per foot (not in gpsi…) Can you imagine one falling on you? Crushed and instant acupuncture for your troubles. Once, by 30 seconds, I missed being clobbered on the trail with a 30-footer that toppled in a strong gust. I heard the crash, or pulpy thump I should say; their mass is mostly water.
BY SUSAN LARSSON
For this week’s assignment, how appropriate - we were standing on the ridge one morning this week, looking up at the mountain, as always, but looking down - we saw deer! Grabbed a couple of shots, and then they were - poof! - gone. And the mountain, of course, was still there…
BY NEALE JAMES
380 feet above the ground looking down through 5cm thick glass on Blackpool Tower’s observation deck. I don’t much care for fast rides at theme parks, but heights don’t trouble me. People watching, there were visitors physically crawling out holding on to peoples’ legs or any near pillar they could find. I made this picture on Sunday, just hours before the episode aired, but of course, the advantage of being the host meant I knew what was coming. The moment I saw the glass, I knew exactly what I wanted. I spent so much time looking down, ummm, I forgot to look up. But shhhh, don’t tell anyone, especially Valérie!
