On Armchair Photography and Other Vantage Points

I belong to a community of photographers at a site called YouPIC. Photographers on YouPIC take marvelous photos from all over the world. They rise early, they take their camera (and sometimes other gear) in hand, and they venture forth into the world to find that shot. They find wonderful vantage points and take photos of unbelievably beautiful places. And people. And animals. But I am a retired lady who lives in southern Tippecanoe County near Lafayette, Indiana. Let's face it - I'm more of a point-and-shoot photographer. I take pictures of everyday beauty as I go about my everyday life.

Thinking into this further, I realize that much that catches my eye is from a vantage point that is unattainable to the camera, for instance the driver's seat of a car speeding down the highway. Or at home from behind my screened, locked-against-the-wind (as much as against any intruders), plastic-wrapped window. Somehow when I pull the car over or step out of the house to get the shot, the image is different - because the vantage point has changed.

One evening a couple of weeks ago before sunset - the golden hour - I was quite happily resting in my favorite spot, my old rocker by a tall narrow window in the summer kitchen. I looked out the window at the view and saw my beautiful magnolia tree in bloom, with some of the petals starting to drop. The day had been cloudy but had cleared around sunset and the light was beautiful on the tree and that section of my yard. I spent a half hour or so quite contentedly taking photos of that scene. I opened the window and threw up the screen - the breeze was pleasant, really the first mild spring temperatures we'd had this year. After a while my kitties wandered into the yard and sat on a tree stump and in the grass to enjoy the peacefulness and serenity. So then the subject of my shutter-bugging changed. Afterwards it occurred to me that the reason I had not seen this view before was that we had sadly lost  a big old tree last summer in that section of the yard (ergo, the stump). It had been blocking the view. So these are probably the best shots I've ever gotten of the magnolia tree in the ten years I've been trying from various other vantage points outside!

Armchair Magnolia	Armchair Magnolia
Yard at Sunset from Back Window	Yard at Sunset from Back Window

I think I need to invent a new genre called Armchair Photography - vantage points for the rest of us! :)

Here's a photo I had during another armchair session just this evening during a beautiful golden hour!

And yet another later in the season during the early morning!

Happy shutter-bugging!

The Armchair Photographer (JuneBug)