16 Apr favorite photos of 2019
hello there friends. it’s been quite a while since my last post… and I missed posting my favorite photos last year. what can I say? it was a rough year for many reasons. and some of the “extras” in life…. like blogging just got pushed aside.
BUT, here we are! I’m digging into those old to-do’s and working on some things that are still nagging me. like these photos. I really like taking pictures, and I like sharing them with you all. so late or not… here are some of my favorite photos from 2019.
this first photo was taken in Burbank near the studio where we were making HOT WHEELS CITY. every day I’d take my “lunch” break and walk over to Starbucks, I’d get a coffee and write for 40 minutes or so, then walk back to work. I love the combination of the green leaves on the left and the pink flowers on the right. the grey skies make the colors pop even more. it’s a pretty industrial area, so the beauty of these trees stood out even more.
when possible, I love taking candid photos of people. often you get them more at ease when they don’t feel the need to “pose.” I like the back-lighting on Teal and Liisa here… plus it reminds me of when everyone would get together for afternoon BBQs.
I really like the colors and composition of this one.
another candid photo, I caught Anna completely unaware… so the smile she has is just because she was having a good day. the shallow focus really makes her pop from the background, even though there is a lot of similar colors.
I don’t shoot a lot with wide-angle lenses, but for whatever reason I took one with me into the woods this day. shooting up at a slight up angle with the top of the image slightly over-exposed creates a visual “pull” on the image… it drags your eyes up — which is what being in the forest is like. so I feel like this photo of my Dad really captures the feeling of being in the woods I also really like the red and green contrast..
I took this photo while we were location scouting for my latest film, “Sundown Trail.” it’s a sci-fi were toxic mushrooms feature heavily… so it was pretty cool to randomly find such a nice bunch.
and on the subject of “Sundown Trail” here’s a photo I took on a disposable camera that I reload. it was a “Coca Cola” plastic lensed camera that I think was supposed to be single use. but I realized that with a little bit of tape, I could add in another roll of film. I LOVE the look of plastic lenses and having a camera this small let me easily carry it with me during the production.
this shot of Los Angeles taken from near the top of Mt. Hollywood was taken on a 200mm zoom lens on a gloriously clear day after some rain. I rarely shoot on a zoom lens, but I knew how clear it was going to be, so thought it would be a good call. I really like how straight the street is running away from camera, and how the figures are silhouetted on the right. even though it’s not literally taken from their perspective, the way the hillside drops off the left and the city fades into the distance gives the impression of both watching them and seeing their perspective at the same time.
this photo of my lovely wife was taken with my Helios lens. often it give a swirling bokeh (the out of photo part of photo), but here it just make a soft background. it’s a tricky lens to use, and I’m still figuring it out… but this is one of my best photos with it. I really like how the light has hit her eyes bringing out the chestnut colors.
there’s a lot I really like about this photo. first off, it’s the neighborhood I grew up in, so there is definitely a nostalgia element. but looking at it merely from a composition, the road and flowers pull your eye forward in a gentle sweeping motion, the feels like the gentle sweep of the road — while the telephone lines and sky in horizon have enough light so you don’t get stuck in the dark of the hillside.
from a content perspective, I love the contrast of wildflowers growing in a ditch.. just because it’s not normally where we’d find beauty doesn’t mean that beauty isn’t there. it’s a great reminder to keep our eyes and hour hearts open to the world around us.
hope you enjoyed seeing some of my favorite pictures from way back in 2019! if you want to see more, I’ve got the entire collection of them over on my flickr page. check it out here.
thanks for reading,
-Luke
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