Vanilla Sky

March 23, 2009 Mahbubur Rahman

The sky was awesome this weekend at Caumsett park. Near the end of the walk, the sky had turned into a nice pink/yellow/red shade. Reminded me of Monet's painting. It was beautiful.

Brown and Yellow

March 21, 2009 Mahbubur Rahman

This is my friend's dog, Moses. Moses is a pretty cool dog - and by cool, I mean hip. Everytime I see him, he reminds me of a care-free, laid-back dude, one of those guys that makes everything look easy. He is a dog with personality. Recently he had a stroke, and was unable to walk around by himself, but with some support straps and such, he is doing good. This picture is pure moses, totally unaffected by the fact that I am taking his picture - and decided to pose in front of a nice yellow wall. The brown and yellow is a classic color combination and so I snapped :)

Reflections

March 20, 2009 Mahbubur Rahman

Summer Preview: I love sunsets - I mean, who doesn't? I love sunrises, too, but a morning person I am NOT. Anyway, sunsets are the reason I got into HDR, because I always had trouble capturing all the colors in the frame - something was always underexposed or overexposed - to make a long story short, I found out about HDR, and this is one of the first HDRs that I made. Cold Spring Harbor, New York.

Citadel

March 19, 2009 Mahbubur Rahman

This is one of the few buildings in Heckscher State Park in Long Island, New York. When I first saw this building it reminded me of the US embassy back in my country in Bangladesh. I was going there for my student visa, already nervous about it - and then I saw the building, which seemed huge at the time, as I was much younger. It had high walls made of concrete and outlined with blood red bricks, and four tall corner posts with guards - totally indimidating - all I could think about was how much it looked like a fortress. In retrospect, I saw the building again this year after 12 years - it's not that big :). This building is nowhere near as intimidating, but this angle reminded me of it and along with the dramatic sky, it looked a little menacing :)

Time Warp

March 16, 2009 Mahbubur Rahman

Freud would have a field day with this. The recurring bench theme makes its appearance again. This time its a little surreal, like when you work or stay up all night, and night blends into day and/or vice versa, hence the title 'time warp'. West Neck Beach, Lloyd Neck, New York.

A Drive through Switzerland

A drive through Switzerland is everything that I thought it would be. Mountains, lakes and the requisite chocolate stops makes this one of the more memorable road trips in Europe.

Cliché

Aside from the pristine beaches, there is another side of Jamaica landscape that I noticed when I ventured out from the sheltered resort area. When you venture inland, there is a plethora of other scenery that is very different than the tourism posters of Jamaica. I happened to walk off the hotel property, and stumbled upon the edge of golf course which was not really part of it, but still was very well taken care of. Either way, anybody would be more than ecstatic to have it as their backyard.

On a different note, I wanted to mention something about photographic cliches. Photographic cliches are images that are created with motifs that are very common, such as sunrise/sunset beaches, mountaineous landscapes, rocks in water, autumn leaves, white fences - and lone trees. I've probably rattled off about 70% of the recent pictures you've seen on the web (and possibly on my blog). The truth is that in the current digital age, and the easy access to camera equipment/technology, its pretty hard to be original, especially for amateurs like myself. All this is a little depressing unless you're a creative genius, and so the philosophy has to change. So if you're not going to create the next original masterpiece, then I guess the thing to take note off is whether you're having fun, and whether you believe in what you created (or are creating) - IMHO, its all worthwhile as long as that requirement is met. Also, I strongly believe that once you are having fun and believe in what you're doing, you will end up creating that masterpiece at some point. Yes, the lone tree motif has been done many times before, but I'm fairly confident its not that rampant in landscapes of Jamaica (I hope). This is my thought process in the ever changing, saturated world of photography of today. What is your approach?