Weekend task #10 - Boredom

[Jack Dawe]

This was the photo I did not submit - of my husband waiting to board a plane - I think he looks a little bored, but I have been
married to him for more than 65 years and I know he's not grouchy or angry - that's just his natural expression.

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You know that, but we wouldn't have done. I think I would have voted for that photo.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

#1 Jan
#2 Rob
#3 Martin

It's funny, when Martin opened with his image of a book, I thought: well that's it then, that's the winner. I thought it was a really good fit for the topic. But then it got trickier and more difficult.

In the end I chose Jan's pic because of the longing in the dog. I don't know if dogs, or animals altogether, can get bored. But I do think that the photo does convey a feeling of boredom. He wants to play.

Rob's picture conveyed the same: boredom. Even though, again, dogs may not experience it as such.

So Martin's image moved to my third place. It's a great image.

So my votes went to Martin as the book can express the boredom while still being an appealing photo and Terry and Levina for showing actual boredom in their photos. But in all honesty I do not think that their photos would end up in their ultimate portfolio .

No indeed, not my entry, it wouldn't.

I took that picture many years ago, 15 or so and have never shown it to anyone because the file is really bad. I took it with the 5D classic and a Fujinon 135mm vintage lens, manual focus only and I totally missed focus on the girl. Her face is mush, basically. It became more presentable after running the file through DXO Pure Raw and playing with it in Photoshop. It's still bad, just less so.

You could ask why I kept such a bad pic all these years. That's hard to explain. That little girl got to me. She wasn't just bored, she looked profoundly sad. She was looking out the window at other kids playing and having fun. And she was alone, up there, in the apartment. That's one of the reasons I didn't crop the photo. I wanted to include as much of the facade as I could to make her smaller and emphasise her loneliness. I simply could not bring myself to delete her pic.

As to Rosalie's waiting husband: that would have been really great for the theme. I would have voted for it.

I also had another pic in mind originally, a heron, also taken many years ago. But then I decided he looked more drunk than bored.

 

[Jack Dawe]

I also had another pic in mind originally, a heron, also taken many years ago. But then I decided he looked more drunk than bored.

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That heron is hilarious!

 

[greatgrandma]

Herons with their big sharp bills all look to me a little fierce. Not at all chirpy or cuddley

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

That heron is hilarious!

He is, isn't he?

Here he is full body portrait. Gosh, taken in 2011! I can't believe it's that long ago. I remember him well.
Back then I didn't realise you could also clean up fences and such...

 

[Jack Dawe]

He really doesn't look in very good shape...

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

Herons with their big sharp bills all look to me a little fierce. Not at all chirpy or cuddley

Well, actually they're not. They will flee if they feel threatened by a human being. If you enter their space they will monitor you but if you then just mind your own business they go back to their business. I have photographed them countless times and from very nearby, I mean from within minimum focus distance of the Canon EF 300/4L where he was literally at arm's length. They're harmless, not fierce at all.

I could almost touch him here:

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

He really doesn't look in very good shape...

Not sure, Jason. He was asleep and I think I disturbed him.

 

[Jack Dawe]

They're harmless, not fierce at all.

Hmm. Birders who ring/band them would beg to disagree. That beak can stab!

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

Hmm. Birders who ring/band them would beg to disagree. That beak can stab!

Well, that's different, isn't it, people grabbing them, it must seem like an attack to them, so naturally they will defend themselves. But to a photographer that is not about to grab them they're harmless. The first years into the hobby I would often go to the park around sunrise and they would be there, fishing and moving along a stream. I would arrive, they would look up. Then I would just sit down in their path, be still and wait for them to come to me and they did and they would completely ignore me. And I would just quietly point my lens at them and shoot them.

Also, these are city birds, used to people. This was taken at sunset.