OCOLOY 2025: March
21 April 2025
My goal with my OCOLOY challenge is not only to photograph more but also to learn methods and explore ideas that I wasn't interested in before. This is what the side quests are for. One month is a perfect time for exploring a new topic, even though I initially thought of switching the mini projects every two weeks (or half a month). Life happens and a week goes by quite fast, sometimes (sadly, and I need to work on that) without any pictures taken. But of a month, a week is less than a quarter and there is still enough time to dive into something during the remaining time.
My topic for last month was "slow shutter speed", to be more precise: slower or equal to 1/30th of a second. A way of shooting that was relatively new to me. Putting some long exposure experiments aside I only intentionally restricted my shutter speed for one photo walk at the end of January. And I had a lot of fun back then. Therefore, it was an obvious candidate to explore more during an entire month.
Although March was not as hectic as February I wasn't out as often as I'd like but I still got enough shots to feature ten of them as my favourites for March. So, without further ado, here they are.
Due to the slower shutter speed, it is not as easy to capture a scene that is just happening (of course, depending in what specifically is happening). Therefore, the "fishing" approach is more suited and so I found this place and waited for quite a while. Out of the many people that drove or walked by, the contrast of the red jacket and the speed of the cyclist work best.
As written earlier, I often find interesting scenes when walking on the city wall. This is no exception and I tried this technique of rotating the camera while pressing the shutter. I like how this guides the viewer towards the (centred) subject.
I found the large trees made for an interesting framing and I didn't need to wait for long until a cyclist with rather dark clothes drove by, thereby creating a good contrast to the surroundings.
Just a few minutes later I waited at that crossing and searched for photo opportunities while waiting. I tried a few things but the combination of the empty road, the stop light, and the person with the pram walking by makes for an interesting frame.
The weather decided to change that afternoon: from overcast to rain. And thereby gave me the opportunity to capture some "umbrella action". I had only a few more minutes before I needed to leave and had luck when that person with the vibrant pink umbrella walked over the otherwise empty square.
A week later the weather was perfect and I walked across that scene in a park. I love the double framing by the two trees on the edges and the two trees in the centre. Luckily, this is a main cycle way and I only needed to wait for a few minutes until a person with fitting clothes drove by.
I walk through this overpass every once in a while in search of a new photographic opportunity and the slow shutter challenge gave me the option to try something new. Using the bushes as a framing I captured a few cyclists until one drove through after a while which works quite well.
Garbage somehow is fascinating. I don't know why but there are numerous occasions where it made a good photo. The bins put precisely in a line drew my attention and to bring some motion into the photo I framed it so that in the background some cars drove by.
A classic when it comes to slower shutter speed: capturing the motion of water. Originally just intended as a snapshot but I like how the water is disturbed at that location and how the light falls into the scene.
Lastly something very abstract. But abstractness is something I want to experiment with this year anyway. This was (more or less) in my neighbourhood during a short stroll. The wind combined with the slow shutter speed and additionally not precisely focusing created this abstract photo of some grass stalks.
That's it for March. Again a bit later than I intended and again not enough diversity in the dates. Sadly, April will be quite similar regarding the later. But I'm having fun with the OCOLOY challenge so far and I'm looking towards the following months.