Escape the cold, go photo-antiquing

There there many things I love to photograph on bitterly cold days. The weather has never been an excuse for me not to exercise my ‘visual push-ups’. One of my favorite activities is what I call ‘photo-antiquing’.

It’s not simply walking into an antique store and photographing random objects. The exercise is to work the frame without moving or repositioning any object. No removing distractions (price tags, etc) allowed, that would be too easy! I describe the value of such exercises in my book The Art of Seeing Photographically, it’s all about shooting with more intent and pretending you don’t even have a processing software to work with later. I also highly recommend one focal length and no cropping, just like the few frames below shot recently in a cute little antique store in Duluth, Minnesota.

Try it next time you have cabin fever and you feel that there is nothing to go out and shoot. Your creative soul will thank you!

I shot these with the Fujifilm Xpro2 and the 35mm 1.4 to get me out of my 23mm comfort zone 😉

Please share your thoughts!

©Valerie Jardin ~ photo antiquing-1

©Valerie Jardin ~ photo antiquing-5

©Valerie Jardin ~ photo antiquing-2

©Valerie Jardin ~ photo antiquing-8

©Valerie Jardin ~ photo antiquing-7

©Valerie Jardin ~ photo antiquing-6

©Valerie Jardin ~ photo antiquing-3

©Valerie Jardin ~ photo antiquing-10

©Valerie Jardin ~ photo antiquing-9

©Valerie Jardin ~ photo antiquing-11

 

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28 thoughts on “Escape the cold, go photo-antiquing”

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  7. These are so visually yummy!
    Being an antique/vintage junkie, seeing the way you see these items, brings a sense of life to the antiquated!

    Ps—because of your photowalk in Dallas, my hubby has decided to do photography with me! 🙂

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    • Thanks Bob! Yes, it is important to ask permission. I’ve never had a shop owner frown at it. They often enjoy telling you the story of objects while you are busy shooting 🙂 They rarely have any use for the pictures, but if they do, I definitely send them the files.

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  12. Wonderful idea. I just visited some antique stores a few weekends ago and thought about doing just that but decided that all the price tags and piles of stuff would be too difficult to shoot around. Then I see your shots and realize I goofed up. I’ll go again this coming weekend. Thanks for sharing Ms Jardin.

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  15. This is such a wonderful idea. I’ve never even considered doing anything like it, and I can imagine it’s quite the visual work out for sure. Can’t wait to visit my favorite antique stores and put this exercise to the test.

    Thank You, Valerie…

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