Project 52 - Freelensing - Week 2

2/52

This week I wanted to challenge myself with a new (to me) photography technique called freelensing. In freelensing you essentially take the lens off your camera, but hold it right in front of the camera to create a bit of a more artistic effect (read more about it here and here). It takes quite a bit of practice to get what you want in focus and if your susceptible to headaches like me you'll end up with a raging migraine (that I struggled with for most of the week). Good times.

I like the picture below, but I'm not sure it has quite the full effect that freelensing really pulls out of a picture. Here are some examples of other people attempting this technique.

At any rate, I like this this picture for a few reasons: because I tried something new, because the colors are vibrant, and because my daughter made these crowns for herself, her dad, and me. Riley was on a big crown making kick around October. She made a crown for each of us and when we got our new windows (which I have yet to blog about) they got shuffled around, but they are now back out on display. I've wanted to get a picture of us wearing our crowns, but that has yet to happen so now they sit upon some plants in our living room. I'm guessing they won't last much longer so I thought I better capture them on camera before they are gone. I love how they represent my kid's imagination and her creativity, and her love for us as a family.

Update: I've done a bit more research since taking the above picture and have tackled this technique again (even with fear of getting another migraine) now that I know a few more tips. This time I used the 50mm instead of the 35mm and I turned on the screen viewer which I think helped with avoiding a big migraine.

And to make things more challenging I took pictures of the cats who are not the most cooperative models. They can sit still for hours and the moment I bring out the camera they insist on moving around. I did get a couple pictures that I think turned out quite well. I think the bottom picture (Lucy) captures freelensing the most as you can see where some light was let in behind the lens in the lower left hand side of the picture.

So there we have it... another week completed and a new technique attempted.