Rior's Photography

[Rior Laegiel]

I love taking pictures, especially this time of year when everything comes alive again and colors are everywhere. Here I will share some photos I have taken and will take.
I took the picture above in late August 2015 when I was living at my parents summer house.

[Zôrzimril]

YAAAAAAAY! So glad you put up a thread, @Rior Laegiel - can't wait to see what you've been up to.

[Eldrith]

Yay! How wonderful to see another photographer! Love that image and the use of negative space in it!

[Tari]

Share more @Rior Laegiel! I can't wait to see more of your take of light like this.

[Burnt Toast]

Hey Rior! Glad you've put up a thread :) The picture is fascinating-- I thought I was looking at a mirrored image of some kind (top to bottom) at first. Echoing Edlrith, it's really cool to see the use of negative space. Looking forward to more! (I love getting to see all the photographers around, since it's not something I know much about, so I get to lurk around and learn from everyone's art threads!)

[Rior Laegiel]

@Tarawen @Eldrith @Tari @Mor Toast Thank you all!

This picture may be my favourite of all the pictures ever taken.
(Sorry for the poor quality of this picure, had to take a picture of a picture with my phone :( because I wanted to show this lol ).
I took a photography course some years ago and I loved it. It was really fun being in the dark room and learning that process.
At the end of the course we had to choose a two week project and I spent those two weeks at an agricultural college
because I wanted to show what an agricultural college had to offer students with learning disabilities.

[Zôrzimril]

Oooo @Rior Laegiel, I'm not sure how I missed this! The stark contrasts between the cow and the fence really makes the cow and its soulful gaze stand out. Were there lots of other photos as part of this project that maybe we'll get a peek at? :smiley8: And do you still use a darkroom for developing your photos?

[Bereth]

@Rior Laegiel Love your moonlit lake pic, I know how numbingly difficult it is to capture the ethereal beauty (I’ve tried, I live on a lake as well and wish I could freeze some nights into a photo like this!).

And I can see why your second pic is your favorite, although your backstory makes it even more special.

[Oak]

@Rior Laegiel The image at the top has a vintage look. Looks like a night scene, very much like what I see out my back deck. I live on ricer front property.

The Cow image has a professional quality as well. I admire people who can take professional looking images. I have always been a shoddy photographer.

[Burnt Toast]

I love the picture of the cow. It's so crisp and stark looking; the black and white is gorgeous. I'm also admittedly drawn to it from a memory standpoint-- my inner farm kid misses working with the calves (sometimes-- they're stubborn little beasts). Thanks for sharing this!

[Rior Laegiel]

Thank you @Tarawen. Yes, there were other pictures taken. I'll be staying at my parents summer house for a while and I can take more photos of them when I have a chance to get home and actually remember to do it while I'm there. Remind me if I forget. (Can elves get dementia or alzheimers? Rior's a lot older than and I think his age is affecting me, my memory isn't what it used to be. ) Unfortunately I don't have access to a darkroom nowadays but if I had I would have loved to use it.

Thank you @Bereth. I've tried to capture the moon more times than I can count but the photo in the op is one of only 2 or 3 that I'm happy with.

Thank you @Oak. I've always considered myself to be a shoddy photographer that sometimes get lucky to take a good photo. I love to take pictures but more often than not they turn out average at best.

Thank you @L0k1. I do miss those two weeks being around all the animals. Other than cows they had sheep, goats, pigs, hens, horses, fancy rats, guinea pigs, bunnies, mini pigs, snakes, spiders, turtoises and lizards.

When staying in my parents summer house I love taking walks in the forest. There's a forest road that goes on for about 90 minutes (60 minutes if you walk fast but I'm a slow walker). After about 30 minutes you walk by two lakes, one to the left and one to the right. The photo is of the one on the left.

[Tari]

@Rior Laegiel - the dark room process is so fun. I love that moo up there! I can see why it's one of your long time favorites. I found out I am allergic to developer and after college had to stick to digital, but it'll never match the sentiment of something you feel you not only created but made tangible with your own hands!

[Zôrzimril]

@Rior Laegiel - I will set a reminder for myself to remind you. (This is basically the only way I remember to do things these days.)

I'm really envious of your ability to get out and walk through the woods and past serene scenes such as this lake. I bet it is lovely to just go for super long walks! I'm stuck in the city and feeling all the urban density like never before!

[Burnt Toast]

That's an amazing collection of animals! I miss farm life so much.

This photo is a gorgeous capture of a serene scene- I'm with Tara, along with missing the farm, I miss the outdoors that go with it. I did just move to a house outside of the city, though, and am lucky to be back in an area where there some woods to walk through.

[Rior Laegiel]

@Tari Yes, I loved it and I miss being in the dark room. Plus, if you do it yourself you get to develop the pictures the way you want them. One of the students who had taken the class the year before me had developed one of her pictures herself and then she had paid the people (professionals??) who work at the local photography shop to develop the same picture. I was there when she came to show them and talk to the teacher about them. The one she had made herself looked really good but you could see from a mile away that the one who she had paid for had a blue tone to it when compared to hers.

@Zôrzimril I haven't forgotten (yet) the pictures I promised you. I will post them here when I remember to take pictures of them. (Whenever that is, I have a worse memory than a toaster. )

@Burnt Toast I love forests too and I'm happy to live in the outskirts of town. I live just a few minutes walk from an illuminated ski track in a forest area and people use it for walking and running between late spring and late autumn. I love to walk there as it feels like walking in the forest without the uneven ground of an actual forest. Beyond the ski track the forest goes on and on for miles.

I took this picture a few years ago, in 2015, of two friends drinking water after having played together.

[Rior Laegiel]

Wearing a facemask before there was a wrong way to wear them.

Found this picture when I was looking through some old photos earlier today.
It was taken when I was going to a masquerade party at school when I was around nine and I was dressed up as a troll.

[Rior Laegiel]

@Zôrzimril It's only been almost 2 years but here are a few more pics from the project I spoke about in the post above with the picture of the cow.

[Drífa]

They are the prettiest animals! Very cool B&W photos, Rior! Is this your farm?

[Fuin Elda]

I would have sworn up and down that I'd commented on a similar photo to the two friends having a drink before (I didn't so that makes me sad)

Love your B&W farm animals I have a few in color that are similar and I love the contrast you use for the cow especially and the first goat photo you have. I also really like the lake photo again possibly because it reminds of of home which seems silly since I live in an area where I have lakes surrounding me know if I decide to take a nice long walk as well.

I did note one comment you made about being a shoddy photographer that sometimes gets lucky, indeed perhaps luck is sometimes what does it but you still have managed to get these shots well focused and even if the composition of them isn't National Geographic worthy it is easy to tell what they are so I would give yourself more credit than being shoddy!

[Rior Laegiel]

@Drifa No, they aren't mine. I've never lived on a farm.

I took a photography course some years ago and I loved it. It was really fun being in the dark room and learning that process.
At the end of the course we had to choose a two week project and I spent those two weeks at an agricultural college
because I wanted to show what an agricultural college had to offer students with learning disabilities.

@Fuin Elda The photo of the two friends having a drink was nominated for the ARPY's last year (if I remember correcly. I don't think it was 2020). Am I wrong or was it you that nominated it?

I think that to be a good photographer there has to be something more, you can't just rely on luck. There has to be some skill involved even if it's raw, untrained skill. The more skill someone has and the more they hone it the better photographer they are and the better someone is the less luck factors in when taking a good photo. E.g National Geography photographers may have 90-95% skill to take excellent photos and require 5-10% luck to take an exceptional photo whereas an amateur photographer would require a large(r) portion of luck to take a photo that is more than good or average.

I also think that a good photographer has to have an eye for what makes a good picture and it's the feeling of lack of this that sometimes makes me feel like a shoddy photographer. To me a strawberry is a strawberry. If I'm going to take a themed photo and the theme is 'strawberry' the first thing I think of is just that, a strawberry. I don't automatically start to associate strawberries with other things like 'red' and 'what else is red?' or 'shapes/flowers/plants' etc

But I do think it would be possible for me to improve my skills if I spent more time taking pictures. I like the saying "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard" and I should remind myself of this more often. During a photography course I took ages ago, our teacher would tell us that if we didn't know how we wanted to portray the given theme right away, we should start taking photos of anything and everything just to get us started and maybe we would get ideas along the way. And I think that could apply when working to improve skill too, take pictures of anything and everything.
(Sorry for writing a book. I'll stop before writing another. )

I love taking pictures of nature and I love working with framing. Here I used the steel barriers of a bridge to frame this picture.

[Fuin Elda]

@Bäckahästen Makes sense I suppose in terms of a strawberry being a strawberry. I suppose by that standard I am also a shoddy photographer mostly because I am also very much of the same mind in terms of a strawberry being a strawberry though I tend to be the sort to do things like wanting to add water droplets to it etc. I suppose that's more commercial photography than anything else? Not sure there.

I quite like the composition of your most recent piece for the most part I think I might have (if it was doable I'm not sure about how you were able to take the photo) but I think it might have been nicer without the metal girting as the framing seems off there isn't enough of it to read well as industrial framing nature it seems almost more like a dirty window frame because of how little we see.

[Pele Alarion]

*wanders in to check on photos* Hmm! I've missed out on a bit! And now I want to go out for a run in the nature... *stares at the stream* I did think it was a window and wondered if the house was stood above the stream. :D

[Rior Laegiel]

@Fuin Elda I don't think that everyone has the same standards of what makes a good photographer and I think that everyone should judge themselves by their standards and not someone else's.
Yes, I could have easily taken a picture without the metal girting. I tried to find a picture without it but unfortunately, I don't have one. I wish I did have one because some of the trees have been taken down along the stream since I took that picture so it doesn't look the same now.

@Pele Alarion Pictures with water and nature makes me wish it was summer right now so that I could take walks in nature.


Sharing more summer pictures by link because I tried to resize them to fit in this thread but they didn't look so good.
(1) https://i.ibb.co/WD4fsDk/20170708-191044.jpg
(2) https://i.ibb.co/tKXycsJ/20200817-181328.jpg

(1) I love taking pictures of my parents' beagle (Wille), especially around the summer house when he can be outside. He usually stays around the house nowadays so he is mostly allowed to roam freely when he's there.
(Revenge is a dish best served cold (ask Wille, he knows).
When he was young (1 - 1½ years old), dad went to the grocery store and Wille had to stay at home with mom. While dad was gone, Wille buried one of his shoes in the flowerbed because he hadn't been allowed to come along. )
(2) He hates to bathe or swim. Sometimes he can walk in the water as long as it doesn't reach higher than his stomach. But he loves to go boating. When I took this picture they were going to the other side of the lake to see if they could find chanterelles.

[The Good Hunter]

In a semi-resurrection of this thread, I love the beagle pictures! I'm not sure how, but from everything I've seen beagles are one of the most photogenic dog breeds ever, even the derpiest beagle (not saying your parents' beagle is derpy in the least) look amazing in photos. I think his reaction to not being aloud to go to the grocery store was quite measured and reasonable, I would have done the same thing in his place.

[Rior Laegiel]

Thank you @Sequestered Keep for reviving the thread. My plan was to post pictures here more often than I actually do. Life always find ways to get between me and the plaza.

I have always loved taking close-ups of different things.

A cone. I saw a squirrel a few times this summer. One of the times it ran over the lawn with a big cone in its mouth.




We have a stream floating through town and there are a lot of bird-cherry trees along the stream. Especially in the part of the city where I live.




Lily of the Valley has always been one of my favorite flowers. I love the smell even if it's pretty strong.




A rose. I love rosehip soup but I've never actually picked my own rosehip berries and made my own soup.




Does anyone know what kind of flower this is? I don't remember having seen one before.

[Winddancer]

@Rior Laegiel I cant see the pics :( I just see the imgbb blue boxes. Is the site down? Or do you have it set to private?

[Rior Laegiel]

Can you see them now @Winddancer? While deleting a few pictures I hadn't posted here yet I managed to delete the whole album with pictures. Luckily I also have them saved on a usb stick so I can easily get them back.

[Winddancer]

Yes! I see them now :D They are gorgeous! Do join the summer contest here in CoLP (pinned post). You can have 2 entries :D

[The Good Hunter]

I was on a revival kick (not the tent kind) and I noticed that I had never actually posted anything here despite having dropped in a few times to see your photography; it was time to rectify that mistake.

Those flowers are amazing! I love the lighting and the color contrasts (lily of the valley happens to be a favorite flower of mine as well so call me biased). All these pictures make me want to go and forage for some flowers of my own, if I didn't live in the desert of course.

[Fuin Elda]

Am glad to see that the newest pictures have been returned as I'd not gotten to see them other wise.

Absolutely love the field of focus in these with the macro!

Lily of the Valley honestly am a fan of these I've never actually smelt them though? Which I feel is odd because there is a fair number of them behind my tattoo shop in the flower beds I discovered this spring... No scent that I could discern (however here they were also in competition with absolutely pungent lilac bushes)

[Drífa]

I believe that the last flower is called Geum 'Tales of Hex' –commonly known as Avens. But there are other varieties. Do they grow in patches, Rior?

All your flower photos are lovely!

[Rior Laegiel]

@Winddancer Thank you.

@Metatron Omega Thank you. Speaking of tents, in my teens I woke up one morning and found that I was sharing my tent with a forest mouse. Not so fun when you're afraid of mice. Luckily though it scurried away pretty fast when I let it out.

@Drifa Thank you. I saw the 'Tales of Hex' during one of my walks a few months ago when I was trying to get some good photos of flowers. From what I can remember there were only two or three of them that I could see but there could have been more hiding among the other flowers there.

@Fuin Elda Thank you. Have you tried picking a lily of the valley to smell it? I remember picking up the scent of them only once or twice when they were still on the ground, don't know why that was because normally I have to pick one up to smell it. They grow in the forests around where I live and I picked a bouquet earlier this year and put them in a vase on the window sill. Maybe one or just a few don't smell very much but with the bouquet I brought home I could pick up a stong scent from 2 meters away. In hindsight, bringing them inside wasn't the best idea. If or when I pick lilies again I'll have to remember to put them on the porch.

[Pele Alarion]

How come I had missed all these lovely nature shots?! *leans in towards the screen in an attempt to catch the fragrance of blooms*

[Fuin Elda]

Oh wow that's a lot! And no I've never picked them to smell them (they only just started showing up this year) at my shop I didn't plant them so I'm gonna let them get ab it more established first before I start picking as I most certainly want them to propogate a fair bit before I start picking them (legit had two pop up so no) Once they get going though I have every intention of dragging a bunch of them from town to where I live in the country as they are a native here and I have a lot of shady places so they should do well.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Hello Rior, I remember to comment on your pictures on the Plaza in the Old Cottage. But had no idea you activated here a new thread. Lovely photos of the animals. Two dogs drinking. And some little goats and sheep. The flowers stand nicely and peaceful. Thanks for sharing!