Photographer Spotlight: Christopher O’Donnell
In my “Why start another photo blog?” post I mentioned that I would be highlighting photographers who’s work I find inspirational and moving in one way or another. Well, the first photographer I’d like to share and call attention to is Christopher O’Donnell (blog | portfolio) who’s work I found from a comment he left on another blog.
First, I’d like to thank Chris for granting me permission to use at least on of his images on this site. He was gracious enough to let me use whatever I needed and I hope others out there check out his work and find inspiration as I did.
Second, in an exercise to improve my own vision and love for photography, I want to talk about what drew me to his images in the first place. The image you see above, titled “Maple Juice Cove V” is a fantastic example of composition, color and depth of field. I love the balance within the square format along with the glowing vintage-y look of this image which he carries across a lot of his work.
His effective combination of simple, yet strong, compositions and soft depth-of-field makes his photographs easy to look at while drawing you in and allows you to focus on what’s in the image. This also creates depth in his images which, to me, makes them very inviting while moving your eye around the entire image.
I was originally drawn to photography through landscapes and a lot of my images were taken through a small aperture and are usually in focus throughout the image. However, when I looked at Christopher’s images and saw that a lot of his photographs were taken with a very shallow depth of field, which really draws the eye to certain elements of the photograph first, it hit me that a good landscape and nature photography doesn’t always have to follow the rules of the book.
I’d encourage you to check out his work and thanks again to Christopher for letting me use one of your images. I look forward to seeing your new work in 2010.
