I’m sorry, I’m a bit late. This is the image of yesterday, Friday. I began taking images on the train from Vienna, while waiting for its departure, but they did not turn out too well. This one is from a series that I shot after having arrived in Velden, Carinthia. It’s a pillar on the terrace of a café, just opposite of Velden’s casino. They have still Christmas decorations on, and the small point lights are a good match for the Lensbaby’s distortions.
It’s been a long time since I last used the Lensbaby. The Lensbaby is a very simple 50/2.0, but instead of a normal lens barrel, it has a flexible tube. Additionally the lens has very strong natural distortions, throwing everything but the center out of focus. That’s what we call the “sweet spot”. By bending the lens you can move the sweet spot, but it’s not only that. The more you bend the lens, the more you increase the distortions. A characteristic of the Lensbaby is the egg-shaped rendition of out-of-focus point lights, and the art now is, to bend the lens in a way that these highlights create meaningful or aesthetic patterns.
In this case I have tried to let shadows point into the corners, have a stone there on the lower right, and let the lights point into the last corner. This is the image right out of the camera. 1/30s at ISO 1000.
The Song of the Day is “Baby, Why not” from Marcia Ball’s 2003 album “So Many Rivers”.