If the title of today’s post makes you suspicious that more of that corner stuff may come your way, you’re absolutely right. If there is anything that this fisheye lens is great in, then it’s looking around corners. 
Basically we have two approaches here. In the first image the surroundings seemingly wrap around the street crossing. The place almost becomes a room.
For the second one, the Image of the Day, I actually stood nearer to the corner, keeping the other buildings out of sight, keeping them from wrapping the place. The result looks wider. Now repeat: to get something that looks wider, you have to go nearer. There may be logic to the fisheye, but it certainly is weird.
One more thing: You may remember “594 - Warning: Junk Ahead”, the somewhat crappy first approach to all things fishy. Well, I finally think that this one, a variation taken this morning, is not junk any more. But what’s more important: whereas Thursday’s image took me half an hour of attempts and still was junk, this one was shot in less than a minute, and it only took me so long, because I needed three versions until I finally got my feet out of the image 🙂
Photographing with this lens is fun again.
The Song of the Day is the old Blues standard “Meet Me Around The Corner” by Big Joe Williams. I have it on disc 46 of “The Ultimate Jazz Archive”. Sorry, no lyrics and certainly no video, but here is a sound sample.
There are 4 comments
Anonymous (2008-06-04)
also das Teil würde sich auch sehr gut an der Wand meiner zukünftigen Bleibe machen! 🙂 Bei welchem Preis sind wir inzwischen? ;-)
lg
Michael
Ted (2008-06-05)
Wide angle is the way I see the world. While I'm considering buying a telephoto for some portrait work, the wide view forces the peripheral into the, um, er.... ipheral? And the things which we are largely aware of only subconsciously become all part of a single idea. And the fish eye packages it into the mystical shape it deserves.
You are flowing so effortlessly into this sort of blending, and it's wonderful to share the exploration. Along with the commentators upon your original staircase posting... I agree that the melding of a spiral staircase with the wonderful implied spiraling of a fish eye was brilliant. And this exercise in wandering around corners with your lens is also gripping.
Too many photographers become intimidated by a fish eye cranking out mere distortions on the one hand or frustration images on the other. I really like how you are coming at is just one more tool to color your voice.
andreas (2008-06-05)
Thanks. Actually I'm working really hard on it. It was frustrating for the first three days (a tool that completely voids all your compositional strategies), but now it gets workable and fun again.
As I said, this "Corners" thing will eventually grow into a series of images, and what I am really after here, is to reveal, not to primarily distort. In fact this worked quite well with this Image of the Day, although I am not satisfied with the composition.
Anyway. It's really a beast of a walk-around lens, and I'll keep taming it and letting it run my way 🙂
pnfphotography (2008-06-04)
MANNN your eye is amazing WOW this is SHARP
💬 Reply 💬