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Jay Maisel is a really interesting guy and a great photographer so you’ve made a really excellent choice here. Jay Maisel is a generalist in photography and you can learn a great deal from his works.
Check out this video about him:
Here are a couple more videos:
Jay is absolutely right about the notion of light gesture and color. However being able to get to the point where you can photograph all three well takes a great deal of practice and time.
And this is the exact idea behind this lesson, to set you on the path of being inspired to continue going with your photography as long as possible.
Jay’s raindrops photo is a typical example of the idea that there is literally always a way to make something appear more interesting that it actually is using photography. And sometimes it’s a bit counterintuitive. In this case the rain is more interesting than anything else going on here.
In the clock photograph there are several frames within a frame. This is a very handy tool to keep in your belt and a great way to augment your photographs. Always be on the lookout for frames you can use inside the frame of your image. What’s more, they don’t have to be rectangular or the same shape as your camera’s aspect ratio as is the case here.
In the sky image you can see an example of minimalism and elegant simplicity. Again this is another tool to keep on your photo toolset if you will. If the interesting element is the sky shoot the sky and add a little plane and remove everything else. As you said, you don’t even need to see the sun or anything else to know what is going on.
Natural light also happens to be my preferred method of shooting as well.
In fact as you have seen in the videos I’ve listed here this is how Jay Maisel prefers to see the world as well. He likes to keep things honest and showcase them as they are. To be fair though there is a time and a place for strobes/speedlites/artificial light but it’s not my thing either.
An interesting side note about Jay Maisel is that he once bought a building for very little money decades ago and recently sold it for 10s of millions recently. Amazing! Here is a video of the amazing building.
Also I would recommend you purchase some of his books and study his works.
Overall you’ve done a fine job here and I hope you continue to explore the other masters of photography and keep inspired.
See you on the next assignment!