I was recently on a trip to the gorgeous town of Sedona, Arizona, about 2 hours north of Phoenix. It's a wonderful town nestled amongst stunning red rock formations which has become a Mecca for the New Age movement. Sedona boasts beautiful scenery, a bevy of outdoor activities and wonderful attractions such as the Chapel of the Holy Cross and Tlaquepaque, a replica of a small Mexican town filled with boutiques, galleries and restaurants.
It is in Tlaquepaque that I find I can spend hours photographing architecture, cobblestone walkways, and statues. It's my dream location for an engagement session as it lends itself to beautiful light and all sorts of fun nooks and crannies for posing a couple or family. And amongst all those fun items to photograph, I found one little store displaying marine shells, sand dollars, and Mexican beads. Although the items didn't correlate to the desert terrain Sedona is known for, I found them interesting and noticed the fun patterns within the individual baskets of items. Here's a picture of these on display outside the store.
When coming upon this scene, I realized it would be fun to capture a photograph of these items out on display. There's an interesting old door behind the beads on the table, and the texture of the sandstone wall is very appealing to me. However what really struck my attention, was the repeating patterns of the items in each of the baskets, so I decided to photograph each basket individually.
Instead of taking a picture like this…
I decided to take a picture like this.
But I wasn't satisfied and wanted to take it one step further and fill the frame with the repeating pattern of the beads and shells to give the images more impact. Below are some examples of what I captured that day all within a few minutes and lent themselves to some interesting and fun images from my trip. So the next time you are out with your camera, take a moment and look for fun patterns and capture some creative images by filling the frame to tell a story.
