Posts that make you think always stand out, and a couple recently did that for me in spades – the original over at see the details, and a followup one done by Paul Lester. Both related to discussion about what people do with all the images they make and questions about quantity, reflection upon old images, what we do with them, and the feedback loop we generate to perhaps alter our vision for the next time we make an image. All thought provoking questions worthy of discussion on either of those blogs.
But one aspect of it got me thinking about this “space” these old images sit in – waiting for someone to do something with them. Whether they sit on your hard drive, in your closet, or in a file cabinet – I think most photographers would agree that they have shot, and certainly kept more photographs than anyone has ever seen except for themselves. We all have our qualification process, our editing rituals, our purposes for rescuing these images from what I think of as a photographic purgatory.
Desert Primrose
Maybe not all of them are worthy, but I would be willing to lay money that some have simply fallen out of sight, out of mind simply because most of us have too much to do already. Looking back through our libraries sometimes reveals gems long forgotten, images of times past, or simply beneficial for a trip down memory lane. I shot this image of Desert Primrose back on April 24, 2004 – it was a slight variation of one I already have in my gallery – but I never bothered to go back on post the slightly different composition. That happens with a lot of my work – I shoot a variety of compositions, end up processing only one or two of them for the site, and leave the others sit for who knows how long. So it is really nothing special other than I came across it,felt like processing it, and thought about the posts linked above how many images just sit around doing nothing. I suppose in some ways this image is symbolic in that these flowers, vibrant and alive, are sandwiched in between pieces of wood that couldn’t look more dead. Their blooms symbolic of my rescue of the image.
With that idea – I thought of a series called “Rescued from Picture Purgatory” that I invite the blogging community to participate in. Take a look back through your images and rescue one that may have never been seen if I didn’t prod you with this challenge. It doesn’t need to have any significance to it other than it was rescued from that cold, dark place. It doesn’t even have to be what you consider a good image. Maybe it is jaw-dropping excellent, terrible, funny, or just plain creepy. All that matters is that you rescued it and broke the stigma of only being seen by your eyes. Maybe write a little about how you came across it, and why you posted it.
Who knows, maybe this will be fun. If you include a link back to this post, I think they should show up as trackbacks in the comments and a little community rescue project can be born. Those poor, lonely images – long forgotten – they need someone’s attention. I’ll do some looking myself, and perhaps update this post with a few more.
Read MoreMy first outing for 2009 to photograph was a quick jump into my local woods to look for ice patterns. These woods are quite good for ice because nearly all of it floods quite regularly from the Clinton River. Given crazy Michigan weather, it dumped a good 12 inches of snow on us, had freezing temperatures, and then decided to jump to 55 deg F – hence, plenty of flooding – then back below freezing again – so plenty of ice. But I wasn’t looking for just plain ice, I wanted ice patterns created by flowing water as I have always thought those were the most interesting for abstracts.
Ice Abstract
So I found a few spots where overflows and small streams were, and found the patterns I was looking for. I also knew I didn’t want these images to just look like pictures of ice. I was interested in the patterns, lines, curves, cavities, and rhythms. It really didn’t matter if it was ice at all – it could have been sand or Jello – anything that would create the graphical abstracts I was after. So in my post-processing in Lightroom, I played a bit with saturation levels, black points and contrast to come up with the look I was after. Just enough visual separation from the subject of ice to create focus on the patterns. Yet, the images are still of ice. I applied this to all of my favorite shots from the day to create a thematic look. I actually ended up quite pleased with how they look. After reviewing them as a group, they actually looked a bit haunting.
Since everything was being done in Lightroom, it was a snap to create a small web gallery of my first haunted ice shoot of 2009 – you can see that here: Ice Patterns Jan 2009
Using LiveView
I was a little bit skeptical of how much I would use Live View when I eventually got a camera that had it. (where you can use the LCD on the back of the camera to see what the lens sees – like many P&S cameras) After so many years of getting a very isolated view through a SLR viewfinder, it just didn’t feel natural. Well, it came in very handy for this type of work on edges of streams. Some of the patterns were near the middle of a small stream, or close to a fragile edge. Step too close, and the entire sheet of ice is ruined. The photo here is an example of a precarious setup where I could keep my distance from stepping on the fragile ice, and still compose using the back of the camera. I couldn’t have made some of these images without it. You can see the sun was casting some shadows, so a diffuser helped eliminate that. This particular setup was for making the image with the leaf in it that was frozen to the ice. It also gives you a good idea of the environment where these types of patterns can be found.
Since I have now accumulated quite a few Ice Abstracts over the years, I also created a special section for them in my gallery.
Ice Pattern
So, what about 2008? I wrote previously about some of my favorite images of 2007 here if you want to check that out. The fact is, 2008 was actually a pretty slow image production year for me, yet I embarked on quite a few new pursuits of subject matter. Still, even though quanitity isn’t that much of an issue for me, time in the field photographing, and thinking about compositions and ideas is always time well spent. On the business end, I was much more busy, did a lot of behind the scenes website work, sold more prints than ever, did OK at Alamy, and established a pretty good ranking in search engines for some of my target keywords, others not so much. I think if you ask anyone about the business side of photogaphy, the two are sometimes naturally polar opposites. More business stuff (paperwork, marketing, filling orders, submissions, etc) = less shooting time. That is not really meant to be a complaint, or any tooting of any horns, just a simple fact of trying to balance the time of all this with everything else in life.
Last year held a number of changes for me in the gear end of things – a switch to Mac (wow, what a rush!), a full frame DSLR (incredible low light performance), and some new lenses to play around with. I became increasingly unsatisfied with literal interpretations of some subjects, leading to more play with my Lensbabies, expanding vision in post capture such as texturing, monochrome wildlife, and was inspired by stone. And of course, play = fun = creative growth – no matter how it turns out. Sometimes you embrace failures. So probably no suprise on where the time has gone. So as I did for 2007, I’ll replay a few of my favorites from 2008 – if I can even come up with 10 images or so. (just kidding! I did shoot more than 10 images. 
) In no particular order…
Inspired by Stone
Inspired by stone, exploring these macro landscapes and bizarre abstracts in features that are millions of years old. This was one of my first, and still one of my favorites – later reshot with a D700 and reprocessed in Lightroom from the original. All are shot wet to bring out the colors, and used cross-polarized lighting to eliminate glare and reflections.
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Mono Pecker
Going monochrome with birds – especially with those that already have strong tonal patterns that compliment the processing can yield some nice results. I am cheating a little because this photograph wasn’t captured in 2008, but was post processed in 2008. I have really come to love the develop presets in Lightroom. Although similar results can be obtained in Photoshop or other programs and plugins, not many match the simplicity of mousing over a list of Develop Preset previews in Lightroom just to spark an idea. It offers the ability to explore post processing options as a launch pad for you to continue on with the idea. Woodpeckers are some of my favorite birds, and well suited to going monochrome – although I left a tinge of red on the head. I particularly liked this composition because of the dynamic angles and you can almost sense action of the woodpecker to the hole with the way they are lined up.
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Framed by Leaves
Bloodroot from Spring 2008 – it can be difficult to come up with something new after you have photographed the same flower year after year. So this one framed in a leaf pocket had a particular appeal to me. The leaves simplified the messy forest floor clutter, and created a nice frame around the petals. It is a composition I will try to work with again this year.
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Ideas to Images
I started a series of posts about “ideas to images” that never made it past the initial one – go figure. Guess I’ll have to work on that eh? Someone please use a Jedi mind trick on me to tell me to focus! Anyway, as mentioned in the post, I always wanted to photograph horsetails, and previsualized this being the type of image I wanted to create. Very strong graphically. Again, a bit more playing around with the controls in Lightroom put this image in its final state before ever reaching Photoshop.
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Lensbaby & trees
This image was shot with a Lensbaby Composer – probably the best version of the Lensbaby to date. Much easier to use, with all the flexibility of the previous generations. I think the hard thing to accomplish with the Lensbaby is separating the creative uses of it from being too gimmicky. Since this is my photograph, I will refrain from calling it gimmicky looking. Call me biased. I still like it anyway.
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Sahara desert rocks
Sahara Jasper – another from my “stone windows” series, and one rock in particular I became fascinated with. It is mined from some secret location in the Sahara desert and only sold by a few dealers that I am aware of. Some pieces much more interesting than others. I got the story from the rockhounds that found this stuff – quite interesting. An old buried creek bed 25 miles from the nearest road, found by accident – and these folks are digging anywhere from 5 feet to 15 feet down by hand in up to 140 deg F temps with the help of Sudanese laborers. Pretty wild stuff! On the outside it looks like – well – a rock. But crack them open and you are quite surprised at what they look like on the inside. I particularly like the ones that have dendrites formed like little trees. And since this stone is believed to be formed from an ancient oasis, I found it particularly symbolic. Anyway, I have gained some insight into the world of rockhounds, some geology lessons, and some pretty interesting new images.
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Simplifiers
Shot New Years Day 2008 – this image made me think about how weather and light can greatly contribute to the simplification of normally very messy environments. That simplification can lead to better photographic opportunities – stronger graphical compositions. In this case, the fresh blanket of white snow eliminated a lot of the other distractions that are normally cluttering the woods around my house. It is similar to how morning or evening light can eliminate the harshness or visual complexity of any scene.
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Whenever I am out, I still enjoy shaking the trees – part of just trying to let go of preconceptions and judgements of how I am
Shaking the trees
“supposed to do things.” Call it a anti-vibration-reduction-gizmo movement. I will admit, most of the time I get junk. However, every once in awhile a particular image catches your attention and captivates you. This is one I liked from Fall 2008. Certainly they won’t appeal to everyone – but when is that supposed to stop you?
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Pictured Rocks
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore from August 2008… What I remember most about this image is the foreground rock on the right side that I spotted from our boat. I thought – “what a cool rock!” I knew I wanted that as part of an image. Beaching the pontoon boat along this rocky shore was a little tricky, but all went OK. I had to wade a bit into Lake Superior to get the angle I wanted. Sheesh, what some people do for a picture of a rock.
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Swamp Oil
A leaf in swamp oil – plant oils – bacterial film – whatever you want to call it – it can make for some interesting patterns and colors. I wrote about this stuff in some previous posts. It helps to have a long focal length macro lens (150-200 mm) for this stuff because you have to get to the very edge of ponds that have some of these natural oils. Step into the pond, and you disrupt the film – so that doesn’t work.
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So there you have it, my 10 selections for 2008. I hope you enjoyed the look back. It is reflection on images of our past that can help guide what we see in the future. Certainly all of these shots have had some influence on me as I approach new images, new subjects, and new ideas. If I missed something in particular that you enjoyed from last year, please point it out. (archives in sidebar) Best wishes in all your creative adventures in 2009. Thank you for visiting.
Read MoreI know, I know, I am a bad, bad blogger – I have not posted here in a couple of weeks – and I know that is an eternity in the blogosphere. A story on NPR today about blogs made me feel even more guilty! So my apologies. The past couple of weeks have hit me with a bout of writers block, a chronic backache that keeps creeping up on me and is quite disabling, the holidays of course, rushing a few orders out before Christmas, getting sick for few days, a power outage, having to buy a generator to keep my basement from flooding, and my nervous upgrade to WordPress 2.7! And yes, I do like a little cheese with my whine. So forgive me while I ramble a bit to get back in sync!
Screen shot WordPress 2.7
So I am typing here in the new upgraded WordPress, which looks pretty darn slick from behind the scenes. I have yet to uncover all the new improvements they have made, but the interface certainly has a lot of polish on it. From what you are seeing, not much has changed, but for a person running the blog, a lot of welcome changes. For those using WordPress that want to upgrade – be warned, before I hit my “Update WordPress Automatically” plugin button that I wrote about before, I read many comments who had problems with in it moving to 2.7. So as helpful as it has been to date, DON’T USE IT for upgrading to 2.7! I did it the old fashioned manual way, which certainly takes a bit more time and manuevering – not too hard. A few things went wrong, like getting a lot of strange characters throughout all my posts. It took awhile to clean them up using a Search and Replace plugin. Some slight CSS tweaks might be needed to update my theme to some new 2.7 codes. But the nice part of 2.7 – automatic upgrades are now built into the code, so no need for the plugin or updating manually anymore. Wooohooo! Kudos to the WordPress folks for making such a slick interface.
On to other notes; if some of you didn’t catch it, Animal Planet just finished their season of Whale Wars. It is an inside look at the activities of Sea Shepherd in the Southern Ocean against Japanese Whaling fleets at the start of 2008. Although I have followed Sea Shepherd’s activities for some time now, I found the series fascinating on many levels. I think the series has been successful in shining more light on the realities of taking species protection to this level. In many ways I am glad it is reaching many more people now, whether they are for or against these activities – maybe it will get more attention and resolution. Animal Planet made a decent effort at trying to present information from both sides. I found some of Capt. Watson’s comments a bit over the top, but in principle support what they do. If you didn’t see it, you can get a feel for the show through some of the video clips on the site. I also just recently learned fellow underwater photographer Eric Cheng is on their latest campaign. I am looking forward to reading about his experience.
So if that isn’t a strange combination of paragraphs, I don’t know what is. I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday, and thank you again for your continued visits to this blog. As the NPR story referred to above points out, there are about 50,000 new blogs created every day. That’s a pretty amazing number. There are many, many photography related ones. And to have the new visitors, and particularly those of you who keep coming back and take time to leave comments – I appreciate it more than you can imagine. It is tough to keep things fresh and interesting. Sometimes I have an idea of what to write about, and have to search my archives if I have already written about it before. So thanks again, and again! So I am now on to creating a reflection on 2008 post and to kick the tires of this new WordPress version a bit.
Best wishes,
Mark
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