Alaskan Range and fall colors
Sometimes I wonder if I will ever catch up on processing images. It seems lately I am jumping around between a lot of images from my “unprocessed” folders – from leaves, to Michigan landscapes, to bears, to Alaska scenics. Some of them many years old and nearly forgotten about. Here is another from Alaska. Given the dreary weather here in Michigan this weekend, it helped to be staring at a sunny day for awhile.
This image was captured using a Nikon D700 and Nikon 24-70 f2.8 AFS lens, processed in Adobe Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS3. More Alaska landscapes in my gallery.
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My blog will be participating in Earth Hour 2010. If you visit here from 8:30-9:30 PM EDT, March 27, things will be quite dark. Of course, I hope you are not on your computer to see it. :-) I encourage fellow WordPress users to do the same. It is quite easy to setup. From your admin panel, just go to the Plugins section, Add New, and search on Earth Hour. Piece of cake.
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“In nature’s infinite book of secrecy, A little I can read” – Shakespeare
Oak leaf in ice
I stumbled upon this quote recently. Not being all too familiar with Shakespeare other than titles of his works and basic story lines, I found that it is from Antony and Cleopatra. The context of this quote was in a conversation where a Soothsayer (ie. a person who is supposed to be able to see the future) states this, drawing comparisons between the mysteries and power of nature with those of the famed Cleopatra. Nature essentially limits the powers of the Soothsayer, as I imagine so does Cleopatra from my basic understanding of this passage.
When I contemplate all of the knowledge we have gathered about the natural world, it is mesmerizing to think about how truly little that is. Little in the context of our own planet, and infinitely more so in the context of the universe. Over time, nature seems to allow us to see a page or two at a time in a book with no ending, no final chapters, no dramatic conclusion.
I have to believe that nature does not want us to skip ahead chapters no matter how hungry or impatient we are for knowing more. Sometimes pages need to be read over and over, as if a passing test is needed to approve moving on to the next. Will the greater plot ever unfold?
In a smaller sense, I often feel this way myself when walking through the woods. What am I supposed to be appreciating in this spot before moving on to the next? Should I go back to the first sentence and begin again?
Would a glimpse into the future change our behaviors and patterns of today? How far would we need to see in order for that to happen? Is knowing what’s around the next bend of the trail helpful to understanding where we stand? Some consequences we already know and the Soothsayer can reveal little more. Many think that next bend could be a large cliff. More often than not, it seems we not only have to start the page over, but the entire chapter.
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Moving Mist : fog crosses a lake in early morning as the sun attempts to break through and reveal the details
This is always an interesting time of year. Flowers are not quite ready to bloom yet except for the very early daredevils. Winter isn’t sure if it wants to release its control. Michigan seems to go through a time of confusion, as if just starting to wake up from a 4 month sleep. Just this past weekend we had the last day of Winter that was 25 degrees warmer than the first day of Spring.
But with interesting weather, there is typically interesting light. This image was actually exposed in 2006 around this time of year, and I just recently reprocessed it. I was thinking about this waking up from a very long sleep where the details around you are not so clear. It takes awhile to get your bearings straight, to let the fog pass through and lift away.
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Larger than Life
It isn’t often that I blow up a macro shot to be 52 inches (1,321 mm) high, and a simple monarch butterfly becomes that much larger than life. In this case, a client requested this image as part of a larger layout scheme for a upcoming install at the St. John’s medical center in St. Louis.
In some ways, the subject becomes somewhat surreal since it is so much larger than you are exposed to in reality. This seems like a contrast to viewing a grand landscape print that always seems to pale in comparison to being there. It made me think about how there probably isn’t a kid in the world who hasn’t wanted to ride on the back of a butterfly.
As far as some details about this print, the exposure was actually some time ago, way back in 1997, so the original was from 35mm film (Velvia 50). Since I don’t have the capability to print this large myself, it needed to be outsourced. However the file I sent was fully preflighted (already sized and color adjusted). I will use Alien Skin Blow Up or just Bicubic Smoother in Photoshop to uprez the file. Both methods are pretty close in the final results, but sometimes one has a slight edge over the other on certain images. I don’t actually recall which I used for this print. I will then sharpen while viewed at 50% magnification until the image just looks “slightly crunchy.” Since this was film, grain tends to get in the way a little, even with Velvia, so I had to back off just slightly than I normally would with a digital capture. Grain is certainly visible up close, but quickly disappears at reasonable viewing distances for this large of a print.
Handling prints like this can be a pain. They are very fragile. One person shouldn’t lift them alone, and they should only be lifted by the opposite corners to avoid any kinks in the paper. I actually have to unroll and sign these on top of my jacuzzi tub – it is the only place large and flat enough to work on them.
Hopefully I will be able to post some final install shots in a couple of months.
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