Continuing my yearly tradition now since 2007, below are my top 10 favorite images made during 2010. Looking back at what was explored and experienced helps not only draw a map of where I have been, but gives directions to the roads ahead. It is a long post, but these end of year ones usually are. This year I feel particularly “chatty.” :-) I hope you enjoy the comments about the images.
2010 Collection
Many famous photographers are fond of the saying about how the camera and lens tend to look both ways. For someone trying to express themselves through the medium of photography, certainly aspects of their own personality and personal vision should come through in their images. I feel at home in these places versus in a crowded street or a concrete jungle. For all of the other important things that our lives become entangled in, there are many things overlooked that are important also. Some things may not be recognized to a particular individual as being significant, but in the grand makeup of nature – these little observations are segments of life cycles going on all around us.
These images not only represent personal growth in vision, but often moments of chance, inspiration, and visualization that have never existed in previous years, and may never again. Many times I have made some of these photographs, and decided “Hey, I’d like to do more of this.” Well, more often than not, the same situation just didn’t present itself again.
Read MoreHi Folks,
Yes, you are at the correct site! I have done some major renovations to my blog as you can see. I had my old theme for many years, and started to tire of it. So for the new year, I wanted some significant change.
Earlier this year I redid the rest of my website, and now the blog. As I indicated in earlier post, I have been hunting for themes for a good 6 months. Along the way, I bookmarked some candidates and finally made a decision. I chose this theme not just for the stylin’ format (which I really love anyway) for the blog, but there are many features within that I have ideas for on other areas of my site.
As part of my earlier site redesign, I added a section called “Collections.” Well, I haven’t been very good at adding more of them, because my original design of this section is a bit cumbersome to update. So this new theme has a fairly powerful gallery generator, and I will likely start adding more collections to be under the power of WordPress.
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Winter Red Pines
Some of the photographs I have always admired are clusters of trees that appear to be in harmony with each other. Forests in general are quite chaotic environments – and to find a composition of a group of trees that just seem to radiate some type of natural order to them is quite challenging for me. It is a type of photograph I have attempted many times. Typically in reflection upon them during editing – they end up in the trashcan.
I have tried to pinpoint what it is that I like about these images and how I can incorporate those likes into compositional adjustments in the field. Identifying those key characteristics isn’t always obvious. Fundamentally I think it is in breaking down a rather complex scene into simple graphical elements. This learning by dissection can help anyone in moving their photography in a direction they desire.
So I have formulated some of these key elements that are appealing to me, and tried to bring some of them together in this image.
- Avoid strong intersecting lines. They seem to create too much tension. Generally it seems small branches are OK, but large trunks, not. I ended up with a few here, but I think they are fairly subtle. This is one of the main issues in the woods around my house that I struggle with. There are fallen trees and strong lines going every which way.
- Soft light. Of course the light needs to be generally soft without significant bright spots or dark areas that will create excessive areas of contrast. Of course, this applies to most landscape photographs. I toned down one of the trunks in this image because it seemed significantly brighter than the others.
- Avoid non-essential elements. In this case, I didn’t find the area at the base of the trees to contribute much to the overall image. It would have also added more distractions to deal with.
- Simplicity. For as much that is going on in a “forest scene” – I like most when despite all of that, the image is still quite simple in its communication, with subtle details to create interest. This image was made in winter time, so there is some snow on the branches to establish the season. I hoped for a bit more snow, but I’ll take what is there for now.
I probably didn’t accomplish all of these things with complete satisfaction in this shot, but it is close. I think the most anyone can gain from such analysis is you end up teaching yourself a lot about what it is that you like, and how to adjust for it in the field.
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Heart of the Stone
Things have been busy around the “corporate offices” (ahem!) of Graf Photography, with the unfortunate casualty of keeping the blog going. I had to lay off my writing staff to replace them with printing and imaging technicians to keep up with the recent order rush. My accounting department has been busily processing print orders that have been just constant over the past 2 months.
Art sales over the internet is still alive and well. In parallel, my IT department has been scouring the web to find a fitting new blog template as I am growing tired of this one. They submitted some proposals for my review, but the search remains ongoing.
I am thinking of adding some field helpers to the staff. I haven’t been out much since the weather turned cold – freezing in fact. I have to keep an eye on all the activity around here. Some of staff can be quite high maintenance, requiring too much management oversight. But I was thinking about how much more motivated I may be with some helpers lugging gear for me, catering hot beverages and the occasional hot sandwich. I’ll have to hold a few staff meetings on this.
So when the employees have gone home for the night, and things settle down – I get to work on a few images. :-) The recent one in this post I titled “Heart of the stone”.
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