Black and white photo of a cluster of Coast Redwood Trees in California. In this photograph I wanted to emphasize the rough texture and strength of the bark of the trees. This cluster of trees seemed like an imperious wall.
With a bark so thick (30 cm!), and being largely impervious to disease, it should be no wonder why Redwood trees achieve their enormous heights and size. However, what they rely upon most is their environment, which is why they are limited to a few regions in California. I think there are many lessons to be learned from our great Redwood trees. No matter how strong, no matter how large of a living being you are, take away the environment on which you rely upon, and you will perish.
This seems like a rather obvious point when it comes to our environment and nature. What about when we apply similar philosophies to art and creativity? I am sure we have all heard it one time or another, in art, and particularly in critique, it pays to have a thick skin. Of course, when pursuing any area of art, there are nutrients, and there are pests. It doesn’t help to have a skin so thick that you don’t let nutrients in. At the same time, you have to be extremely wary of pest invasions. (more…)
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From the Drip Period or the Jurassic Period? Abstract rock photo by Mark Graf
I am quite backlogged on my Inspired by Stone project. I have been collecting various pieces of stone over the years such that my office is beginning to resemble a small rock quarry. The problem is, I have been collecting them faster than I have been able to photograph them all.
This is a rather large piece of Cherry Creek jasper. When I say large, I mean about 4 inches by 3 inches or so. The characteristics that attracted me to this piece were that it resembled some abstract expressionism work by painter Jackson Pollock. Pollock became more well known when his abstract paintings were published in Life magazine in 1949. His paintings were created not by brushes, but by dripping paint onto a canvas on the floor. It was declared quite an original approach at the time. The cracks, splotches, and lines in this piece of stone reminded me of those very drips.
I am sure people would contemplate what he saw in his mind, why he created this line vs. that splotch in that spot. I wonder similar things. What was going on in the Earth when this line was formed, or that black spot? What made this red flow next to this yellow?
These drips and splotches were formed well before anyone ever heard of Jackson Pollock, or perhaps even human beings or art. I highly doubt Pollock was inspired by slices of stone, but I find it quite interesting how there can be such a close resemblance. (more…)
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Textured Tulip from my yard
I spent some time photographing this morning pretty close to home, about as close as I can get actually – our front yard. My wife Lisa has done an amazing job with flowers around our house, and I often take advantage of having a lot of great subjects around. Today I photographed one of our tulips that has not opened yet. I was immediately drawn towards the tear drop shape formed by the petals, and knew I wanted this to be a focal point in the photograph.
Identifying what you are drawn to up front can help a lot when you are forming your composition, and also focus your post-processing. It helps guide your entire decision making process on how to approach your subject, and how to ultimately represent it.
The color of the tulip was pretty vibrant pink, an overpowering pink actually. Color can quickly become a rock concert when you are only after a light ballad. The color quickly became a dominant feature of the photograph, giving less emphasis to the small shape I was attracted to. That color needed to be tamed!
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“Art is never finished, only abandoned.” - Leonardo da Vinci
Perhaps you have read this quote before, I certainly have. It is one of those quotes that states so much more than the simple words that it is composed of. I don’t think about the literal aspects of this much, but in practice, it is something we all do with every image, every time in the field and afterwards. I was recently reminded of it in reading Guy Tal’s new ebook on Creative Processing Techniques.
Abandoned resort in Bonaire
With photography, the process of abandonment can be brought about by a number of influences and has a number of different stages. When you think about it, it can happen during capture, during editing, during post processing, or even in the act of storage. Each one of those stages brings about different reasons why abandonment might happen at that particular point. A photograph is faced with a lot of different obstacles to overcome before reaching its way out to the world, or not at all.
This process of nurturing a photograph along came to mind for me upon thinking about this quote again. It can be like what I described in my last post where you are trying to find suitable subjects to fit into a puzzle. The process of searching in the field is much like nurturing it to become something more tangible. We make conscious decisions to work a subject further, or to move on to something new. Abandonment in the field may be a creative choice, or one plagued by outside circumstances like time, opportunity, or state of mind.
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Finally spring wildflowers are kicking into gear around here. Yesterday I ventured out with an idea in my head of doing something a bit different this year. It seems as if I go through this every year, wanting to create something a bit different than last season on the same flowers. I suppose I use it to push myself creatively and to not get in a rut of photographing things the same way over and over. Sometimes I go through this type of process where I have a very basic idea, and then it seems like a treasure hunt in attempt to find a subject that fits the idea like a missing piece of a puzzle.
Lone Bloodroot and sunlight
Well, this year the idea came before actually applying it to a subject. I have been learning slowly what works and what doesn’t using my 24mm f1.4 lens wide open. I simply love this lens. Using f1.4 seems to work well if you have a fairly isolated subject in the context of its larger environment. That seems rather common sense I suppose – isolate your subject. I found it harder to accomplish in practice because at 24 mm you are taking in a lot of environment. For wildflowers, you typically get around this by using longer focal length lenses and actually looking for backgrounds that are far away from the flower. You make a tight portrait of a flower, or just use a wide angle and a lot of depth of field for flowers in a landscape. My idea was going in the opposite direction of both of those things.
Once I had a subject, I wanted to then use some textures in post to accent the out of focus background. Now I just needed a subject that worked into this basic concept. It didn’t really matter what it was, but it had to work into that basic framework.
I encountered quite a few lone flowers, but they just had too many other objects around them that would compete in the scene. It might be a dominant tree that is too close, other surrounding flowers or other plants, or distracting angular lines in the background – all were working against the idea I had.
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