My last post wrote a little bit about how I find it difficult to photograph larger landscapes in the woods near my home. It is a complex environment that is hard to get in sync with. By “being in sync” I mean you are in a place where ideas and creativity seem to flow from one minute to the next. I also referred to it as being “in the zone.” It is hard to cover much physical area because from one step to the next you see another photograph waiting to happen. Subject seem to appear everywhere. I have noticed that some places do this for me, and others not so much.
Feature rich environments
I have begun to question whether it is the place being a feature rich environment that suits itself to so many different photographs, or is it my state of mind and mood at the time that allows me to take it in? I have been in places where I just seem to wander aimlessly, trying to conjure up an image. The light may be just right, I am feeling OK, but nothing flows. I may spend hours upon hours and either come home completely empty handed, or end up deleting everything I did shoot.
On the opposite end, I may arrive somewhere to photograph something specific, and end up making little progress on the intended subject because I end up seeing so many other images. For example, I went to a spot about an hour north of where I live known for red trillium. I visit it every year despite having many, many red trillium pictures. Yet every year I seem to return with a different view, different approach. It is worth going back because the flowers emerge in different spots, different clusters that allow for a lot of different compositions. They grow over such a large area, it is hard to cover it all. On top of that, you are usually working with a light-imposed time constraint. It is like a photographic currency – good light, wind, weather conditions, subjects, time, creativity – spend them wisely. As the light becomes more harsh, it is more difficult to work scenics or large groups of flowers. Same for wind and the other variables – each ultimately limiting the opportunities.
Maple and Pine
Although I started the morning photographing red trillium, as I worked the area, I seemed to find other subjects that fought for my attention. The entire area is a pretty rich environment – from dense hardwood areas to towering pine forest. A very steep hillside plunges downward towards the Black River. So I got lost in capturing that aspect with framing between two trees – a composition that I have become fond of. Soon after that, I found a wet maple leaf that was stuck to a piece of red pine bark. Soon after that I found another thing…
I think the red trilliums were whispering about feeling neglected. “Hey bub, exactly what did you come here for? To photograph that leaf? Is that what you are going to spend your currency on?” I think I may have even said it once or twice to myself. However, when you recognize that you are finding subjects and becoming in sync with the place you are in – you don’t want to disrupt the flow. I knew the trilliums were there – but I didn’t know about the leaf and bark, or the view between the trees. I believe those surprise finds keep your motivation and energy up. It helps fuel your creative momentum.
Red Trillium & Spring Beauty
I did eventually return to the trillium. By then, the light was intermittently harsh and the wind picked up quite a bit. I had spent my photographic currency on other subjects. I still felt the momentum however, and was willing to wait it out for the clouds to roll in, the wind to die down – and I still paid homage to what I came for. It was like showing up to a casino for blackjack – diverting yourself to a poker table, winning big, and then return to blackjack with a bigger pot to draw from. Being in sync may have added photographic currency to my wallet.
I ended up coming home with not only red trillium images unique to what I already had, but many more that serve as reminders of being further connected to this place. It felt good to be in sync – and I think I am a little richer for it.
Read MoreHappy First Day of Spring folks – at least for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere.
Red Trillium in bark
This is one of the wildflower prints that is hanging at Henry Ford West Bloomfield hospital. I originally had this as a horizontal in my gallery (rotated clockwise from here), but the designers asked for it in a vertical. It doesn’t happen for me very often that an image works equally as well in both orientations – but once I printed it as a vertical – it really grew on me that way.
This image is representative of my “symbiotic compositions” series I am accumulating as a theme. My original post about it is here. I particularly liked how the cut outs in the bark resembled petals or leaves – almost as if they were part of the flower itself.
Let’s hope the energy of spring continues to fill the air – this winter has been one to say good riddance to!
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Rock pillars
As Paul Burwell writes about in a recent post on things annoying to a wildlife photographer – weddings can be much scarier to photograph than some of the largest predators around. I happen to agree with him. 
But wedding and portrait photographers certainly have an arsenal of processing tips and tricks to provide some unique images for their clients that we don’t need to be afraid of. Just because a series of processing steps were designed for a wedding portraiture, it doesn’t mean they cannot be helpful for processing photographs of different subject matter.
Such is the case recently when I downloaded a Lightroom preset called “Alice’s Less Bright Dress” from Presets Heaven. I applied this preset to some landscape images from Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, and really liked the initial tonality the settings created. Quite often the preset defaults don’t get you to the end result right away – but they at least point you in a direction. A direction in which you might not have
Mineral stains
considered before. For these couple of images, I started with the ALBD preset in Lightroom – then in Photoshop applied some luminosity masks, and did some small tweaks in a selective color adjustment layer. The final images have a bit of a different look to them that I thought looked nice.
Not so scary afterall. A reminder to myself that the huge bucket of photography tools, whether it is a lens, composition strategy, or processing techniques have broad reaching applications beyond their original intention.
EDIT: A before / after shot of the first image is below per request. …
Before only using LR adjustments / After with LR Preset + PS Adjustments
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 MoreSpring wildflowers are popping up everywhere in Southeast Michigan finally. . With all the snow we had this winter, hopefully it will be a great year. . Through the rest of the season, I will be posting new images in my wildflower photography gallery. . Latest editions include Hepatica and Bloodroot.
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