How less can be more…

 

Sometimes as photographers, we are caught up in the pixel race… the charge to fill every available micro-pixel with information so our pictures have that WOW effect, as if maximizing pixel data somehow relates to photographic  quality. But creatively speaking… sometimes less is more. In this shot, taken at the Pacific Coast near Malibu, I took a break from shooting the gorgeous rocky blue coastline to turn and see the sun just peaking over the hillside before sunset. Ordinarily, shooting directly into the sun is a no-no…. with crazy lens flare and volatile metering making a quality exposure near impossible. However,  in previsualizing this shot, I realized it  had the makings of a nice silhouette. I snapped off a few frames, and later, with a bit of post processing, was rewarded with this final shot. Am bothered by the vast amount of negative space? Not really… in fact, all the black just help train the eye straight up to the top of the peak, where the bright rays shooting through the trees capture that fleeting penultimate moment, just before the sun disappears for the day. Hope you enjoy…

Winter’s WOW factor…

 

Autumn seems to be all about color. Once those green tones of summer begin to evolve into shades of orange, red, rust, and yellow, photographers (me included) leap to our feet, run about madly and try to soak up the color like a sponge–often shooting hue, instead of true composition. You can’t help it, and I am as guilty as the rest. But then December kicks in, and those remaining leaves are dull brown, the skies often turn blustery or gray, and we are left wondering where it all went.

Luckily, the onset of winter brings another dazzling subject–those dusky winter skies. I am no meteorologist, but I assume the tilt of the earth’s axis as we enter the winter solstice gives the sun’s rays that searing ability to blaze through the clouds and offer some of the most gorgeous, breathtaking sunsets of the year. No matter what the scientific reason, I am literally gasping for breath every time a scene like the one above explodes on the landscape, making even an ordinary setting like my backyard look like a scene-stealing broadway star. Now, that’s WOW factor! Hope you enjoy…

Days all aglow…

 

Scrumptious color, everywhere I look these past weeks. We’ve had a particularly long, beautiful run of color this autumn in Middle Tennessee, which has drawn me outside, camera in hand, like a bee to honey. It’s truly irresistible. I love it when a tree like this maple is bursting with warm reds and golds, which creates a canopy of brilliant warm tones below. Even the trunk is glowing. As I was standing underneath, shooting upward, leaf after leaf dropped down around me, reminding me that these days are fleeting. Time to savor, appreciate, and shoot. Hope you enjoy…

Cafe Noir…

 

Been away a while… traveling, catching up with family, caught up with work commitments. But like a siren song, my passion always brings me back here.  And a week ago, my passion led me to participate in the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk–a great experience that led to new friends and more importantly, forced me to challenge myself in new ways by “shooting on my feet” so to speak.  The idea is to walk around your designated city for two hours and shoot what you see. Sounds easy… but the challenge is finding really interesting compositions right in your own backyard. As it turns out, I found quite a few, once I began to look beyond the obvious, and really look with my photographer’s eye. This was one of my favorites… found while spying through a local cafe from the open door in the alleyway. To me, it evokes a scene straight out of an old film noir…. the lonely patron, the darkened corners, the sense of waiting… feels like Cary Grant might stroll in, any moment. Hope you enjoy…

 

Peace in the valley…

 

There is a Canadian photographer whose posts I read religiously. He is not a name that people will know by the best-selling books he’s authored, or the classes he teaches, or by the covers of Nat Geo he’s  graced. But there is a soulfulness to his work and a sense of inner poetry that draws me in every time one of his posts hits my inbox. In this day and age, with hundreds of emails, tweets, posts, etc that bombard me every day, the fact that his work makes me stop what I am doing and thoughtfully enjoy it for 5- 10 minutes, really says something. In fact, if I could do that for anyone else, with either my words or photography, that would be a rare honor, indeed. The reason I am mentioning this is because one of the tenets of this photographers’ work is to learn to find art and beauty around you, wherever you are… rather than feeling like you have to travel somewhere far away — to the “beautiful places.” I agree 100%–there is artful, miraculous beauty all around us.

Case in point. I went out last Friday night to shoot a dazzling sunset. It was a crisp early fall evening, clear, but with just enough clouds that I was hopeful they would make a dramatic evening sky composition. I had scouted several areas earlier that day and had settled on one overlook spot I felt had potential. So I got there at the proverbial hour, set up the tripod and shot, shot, shot. I captured some OK scenes, but all in all, nothing spectacular. Just when I thought perhaps I had exhausted my possibilities, I decided to walk just a little further, look beyond another patch of trees, and try one more lookout point. Lo and behold… I realized I had “the shot” in front of me. The light gleaming off this spire, as an anchor to the dazzling fire sky truly made the image work.

Later, once I began editing my collection from the evening, I realized that this was indeed the shot I had been after when I had set out. It’s a wonderful feeling, to look at an image and feel as if you’ve been given a gift. No one else has to love it… I don’t necessarily shoot for “likes” and “thumbs up” — this is just for me, and that passion–combined with execution–makes me feel like a real photographer. Peace, in the valley, indeed. Hope you enjoy…

Nature at her best…

 

I was recently perusing some of the photographs I tool while on a walk through Muir Woods last year, and just the sight of those giant, lumbering trunks, the shafts of sunlight pushing their way through the thick foliage to offer twinkling beams in between the branches, made me wish I could close my eyes and teleport back there for just one more look. I was there on a family trip and it was a relatively quick walk through the forest, but certainly enough time to drink it in, and take a few shots I am thankful for. Interestingly, while the shots of the towering giants are probably the ones that capture the most iconic memories, the one above perhaps captures the essence of Muir best for me. While the striking Sequoia may be the stars, the rest of the forest was to me, equally delightful. The lush ferns, thick with morning dew and spiderwebs, the sprouting young Sequoia, pushing through the undergrowth to begin a life that will surely last longer than several generations of my own, and the fuzzy moss that provides a moist blanket on every living surface–these also resonate in my mind, and refresh my soul like a long, cool drink. Hope you also enjoy…

Prickly subject…

 

This is a second take on the subject that appeared in my last post. I liked the monochrome treatment as I felt the stark contrast worked well with catching the light on the prickles. But here, the warmth of the scene gives an entirely different feel. You can truly close you eyes and imagine being bathed in that morning desert light. The subject however, is not any more inviting! Ouch! Hope you enjoy…

Green symmetry and sunlight…

 

I recently completed a WordPress survey that asked the question: Do you ever have trouble coming up with something to write about. I answered truthfully, “never.” Maybe that is because I don’t put any pressure on myself to post daily, or on any regimented schedule, so I write when the spirit moves. But I think it has more to do with the fact that when I view the images I’ve created, the words simply flow. That to me is the heart of photography–not simply looking at a pretty picture–but the fact that the image “says” something to me.  I never fail to be inspired for a post, because I am communicating here the feelings and thoughts I had when I originally composed the shot. Sometimes with time, I even see more than I thought was there, which makes it doubly interesting to write about. But no matter what, there is always a message–an inspiration–in every photograph I post.

This photo was taken in Seagrove Beach this summer. An ordinary palm branch, right outside the condo where we stayed. I was struck each morning, by the beauty and symmetry of the leaves as they spread out from the center, and the gorgeous golden light that illuminated its natural, yet graphic design. On the last morning there, I decided to capture it. Today, it makes me smile each time it pops up in my gallery viewer. I hope you enjoy it, as well…

Ad astra per aspera…

 

The title for this shot is latin for “To the stars, through difficulties.” By which I mean, some shots look deceivingly simple, but are anything but. Take this one, for instance. We’ve all gazed up at the sky since we were kids and picked out the seven stars that fill the outline of the Big Dipper. I love stargazing and especially at the beach on a moonless night, when this image was taken. But despite the “simple” composition, I can assure you this scene took a lot of effort to finally achieve. After setting up the tripod  I practiced over and over again on random star shots to figure out the right exposure. Too short and the stars were too dim; too long and they begin to show trails. Too little ISO and you get nothing; too much and you have an abundance of noise. Even basic exposure was a highly technical challenge! But once I finally got to the right exposure setting, i realized I had another challenge. I had set up my tripod, of course and while it was easy to focus on a random patch of night sky for starlight, actually capturing the constellation, in its entirety, was nearly impossible at night, through my lens. Because the pinpricks of light were so tiny, I literally could see nothing but blackness! I decided to simply widen my frame of view, roughly calculate the angle I was shooting at, relative to my naked eye’s viewing of the Dipper, and fired. Within a couple of shots, I had my prize.

Again, this shot won’t win any awards for artistic composition or exceptional talent or skill, but as a serious amateur photographer, I think it’s important not to rest on laurels, continuing to shoot what comes easy. This shot was a personal challenge for me, and one that, after a lot of work, rewarded me with a “personal best.” So keep shooting for the stars! Hope you enjoy…

Lake Ontario, 2009. While enjoying lovely sights of the beautiful city of Toronto some summers back, my family and I took a cruise across its pristine Great Lake. Most travelers’ eyes were on the disappearing skyline of the city, the enormity of the CN Tower slowly miniaturizing as we pushed out to sea, but for one brief moment I caught a glimpse the other direction of a massive, old-style sailing ship, far off in the distance. It nearly looked like a mirage, vague and fuzzy as it was on the horizon. I quickly zoomed out to 300mm, and captured this fleeting shot. Mysteriously, as I trained my eye to click off a second frame, the ship, quite literally, disappeared. Poof! Was it the ghost of Henry Hudson, perhaps? Or some modern schooner that simply captured my overactive imagination? I’ll never know, but the image makes me smile to this day. Hope you enjoy…