More Imagination Please...

Out of the Blue

If you haven't been to my Facebook page recently, you might wonder why I'm posting satellite images from space...

Where Two Worlds Meet

Cool images right? The roiling frozen ocean in the first one. A distant deserted valley colliding with a body of water in the image directly above. Dry and hilly terrain flanking two distinct roads in the photo below.

Paths Divided

Wow, Christine... when did you have time to fly to the space station? 

Those of you who have been on my Facebook page in the last 24 hours know exactly what you're looking at... the rest of you aren't sure but you're pretty certain that in between my last blog post and today's that I did NOT take up space travel. You can click on each image to see it enhanced. What you see is an abstract study of frost on a window and this photographer got excited about it. When was the last time my imagination soared? How about yours?

Whatever you see in those images right now is why this is so fun and so rewarding by the way. Three minutes ago you were contemplating how to start your day, or how spend your next break at work, or if you really want to fold another basket of laundry, and within the first minute of perusing the blog you suddenly had your imagination engaged... and as imagination is usually apt to do, you were transported with very little coaxing.

I've been asked before about the point of abstract art by folks who "just don't get it". To which I always answer with another question: Well, what's the point of imagination?" The answer I get ranges from 'it let's you explore life unhindered, free of stress, open to magical possibilities' to 'it's what lets the giant box the refrigerator came in turn into the invisible plane you fly as a superhero!'... 

Both answers are correct. And that's Abstract art too. For the viewer, it can be whatever you want it to be. Or you can use your imagination to gage what the artist's intent was... and you might get it right, or you might not care if you do at all... what matters is if it stopped you even for a moment and made you mull the possibilities over, got your imagination going, musing, or transported you elsewhere. And do you walk away slightly altered... ?

And for the creatives, for the artists, abstract is the chance to take what you love about compositions, and the power of shapes, lines, and colours, or the lack thereof, not to mention the medium itself, and infuse it with whatever strikes your fancy. It can romp, it can be expressive, it can be purely aesthetic, a puzzle to be solved,  or it can have important concepts needing to be conveyed. 

Or it can just be some everyday winter frost on a window pane photographed out of context. Personally I say let the 5 year old superhero out, and wreak havoc. Your art will thank you every time.

And all our 5 year old selves chant, "MORE IMAGINATION PLEASE!!!"

Nature and Floral Studies...

"Just Beginning..."

Our local park will never cease to be a source of inspiration to me. When I can't get away, or only have a small amount of time available, it's my go-to locale to dust off my skills and have some me time.

This study of a new sunflower is from a ramble I took last weekend. This was not done in a studio. This was out in a perennial bed at Gage Park. I love its color and the elegant way the greenery stretches to each corner or the frame. As I hovered near each brilliant flower or bud with my telephoto or prime lens, I noticed a gentleman watching me work as he wandered around the gardens. Finally curiosity got the better of him and he asked if I was busy taking pictures of only the flowers. I always find this question funny... I'm bent down, crawling on the ground at funny angles, aiming into clumps of flowers ...so I'm obviously photographing classic cars. I said I was indeed and his next question was, "why so many?"

Where would I start? Nature studies are intense and fun at the same time? Floral studies demand I pay close attention to clean exposures, tiny details that will draw the eye, and to feed my need for beauty and color? By the time I'm done I always smell nice and flowery?

Instead of attempting to explain myself, I held up the back of my camera and showed him why. This image was on the view screen and he looked at it carefully then said, "That's THIS sunflower?" and pointed to my subject sitting across from us in the sun. I asked why he was surprised. He pointed to the stalk in the sun and asked why in my photo it was only black in the background, but clearly we could see all the bushes and greenery surrounding the sunflower not five feet away from us. I carefully explained that the bush just behind the flower was in shadow, and if I was careful about how I used my settings, I could use it like a dark screen and make the flower pop.

To my surprise, he asked me to take another one in front of him and prove it. I laughed and agreed. I set up the shot again, and then showed him my result in the screen once more. Satisfied, he shook my hand, asked if I had a website, and said he will watch for more photos from the garden.

We parted ways, and it got me thinking about how we intentionally use exposure to provide the viewer with the story and feelings we wish to create in a photograph. Not just because we know it's good photography to have a good exposure, but because it's a way to showcase the beauty around us. The visitor was expecting to see the rest of the garden within the frame along with my sunflower, and instead he experienced something dramatically different. And that's why I love floral studies.

Photography on any level should be able to do that for you too. Keep that in mind the next time you raise your camera to your eye. Have a great week, and thanks for another ramble, friends!

Take A Little Time

"Have A Little Tea"

Today's image is from a Mother Daughter formal Tea Party I helped host last week for a terrific group of teens I help mentor through the year... and it was so much fun. Everyone went home with the gift you see here, a tiny bag with herbal teas and chocolates. Of course, I had to get a photograph.

I've been off the blog all week. I needed a rest and a chance to regroup. Sometimes we just put too much on our plates. And sometimes we don't put the right things on our plates. Either way, we end up needing to take a little time out. To regroup, recharge, or redirect our efforts. I'll be honest. I'm struggling with staying with finding an outlet for what I love, and branching into the more obvious photography channels for making a living with my skills behind the camera...  so I've taken a little "me" time to help me refocus on what's ultimately important to me and my photography. And make some decisions. And I'm not even certain yet... but I've decided what will be important. And that's important. Ha.

So have a fabulous weekend, and we'll be back to more punctual blogging next week. While you're at it, have a nice cup of tea on me. 

Better 'Mum Show Photos ~ Telephoto Tuesday!

"Floral Waves"

The question has come up regarding what my top advice would be for photographing all the different annual flower shows that happen all year round. The question is well timed, as I just began reviewing my images from my visit to the Annual Fall Mum Show over at Hamilton's Gage Park. So I thought I'd share some tips that have worked for me from day one till now. And as always, you can apply these to much more than flowers. So here we go with my impromptu list:

~No matter what camera or lens, you can always find ways to get in closer. On point and shoot cameras you'd be amazed at how helpful your macro settings are for allowing you to get really close yet still allowing you to focus. And the larger the file (raw or fine jpeg option) the easier it is to crop later in even a simple editing program to give the impression of being closer still.

~With a DSLR it's no secret that a good telephoto lens can be a great substitute for a macro lens if needed. Hence the images posted today. It may require you to stand at a further distance from your subject initially, but it gets you much closer visually. Be very careful to have a tripod when possible though, with tight detail you want the image as sharp as possible. 

~When you can, wait for great light. This is hard to anticipate, but once at the location assess what kind of light you're working with (or against in the case of dark interiors with florescents). Greenhouses are ideal, you know whatever the light is doing outside will be infusing the interior as well. But I have found cloudy weather, though great for even lighting, is still dark enough in a greenhouse that I either need to use a tripod again to use longer exposures with sharpness, or I need to use a combination of subtle flash and a higher ISO. Light in the autumn season is the most wonderful light to work with, even when it's full on sun. It's still warm and no matter the direction, it wraps around a subject. I waited for a sunny day to visit the Mum Show and the wait paid off in really rich light bathing the flowers.

~Stop looking for "flowers" per se, and start looking for engaging shapes, forms, and color patterns. It can be overwhelming to step into wall to wall award winning chrysanthemums, tulips, or orchids and then try to figure out what to actually zero in on. I'll often single out the largest or most boldly colored blossoms and aim my lens at those first. It gets me warmed up, and I start seeing things more creatively. I always look for the petals that might still be holding water drops, that are unfurling in unique patterns, and contrasting colors of petal against others beyond them. Clusters of perfect blossoms can be very dramatic if your exposure is set to maximize deep color.

"Sweet Baby Jane"

~ Change that perspective PLEASE. Many displays are at eye level, and it's easy to forget to change your vantage point after a while. I can always pick out the more intense photographers at a show because they're the ones getting beneath the flowers shooting up, tucking themselves against displays shooting across or into rows of fabulous flowers, or finding the stairs or balcony of a show room and shooting over top of it all. Heck, I've been know to hold my camera way over my head and hope the auto focus does it's job while I shoot blind over the heads of a group of flowers. Or nearly set it on the floor, just as blindly pointing the lens up into identical groupings for impact. Zooming into the middle of a large bloom on a long exposure setting can be magical too!

~Finally, pay attention to your Depth of Field. Understanding how to use a shallow DOF (keeping your aperture wide open, F/2.8 for example) and how it works in relation to the lens you're using, the distance you're photographing at, and what the purpose of the shot is, is key. Dramatic, creative images can be enhanced with a wider aperture. But later when you photograph an entire display with layers of fabulous flowers, you want to close down your aperture to use a narrower DOF to your advantage, getting the whole scene in sharp focus. And be aware if you're not using manual focus that you are choosing a focus point in your viewfinder that allows you to get the most out of the available hyper-focal distance. For landscape format compositions, this can mean being careful to focus a third of the way into the scene so that everything beyond is also continuously full of detail. And pump up that DOF if your goal is to have every petal in the close-up sharp too.

Whew, a lot of writing today. But I find it difficult to dissect what happens every time I consider photographing flowers... I hope this was helpful?

Have a great day gang, and thanks for the instructional ramble!

Heralding in Color ~ Telephoto Tuesday!

"Herald of Autumn"

They are my favorite fall creature. Monarch butterflies are stunning in color and form. And as they begin their yearly migration, they find our gardens and parks, and if you know where to be, you can witness a beautiful display of how much care the Creator put into these tiny works of art.

"Delicate Acrobat"

One can get wonderful images with even a decent point & shoot with a manageable zoom factor these days. These were taken with, what else, my go-to tele zoom mounted on my trusty D80, a 55-200mm VR. With a more sensitive ISO dialed in, the slight breeze was ignored, and keeping my aperture wide open meant selective focus on these dazzling critters.

"Clothed in Beauty"

Until I hit the roads tomorrow for some official fall color with my favorite photo buddy, I thought I'd post these captures of living fall color for you all today. They are the perfect subject to herald in the Autumn color beginning to burst forth all over the province. So get those cameras ready gang! It goes fast! Where's your favorite place to photograph in the fall?

Thanks for the ramble! Have a good one

Give 'Em the Gears ~ Mono Monday

"Lift Bridge Unlocked"

(1/30 sec.@ F/8, ISO 400, 34mm fl, 18-55mm kit zoom, handheld, late overcast light)

Not the usual view of our local lift bridge I'll admit. But it is indeed a photo of a lift bridge. Everyone that has a camera takes pictures of this awesome example of structural ingenuity and hydraulics and pulleys. And it's hard to do, for the Burlington Bay Lift Bridge straddles the waterway from the lake to the bay and is sandwiched between narrow beaches and a busy and massive causeway for all the highway traffic arching up and over. Not an easy subject to photograph at times.

To avoid needing a ultra wide lens, or magical light, this time I photographed it much closer while out on a walk. I liked the jumble of shapes and lines. And I liked being able to zoom in and get the nuts and bolts of this giant but with the wide zoom so that I could include the network of girders and beams.

What I really want is permission one day to climb up into it. There's a series of platforms and narrow stairs that ascend towards the innards of the bridge. Call me crazy, but I'd love to shoot the bridge from way up inside. Anybody that knows somebody, that knows somebody, that knows the guy that can do that? You sure?

Well anyways, there's my post for Monochromatic Monday. As you recover from all your Easter feasting this weekend past, think about all the cool subjects in your area that you can dissect with a closer POV. That's my challenge over the next while for myself, as mentioned in a post last week. Let me know how you do, we can post your images here!

Thanks for the ramble, have a good one folks!

NOT a Macro ~ Floral Friday!

"Quietly She Waits"

(1/640 sec.@ F/4, ISO 125, 50mm prime lens, tripod, overcast light, pattern metered)

Delicate petals, rich color, dramatic framing. All reasons why I love taking images like this. You can fill the composition with a single subject and it never gets old, for me anyway. But, like many things in the photog world an image like this gets different reactions. Some will say of this photo, "lovely close-up!" (at least if they like florals) and I've had others say, "great macro!"

Which is also a nice thing to have said to the photographer. But the later would be wrong. Quite simply because this in not in fact, a macro.

Now, most would say..."close-up, macro - big diff." But there is. A macro gets you so close to the subject that it's tiniest details can be captured. So much so that you can lose the sense of scale associated with the bug, flower, or dew drop the artist chooses to capture. And obviously you use macro type gear to achieve it. Macro lenses, extension tubes, bellows, lens babies, they all are needed to make that uncompromising macro image. Like the ones you'd see at a friend's site here. And there is more to read about macro photography here.

Knowing that, when you look at the image above you then know it's just a close-up. My prime lens (my portrait lens for most days) emphasizes detail and soft depth of field under low light, allows me to get in fairly close, and then I can crop in even closer if I feel like it provided I'm shooting in RAW and working in a large file. This also works very well with my modest telephoto too. Except instead of leaning into the flower, I'm at least 4 feet away and zooming in tight. And it's still a dramatic image without needing additional gear which is always nice. But hey, if anyone wanted to donate a macro lens to my meager collection, I'd not turn them down. Anybody? Hello? Ahem... moving right along then.

This was taken last fall in the Gage Park Rose Garden, in Hamilton. I loved its perfectly shaped petals and the subtle color infused around the edges. A very graceful, innocent specimen. Like a young girl. Eagerly waiting to be noticed. Waiting for her "close-up".

Have a great day gang. Thanks for the ramble! Next week our featured guest will be a fellow photographer from Canada who really truly excels at macro photography. Prepare to be amazed.