Yeah, yeah, yeah....I know doors have been done a million times before. But who can resist taking a shot of a really interesting doorway?
The small green lettering under "Big Science", which is quite sharp but just too small to show up in these Blogger picture sizes, says "Sonic Architecture".
So, if you need Sonic Architecture...."who 'ya gonna call?" I could just see Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd coming out of there like in "Ghostbusters".
The other day I was out photographing some widflowers, specifically Columbine and Buttercups, in a local park. As I was composing my images, I couldn't help but get the feel that I had done this before. I don't mean taking these particular photographs of these particular flowers. In fact, I had never previously photographed either Columbine or Buttercups. But I had photographed using that particular style many times.....maximizing depth of field, looking for a nice close up composition, even a spritz of water for 'drama'......and I really felt that I wanted to try something different. I thought about the shoot wide open with selective focus technique, and, likewise, I have recently been doing more and more of that. Done well, both techniques can produce stunning images.
However, neither style satisfied my desire of the moment, which was to do something totally different; something that I hadn't done before. So I thought about what it was that really drew me to the flowers and made me want to stop and spend time with them. It wasn't so much their form (which was beuatiful) as it was their color. That was what I thought the essence of the scene was, at least for that moment. How could I isolate just that one attribute of the flower?
I decided to try something that was totally new or, more properly, something that was totally new for me. Why not 'defocus' the lens until the flower's color was broken down to its most basic level. Eschew form and convey color.
"Buttercups"
Yup, another Twin Jewels project post. I have written about the project several times before, but if you haven't read about it and would like to know more, you can check it out here.
However, this Twin Jewels post lacks the certainty and self-assuredness of my prior ones. Why? Because I am having difficulty evaluating a photograph that I am considering including as part of the project. Therefore, any honest and constructive input is truly appreciated.
The image is entitled, at least tentatively, "Color In Motion".
I took this photograph on a Spring morning, while the wind was blowing. What originally attracted me to the scene were the very saturated colors in the yellow buds on the short plants as well as the reds and yellows in the leaves. To me it looked more like Fall than Spring, but there it was.
I was hoping to capture the sense of Spring renewal in a semi-abstract way....splotches of color on a canvas. I have some straight shots from when the wind died down with no motion blur to the leaves, but I actually thought that the motion blur of the leaves in the trees conveyed the feeling of the wind and helped transmit a nice feel to the image. The contrast between the leaves that were moving and the shorter yellow plants that demonstrated very little, if any, motion blur was also very appealing to me.
One problem in evaluating the image on the web is that the blur of the red and yellow leaves on the tree doesn't come through very well at the very small image size that Blogger allows.
On one level I really like this shot. I like the color pallete and the way the color is seemingly coming from all over. What I don't like is the lack of 'simplicity'. In some ways the scene looks too chaotic to me with just too many twigs, trees, and undergrowth. I think it might have been more effective had the blurred colorful tree leaves been on a simpler background. Yet, when I look at it on another level, not expecting a ‘beautfully composed’ landscape, but just allowing myself to step back and enjoy the colors and the way they play off each other…well, then I like it. It seems to appeal to me on that level despite the lack of simple lines.
I fully realize that the art is for myself and should not be predicated on how I think others will react to it (see my review of Art and Fear by Bayles and Orland). Nonetheless, my feelings about the image are mixed and so I seek other opinions.
What do you folks think, keep it in the project or out...and why? A thumbs down or just a so-so gives it the boot as I am trying to be heavy-handed with my editing.
Familiar with Digg? It is a place for communal sharing of internet news that, once submitted, gets voted upon by the community. Stories or news of the greatest interest ends up getting more exposure to people that are interested in that particular topic. Very neat......but it is very oriented towards technology and current events. Photography doesn't fit neatly into any of the categories under which one can submit a story and it tends not to be a place where photographers hang out to look for items of interest.
Well, that may be about to end. I ran across photographyvoter.com, a site that functions very much like Digg, only it is specifically aimed at photographic topics. It is still in its infancy, but I think it has fantastic potential to be THE place to go to find items of interest specifically related to photography.
I have no relation at all to the site or its founders, but to me it looks very cool and potentially extremely useful. I intend to use it and certainly hope it grows into what could be an incredible resource.
Check it out!
If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to read Part I of this discussion, I would urge you to do so here.
I suspect that the main reason behind the expectation of a photograph portraying ‘reality’ (which, by the way, ignores the fact that what one person perceives as reality might well be a bit different from the way another perceives it) is the historical use of photographs in journalism. This raises two issues. The first is whether one should expect the same ‘rules’ that apply to journalism to also apply to fine art photography, and the second is just how much ‘truth’ is depicted in an ‘unmanipulated’ journalistic photograph.
There exists a certain ‘code of ethics’ regarding the use of photographs for journalistic purposes. One can certainly understand that images used in this way should not be ‘altered’. But, in reality, an ‘unaltered’ image doesn't necessarily depict total truth either. As previously mentioned, the choice of focal length used will effect the apparent facts in the image. Exactly how far away is the subject, as opposed to how far away does the photographer want the subject to appear to be? Does the subject know they are being photographed?
But, I believe this issue is a minor one compared to the issue of in-camera cropping. What is just outside the frame and left out can, at times, tell as much about the situation as what is included. I will never forget a piece that I read which showed a photograph of a young person seemingly caught in the act of violent revolt. This image had been used as news in many prominent newspapers and magazines. One photographer, however, had the wherewithal to take a photograph of the overall event. What was actually occurring was that there was a group of perhaps 30 or so photographers all crouching down (just outside the frame) and taking the same image. The subject was now seemingly ‘enjoying’ his portrayal of revolution. Meanwhile, each of the photographic journalists had independently and conveniently cropped out all the others. There was no apparent enemy and the photographers certainly did not seem concerned about exposing themselves to danger.
Viewed from this standpoint, the story seemed to change. It now appeared that the subject was posing for the shot and the image seemed more like propoganda than news. Was it real? Can the presence of one camera change reality? What about 25 or 30 cameras all trained on the same subject? What urging, either actual or subliminal, might have been taking place to get the subject to perform?
Just to be clear, I am not a journalist and have never been one, so I apologize and am certainly willing to accept correction if any of the details above are erroneous. Nor, I should add, am I a conspiracy theorist. However, it does appear to me that, at least to some small extent, every image conveys only the reality that the person behind the lens wants it to. It would appear, then, that there are some similarities between journalistic and fine art photography.
However, bringing the discussion back to the topic of fine art photography, I think the biggest issue involving ‘truth’ as it applies to photography in the digital era comes in the form of ‘innocent’, as opposed to overt, manipulation. What is this rather sinister (said sarcastically) impediment to the portrayal of truth. Why, none other than the RAW format itself!
While the casual point ‘n shooter typically sets his or her in-camera parameters and shoots in .jpg format, all the while not necessarily thinking about the fact that the camera is doing its own post-processing, the serious photographer most often shoots in RAW format. The interesting thing is that RAW not only allows, but DEMANDS, post processing interpretation of the final image because the initial RAW data, which has not had any post-processing applied to it, is quite bland and just as ‘untruthful’ as an image that has been heavily manipulated. So the final result of an image taken in RAW format must then become, at best, only a representation of reality based on one person’s memory.
In the end, the debate regarding digital manipulation is likely one that will never end. 'Truthfulness' in imaging, as in many other things in life, is ultimately only as honest and factual as the person behind the lens.
Nonetheless, I do suppose that ultimately some conclusions can be drawn. For one, though there may be no 'right' answer about what represents truthfulness in photography, it is quite important to at least give the issue a good deal of thought despite the fact that the resultant guidelines might only serve as personal ones. In fact, since there is no 'right' answer, going through the thought process may well be more important than the conclusions.
My (current) personal guidelines are as follows:
1) For photography presented as art, I believe 'anything goes'. Viewers may not like the artist's style if it involves 'over the top' manipulation, but I don't believe that one's artistic expression should be limited simply because the medium happens to be photography. Nor do I think that such art needs to come with a 'disclosure statement' stating that it was manipulated. My one exception to this is #2.
2)I believe that wildlife photography is a separate and special situation and that it should be clearly indicated if the subject was photographed in captivity. Likewise, if anything has been done to substantially change the meaning of the photograph with cloning etc, I think that should also be indicated. It would also be acceptable to simply and clearly state that the images have been altered.
3)Though I am not a photojournalist, I would hope that images where there is misrepresentation (as in the example of the 'revolutionary' given above) would be treated as if they were manipulated.
4)If asked, be truthful...never represent known manipulation as no manipulation.
For further interesting and far more eloquent discussion of how one might consider thinking about these issues as they regard fine art photography, have a look at Alain Briot's essay entitled "Just Say Yes", which can be read here.
I have never understood why photography is essentially the only artistic medium in which people seem to expect literal, factual interpretations of a subject. It is not at all unusual for someone, after looking at and seemingly enjoying a photographic print, to turn around and question if there has been 'manipulation' of the image because of the intensity of color or contrast, the perspective of a particular lens, or the use of shutter speeds that provide an unexpected appearance. Unfortunately, many of these comments are made in a derogatory fashion; there is seemingly no artistic vision or expertise involved if there were ‘adjustments’ that were made……it is as if to say “well, once you are allowed to make adjustments I could have done that as well”, and therefore the perceived ‘value’ (and I am not talking about monetary value here) is lessened.
I simply don’t get it! I have never heard anyone complain to a painter that their work wasn’t good because they painted the sky bluer than it was on that particular day. No one tells a writer that something couldn't have looked as they described it. Sure, people may not like the painter's or writer's style, but that is quite different from not liking an artists’s work because it does not portray reality.
As an aside, the whole situation reminds me of a famous story regarding Picasso, which goes something like this (who even knows if it is true at this point). A tall patron asked Picasso why he portrayed people the way he did, despite the fact that ‘they don’t really have angles like that’. Picasso reportedly asked him if he had a photograph of his wife with him and asked to see it. The person did and showed it to Picasso. Picasso then took his thumb and forefinger and, in an animated fashion, used them to measure the size of the woman’s head in the photograph. He then held his now separated fingers up to the light and said to the tall patron, “How odd, your marrying a woman with such a small head.” Point well made.
The issues and concerns regarding manipulation have certainly ‘gotten worse’ in the digital era, where anyone can cut out their bosses head and place it on a monkey’s body. Clearly, however, ‘manipulation’ occurred long before the digital age by making choices as simple as deciding what focal length lens to use or even what type of film to load into the camera. For more complex manipulation using film, one need look no further than the type of magnificent work Jerry Uelsmann does today using ‘only’ film and the darkroom.
What it seems to essentially boil down to, at least in my mind, is that most people expect photography, even if presented purely as art, to accurately reflect reality. This expectation is simply not present in essentially any other artistic medium.
To Be Continued.........
Today, I thought I would post another image that I am considering for inclusion in my "Twin Jewels Project". There is also a quick story that goes along with this one. I have off one Friday every six weeks and on that day I try to get out to photograph since I am usually devoid of responsibilities, at least for the early morning.
This particular image, entitled 'Pastel Morning', was taken on one of those Fridays. This particular morning sticks in my mind because it was a morning on which I decided I would get up early enough to try to shoot sunrise at one of the "Twin Jewel" parks. That was a little unusual for me. While I usually do get up early on the mornings I go out to photograph, the park is about an hour's drive away, so while I usually get there early enough to have a couple of hours to photograph in nice morning light, I am rarely there early enough to actually photograph sunrise.
After hauling myself out of bed, I found myself wondering if I was crazy to get up so early to catch sunrise on my day off. I wasn't quite sure where to go for a good view and was thinking that, in general, Western Pennsylvania does not even have particularly grand sunrises and sunsets because the very hilly terrain tends to block the lower horizon in many areas. The fact that it was quite cold outside just made matters even worse since, as I have mentioned before, cold weather and I are not the greatest of friends.
Back to the photograph in a minute, but to complete the story, very shortly after capturing the image and having experienced an unexpectedly majestic sunrise, I received a call on my cell phone from one of my partners who needed to get some information about a patient from me. He had expected to have awakened me at home, and when he heard where I was and what I was doing thought I was completely crazy. I had been wondering the same thing myself earlier, but, by this time, I had already experienced the magnificent sunrise and in my mind it was clear to me that the crazy thing would have been to have been anywhere else but this particular spot on that particular morning.
"Pastel Morning"
"Pastel Morning Plus Thirty Minutes"I was interviewed by Pittsburgh photographer John Craig as part of his "Five Question Interview" blog series. Click here to check it out.
And while you're there, also check out his terrific blog and peruse some of the images on his website.
Actually, I was quite surprised and very honored to be included as part of his series. Turns out that John lives only a few miles from me. We've never met, but I hope we get a chance to at some point in the near future.
Thanks for the very kind words, John!
Well, the trillium 'season' comes to an end. The flowers are rapidly fading away until next year. In many ways, their short lived nature adds to what makes them so special. It is truly an amazing experience to be out in the forest alone, surrounded by hundreds of these beautiful plants.
I have to say, I really enjoyed and appreciated the feedback and suggestions regarding my photographic 'pursuit' of trillium. And so, I offer my last trillium shots of the year:
"Peeking Out"
"Yellow Trillium"
Move over Plamp, the McClamp's in town and he's takin' over...... Seriously, I have been a longtime user of the Wimberly Plamp for taking photographs of plants and flowers in the great outdoors, where the wait for the wind to die down can seem interminable while you develop lower back spasms from being bent over and looking into the viewfinder for the little buggers to just hold still for a second. The Plamp certainly helps. But there have always been a few things that I have found very frustrating with it:
1) It seems absurd to attach the one end of the Plamp to your tripod. The whole point is to hold the flower still while the photographer does what is necessary to get a good shot. In my mind this means the optimum function would be to not only hold the flower still during a gentle wind but to also hold it still while making adjustments with the camera. While the Plamp does an amirable job with the former it fails miserably with the latter.
To attach the end of the device to your tripod leg is totally counterintuitive. Why? Every time you want to adjust the tripod the least little bit to get the flower in the frame just the way you want it....well, you know what happens, the flower moves as well. You can't move one without moving the other and a frustrating battle ensues. To say just move the Plamp and not the tripod is not the answer because the Plamp movements tend to have to be fairly coarse ones. Sure, if there is a sturdy tree or plant nearby that is not too fat and not too skinny you can clamp your Plamp to that, but how often does that happen...repeat after me N-E-V-E-R.
2) The Plamp always seems to apply too much pressure to the plant or flower in its jaws than I would like. When I am done, I always have this sneaking suspician that the holding process is not quite as benign as I would like to believe. True, you can put the stalk in the larger open portion of the Plamp jaw, but then it still holds it either too firmly or too loosely, depending on the size of the plant or flower.
Enter McClamp-The Stick. I bought one on a lark, mainly because of the two issues above, just to see if it could improve on the Plamp. McClamp-The Stick......in, Plamp out!
For one thing, no more clamping the darn thing to the tripod. It is very similar to the Plamp but has a pointed plastic stake attached to one end that you just shove into the ground. Presto, no more plant movement every time you adjust the position of the tripod.
On to problem number two. This part is a bit tough to describe, but the area within the central part of the jaw that holds the plant is filled with a foam that has a good bit of give. Put the stalk of your fragile plant in there and it is held firmly, but not so tightly that you feel guilty as you walk away. Have something sturdier or heavier that you want to grip? No problem. The ends of the jaws have hard plastic that holds more tightly, similar to the Plamp.
One warning, since the stake on the McClamp needs to be pushed into the ground, the McClamp-The Stick won't work if the terrain is extremely rocky or 'solid as a rock'. Then you're back to the Plamp, or the McClamp-The Clamp, which, like the Plamp, attaches to your tripod but still has the foam for a kinder, gentler plant hold.
I am really pleased with the gadget. B&H sells them. I should mention that I have no connection to the company that make the McClamp.
By the way, I was using my McClamp to hold trillium in place this weekend and you know what that means, stay tuned......
In a prior post, I spoke about and described what I call “The Twin Jewels Project”. Today I thought I would talk about another of the images that I think has ‘made the cut’ for inclusion. It is also the last of the three for the project that I have used in prior different discussions in this blog. Future images I discuss for this project will be new to the blog.
“Water Painting” began as a motion study and ended up as a study in both motion and color. As I was walking by an area of the river that runs through one of the “Twin Jewel” parks, I noticed that there was a lone stone that was disturbing the movement of water going by and I thought it might make for some interesting images if I used a slow shutter speed to blur the water. I stayed at the spot for about twenty minutes or so taking shots at various shutter speeds, hoping that some of them would prove to have interesting shapes captured in the moving water to contrast with the stationary rock.
Several of the photographs did prove to have abstract shapes in the water, but the ones that I found most eye-catching were the ones that portrayed the water in an ‘intermediate’ fashion. By this I mean not totally smoothed out so that the overall sense of motion is lost and yet not so frozen in time that there is no sense of motion blur. My favorite one came right out of the camera like this:
"Water Painting" In Its Most Basic Form
Copyright Howard Grill
I was quite attracted to the preservation of both the shape of the swells as well as the tonal variation. But, in my mind, the image still lacked something; I didn’t feel as if the viewer was drawn into it. It didn’t seem to have that something that makes one want to dwell on and examine all of its nuances.
Boosting the contrast was a start, but I felt that what the image really needed was strong color with associated variations in the color tones to go along with the motion. Despite the fact that the color I was introducing was more ‘surreal’ than ‘real’, I felt that it nonetheless transmitted the feeling I was trying to convey when I took the shot. As I worked with the image, I felt that the linear motion blur of the water seemed like paintstrokes that called for the strong color (and hence the image title).
In addition, as I have also previously discussed in regards to this image, I rotated it since it seemed more peaceful with the rock in the rotated position. And so, I ended up with a final image as seen here, which I think I will likely include as part of the project:
