I was very pleasantly and unexpectedly surprised to find that an image I had submitted to B&W Magazine many months back had been awarded a 'Silver Medal' in the Seascapes/Water category. This image is a black and white conversion from a photograph taken as part of my "Twin Jewels Project".
A few weeks back I went with my friend, lets call him Bob (mainly because that is his name), for a weekend of photographing at Cuyahoga National Park in Ohio, about two hours from my home. We had the 'photo ops' chosen because Photograph America had published an article on Cuyahoga (great publication, but that is a topic for another post). However, as it turned out we were a bit beyond the peak fall color we had come to photograph and, in addition, the weather was quite lousy.
The first day (Friday) it rained the whole time we were there, so we took the opportunity to scout out most of the sites we were thinking of going to. That actually was very helpful as it gave us an opportunity to prioritize where we wanted to shoot and gave us a sense of what areas would be best to photograph in different weather conditions.
We continued to have miserable conditions Saturday morning, as well as late afternoon and evening. However.....for a several hour window early on Saturday afternoon conditions were excellent. It was overcast (great for the waterfalls) and wet (great for saturating the colors,) and because of the rain the waterfalls had plenty of water to 'fall'.
It would appear that I have completed my 'rock project'....at least it feels that way. I have reached a point where I don't feel a drive (at least for now) to photograph any more rocks, and 'they' say that you will just know when your project is complete.
I have edited the series to 20 images that, to me, represent abstract landscapes within single stones. Some are landscapes as I imagine them from a usual Earthbound point of view and some are land formations as seen from far above.
I have renamed the project "Scene In Stone" and have also re-written the "Artist's Statement" as follows:
I have, on several occasions, had the opportunity to photograph the "red rock" formations found in the American Southwest. These landscapes are magnificent, but portraying their grandeur within a small two-dimensional image is always challenging. While photographing these rock formations, I found myself wondering what might be found if, instead of looking outward towards massive numbers of rocks arranged into a grand landscape, one peered inward, letting a single rock become the entire image.
What if instead of the rocks making up the landscape there were landscapes contained within each individual rock? What if there were rocks that contained shapes and patterns that were images in and of themselves?
As I began to look at rocks that were available from several different mining sources, I found that a truly unbelievable array of shapes, colors, and patterns could be found within them. In many instances, I was amazed to find that these patterns did, indeed, look just like miniature versions of the landscapes I was so used to photographing; images of the outside world that were reflected and indelibly etched into stone.
These "Scene In Stone" landscapes have been photographed using a technique called cross-polarization, which removes the glare from the surface of the cut stone, thus allowing the underlying texture and colors to show through.
Shrink yourself down and enjoy your walk through these imaginary landscapes!
So, I now invite you to view the 20 image project here.
Any comments (especially helpful criticism) regarding the images, statement, or project as a whole are welcome.
I recently had a very interesting insight into myself....or, more accurately, how I learn.
I have always been a 'book learner'. By that I mean that my most efficient way to learn something new has been to get a good book and sit down with it and digest it at my own speed, making sure that I understand everything as the lessons advance. That is how I learned Photoshop and that was the way I made it through various institutions of higher learning. That's not to say that lectures weren't important. But, in a pinch, I always felt that I could get most of what I needed out of the book with lectures and other multimedia highlighting what the most important and practical issues were.
Well, I surprised myself recently. Several months back, I bought a couple of Michael Reichmann's downloadable video tutorials from The Luminous Landscape. I did this in the hopes of learning something new, but also because I thought that a video with Reichmann and Jeff Schewe would be entertaining. And it was, but along the way I surprised myself by feeling that I was learning more than I thought I would.
With this insight, I pursued the idea that perhaps I didn't know as much about my process of learning as I thought I did. So I followed up on this by buying Brooks Jensen's workshop PDF and Folio tutorials on DVD and loved them. In fact, I previously reviewed the PDF tutorial. Once again, I learned a great deal....even more so from this tutorial as I really had no insight into how to make a PDF book prior to watching the DVD. I found the same to be true when I ordered an HDR training DVD from Kelby Training. I have another DVD from Tony Sweet coming in the mail.
I thought I knew the most efficient way that I was able to learn, but am glad that I ended trying out a new approach that is both enjoyable and effective. If you haven't tried learning from a multimedia DVD it just might be an unexpectedly worthwhile approach. It was for me.
I love rock and roll......do you? Well, if you love photography AND rock music then you owe it yourself to do two things:
1) Go over to The Candid Frame and listen to Ibarionex Perello's interview with Lynn Goldsmith, who is a premier "Rock Photographer" (though she is a wonderful photographer of many other subjects as well). The interview can be found here, though you will need to scroll down to the Oct 11 post to get it.
2) Buy Lynn's book, which Ibarionex discusses in the podcast, called PhotoDiary. The book is chock full of very entertaining stories about photography and rock personalities as well as great shots of your favorite musicians. And the best part.....I got the book for under $5 (yes, that's a 5 with no zero after it) shipping included. What a deal...and you can get a similar one at Abe's Books here.
ENJOY!
One more rock from my project finding landscapes in stone:
I am hoping to have my rock project finished within about two weeks. My goal is to have approximately 20 completed images, by which I mean having hard copy prints as well as the files for computer viewing. The unifying idea behind the project is 'landscapes within stone'--the discovery of landscapes that exist as microcosms within a slab of rock.
Today's post is one of the newer images that I have processed:
I recently wrote a post entitled "Trusting Photographs" , in which I mentioned a two part post called "Photography And Truth". In these blog installments, I wrote that I was surprised that there was an expectation on the part of many, if not most, viewers that fine art photography should depict ‘the truth’. In reality, there are decisions made by the photographer including focal length, in camera cropping, and shooting in RAW format (to name a few) that explain why most photographs are ‘untruthful’ to at least some degree.
I was recently looking at a highly regarded photography magazine when I read something that I found to be totally absurd and which reflects back on this whole issue of 'truth' in photography. I won't mention the magazine or the particular photographer, but suffice it to say that the photographer had his superb fine art portfolio published and, in an the accompanying article, says " I very seldom change the actual situation, I just make it more dramatic. I use Photoshop, I never use any plug-in to make the photos more dramatic."
I find this a self-contradictory absurdity on multiple levels. The situation isn't changed...just the degree of drama?? It's OK to use Photoshop, but not a Photoshop plug-in (which itself just uses adjustments available in Photoshop)???? Methinks you protest too much.
Can't we just agree that there is no crime in using Photoshop or Lightroom to make adjustments to fine art photographs in order to express our artistic vision? Can't we just disclose to the public that with todays RAW format adjustments have to be made to the out of camera image in order to restore it to what the scene looked like, and that any such restoration is significantly related to our memory and experience of the location? Photoshop and Lightroom (or similar image editing software) is simply an integral part of photography in the digital age. In my opinion, using them does not somehow denegrate a photograph. And, yes, I also think it is OK to use plug-ins!
