Beetle Tracks In Sand
Rushing Water
Copyright Howard Grill
OceanMany people remember their family vacations by looking over the snapshots they take. Oddly enough, I am not one of them. I think it has something to do with being a perfectionist when it comes to photography. It makes it difficult to just knock off snapshots. Oh sure, I do have a tiny point 'n shoot and certainly take some quick shots of the kids on the beach and that sort of thing. But I don't particularly enjoy doing that because I constantly find myself trying to figure out how to make the shot better instead of enjoying the moment. Or, if I see something really nice, I will find myself wishing I had my dSLR along. I know this isn't a good habit to have, but it just is.....so instead of taking a ton of snaps I live and experience the vacation with joy but without trying to fully record it. My wife ends up taking snaps that we can enjoy years down the line.
What looking through images does for me is to remind me of the workshops and photography trips I have been on. I have many images from these trips and they are associated with memories of working hard with a group of like-minded people to try and make good photographs.
I was recently going through some shots and ran across this one, which reminded me of a terrific evening on a workshop with Alain Briot at Monument Valley.
Sometimes, when reviewing your images, you can detect a subtle, or not so subtle, underlying interest. By this I mean detecting a way of looking at things that you might not even have been conscious of at the time you took the photograph. These underlying currents need not be manifest in the serious 'fine art' type of images that you put in your portfolio, they may just be apparent in the 'stuff' that you shoot for fun. I am referring to what comes out when you are shooting playfully to see if you can make images that you find interesting yourself, without necessarily having plans to show them to others.
So what did I find for myself when I was glancing through my images, which is obviously what motivated me to write this post?
It was apparent that I like discovering and portraying the graphic patterns in nature:
Tree Reflections
No matter where I look, I always read glowing reviews about the Visible Dust products used to clean digital camera sensors. Since one of the nice aspects of having a blog is to have a platform to voice one's own opinions, I think I will take the opportunity to do so by making some statements that, perhaps, many will disagree with. I know that most people have had excellent results with their Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly sensor brush, but some folks might like to hear a differing opinion before making a relatively expensive purchase.
Let me state that I absolutely hate sensor cleaning and therefore only do so when the need is more than a trivial one. I have always used the 'wet method'........the so-called Copper Hill method. It isn't any fun, and, personally, I find that it takes many attempts sequentially to get the sensor relatively clean. I also believe, as the Copper Hill website espouses, that it really is easy to do and difficult to harm the sensor. I have done it many times and removed even stubborn spots, cleaning relatively vigorously without any problems (of course, I can't guarantee you will have the same success).
But the Arctic Butterfly seemed to hold so much promise, seemed so.....well, easy and clean, and received so many glowing reviews that I thought my days of sensor aggravation were over. I was wrong.
At first, I got excellent results. But then, after one uneventful sensor cleaning, I found a nasty, gunky looking smear over a portion of the sensor that was worse than any piece of dust could be. After several vigorous wet cleanings it was successfully removed. Needless to say, I was quite concerned and assumed that somewhere along the line the brush had gotten contaminated. I cleaned it using the suggested method, but the brush actually broke (the original versions were made of quite thin and breakable plastic...this has been replaced in the newer versions with a much sturdier build).
Working under the assumption that I had contaminated the brush, and assuming that I could clean my camera's sensor quickly and safely with the product, I went and bought another. This time I got the current version which is much more substantial in build. The first clean was perfect, but the second swipe (which I did right after the first to get off some leftover particles) left me aghast. Again, I found the same nasty looking smear across the sensor that required quite a bit of wet cleaning to remove.
I took a deep breath once I got the smear off. I stepped back and checked out the Visible Dust website. It does clearly say that some cameras have manufacturing oils in the 'box' that encompasses the sensor and that they suggest first cleaning the box with a swab they sell in order to avoid just what had happened twice to me.....smearing oil over the surface of the sensor.
The only problem is that, to the best of my knowledge, I had never touched the brush to the inside of the box, as I had attempted cleaning extremely carefully. The only part of the 'box' that the brush had touched was the ridge of metal right at the very edge of the sensor on either side. And since the most amount of dust tends to collect at the edges of the sensor, touching this little ridge of metal with the brush can not be avoided. It also is a spot that I would not cavalierly clean with a large 'Chamber Clean' swab as it would be impossible to do so without also swabbing the sensor, a purpose for which this product was not made. Use in this area would also risk transferring oil to the sensor.
So, yes, the Arctic Butterfly can be used to quickly and painlessly clean the sensor BUT, on certain cameras, it can also, though far less frequently, make a mess of the sensor. The main reason I bought the brush was to take it on trips where I can't do a leisurely wet clean. These days that means any trip that requires airplane travel. So what would I rather have in those isolated circumstances, a 95% chance of a clean sensor with a 5% chance of a huge oil smear that I don't have the ability to clean, or a dusty sensor requiring a cloning job in Photoshop? I choose the cloning work any day.
In short, I think there is a real risk to the brush and I have totally given up using it. Let me make clear that, to me, this seems a potential problem with any dry brush cleaning method, not just the Visible Dust product. Let me also say that I recognize that the Visible Dust website does clearly state that this can be a problem and does also offer a potential solution. Nonetheless, and going against everything else that I have read on the internet, I give this product which, in my opinion, is quite overpriced, a big thumbs down. I know that this oil smearing problem has occurred to others as well.
Anyone want to buy a minimally used Arctic Butterfly? Mine is up for sale. Really.
I was intrigued by fellow blogger Mark Graf's recent post about how snow tends to simplify scenes that would otherwise be quite disorganized and distracting; morphing a scene that would be difficult to photograph into something that looks much more appealing in a two dimensional image. Have a look at that interesting post if you haven't had a chance to read it.
Back on November 20th, I wrote about Louie Palu's project entitled "Cage Call". At that time, I lamented the fact that I could not find a copy of Cage Call, which had been published by The Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, to purchase, despite searching all the usual spots. Imagine my surprise when I just recently found out that Mr. Palu was one of three photographers that had been awarded a monograph at Photolucida, as part of their 'Critical Mass' competition. Not only had it been awarded, but it was already published and available from Amazon in softcover for about $16.
I just received my copy and it was worth the wait. Rather than repeat my prior post, why not just check that post out. As expected, the images are superb and the accompanying text and interviews by Charlie Angus really round out the monograph. I was not disappointed!
Here is a link to Mr. Palu's website, and here is an Amazon link to the book.
Enjoy!
I am quite pleased that I had two prints juried into a multi-artist show commemorating Pittsburgh's 250th birthday. The show is entitled "Pittsburgh Through AAP Eyes", with AAP being the Associated Artists Of Pittsburgh. The show runs from Feb 8th to March 9th at The Pittsburgh Center For the Arts and includes both two and three dimensional art. The two prints of mine that are going to be on display are:
This is the second post (with the first post being about McClamp) in my thus far short series entitled "Gadgets That Work", which is about relatively low cost items (can anything with the word photographic attached to it truly be low cost?) that work well.
I believe I have mentioned before how much I dislike the cold (and it is below freezing here in Pittsburgh at the moment), and for that reason anything that lets me make photographs more comfortably in the winter is a big help in motivating me to get outdoors. One thing that I had always found very frustrating when trying to photograph in the cold is trying to keep my hands warm. Until recently, my best attempt was to use a thin glove 'liner' under a pair of mittens that was split in half with the finger part flipping back to allow the liner glove to be exposed. It was better than other alternatives I had tried, but there were two problems. First, the liner glove wasn't particularly warm when the mitten opened and, of even greater importance, it was very difficult to grip and work the camera controls with the inner glove. In fact, for that reason, I often found myself having to take the glove off.
Then I discovered Lowepro Photo Gloves. Usually I find myself being very cynical when a company takes what is generally a non-photographic product and attaches the word 'photo' to it. That usually means that it is going to be overpriced and may not be better than the same type of product without the magic word association.
But this is truly a superlative product! What makes it so different? First of all, the gloves are somewhat thicker and warmer than glove liners (but still not warm enough to use solo if it is very cold), but still fit under a mitten. In addition, the palm and the palm side of the fingers have little rubber 'treads' to allow you to grip and work camera controls, including wheels and dials, with the gloves on. They really work! If you are going to be out in cold winter weather you will definitely be glad you have a pair of these. If it is really cold, get yourself some small chemical warming packets to put between the mittens and these gloves and you will be all set for all but truly harsh and dangerous conditions.
I have written before about the photography workshops run by Nancy Rotenberg, Les Saucier, and Don McGowan. They are superb, and I recommend them highly for anyone considering attending an intensive workshop. Just recently, Les Saucier wrote an article on their ‘Photography With Heart’ website that has provided me with some useful answers to questions that I have had about using flashlights for macro-photography.
What? Flashlights? You heard it right. For some time, in addition to using fill flash, I have played around with various flashlights to try to accent or add sparkle to subjects in my photographs, particularly flowers. While fill flash works very well for me in general, at times I would like to more selectively accent edges or portions of the image, which can’t easily be done with fill flash. In addition, if I just want to see what a bit of extra light will do, it is easier to just pull out a small flashlight and play a bit instead of setting up the flash.
But what flashlight to use? Incandescent, xenon, LED? Adjustable or fixed power output? How to adjust color cast.....with a gel or in Camera RAW? Though I have tried two or three flashlights, they have always seemed lacking in one way or another. And yet, in the back of my mind, I have always had the sneaking suspicion that there is a light out there that can do what I want it to.....if I just knew which one to buy.
That is why I was excited when I found out that Les had just written the definitive, up to date article that answered all these questions! The article is packed with great information and can be found here. I am putting in my order for a Fenix L1D and some Roscolux #17. I haven’t gotten them yet, but I am looking forward to giving them a try. Thanks Les!
Sunrise is one of the things that many people who are not photographers often miss. Even though I frequently do take the opportunity to get up to photograph the rising sun, I still am almost always amazed at how quickly the color, intensity, and quality of light can change at this time of day. These changes are some of the aspects of light that are often missed by folks who are not photography oriented, either because they aren't awake for sunrise or don't pay as much attention to the nuances of light.
Several posts back, I wrote about a recent family vacation I took in Florida, at Sanibel Island. On a few of those days I got up early to photograph the sunrise. Here, in Western Pennsylvania, we often don't get a good view of the horizon because of the rather hilly terrain. On Sanibel, there was horizon visible all around. Being able to see the actual horizon so easily made the changing quality of the morning light even more evident. Because you could see so far 'out', the changes seemed to occur much more rapidly than I had ever appreciated here at home. It was truly an amazing, almost surreal experience.
As I was looking through some of those images, I recognized two that really brought this point home, as they were of the same subject and taken only about 20 minutes apart, and yet the difference in the quality of light is startling:
Printing is tough......it is where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. I may try to make an image look great on screen, but that always pales in comparison to the effort I end up putting into trying to make a print that looks"perfect" to me. By the time I feel the work is done, I have generally gone through many iterations of the image, making local changes in tonality, contrast, and satuaration to get it to look just the way I envisioned it. I have always felt that the print is the 'final common pathway'; that it is where the artist's final statement is made. Much like the old adage that 'if you love it let it go', the final print is where the photographer lets go of his creative effort and lets it loose on the world. Perhaps a little melodramatic, but I put great stock in the importance of the final print.
Ah, but the purpose of this post is not necessarily to talk about my philosophy of printing. It is actually to pass on some advice I took from from Brooks Jensen regarding making prints. It is advice that I have found to be very helpful and that I thought might be useful to others as well.
Many months back, Mr. Jensen made a brief comment in one of his LensWork podcasts to the effect that (and this is not going to be a word for word quote) "you never know if you have pushed an effect far enough until you have pushed it too far". I realized just recently that this advice has been,for some time, in the back of my mind as I work on making prints.
With Photoshop, it has become so easy to add more saturation, more contrast, make local tonal changes etc, that it becomes hard to know before seeing the print on paper (yes, I know about soft-proofing and color management...but, still, while those may be important clues as to how the final print will look, they still don't replace seeing the hard copy and making appropriate adjustments) to what degree adjustments should be made. How far do you go? How much contrast, saturation etc? If some is good might not more be better?
Mr. Jensen's thoughts ring true to me. If you identify where the point is that you have gone too far, you know what the limit is. That is not to say that what is too far for me is also too far for you. That's what makes us all individuals. But once you know when an effect or idea has gone too far for you, then you can work within those boundries to fine tune an image and decide what type of feel you want to give it. It seems more manageable to work within a range or a zone than to work in a sea of endless possibilities.
I have previously written about the superb podcast by Ibarionex Perello entitled The Candid Frame. During each episode Ibarionex interviews a photographer, some well known and others less so. The interviews are always insightful and fascinating.
During the current episode Rob Sheppard is interviewed. I had expected to hear a lot about Outdoor Photographer, for which Mr. Sheppard is editor-at-large. However, this was not the focus of Mr. Sheppard's comments at all.
I found this episode particularly inspiring. Specifically, there was discussion about finding one's own personal vision, the role of Photoshop in photography, and the continued relevance of the craft of photography in the digital world.
I never miss an episode of The Candid Frame. If you haven't listened before, this is a great episode to start with!
I recently ran across an amazing set of portraits by photographer Mark Story, taken as part of his project entitled "Living In Three Centuries: The Face Of Age". His project started as an effort to photograph people who, because of living extraordinarily hard lives, appeared worn and aged beyond their years. It ultimately morphed into photographing those who have lived during three centuries, the centenarians and 'super-centenarians', whose life has encompassed the end of the 1800's, the 1900's, and,now, the new millennium. I find it interesting that the original idea of photographing those that appear worn beyond their years ultimately turned into making portraits of those who have lived longer than most of us can hope to.
The portraits are haunting and extremely expressive. They are accompanied by fascinating text that tells the viewer a bit about the subject. Well worth having a look. Once you are there, I bet you stay awhile, as I found myself somewhat mesmerized going through the images and reading about each person.
Mark Story's website can be found here. It is worth taking time to read about the project before going right to the images.
By the way, "Motivation" was one year old yesterday. When I started this blog, I wasn't quite sure how long it would last or where it would take me. Now, 156 posts in and going strong, I am very glad that I undertook it and am particularly thankful for the opportunity to have 'met' a good number of people who have contacted me along the way. It has also served to 'motivate' me to continue my photographic journey. I hope you have found it of some use as well.
Lately, I've been reading about and have become fascinated by the use of flatbed scanners for photography. I am not talking about using them to scan film, but rather to produce primary images by placing objects on the glass and scanning them. Using this technique with today's scanners, one can make extremely detailed high resolution images.
That could open whole areas of exploration in and of itself. However, what I find even potentially more interesting is the ability to scan objects that could be used as background textures to be blended with camera generated images. These would be things that are easy to scan. Think about it....old, weathered paper, cloth, wood, metal etc.
So how many of these types of scans have I made. None! I did say that I was merely at the reading and learning stage. But it does seem to me that there could be a great deal of potential here and it is something I plan to experiment with.
I thought there might be some interest in the background information I have been reading, as well as in seeing some of the artwork that has been produced by others using this technique. Therefore, I thought it might be useful to post some links to resources about using flatbed scanners for photography, much as I did for experimenting with Holgas and pinhole cameras.
So here we go:
1) This article by Vincent de Groot is perhaps the best general article on the subject I have come across.
2) Another source of general information can be found here.
3) Flowers may or may not be your thing, but prepare yourself for what may be the most three dimensional appearing images you have ever seen by photographer (yes, I do think that 'scanographers' should be categorized as photographers) Katinka Matson.
4) Marsha Tudor has also made some beautiful images, I just wish her website would allow one to view them at a larger size.
If anyone reading this has had the opportunity to do this type of imaging, please comment, as I would love to hear what your experience has been!
I made an image about two weeks ago that made me smile. I smiled not only because I was on vacation, not only because I was happy with the decision to get up before sunrise and do some photographing while everyone else was still asleep, and not only because I was outside in the midst of an unbelievable sunrise. Sure, all those things played a role, but what really intrigued me was the role serendipity can have while photographing.
There I was on the beach at dawn with a most amazing sunrise unfolding. Suddenly, and out of nowhere, a Great Blue Heron flew up to me and landed a very short distance away. This in itself fascinated me because near my home in Pennsylvania there are some areas where an occasional heron can be seen, but they are very skittish and hard to approach closely. In Florida, where the birds seem much more accustomed to human presence, close approaches are not uncommon.....but, in this instance, it was the bird's choice to land right nearby.
After he landed, we sort of looked at each other, and then the heron seemed to look out at the sunrise as well. I know that is anthropomorphizing, but that is just what it seemed like despite the fact that, in reality, it was probably looking for fish in the water.
I had my 24-70 mm lens on my camera, and quickly racked it out to 70mm. The heron was still a bit small in the frame, so I slowly moved in a little closer while swinging the camera around towards the heron. He let me get a bit closer before I felt like I better stop the approach. Once he knew where I had stopped he didn't seem to pay much attention and let me shoot away. I tried to isolate his dark silhouette against the reflected colors of sunrise which seemed to emanate from the water.
One of the things that I have been thinking about lately is how to deal with the idea of making photographs that I know ahead of time are not likely to be among those that I consider to be my best, or even likely to make it into print. I found myself wondering about the importance of making images under these circumstances and, in my mind, ended up comparing this situation to other fields of artistic endeavor, particularly music.
I found myself realizing that this situation surely occurred with even the best of the best. Didn't The Beatles and The Rolling Stones know that the songs they put on the “B Side” of their singles were not their strongest work. (For those too young to remember, ‘back in the day’ bands would release their hit singles on 45rpm vinyl records which had a song on both sides. Typically the ‘A Side’ had the hit single that was played on the radio and the ‘B Side’ had a lesser known work.) Even on full album releases it seemed, at least at the time, pretty clear what the ‘weakest’ songs were. So why put those on the album? Why not wait until a few more ‘good’ songs were written? If it were as simple as this, however, there would be no album that contained ‘filler’.
I think the answer goes far beyond the obvious issue of it being difficult to predict what will become a hit. And I think the answers are directly applicable to photography as well. It just somehow seemed clearer to me when I thought about the issues in the realm of music, perhaps because I am an ‘outsider’ to the field.
Surely there must be times when a musician is pleased with a piece they have written, only to find that most listeners would not categorize it as being among their best work. Similarly, I recently posted about how difficult it can be to predict what images people will find most appealing.
I am sure there are times that a musician feels a need to change something about their style: to experiment a bit, as it were. For me, this immediately brings to mind The Talking Heads and Joni Mitchell. From a photography standpoint, even though landscapes, for example, might be your strongest point, when you are feeling in a creative rut you might well want to do macro or street photography. Does that mean that this 'experimental' work should not be shown? Of course not.
What about the creative process in general? Maybe it simply isn’t possible to collect 14 ‘A Side’ songs at once. What if to generate that many hits you simply have to work through all the other tunes going through your mind first? What if you have to keep ‘practicing’ in order to make hits?
As I have been working through these issues and ideas in my mind a few things have become clear to me:
If you don’t keep practicing photography with vigor, then when the opportunity to take that ‘killer shot’ comes along the results will surely not be as good as they could have been.
If you don’t change your style, at least transiently, in order to climb out of a creative rut, you are doing yourself a creative injustice. Try macro, landscape, street…try playing with a Holga or pinhole camera. And don't hide the work.
Sometimes, to tell a story, not every image will be a ‘Best Of’ shot. (Not every song on The Who’s “Tommy” was a hit.) But each image may well play an important role, acting as a chapter, in delivering a complete and autonomous tale.
Even though you may not be going to a beautiful location, you can never tell when something will catch your eye and the subsequent photographic exploration may turn up something unanticipated.
It may well be that a passing texture or pattern that you make an image of might not stand on its own, but, at a later time, that image might well play an important role in a montage, as a texture blend, or other use.
I am not advocating showing your photographic ‘outtakes’ or what you consider to not be your best work, but surely there are many images that might merit that ‘B Side’; work that might not be one’s “Best Of” but still occupies an important spot in your creative history!
I have previously written about the use of presets in Adobe Lightroom. With presets, you can just scroll your mouse over the name of the preset in the Develop Module and get an immediate idea of how the image might look if treated in a certain fashion, such as black and white, cyanotype, sepia toned etc.. The preview one gets is not necessarily how the finished product would look, as the application of a preset serves only as a starting point, but it does give a very good idea of whether it is going to be worthwhile following a particular creative route.
With the winter being quite dreary where I live , I recently bought some lilies to photograph, and the results, I think, give another nice demonstration of how presets can really guide one down a path. Here was my original image of a yellow lilly, which I thought was somehow lacking, but yet seemed to have some promise:
Recently, I have seen Beth Moon's black and white photographs of the world's most ancient and unusual trees in at least two fine art magazines, with LensWork being the most recent. While the trees themselves have inherent interest because of their history and how unusual they look, her images really bring out their character and, depending on the image, really makes them look either spooky, wise, aged, solemn, powerful etc.
As is usually the case with great photography, these images speak for themselves. Nonetheless, in the magazines there have been captions associated with the images that tell where the image was taken and the significance of the trees. Unfortunately, the individual images on her website don't provide this interesting information about the trees that her magazine portfolios have had.
Have a look at her amazing portfolio of ancient trees here, as well as her other fascinating work here.
