Most Popular Post

It is hard for me to believe that I started this blog almost three years ago, in January of 2007. At that time, I really wasn't sure how long it would last. Surprisingly (to me), I now have written just over 300 posts, and plan to continue.

In thinking about bygone posts, I wondered what would be the most 'popular' one. That turned out to be very easy to find, at least if one gauges popularity by the number of comments a post receives. Frankly, I usually don't get all that many, with the usual number being 0 to5 ( bloggers love comments...so come on folks, feel free to write them). However, one post, believe it or not, has gotten 110 comments. In addition, my statistics counter tells me that it is also my most read one, with continual daily hits despite it being written back in September of 2007. The fact that it is still getting continual daily 'hits' despite its age tells me that Adobe still has a bit of work to do. Wondering which post it is? Check it out here.

More Zone Plate

I have previously written about my initial experiments with the digital zone plate process using my Lensbaby with the zone plate 'Optic Swap' insert. I continue to 'play' with it, looking for more images to include in my 'Dreamscapes ' portfolio.

Copyright Howard Grill

I recently took this photograph using the zone plate at a Frabel glass exhibit at Phipps Conservatory. I was drawn to the surreal appearance the zone plate gave to the glass figures. This one may well make it into the series. For each one of these types of shots that seem to work for me, there are many more that end up 'in the bucket'.

Trusting Photographs

One of my blog posts that I most enjoyed writing was entitled “Photography And Truth”, which can be read here and here. These posts ultimately turned into an essay that was published on Uwe Steinmuller’s Digital Outback Photography website. In the essay, I mentioned 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.. However, there are journalistic standards that move a photograph more (but not necessarily totally) towards depicting the world as it truly is.

As the digital age progresses, there continues to be advancements in technology which allow for photographic 'doctoring' using methods that are increasingly subtle and difficult to detect. Interestingly, however, the concept of photographic manipulation is not a new one. In fact, such manipulations have been used since the earliest days of the medium.

One of the most famous photographic portraits of Abraham Lincoln was actually a composite image of Lincoln's head atop John Calhoun's body (ironic, given that Calhoun was a staunch supporter of slavery), done to give the president a more 'heroic' appearance.

John Calhoun



PLUS

Abraham Lincoln



BECOMES

A New Version Of Abraham Lincoln

An image of Millard Tydings talking to Earl Browder, the leader of the American Communist Party at the time, played a role in his 1950 election defeat. The photograph is widely believed to be a fake composite.

Millard Tydings And Earl Browder....
Felt To Be A Fake Composite

Similarly, a composite image of Senator John Kerry and Jane Fonda was surely not helpful to Kerry's political career.

Photos Of Kerry And Fonda Used In A Fake Composite

I find the use of 'doctored' photographs for political and sensationalistic purposes throughout history a fascinating topic and ran across two very interesting and informative papers dealing with the subject. Both were written by Dr. Hany Farid of Dartmouth University. The first paper, entitled "Digital Doctoring: Can We Trust Photographs" can be read here. The paper discusses these photos, as well as others, and also describes (using layman's language) various new methods of detecting fraudulent photographs. The article is in pdf format and can be downloaded. It makes for a fast, but very interesting, read on the subject.

The second paper, entitled "Photo Tampering Throughout History", has several pages of examples of altered photographs, including many modern day images.

Both papers are definitely worth taking the time to read!

Quick Quotes: Ernst Haas

"The limitations of photography are in yourself, for what we see is only what we are."

Ernst Haas

I enjoy this quote because, while it talks about limitations, it also explains why it is that each person's photographs are truly unique.

Spending Time

In my last post entitled "Compliments", I wrote about people's responses to viewing photographs. Andy Ilachinski made a wonderful and insightful comment to that post. Because I really enjoyed Andy's words and since people don't always read the comments section, I thought I would put his response up as a post on and of itself.

Andy noted that:

Perhaps an even deeper revelation that underlies a wonderful comment like "It made me think" (or feel, or ...) is that it simply compelled them to *stop* (literally and figuratively), pause, reflect, consider, ponder, immerse,...spend *time* with your image. The only thing that is truly precious to *anyone* in life is time itself; the time we give to others, and to the focus of our attention. And the greatest gift any viewer can give an artist of any kind (IMHO), is the time they give to merely look at your work. If asked to *articulate" *why* they spend time, I'm sure we'll hear all sorts of responses, as appropriate for different people with different predilections and verbal/self-reflective capacity. But, fundamentally, what brings joy to my own ears (from someone viewing my images), is something that - loosely translated - means "I wanted to spend some time with your picture." That always brings a smile to my soul.

Andy Ilachinski

As usual, Andy has hit the proverbial nail right on the head!

Andy also wrote a very insightful post on his blog about how people view photographs based on his experience working in a co-op art gallery that is definitely well worth reading.

For more of Andy's wisdom (and of course his marvelous photographs) check out his blog. To view his photographs scroll down the blog to the list of portfolios on the right side.

Compliments

What is the best compliment you feel you could receive about your work? Some candidates might be that your work is.....beautiful, gorgeous, looks like a painting, breathtaking....maybe even unusual or different.

I recently received an interesting compliment. I initially didn't think much about it, but, with further contemplation, I believe it is probably one of the finest comments I could have received. Let me preface this story by saying that those who know me or have been readers of this blog know that I am more apt to voice my uncertainties regarding the quality of my work than to report accolades. I decided to post this simply because of the insight that it gave me.

I happen to meet a woman I know that was looking at a photograph hanging in an office. It was a lovely sunset photo and, as one who mainly does nature photography, I certainly have taken my share of sunset photos, and this one was quite nice; in fact I told her that I would have been glad to have taken and displayed it. She responded by saying that, yes, it was a very pretty picture, but that "your pictures make me think".

Isn't that an interesting comment? Sure, documentary or photojournalistic photos should make you think, but I had never really contemplated that as being an attribute of nature photographs. I had mainly considered the mark of a successful nature photograph as making you 'feel' something. And yet, in retrospect, the fact that they should make you think, and that 'making you think' is an important attribute of nature photography is obvious. I had just never really thought about it that way.

Sometimes, an innocent comment can give important insight!

Cliff Edge

I continue to put my efforts into trying to complete a defined project. I was given some further insight today when I presented some of my rock images to a helpful reviewer at the Silver Eye Gallery. One insight that I was given is that the rock landscapes appear to be two separate but related groups....landscapes seen from a 'grounded' position and those seen from an aerial view. Thus, I think that I will have to have an adequate number of images in both groups to complete the project and am thus leaning towards 20-25 total, as opposed to 15-20.

Here is another image from the 'grounded' viewpoint:

Cliff Edge
Copyright Howard Grill

Badlands

I have posted before about my project photographing slabs of stone. I have been working on trying to complete this project. This particular rock reminded me of images I have seen of the Dakota 'Badlands'.

"Badlands"
Copyright Howard Grill

Quick Quotes: Janet Malcolm

If you scratch a great photograph, you find two things; a painting and a photograph.

Janet Malcolm

Think about that one for a minute. I really like what this quote implies!

Atwood-Higgins House

In my post about editing photographs from a trip, I mentioned that often images that are not stand alone 'best of' photos can still be important to a project because they impart to the viewer a feel for a certain area or location. This was the case for the Atwood-Higgins house, which is an early colonial homestead near Provincetown, on Cape Cod. Since I had mentioned the location, I thought I would show one of the photographs that is not all that special alone, but might well be an important contribution to a project related to the area.

Atwood-Higgins House
Copyright Howard Grill

Pixel - Peeping, 70's Style

One thing leads to another. I used to watch Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In regularly as a kid. Recently, Henry Gibson, one of the show's comedians, died, which got me thinking of that time in my life. This led to my remembering a book which I had recently bought but had not yet cracked open.

In one of the late Bill Jay's Endnotes columns which he wrote for LensWork, he mentioned, and recommended, a book by Ralph Hattersley entitled "Discover Your Self Through Photography". He mentioned that it is still as relevant today as it was when it was published, though it has a good bit of 60's lingo. Somehow, having Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In on the mind led me to have a peek at the book.

Initially published in 1971, it really is a wonderful book that is filled with ideas and exercises to help expand one's creativity through photography and is definitely worth reading. I personally find the occasional smattering of 60's language and ideas a bonus that tends to bring back memories, if only for a short while (and if they were there to start with). And to top it all off, the book can be had quite cheaply and contains many images by Jerry Uelsmann (who taught with Hattersley at the same institution).

One of the paragraphs in the book made me recognize that what we now call 'pixel-peeping' is not at all something new....the pixels may be new but the peeping goes back a long way. In his introduction to an exercise called 'Creative Destruction' (an exercise involving the exploration of purposefully breaking photographic rules), Hattersley says:

"One of the fascinations of photography is that it can be a subtle and demanding craft. No matter how much sensitivity and technique you pour into a photograph, it can still absorb more. This is a great challenge, of course. But it can lead to the hang-up (there's a bit of that 60's creeping in) of being overimpressed with craftsmanship at the expense of everything else. People who fall in this trap generally turn themselves into unhappy, nit-picking old maids (yikes, I don't think anyone would publish that terminology today) who are terrified of making technical mistakes. To avoid them, they conduct endless experiments with technical trivialities or ceaselessly repeat past technical triumphs."

That sure seems to me a reminder that pixel-peeping is nothing new and that our main goal in photographing should be to instill emotion into our pictures while still secondarily maintaining a backdrop of technical excellence.

The Importance Of Editing

After workshops I have been to in the past, I have tended to process and print a few choice images that seem to stand above the others. However, I typically have known which images these will be even before returning home. This, however, has led to a bad habit.

While I have typically keyworded the images from the weeklong workshops I have attended, I have not edited or rated them as a unified group in terms of overall quality. This has led to a situation where I have, from each trip, two or three 'best of' images printed while the others lie dormant and relegated to pleasant memories. It is difficult to revisit these, as they now exist as hundreds upon hundreds (or thousands upon thousands) of unedited images, making it difficult to resurrect the trip or a photo grouping that represents the workshop. Truth be told, the same situation exists with a good deal of the images I have made at home as well.

I have decided to put an end to this situation. Having the photographs keyworded but unedited as a group is not a good situation for the images or for the photographer. I believe it inhibits learning and progress. Picking just one or two 'best of' images from a trip doesn't allow you to have an overview of how you photograph. To see the overall 'big picture' of how you approach photographing a location can give helpful insights into how you think about making images and, more importantly, can give direction on how to get off the path on which you are most comfortable in order to become more creative and extend beyond your own comfort zone.

In addition, looking at a conglomerate of images to rate them will allow for the selection of photographs that might not be 'greatest hits' viewed in isolation, but which are important in the understanding and portrayal of a location. For example, on the workshop I just returned from, the group visited a location called the Atwood-Higgins house. This is a group of cottages that were built by some of the original settlers in the Provincetown region. They are locked (at least they were when we were there), so only exterior photographs could be taken. When looking for 'greatest hits' images, a photograph of an old and unusual door handle would not likely make the cut.....but it would be an image that would most certainly be in a grouping designed to transmit the feel of a visit to Cape Cod.

In short, taking time to cull down hundreds and hundreds of images to perhaps twenty or thirty that truly represent the best images from a trip and which stand together as a group that relates the 'story' of a location is an exercise which I am just beginning to understand the importance of. And I think the timing is just right for me to do this for the images from the Provincetown workshop I just attended.

Edit too soon and you run the risk of being overly sentimental. Wait too long and you lose the sense of place that you had experienced. I will ultimately go back (albeit quite late) and do the same for the photos from prior workshops, but tasks like this are best undertaken in small portions. If the scope is too large the work gets abandoned and never completed. So even if it delays other ideas that I wanted to pursue, I plan to give to the images I recently took the time they deserve.

Inner Vision

I just returned from my yearly photography workshop with Nancy Rotenberg, Les Saucier, and Don McGowan. This particular workshop was held in Provincetown, Massachusetts on Cape Cod and, as expected, was another wonderful experience.

Why return to do workshops with the same instructors year after year? Simply put, it is because I don't believe anyone teaches a workshop with the same focus as they do. Sure, you will learn technique, digital processing etc, but that is not the foundation of their workshop experience. Rather, the emphasis is strongly on 'learning to see' , focusing creative energy, and using one's unique inner vision and heart to create images. Now, imagine doing that with 15-20 other terrific people who are also interested in the same thing. I have never been to one of Freeman Patterson's workshops, but imagine that there are a lot of similarities.....I guess it is therefore not surprising that he wrote the forward to Nancy's book "Photography and the Creative Life".

In the next week or two, even though I know it will delay some of my other projects, I plan to edit and post some of the images from this fantastic trip.

Botanical Blends: Rudbeckia I

I have completed the second image in my "Botanical Blends" project and thus have accomplished half of my goal for the month. Of course, the goal does not merely reflect the number of images completed, as the images need to be of the appropriate quality as well. Artistic quality, however, is for the viewer to decide.

This particular image was made with a LensBaby.

Unfortunately, the small image size that Blogger displays makes it difficult to see the underlying blended texture in photographs where the texture is subtle. However, there is not much that I can do about that!

Rudbeckia I
Copyright Howard Grill

Quick Quotes: Harry Callahan

"I guess I've shot about 40,000 negatives and of these I have about 800 pictures that I like."

Harry Callahan

Let's see....that calculates out to a 2% success rate. I usually feel like my success rate is even lower than that. But at least now I feel like I am in good company!

Goals And Deadlines

In my last post, I mentioned that I was going to specifically answer the questions I thought were important to consider when planning a photography project as they relate to my recently initiated "Botanical Blends" series.

However, before I do so I would like to add one more important concept to the planning stage of my project. This is likely important for anyone planning a project, but is particularly apropo for me, as I tend to spend too much time on any one image, making changes that I am sure no viewer will likely notice. This concept has to do with deadlines. I believe it is important to set a reasonable and achievable schedule for producing the project. This schedule will be different for everyone depending on their 'life circumstances' and available time to devote to the project. However, it does need to be achievable while allowing for completion of the project within a reasonable time period.

With that said, here are my personal answers, goals, and deadlines for "Botanical Blends":

Who is the intended audience?

For this project, given the subject matter, I define my audience widely. I believe it would include anyone with an interest in flowers and horticulture as well as nature. In addition, as a secondary audience I would include people that I work with and/or my patients, as I will likely have an opportunity to display prints at work and in my office.

How do I primarily intend to reach that audience?

The primary goal I hope to achieve is to have a display at a local botanical conservatory. Obviously, I can not be sure that the goal will be achieved as the decision to hang prints there is not one that I make. Thus, I need additional viable methods for getting the work seen. For this project, that would include hanging prints at work/office. In terms of other distribution methods for the project, I am considering a pdf publication (though I have not used InDesign or Acrobat before and thus this will have a fairly steep learning curve and will probably not be coincident in time with other distribution methods), as well as possibly making some 'give away' promotional type prints.

Are prints needed? How many? What size?

Since my primary, and at least one of my secondary methods of distributing the work is via display, prints will clearly be needed in larger sizes. My plan is to have prints matted and framed to 20x26 inches. Why that size? As I have made some flower images in the past, this size just looks right for display to me and I already have some frames in this size as well. It is also an efficient size, as it allows me to obtain two mats and backing boards from standard sized 32x40 matboard and foamboard. Given that I hope for a formal display in a conservatory, standard white matting might be best, but I still have not ruled out the possibility of black matting. The frames will be simple and relatively inexpensive standard, thin black metal.

The number of images needed is difficult to be certain of and obviously depends on how many worthy photographs I make. However, as an approximate goal I am contemplating 20-30.

What is my deadline?

This is a difficult question but, knowing myself, a very important one. As I mentioned above, the goal needs to be attainable but the project also needs to be completed in a reasonable period of time. In addition, I anticipate working on some other prints during this time and I suspect there may be some periods when I have very little time to spare because of work constraints.

I have come up with a deadline goal of four finished prints every month. I plan to aim for one print a week, but I know that there will be times when I am unable to work on the project and times when I will be able to devote more time than usual.....so it seems to me that a monthly goal will be more reasonable. If I keep to that deadline, I should have the project well in hand by 6 months.

I should add that I have many, many flower pictures that I have taken and not 'developed'. So the primary focus of project completion will be on the computer as opposed to actually taking the photographs. That said, it does take a good bit of time and experimentation to find a texture that works well with an image. Clearly, the starting point is an excellent botanical photograph, but that alone is not enough for what I am trying to do.

I decided to put this goal in writing in order to help me keep to it, and I will post images and my progress as I go along. Because the next month is going to be quite busy for me at work I am going to give myself a bit of leeway at the start and declare today as the formal start of the project even though I already have 1 1/2 images processed. By September 27th I therefore need to have completed four images.

Project Planning

After my last post entitled "Creative Paths.....Creative Accidents", Mike Mundy made a comment wondering about the final output/usage of the images I was making for my flower project (to which I have given the tentative title "Botanical Blends"). I believe Mike intended that to be more than a simple question, and rightly so! In fact, I had been thinking about writing a post regarding planning the project.

As one thinks about a potential photographic project, I think they need to have in mind a number of important questions:

Who is the intended audience (although sometimes the audience grows, there should still be a primary target group who you think would be interested in the images...this target audience can be defined in either a very broad or narrow way)?

How do you primarily intend to reach that audience? This might be through a show (again, broadly or narrowly defined....from a gallery or museum show to hanging images at a local coffee shop or even at work or in your home),a magazine, book, pdf, or even as give away prints.

What other distribution methods might assist in reaching the target audience as well as making it easier for people that might not be in the primary target audience to see the work if they find it interesting. This might include any of the previously mentioned methods.

Answering these questions before delving into a project is important for some very practical reasons. Knowing the answers can help with some very basic issues such as:

Approximately how many images should one's goal for the project be? The number needed for a gallery showing might be different from that needed to author a magazine article.

What size prints are needed? Again, this will differ based on where the images are being displayed and how they are being used.

Are prints even needed at all? Perhaps not, if the final project is a magazine article, pdf, or your website.

Do the prints need to be framed, and, if so, how? The location of a display might well effect whether one chooses classic white matting or not, how ornate or simple the frame should be, or if some type of display without frames might be possible. In addition, this will give some idea as to the cost (and time) one can expect to be associated with framing.

What other non-photographic skills might be needed? These might include the software skills needed for making a pdf, laying out a book, or making promotional items, as well as framing skills, artist bookbinding skills, calligraphy etc.

How might the project be marketed or advertised?

These are just a few of the more prominent questions that immediately come to mind (and I am sure there are more that can be asked), but which I believe are important to contemplate before proceeding with a project.

Having written a bit more than I had expected, I think I will leave for my next post the specific answers to these questions as they relate to my "Botanical Blends" project.

Creative Paths....Creative Accidents

Just when I had been espousing previsualizing what you want an image to look like in Photoshop, I had a creative accident. As I previously posted, I have been playing with the idea of black and white flower photographs combined with various textures that have also been converted to black and white. After having made two such images, I was having trouble creating a third that resonated with me.

In trying to put together a third photo, I had already converted a flower photograph to black and white and was trying out different texture overlays. None seemed to 'work' well and so I was quickly trying out several more that I thought might go with the picture. I hadn't yet converted the texture I was working with to black and white and went to turn off the texture layer in Photoshop, as it didn't look like it would go well with the picture. Instead of clicking the icon to hide the texture layer I accidentally clicked on the icon to hide the black and white conversion layer targeting the flower.

Tulips I
Copyright Howard Grill

Whoa! The image immediately sprang to life in an unusual way (though the texture is a bit difficult to see in this small blog image). An accident, to be sure.....but that doesn't mean it should be ignored. Trying this effect with several different flower photos and various textures, I found it much easier to generate color combinations that worked....and they seemed to work better than the black and white ones.

So now I find myself revisiting my original concept. When I try to clarify in my mind why I want to make images like this, I think it is because most people don't stop and notice the beauty of flowers in images because we are inundated with them. By changing the standard form with which we are presented flower images I wanted to give viewers the impetus to stop and pay attention. I now find myself questioning whether that goal is better achieved with the toned black and white images or with the color images that I discovered by a happy accident.

Deciding which creative path to take at a fork in the road really makes you examine what it is that you are trying to accomplish. And trying to figure that out seems like a wise thing to do.

Robert Capa's "Falling Soldier"

Sure, the issue as to whether Robert Capa's famous photograph "Falling Soldier" was staged or not is an old one. But that doesn't make the controversy any less interesting.

Copyright Robert Capa / MagnumPhotos

Jose' Manuel Susperregui has some new information and theories that suggest the image was staged. We may never know the answer, but it certainly makes for interesting reading.

Here is the latest from the August 18, 2009 New York Times.

Mural

I have always enjoyed taking pictures of wall murals. However, I have typically photographed only isolated small abstract portions of the murals. Usually these images have no hint of what the mural was actually a painting of and consist only of abstract splotches of paint that denote only color, tone, and shape.

When I was in Montreal about a year ago I saw a mural that I found interesting. However, instead of the usual abstract 'blotches' that I typically would take, I found myself drawn to a portion of the mural that was much larger than usual for me. It reminded me of Alice In Wonderland. A year later I still like it, though I am not quite sure why!

"Alice In Wonderland"
Copyright Howard Grill