Month: February 2018

After Time

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After time. After the blue hour. By luck. And, by chance. That’s life. Blink once. It’s gone. I was on my way to some place. I looked to my left. An interesting scene. But, very dark. I thought, “I wonder if…” I pulled out my handy iPhone. I made four pictures. Three of the four looked good. You just never know. Until you try.   Advertisements

Drifting

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Two leaves. Stuck in the mud. Going nowhere. Spring rains and construction leave almost no place to walk if you choose certain directions. Either there is mud. Or, pooled water. The dog who accompanies me comes home with muddy paws. I come home with muddy feet. The kitchen floor needs to be mopped twice daily. I asked one of the guys working on the line (He wasn’t from Wichita) if this was a forever project. He replied that he wished. It’s an easy neighborhood to work in. Or, stand around in. Or, break a pipe in. All of these things happened. There’s mud everywhere. If the rains pause for more than two days, it’ll dry out. For now, the mud caught these two leaves. And, I photographed them. In the mud. It was a simple thing. All I did was figure out how to frame them. You know the next line. In case you forgot, push the button. Yes. I did some post production. I darkened the entire image to make those leaves pop out …

Winter Light

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Low winter light. It’s powerful, clean and almost explosive at the ends of the day. Especially if the cloud cover is broken or there are almost clear skies. I got lucky last week. After a day of rain, the sun broke through at just about dusk. Man, did it break through. It was powerful. It was golden. It was contrasty. Deep, rich shadows were everywhere. My kind of light. The kind of light we rarely see in Southeast Louisiana. When we were exiled to New Mexico after the storm, I saw this kind of light almost every day. Many New Mexico-based photographers never bothered with it. It was too common. But, when there was rain or snow in the forecast you’d see us scrambling around photographing everything in sight. Sometimes, we didn’t. It was too cold. Or, wet. Or, hot. Or, something. So many missed opportunities. That’s probably the moral of this story. Time is short. Even if you are young and think you have years and years and years to go. Maybe you don’t. …

Something for a Sunday

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A bright, happy and energetic Sunday picture it there ever was one. Happy Sunday. Oh. For those of you who want to learn a technique, here it is. Set your gear to everything auto. Stick your phone or your camera into the bush, flower, tree or whatever. Push the shutter release button and let your gear do what it does best. You almost don’t have to  compose the picture. Just know your gear’s limits and point and shoot.  

Rainbows All Over Your Blues

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After a long hard week, this is what I saw as daylight came to an end on Friday. I don’t think it could get any better for me unless I was in the French Quarter. The picture contains two things that are close to my heart. Rainbows and trains. On some days, it doesn’t get any better. I did help this picture some. The light meter looked at that dark cloud and made its version of the image way too light. I darkened it, helped the colors a little bit and added a little twist that would bring the picture more in line with the work that I’ve been doing lately. But, not much. You don’t need to tinker with Mother Nature when she lays a rainbow on you. That’s it for today.

In The Hour

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Land of the weird. Mysterious. Moody. Almost evil. A place that you would not go. Often, I’m inspired by book covers, or Netflix thumbnails for direct to video scary movies. I think that’s what I was working to in post production, all of which was done on my smart phone, using Snapseed and Stackables. My working method is simple. I do the first development in Snapseed. where I set the basic color, sharpness and mood. I switch to Stackables to do the heavy artistic work. I make a couple of versions. I select one and finish it in Snapseed. What is the image about? I don’t know. But, they say that all art is autobiographical.  I certainly didn’t grow up in an evil-looking forest. I suppose that it reflects my mood. We are at a really pivotal point in my country. The more I learn, the more scary it becomes. I’m pretty sure that most systems are broken. As they say, “the center cannot hold.” Here’s an example. There was an armed sheriff at Parkland. …

Mood Swings

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A little change for you. I was looking at my 2018 archives. I realized that aside from Mardi Gras and a few second lines, I’ve been doing the same thing over and over and over… and hoping for something different. For almost two months. In some places that’s the classic definition of insanity. I don’t think I’m a little crazy, but being a photographer… well, you know. Heh! So. Even though this the same kind of wintry picture I’ve been making, I thought that I’d stretch myself out a little bit and get back to a little more artistic way of working. Before you ask, don’t. I just kept adding and subtracting until I got to a place that expressed my mood at the time. A little deep. A little dark. How come? Did you happen to watch the Florida town hall yesterday? The senator — Marco Rubio — got hammered by the kids, by the parents, by the teachers. One parent flat-out told him that he was weak. Yet, he refuses to give up …

In One Day

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One day. That’s all it took. I pass by this place almost every day. One day the trees looked like winter. The next day they looked like spring. That’s great, I suppose. The temperature is too hot. Our low temperatures have been higher than our normal highs during this time of year. I’m not a highly paid television weather person, so I’m not really qualified to ask this question. If it’s so warm now, what is summer going to be like? Are we in for a 120 days of 90 degree plus weather? Or, will the temperatures drop back down to about normal? Or, or, or… Questions. So many questions. The picture. I think, for a little while, I’m going to talk a little photo technique.  A few of you are starting your photographic journey. I’ll tell you what I did. Please ask as many questions as you like. Here’s what I did to give the image a good starting point. Normally, you’d average the exposure between the shadows and highlights. That’s fine. That would …

Pieces of Paper

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Amazing. Last evening, the light was just amazing. As usual, I was in the wrong place. So, I did what I could. This picture fits nicely into a sub-genre of landscape pictures called, ” New Landscape.” Me? I just call it a picture. Or, photograph. I don’t think photography has to be sliced and diced into little tiny meaningless data points. Yes. There is a lot of post production going on here. The clouds were reflecting the low winter sunset. The shadows were pretty cool. The sense of time and place was what I was really after. A sort of wrapped in cotton candy, feel good kind of thing. There is also a nice contrast between nature and man-made. And. Please don’t think yesterday’s post was a one-off. It isn’t. There are a lot of teachers in my life. Still working on logistics, but I’ll document what happens around here. The students want to walk. For now, it looks like 17 minutes at the end of one class. You know why. I’m still thinking about …

Twenty One

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Twenty One. I’ll discuss that in a minute. But, first, let’s talk about the moon picture. It’s moody and mysterious. It’s probably better used as a Halloween picture. I made it yesterday. I wanted to show it to you today. I still have no idea what’s causing the reddish glow. Sunset is way over beyond the far right of this picture. There is really nothing to reflect that reddish light. Maybe the swamp is on fire. Or, the river. I’m pretty much looking towards the Mississippi River from this location. But… The coolest thing about this picture is opening it up and staring into it. It appears to be translucent and layered. The trees seem to be way in a separate foreground. The moon is floating off somewhere way in the distance. I discovered that while I was working on it in post production. I made the picture a few steps away from home. I mention this because a number of you still think you need to travel to take a picture. You don’t. You …