Validating Your Vision?

It is important for artists to take risks and put their work “out there” in some form. I haven’t pursued gallery exhibitions or had shows of my work very often because my time as a single parent/entrepreneur is very limited…but every once in a while I enter a competition to seek validation from others that my way of seeing the world is appreciated. This week, this image of a bleeding heart, grown in my garden, received a first place award in the plants category. I also took first place in the people category for an image of a homeless man which I posted to this site a few weeks ago.

Many photographers see the world at a level of detail that others often don’t comprehend. Beauty is everywhere…and I collect evidence of beauty and, in the case of the homeless man, evidence of sadness that stirs me. I can’t turn on the wipers in the car until I photograph the droplet patterns on my windshield. I can’t shovel the snow until I first take a picture of its soft drifts. At times, it is hard to STOP seeing these details and get about the business of life. But seeing is what I bring to the world and it is why I love my job as a photographer and graphic designer.

What is Simplicity?

A recent blog post by a photographer friend talked about achieving simplicity, which I believe is a meaningful thing to strive for in art. Many photographers today use a dizzying array of post-processing tools and sexy filtering software to achieve an image that may be visually described as “simple.” My immediate reaction is that is NOT what simplicity is about to me.

I avoid heavy manipulation of images because I am Thoreau-like in my lifestyle. I like minimalism of effort not just appearance. I don’t want to live tied to the computer. This snow image appealed to me because it is profoundly simple with virtually no intervention. Appealing as shot, I chose one simple crop and a tiny levels correction to remove a color cast. The snow in shade already had this blue appearance.

I have watched digital photography and tools and toys evolve to a point where you can make the incredibly ho-hum into a sublime work of art. I am simultaneously intrigued and put off. HDR imagery to me already appears cliched. To me, beauty is in the inherent simplicity of the image as shot.

Pattern and Color

While working at my home office, I spied this cardinal sitting in a tangle of branches and vines across my backyard. The bird is a great distance away and I didn’t have a long enough lens and tripod handy to make this a full frame bird shot. But several things help this image work: the monochromatic tangle, the contrasting red and attention to the rule of thirds. We can’t always use the 400mm with telextender and sit in a bird blind, but there is still enough right with the image to make it pleasing.

Seeing the Abstract

We received close to four feet of snow last week here in the Philadelphia area. It is hard not to be visually inspired by such an event. But it WAS hard to venture out into the stuff because of the endless shoveling and the ridiculous thigh-high depth of the snow.

I was looking for patterns and abstractions, not just the obvious piles of snow on top of everything. The above shot was one of my favorite captures. The early morning light made for strong shadows. The sunlight created sparkles. The wind created dune-like patterns. The natural world is a vast canvas and those with the eyes to see can hardly find enough time to capture it all.

Changing Seasons, New Subjects

I took a photo student out for his first trip with a digital camera yesterday. We talked mainly about subject and composition. I encouraged him to shoot what interested him and to spend time with each subject, to come in closer, to remember that what you leave out is as important as what you choose to include. I didn’t have a camera with me because I was teaching, so I borrowed the camera I had lent him so I could take this photo because it demonstrates how dramatically different a scene appears during the changing seasons.

I explore this same park several times a month, but this scene appears dramatically different during the spring, summer and fall months with leaves on the trees. The color palette changed completely from intense greens to subdued browns and faded reds. With no leaves, the scene is about line, texture and shape. More than likely, unless there was a significant bird in this scene, I wouldn’t have photographed this scene at any other time of year. But the skeletal lines of the white trees, the dead tree arching over the nest box and their reflection were appealing to me yesterday.

Revisiting favorite places during different seasons allows you to appreciate the miraculous changes that go on around us.

Contrast and texture

No photo outing is complete if I don’t end up on my belly photographing something! I loved the collision of texture and shape in this water garden image.

Just one more shot…

I was on a weekend photo workshop with friends. It had just finished raining so everything was particularly green and lush. I was already late back to the bus, but I wanted to grab just one more shot and continue my lingering appreciation for the beautiful place we shared together. I didn’t have time to work the scene…to climb down and remove the dead branch in the lower left (yes we photographers can be a bit compulsive and we do remove broken branches and risk soggy feet to clean up trash in pretty places like this.) I had to take it exactly as it was…a lovely little scene. I can still remember how it smelled and the sound of the water whooshing over the rocks.

Breaking the Rules

I was playing with what a photographer friend of mine calls “swipes” where you move the camera while you are shooting. Most photographers are firmly of the mindset that you want a rock solid camera when shooting. I usually use a tripod or if I shoot hand held, I hold my breath when I depress the shutter to prevent any movement from blurring my images. But the whole point of swipes is to move the camera and see what happens. I call this image, “Falling out of the Tree,” because I imagine this is what it would look like on the way down. What I like about playing with the technique is throwing rules out the window.

Winter Walk

One of my favorite local places to wander is the Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust in Huntingdon Valley, PA. When you’ve been to many of the world’s most beautiful places, it is nice to still find the beauty in simple everyday scenes such as this.

The Fox Den

My son was walking our dog this past summer and he happened upon a fox den with four fox kits out playing. They quickly disappeared into their hole, but he came home to tell me where the den was. I returned 4-5 times to try to photograph the kits. I only saw them twice and was able to get a few images.

Yosemite – Glacier Point

Taking this photo became a defining moment in my life. Taken with film in October of 1995, it is the shot that re-ignited my now ridiculously satisfying obsession for photography. And the way it was taken also made me begin to find countless lessons in life through nature. I was tired of hiking on this morning. I was hungryand I almost quit just before the best part…Here’s an excerpt from my journal:

I had hiked for several miles on this icy October morning and all I was thinking about was breakfast, but I hadn’t reached the end of the trail. I had engaged in a sensual feast of smells and textures and I had found moments in which no man-made sound was audible, only the birdsong, the chatter of small mammals, the beating of my own heart in reaction to the splendor of this place. When I reached a point of having to scramble over rocks to complete the last leg of the hike, I decided to call it quits and head back. Something urged me on. “Push yourself. Finish.” So I climbed up the rocks toward an apparent summit. I could not have been more thankful that I did. Those last few yards gave me one of those lifetime moments.

Out of the top of the rocks grew a twisted pine which had weathered the winds of time for hundreds of years. While it had recently died, the tree had a grace that was amazing to me. The harsh conditions it had endured…the cold, the wind, the lack of soil, the ages. But the Jeffrey Pine was not the half of it. Looking out from those rocks gave you a 360-degree view encompassing Half Dome, El Capitan and the Yosemite Valley. It was a chilling experience. It was breathtaking and life giving. And I completely forgot about being hungry.

Fishing for Serenity

This image is taken in one of my favorite places in Pennsylvania near Cedar Run. It is accessible by dirt road and you have to hike in. The fly fisherman is my son, Justin. The tastiest fish I have ever eaten were caught by Justin!

Bluebird in Flight

This is not a technically great photo, but being able to catch this tiny bluebird in flight was just a thrill! I was hired to do some photography at a park in Chester County, PA, and had arrived ahead of my client so I could walk the trail when I spotted this bird. There is nothing more satisfying to me than to be outdoors and encounter wildlife.

Who cares?

This blog isn’t just about pretty pictures…it is a means of self understanding. I wish that I could understand what it is that makes me NEED to shoot things like this. I was walking down the street in New Hope, PA, and saw this fern poking out of the fence. I actually ran back to the car to get my camera. It is a “so what” kind of image, but I frequently get caught up in the beauty of tiny everyday scenes like this that most people care nothing about. What is it that makes some people see thousands of scenes like this every day, and others look at you strangely when they see you photographing on the street and they can’t figure out what it is you are shooting?

Beauty in Imperfection

I love this little moth. I was in Amherst, Massachusetts at a photo conference and ventured out to photograph with friends. We stopped in a strip mall with gorgeous flower beds. Never content with the “big picture,” I had my mental macro lens on as I walked around looking for something to shoot. When I spied this little moth, I began to photograph him and he posed patiently.

Many photographers strive for perfection when photographing flowers and I confess to often being one of those people. I noticed the missing antenna on the moth, but I loved the interaction I was able to have at a very intimate level with this creature. I drew a small crowd of friends who took over shooting my scene. This is both a drawback and a joy of shooting with friends. No shot is yours alone, but you learn to see differently from each other.

The Curious Hawk

This was one of my life’s special wildlife moments. I encountered this hawk while visiting the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island. This bird was completely unphased by my very close proximity. In fact, he seemed quite curious about my interest in him. This photo was taken WITHOUT a telephoto lens.

The World Outside My Window

One of my favorite things to do over the winter is feed the birds outside my office window. It is Christmas day and I made up a tray of favorites for the birdies, but the squirrels are the primary benefactors of my generosity.

Christmas 3: Winter Wonderland on Ice

While freezing rain isn’t as festive as fluffy snow, it sometimes leaves interesting ice behind. Though I despise the cold, I am willing to don the Polartec and poke around the yard to see what is interesting in the landscape. At this barren time, I look for shape and color and this image of bittersweet has both.

Brown Pelicans at La Jolla

Several photographers had told me about “the pelican spot” in La Jolla, CA. I wandered in before sunrise to catch them waking and testing their wings in the early morning hours while the sea lions made comically cinematic sounds on the rocks below. The pelicans were the highlight of my San Diego trip.

Water lilies

Flowers and garden landscapes are one of my favorite photographic subjects. This water lily shot was taken at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.