Posts in Category: still-life
10/2/2011: Still life with water, Happy Sunday!
Happy Sunday!
On my visit to Saco Heath a week ago, the day started overcast. The sun did not break out until I had already passed through the forest part of the trail. I found interesting fungi along the way, and the subdued light and persistent damp made for kind of “fall in the rain forest” mood. Still after sunny couple of hours on the heath I was hoping the sun would persist on the way back through the forest to the car…and that it might waken more lively colors along the path.
This is just a little random collection of leaves, moss, and water to one side or the other of one of boardwalk sections through the forest. We have had a lot rain this late summer/early fall, and the wetter portions of the forest are brim full. The boardwalks were definitely needed. I take a lot of these found still life shots, especially in the fall, attempting to find significant patterns by framing them carefully. They are primarily exercises in composition…which is one thing I value about the long zooms on the bridge cameras that I choose to use. Generally I can set the frame just as I want it, simply by zooming in or out. In this case I took some care to include just enough of the decaying branch to ground the bottom of the frame. And since the floating red leaf is what catches the eye first, I put it at one of the rule of thirds power points within the frame.
Don’t get me wrong. I did not stand and study, figure and plan. I just pulled up above this scatter of leaves along the branch, saw a possibility, put the frame around it, zoomed until it looked right to me, and squeezed off the shot. I do keep the rule of thirds grid turned on in my finder as a compositional reminder, and I am certainly conscious of the composition as I frame and zoom, but it is not in the forefront of my mind. I shoot more by eye than by mind. I see the image and capture it…I don’t plan the image and make it. That is just me of course. Your method may be quite different.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 176mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/30th @ ISO 200. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
So I am thinking this Sunday morning, about creativity. I read an article this week on the psychology and personality of creativity. It was one of those wiki type things that is more a digest of what other people think and have said (minus the need for footnotes and proper attribution :) ), with no real original thought or even a recognizable thesis…but still it got me thinking. As usual the idea of inspiration came into it. And as usual some pains were taken to explain the moment of inspiration as a sudden convergence of experience and experiment that yields an unexpected result…or something of that sort…anything to avoid the notion that some greater creative spirit at large in the world occasionally touches those with open minds and willing hearts with quite unearned bursts of liberating vision…as though for a second we are allowed to see through to the underlying reality where everything makes sense and is as it should be, and bring just a fragment of that vision back with us to apply to whatever problem or process is in hand.
Taking a picture for instance.
And as usual, the idea that creative genius and madness are closely linked…that the creative person walks a fine line with the balance of the mind…was presented as more or less historical fact. That has me thinking about gratitude. Thankfulness. I suspect…I do not know but I do suspect…that gratitude is a key element in the creative personality in maintaining the balance of the mind. You have to be thankful for every insight…for every inspiration…for every gift of vision that comes from that spirit of creativity greater than yourself. If you are not genuinely thankful…it you take those sudden convergences of experience and experiment as something that belongs to you, that you deserve or have earned…well, I have a strong feeling that that way lies madness.
And, as is not usual in these Sunday ramblings, that is a lot of weight to hang on a found still-life, a few leaves scattered in moss and water, over a decaying branch, along the boardwalk at Saco Heath. I scroll back up to look again at the image. Yup. Still thankful. So maybe it does work.
8/28/2011: Feather
Happy Sunday.
I am not sure what happened, but along the trail at Rutland Water I came upon a quantity of loose scattered feathers, like this pure white one, caught well above waist height in the dead foliage of a bush. I passed it by, but had to stop and return. The contrast in color and texture, the bold clean white curves against the clutter of background, was just too tempting.
It is a tricky exposure problem. Heavy recovery was needed in Lightroom to bring up the texture of the feather.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 32mm equivalent field of view, f3.7 @ 1/640th @ ISO 160. Close Up mode.
Processed for Clarity, Sharpness, and highlights in Lightroom.
And for the Sunday thought…well it is a very simple image, after all, to hang any great spiritual truth on. There is the thought of the passing of whatever passed along the trail, supper for fox or Great Black-backed Gull, that left the scatter of feathers to catch our eye…bitter sweet. Or we might think of the wind that picked this feather up and hung it in the bush like an ornament, which would lead to our capacity, our propensity, to see it so…and to a kinship with who breaths the wind. But mostly it is a matter of being arrested, stopped, brought to witness, by the simplicity of a white feather caught in a bush. And, on a Sunday, or any other day, that just might be enough to be going on with.
7/28/2011: Yellow Birch, Laudholm Farm
I really like Yellow Birch: the colors and textures of the trunks in any stage of growth. This is a relatively large specimen growing by the boardwalk at Laudholm Farm (Wells National Estuarine Research Center in Wells Maine). Here the contrast between the green fern fond, the smooth Popular sapling and the strong arch of the Yellow Birch root and trunk make (to my eye) an interesting composition. Mid-afternoon light was somewhat harsh, so I have emphasized the contrasts in the scene, and it’s underlying graphic design, by adjusting both Blackpoint and Contrast.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 68mm equivalent field of view, f4.7 @ 1/400th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity, Sharpness, and Contrast.
7/4/2011: Tide’s Out. Happy July 4th
Okay…except for its quintessential summerness, this shot has noting to do with July 4th. It is another from my late evening loop down by the ocean Saturday, which happened to be at extreme low tide. You can see, from the anchor cable on the boat on the right, just how deep the water is in this little cove at high tide.
Though deceptively simple, there is actually lots going on in this shot. It is mostly about layers, lines, and light…with the bright yellow of the center boat anchoring it. To really see the textures that form the lines you need to view it lager in the Smugmug lightbox by clicking it.
Nikon Coolpix P500 @ 130mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto, with Active D-Lighting and Normal Image Optimization.
I experimented with the Nikon’s in camera post processing on this image…applying Quick Retouch…which apparently adds some dynamic range (D-Lighting), sharpens, and adjusts the blackpoint or contrast slightly…before taking it into Lightroom for final processing. I have been surprised to find that on some shots the Nikon’s in camera post processing can improve the result while introducing less noise than achieving the same effects in Lightroom. Not all images…but some.
And I pray that your July 4th (whether it is a holiday for you or not) will be blessed.
5/14/2011: Natural Abstract, Ottawa NWR, OH
For scenery on Saturday.
I was birding and shooting Point and Shoot Warblers (vireos, thrushes, etc) at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge early one morning this week when this scene caught my eye. I switched from my User Flight mode to regular Program mode, flipped out the LCD to get low, and zoomed to effectively frame the effect I saw…but the image looks even more striking than reality. I find it a real challenge to look at. My eye won’t quite resolve it back into a natural scene. It remains abstract. I want to have a 16×20 print made. The bigger you view it the more sense it makes. It is the kind of thing you see in a corporate office, framed and hung. I think, anyway.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 135mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/200th @ ISO 160. Program mode.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity, sharpness and impact.
4/24/2011: Happy Easter! Lilies and Daffs
My original Easter post follows, but I could not resist updating with this image from this morning. This, better than any words I could say, says Easter to me.
The Lily is not an Easter Lily, and neither, of course, are the Daffodils…but Happy Easter anyway. To me they carry the Easter Morning feeling. Resurrection in all its glory…in all HIS glory. And overflowing praise which has to be our response.
And these are first results of yet another new camera. The Fujifilm HS20 EXR I have been experimenting with the past few days went, with regrets (but no doubts), back to Amazon. I bought another camera to try yesterday morning. Free advice: never buy a new camera on a raining hard, almost snowing, day. I was reduced to shooting flowers and knickknacks in doors…at the end, with flash!
Still, there is a sunny side. I have these shots for Easter morning!
The top one is natural light. The bottom one is flash. Both are on the macro setting. Both are handheld, testing the limits of the camera’s image stabilization.
Nikon Coolpix P500. 1) 60mm equivalent field of view, f4.5 @ 1/15th @ ISO 400. 2) 370mm equivalent, f5.6 @ 1/60th @ ISO 200.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity (very lightly) and clarity. I actually had to turn Vibrance down a notch.
And of course, I have absolutely nothing to say about Easter that has not been said a thousand times before by better men and women than I. It is glorious. It is wonderful. It is amazing. It is the doorway that opens us to an encounter with a living savior…not perhaps the guarantee of our faith…but its ultimate affirmation. What you experience on Easter morning, in the end (and in the beginning) says everything about who you are. I rejoice at the risen one…and I want the whole world to rejoice with me. That is Easter. That is me.
4/1/2011: Coulda Fooled Me
So, okay, the title has nothing much to do with the image, but, given the date, I could not resist. I have photographed this display in other seasons, but in the harsh light of early spring in Southern Maine, it has a particular vividness…somewhat emphasized in processing. These are, of course, lobster pot (trap) buoys or floats, which Lobstermen worldwide have used since the dawn of lobstering (or maybe just after…along about when there were two boats in the water) to distinguish one man’s trap from another’s (and, of course, to keep the rope on the surface). They are displayed on the stair leading up to entrance to the Ramp Bar and Grill at the Pier 77 Restaurant in Cape Porpoise Maine.
Canon SX20IS at about 250mm equivalent field of view, f5.0 @ 1/500th @ ISO 80, Landscape Mode.
Processed in Lightroom for more than usual intensity and clarity.
2/6/2011: Rosehip in the Snow, Parson’s Beach
Happy Sunday! A play of textures, set off by the contrast between the brilliant red of the rosehip and the white of the snow. I also like the way the red of the rosehip has absorbed enough heat from the sun to melt the snow around it and create a little frame for itself. The thorns, to my eye, give it an extra appeal.
For this shot I used the tele-macro on the Canon SX20IS, shooting from a standing position and well back, but still getting the macro effect. 560mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80. Snow Mode.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. Cropped from the left to eliminate a distracting out of focus twig, and from the right slightly to more or less restore “rule of thirds” composition.
This is part of the sequence of grand snowscapes I shot on Friday. You saw one of them yesterday, taken only a few moments before. As part of my photographic discipline I have trained myself to always, in every situation, spend at least some time looking down, looking close, thinking small…even when the grand vista is compelling. There is often something worth my attention right at my feet. No…there is almost always something interesting right at my feet, if I take the time to look. And often, looking close produces an image which opens out with as much contrast and texture and pattern as the full landscape.
Without trying to stretch the metaphor too much, I think there is a spiritual truth there. I would not like to think that, in the grand and thrilling sweep of eternal values that opens to the spiritual eye, I would ever lose the intimate details, the small beauty of what is right at my feet. The poets say the universe is contained in a single grain of sand…or, say I, in a rosehip in the snow.
1/4/2011: Never so red
So briar berries are always red…but never so red as when the bushes are covered in blown snow. This bush was at the edge of the drift and and the snow deposited on the branches was blown through the bush, where the force of the wind dropped enough to drop the snow its way out. It produces a unique effect, with each branch being, in effect, its own little drift.
I have broken composition rules here by placing the red berries in the center of the frame. It works for me because of the other two berries forming a triangle toward the right, and because of the larger mass of snow in the upper left which creates an effective diagonal corner to corner. I did not, mind you, think all that out while taking the shot. (For one thing it was far too cold for that kind of thinking 🙂 ) But my instincts, my eye, worked for me without thinking. In this case. I think.
Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent, f5.7 @ 1/640th @ ISO 125. Snow Mode.
Processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom (see page link above).
12/17/2010: Little Things 4
Sometimes the background is as important as the subject…even if the background is totally out of focus. This furry little plant (or what was left of it by late fall) and black berries were isolated against a patch of ice, with some crystals on the surface that were catching the light. I could not resist :).
Canon SX20IS at 360mm, f5 @ 1/200th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.