It is over

According to a post today on the Online Photographer the case of the the alleged "lost Ansel Adams negatives" is over and the conclusion is that they aren't Ansel Adams negatives (Surprise -NOT!). Mike Johnston's writing makes for an amusing read of an otherwise dull outcome. The second case he reports on is interesting too.

Today's photo is a continuation the newest explorations I've been doing. Like the first it is based on a pattern of rocks I found in Inman Gulf last summer.

A New Series of Images

One of my less admirable qualities is that I get distracted easily. I tend to wander off on new projects and ideas before completing existing ones. I've been described as having "too many irons in the fire". I added another iron last night.

The new "iron" is the result of a couple of things. I watched a webinar that Rick Sammon did for Topaz on "Awakening the Artist Within" using some of Topaz' filters. I didn't care  much for some of images he created (Sorry Rick. Nothing personal. Just a matter of taste) but some of the things he did to them must have simmered in the back of my head. Later I was using Stumble Upon to look at some art sites and found some abstract paintings by Sabine Spiesser that reminded me of some rock pattern photos I made last summer. I wondered what would happen if I applied some of Rick's filter ideas to those patterns and I was off and running (figuratively speaking). I applied two separate presets (tinkered with them both), added the circle with a copy>paste>invert>change blend mode sequence and came up with the above. I did several more but this was the first and the one I like best so far.

Natural Destruction

 

Last night I sat watching the Dateline coverage of the disaster in Japan. It took my mind to this waterfall which, like large areas of the Japanese coast that were obliterated in the tsunami, no longer exists due to a natural disaster albeit of minuscule scale compared to the disaster in Japan. Several days after the landslide I went through the mountain pass where this waterfall had been before Hurricane Floyd. The photo below was taken on that hike.

Prior to the landslide there was stand of mature Yellow Birch in the pass and ferns growing beneath. No lives were lost in that landslide and it was only a minor inconvenience to hikers who had been camping on the other side but walking through, or rather over, the 30' deep debris I got a real sense of the immense power of nature and the fragility of humanity. 

I will be sending money to aid the Japanese recovery but I would like to do more. To that end I am offering up 10 signed prints to people who send me scans of evidence of donations of $50 or more to relief efforts within the next 30 days. It will be on the basis of a drawing from those that respond. I'd love to make it open ended and send one to everyone who donates but I can't afford that. At least I hope enough are encouraged to donate that it would bankrupt me if I did make such an offer and if you were assured of getting a print for the donation the IRS won't let you deduct it. The print area will be approximately 8½x6½ matted to 11x14 and it will be signed. You'll have to buy your own frame. I hope I will get dozens if not hundreds of replies. My Gmail name is jim.bullard. Put "Japan relief " in the subject line.

P.S. If you can't give $50 please do what you can. Here is a link to places that are taking donations via text message. (they add it to your cell phone bill). If the link doesn't work, copy and paste the following to the address line of your browser:

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/11/6246445-japans-earthquake-how-to-help

A New Trick

Another photo of the tree with galls during our recent snowstorm. The faux circular mat cutout is a new trick that I just figured out. I'll write it up and post the technique shortly.

Winter Returns

We had temperatures in the mid to high 40s yesterday, much of the snow melted and I briefly entertained thoughts of spring. This morning was another story. It began snowing early and they forecast 4" during the day. We had a bit over that before noon. Fortunately it stopped but more is forecast for tonight, much more, Possibly 14" more. I went out and bought some more gas for the snow blower.

While I was out in the weather I took my camera along to see what I could find. I re-found this tree. It has been featured on this blog before in a B&W diptych that I shot with an old Voightlander Vitessa L, and I have photographed it several other times as well. This time I shot an overlapping cluster of images with a Canon G10 that I then assembled into a digital montage. I think I will repeat the process in spring, summer and fall to create a "Tree with galls" series.

Why We Do It

I spent 2-3 hours yesterday with my potter/photographer friend Ron. I'm planning to offer my services to fellow artists/crafts folk photographing them and their work for their promotional materials etc. and I needed some samples of what I can do. Ron agreed to be my victim. Of course we spent a lot of time talking about the trials of marketing our wares and Ron told me the following story (parable).

Three craftsmen went to a bar for a beer after the close of a fair they just exhibited at and they were commiserating over the difficulties of making a living in crafts. After a bit another man came over to them and said "I've been listening to you and I'd like to make you an offer. I'm extremely rich. I'll give you each a million dollars if you tell me what you will do with it." That sounded pretty good and they all agreed. The first craftsman said "I'll quit this business, buy a farm down in Virginia and raise horses". The second said "I'm quitting too. I'll invest the money and live off the interest as I travel around the world". The third thought a bit and said "You know... I actually like what I'm doing. I complain about it, but I even like doing the fairs. I think I'll just keep doing it until the million dollars runs out."

We create the things we do because it is who and what we are. If anyone wants to offer me a million, I promise to keep doing until the million (and I) are all used up. :-)

Photo: Canon 7D, Live View mode (camera inches from the window that  main light source), 1/25th sec. @ f/6.3.

Fame?

When I was in high school I enrolled in the Famous Photographers correspondence course, however I long ago gave up any notions of becoming a "famous photographer". This comes up this morning because a friend jokingly suggested that I was famous but it reminded me of a discussion I had with Diane a while back.

There aren't many photographers who are famous in the conventional sense to the word. There are the famous people who take up photography and instantly get attention because they are already famous from some other endeavor. I'm thinking of people like Graham Nash (Crosby, Stills & Nash) or by virtue of association with someone famous (i.e. Linda McCartney) or even a bit of both like Julian Lennon (son of John Lennon & a musician himself). This is not to imply that they aren't good photographers, just that fame and quality of work are not necessarily connected, especially in the field of photography.

I challenged Diane to name 10 photographers that would be known to the average American who did not owe their fame to some other field or a relationship to someone famous in another field. She thought of Alfred Stieglitz but she was forgetting his relationship with Georgia O'Keefe. Aside from Ansel Adams I can't think of any. There are some who are semi-famous in that they are known in a certain subset of society, for example Annie Leibovitz but even she owes her fame largely to the celebrities she photographs. Edward Curtis might make the list but he isn't remotely contemporary. The average person may vividly remember an iconic photo but probably not one in ten thousand associates the image with the photographer who made the image. Photography in itself is a poor path for pursuing fame.

Perhaps that is because unlike acting, singing, politics, etc. photographers, as individuals, are largely absent from their work. The viewer sees the image but not the person who made it. Perhaps it has been compounded by the recent proliferation of photography with the advent of digital imaging. It is much harder for any one individual's work to stand out in the crowd.

In any case here is my challenge: Make a list of contemporary photographers whom you believe are "famous" in their own right and submit it as a comment. By contemporary I mean from about 1960 to the present. By famous I mean someone whose name would be recognized by at least the same number of people as a well known musician, actor, politician, etc. By "in their own right" I mean that they weren't already famous for something other than their photography and they aren't related somehow to someone else who is/was famous and thus had access to media attention that the ordinary individual does not. Your list can be any length. Comments are moderated so it may not appear immediately.

The photograph above is from the Owl's Head Peak outing on Monday during one of the moments when the sun was on the peak and a rocky nub beyond. Canon 7D, ISO 100, 1/250th at f/9, 18-135mm EFS IS lens at 25mm, wind at 30-40mph.

Weather or Not...

A friend and I went down to the Adirondacks today to climb Owl's Head Peak, a small subsidiary summit that rises from the slopes of Cascade Mountain on the Keene Valley side. It is a favorite location of mine and photos from there have appeared many times before in these posts but this was the first time I have climbed it in winter.

On the way into Saranac Lake we encountered what was probably the best scene of the day on the high flats by Gabriels, NY, a view of Whiteface Mountain against the early morning sky with dark clouds approaching. We grabbed a few shots before continuing on. Only moments later the summit of Whiteface was in the lowering clouds.

Although the experience on Owl's Head was enjoyable, we had some of the worst photography conditions I have worked in, wind, rain, wind, sleet, wind, snow, and did I mention the wind? It howled through so that we couldn't leave cameras on tripods to stand of their own accord. We had to physically hold them down. At times the gusts were so strong they nearly knocked us off our feet. And then there was the changing light. If you weren't positioned and ready to shoot, you missed the photo because the light we wanted seemed to last only a second or two before moving on with the wind. Fortunately the temperature was mild. Had it been 10º like it was last Friday it would have been impossible. Despite the difficulties I thoroughly enjoyed the outing. Yeah, I know. Photographers are strange.

A Day in the Adirondacks

I took a drive down to Lake Placid today (the Adirondack Park is South from here) and hit some of my favorite photo haunts along the way. I started under clouds, went through snow flurries, back to cloudy, on to sunny, back to cloudy, to fairly heavy snow and back to clouds by the time I got home. Typical NNY weather. I shot 157 photos along the way including a series of the rapidly changing sky over Barnum Pond. I think this is the best one of those. I haven't entirely made up my mind but it is tentatively number one so it gets posted.

Canon 7D, RAW, aperture priority, ISO 100, 1/125 sec, @ f/16

Addendum: A series of photos from the drive/snowshoe day above can be seen here. If the link doesn't work for you, copy and paste the following URL into the address field of your browser .

A Road Less Traveled

A busy day today. After cleaning up the snow from the recent storm I decided to go snowshoeing in the Southville State Forest. The River Hill Trails there are just 2 miles from my house and regular readers will notice that it is a frequent destination when I want to get out into the woods in winter. It was a perfect day, 8-12" of new snow. I actually enjoy breaking trail so it was with pleasure that I was the first person through after the storm. Lots of snow broken only by the tracks of animals from deer to mice. Bright sunshine and an impossibly blue sky. I did not use a polarizer and there has been no added saturation in Photoshop in the image above. It really was that intensely blue. The temperature was still in the teens but between the sun and an occasional breeze the snow was starting to come off the trees, clumps breaking up and falling, glittering like showers of diamonds. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get photos of any of them. The good news is that none of them landed on my head or went down the back of my neck as I passed under the trees and I still have the images in my heart even though I can't share them with you.

Canon G10 set on aperture priority ISO 100 with  -2/3rds exposure to compensate for the sun reflecting off the snow

Not A Nice Day

All the schools are closed. We are getting a mix of snow flakes and mini snow pellets. The wind is blowing and it is only 8º F. Even at that the worst of the storm is apparently South of us. I won't be breaking out the snow blower until much later. We aren't going anywhere and whatever I did to clear it now wouldn't last.

Frosty Morning

The thermometer at my house this morning read -30F.  The radio said that it was -38F in some places near here. That's the coldest we've seen in several years. I drove Diane to work and coming back across the Racquette River in Potsdam I saw this frost and mist as I crossed the bridge from Fall Island. Whoever left those tracks trusts ice farther than I would but they do add an interesting element to the photo.

I Should Have Washed That Window

I put the storm windows on rather late this year and in my hurry to get it done I didn't wash the windows first. Darn!

This afternoon a pair of deer wandered into the yard to munch on the remains of dead plants sticking up through the snow. I'm not a wildlife photographer but when it waltzes into my yard and poses I'd be a fool to pass it up. I watched this doe and fawn for 10-15 minutes as they wandered and fed on dead plants and seeds that were on the ground under the bird feeders. Most of the views are cluttered with shrubs, fence and the bird feeder post but as they were leaving they stopped in the side yard for mom to clean junior's face. They realized I was watching them and looked toward me for one last photo with a nice clear background.

Photo taken with my Canon G10. I had to do some burning in where white film on the window made light spots but for a serendipitous photo through a dirty window, it's not half bad. Thank you deer for gracing my day with your presence.

Prints or publication rights available. 

Warm Fingers All Day

It was a chilly morning and only got up to about 15º today. My first job was to clear the 3" of snow that fell yesterday & last night.  I put some Hot Hands (dry chemical packets that generate heat) into my gloves to keep my hands warm while running the snow blower. Two hours later I had cleared the driveway, walks and the walkway on the bridge over the river. I put out seed for the birds. They need all the help they can get this time of year. After lunch and some indoor chores I went to the State Forest to do some snowshoeing. The Hot Hands were still warm so I threw them into my mittens. As I was coming out the last stretch I met two women just starting with their dogs who were cavorting and generally enjoying the outing. The older woman was already having problems with her fingers getting cold so I pulled the Hot Hands out of my mits and put them in her mits. Then I came home to some homemade peanut butter fudge and hot tuna casserole with biscuits. Life is good.

The photo was taken with the Canon G10. It has been modified in a Topaz filter to protect the identities of the innocent and because I like the effect.