Monthly Archives: June 2013

Photography Excursion in the Garden – After the Rain

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Red Mahonia/ Oregon grape  Rose bloom

Crab apple tree after the rain

Crab apple tree after the rain – Infrared.

Oregon grape on a rainy day

Oregon grape on a rainy day

Close up of an Iris on a rainy day

Close up of an Iris on a rainy day

Mahonia in black and white

I have heard complaints recently from photographers that they haven’t been able to get away from the wet weather this month and have only been offered a few rain free days to plan photography events.

The last three days has seen rain, sun, and shortly thereafter, rain again; nevertheless that needn’t be a reason to be depressed about the weather. Of course, the rain meant delaying a trip to the mountain waterfalls; and landscape photography might not be as dramatic unless one is willing to wait for the clouds to part. But, in my opinion, one doesn’t need to stray far from the back door to pursue that insatiable need to make pictures.

I have heard of groups having photographic challenges and I suggest that because of the rain that they have a challenge in their own back yard.  My goal this week was to get out during the rain to make pictures of the wet plants in my wife’s garden. I had planned to attach two small umbrellas to light stands, one for a flash and one for my camera and me. However, when the rain came down the last three days it really came down hard. So even though I don’t mind getting wet, there was no way I could be successful in the kind of deluge I faced each day.

The rain would come fast and hard, then abruptly stop. Next would come a strong breeze and bright hot sun that quickly dried the leaves. All perfect if one wanted to go for a walk, but I wanted wet leaves and water drops that I could add sparkle to by using a flash.

After waiting three days I put my umbrellas, light stands and flash away, slipped on rubber boots, and dashed out into the still wet garden as soon as the rain began to ease up.

As had been the pattern for the past few days, the sun came out quickly, hot and bright, and, as usual, the breeze began. Fortunately, the bright sun allowed shutterspeeds of 1/600th of a second and above, and, in most cases, made up for the plants moving with the light wind.

I used two cameras; one converted to infrared with a 70-180mm macro lens and the other shooting normal with a manual focus 200mm macro.  Some plants looked as though they might be perfect for infrared while others were so colourful that I knew I wanted the image to end up as close as possible to natural, although some would be converted to black and white. As I mentioned I wanted something unexpected and that also meant I photographed some plants taking into consideration that I might do some altering in post-production.

Wandering around the home garden is relaxing. My intention is to find something unexpected in the familiar plants. When I’ve chosen my subject, I look at it from all angles paying attention to the background so that whatever is behind won’t interfere, and I want the shadows, colours, and other plants to add interest to my composition.

I know many photographers may be content with aiming their programmed, little point and shoot cameras straight forward at some particular flower or foliage, and that is acceptable if all one wants is a life-like representation for a club’s plant catalogue, however, I find much more interesting photographs are from photographers with their DSLRs who are more intent in creating artistic representations of the flowers and other plants.

I think photographers get themselves all tied up with a need to have inspiring subjects, and ignore the commonplace subjects just outside the door.  When I want to try out some new piece of equipment, or software, I don’t wait for an excursion; I just walk out in my yard and make pictures of anything and everything. I can easily return to the computer to test some recent exposure, then go out again; and on days like I just wrote about it is easy to change out of wet cloths immediately at home, instead of driving home uncomfortably for several miles.

I always appreciate your comments. Thanks, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

Photographing Old Buildings

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Customs house Forgotten lane Homestead Neglected barnBarn field forgotten in the storm b WellsGrey Homestead neglected churchyarderghost residencese old house & chair Last sentinal

There are many camera-wielding travelers that cannot drive past an old barn, house, or an aging storage building standing and deteriorating in a field without stopping to capture a picture. And I admit that includes me.

I can’t begin to, or even try, count how many wooden relics of the past I have made photographs of since I acquired my first camera so long ago; or for that matter how many different types of cameras I have used in that pursuit.

I must wonder at my reason for stopping on the many roadsides, camera-in-hand, to take a picture of some rotting clapboard structure. For a moment as I look inside I wonder about the lives of those who lived there.  My wife likes to look for survivors of old plants and gardening that took place, e.g., rhubarb, and lilacs.  She says the fondest thing she ever discovered was some poets’ eye narcissus (daffodil) that had survived over fifty years on their own.  Very few photographs have ended as prints, and I suspect many readers will, like me, just file the memories away, because the act of documenting that old barn, or homestead, seemed important at the time, but when we developed the film, or downloaded our memory card, we didn’t have a plan that included dealing with the picture.

Hanging on my wall I have a very large (3’x5’) print of an old mining structure I had made using a 4×5 Speed Graphic camera; and once, in the late 1970’s I had a calendar made of buildings I found locally, in the interior of British Columbia. Sadly, as one might expect, none of those structures featured in that calendar still remain. However, most of my images like that languish in files, as forgotten as the structures they were made from.

What is it that makes it so exciting to discreetly, and precariously sometimes, to scramble over the barbed wire fence, onto some farmer’s private property, in spite of the “No Trespassing” signs nailed to the fence?  Our images rarely depict unusual subjects that haven’t been seen before or those of some architectural masterpiece; they are just of some decaying wood structure. However, those buildings are still intriguing and make us wonder about the life that was lived beside, around, and inside them, and why we need to make an exposure of that story on our camera’s sensor.

I don’t believe there is any one lens, or one particular way, to photograph a building. I think the words “whatever moves you” fits best.  Sometimes it’s the structure, sometimes the way it fits in the landscape. There are occasions that demand a long lens, others that call us to get close with a wide angle. My post-production might be some over-the-top effect, black and white, sepia toned, infrared, or a documentary as close to reality as I can make it. There isn’t a right or wrong way to make a picture, and in my opinion, almost any way one wants to present an image of an old building works.

No matter where the discussion goes regarding why so many photographers select dilapidated old buildings for their subjects, I think it is as photographer Elliott Erwitt says, “… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”

I always appreciate comments. Thanks, John

Check out my website at www.enmanscamera.com

Excellent Photographic Adventure with old cars in the Palouse

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Resting in deep grass In a field of green  In the shade of a tree GMC grill   the trunkJRE_4530bJRE_4529b

Last week I wrote about my photography adventure in the Washington Palouse area, with its undulating landscapes and picturesque dunes.

For me, the most satisfying moments of that trip was photographing the patterned fields from the top of Steptoe Butte as the sun came up in the mornings, and, finally, at day’s end standing at a canyon edge capturing the falling light on the spectacular Palouse Falls.

However, during the day our group’s leader, Aaron Reed, offered the opportunity to photograph old derelict vehicles he had located on dusty back roads, and we spent our mid-day driving to several different locations.

I have always enjoyed photographing old clunkers left resting, rotting, and rusting in forgotten fields. Even though where I live in British Columbia they aren’t that hard to find, when we stopped and wandered out into some field when an old car was spied, I was as just as eager as the others.

My approach isn’t very formal and while the others strategically placed their tripods, and selected filters; I would kneel in the deep grass, or lie down in the dirt, and start shooting. Grass stains and dirt clung into my clothes as I shifted, rolled, and dragged myself along on the ground making photographs from low angles.  For me, it’s all about the picture, right?

My lens of choice usually is a 24-70mm used at the 24mm focal length, which on my camera’s ¾ frame sensor is equal to about a 35mm. I will add that in the days of using film cameras, a 35mm was what I liked the best then, same as now for photographing derelict vehicles.

I know many photographers prefer dramatically distorted images created with ultra-wide lenses, but even a 35mm has distortion, certainly not as much as the 11mm lens one person of our group on that trip was using on his full frame Canon, but distortion enough for me.

I usually place a polarizing filter on my lens when photographing automobiles. Not because I am concerned with controlling the sky as I would in a scenic shot, but because a polarizer allows me to reduce the glare on chrome and glass. And I prefer to photograph reflection-free windows, if I can get it, as opposed to those that mirror the sky and surroundings.

As I stated, my approach isn’t that formal. I usually operate my camera in manual mode, and I don’t use higher ISO like over 400, unless the lighting conditions demand.  Normally, I take a meter reading off the ground, get just as low as I can by sitting, kneeling, or laying down, depending upon the high grass or other obstacles in the way, then focus on the old vehicle, making both horizontal and vertical images, and then move on to the next.

I admit I also like close-up views and select features that interest me on the rusting clunkers, so I would set the focal length of my 24-70 lens to 70mm while looking through an open window, open door, or when I found an interesting hood, or trunk, ornament.

Photographing those dilapidated old automobiles was, in my opinion, the icing on the cake for what was already an excellent photographic adventure.

I always appreciate comments. Thanks, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

Photographing the Washington Palouse

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White tower  Dunes 2 Dunes 1  Farm truck Truck  Palouse falls 3 Palouse falls 1  Palouse falls 2

Here’s the situation.  It is 3:00 am and the motel was buzzing with photographers packing camera bags and tripods in vehicles. Even in my tired fog caused by the long, eight-hour drive the day before, and a late evening talking with photographer Andrew Wozniaka till midnight.  I identified at least three other groups from the one I was with heading off for the Steptoe Butte overlook to wait for sunrise to photograph the patterns on the picturesque dunes of the Palouse.

Located south of Spokane, Washington, the Palouse (pe-looss) region of northwestern United States encompasses parts of southeastern Washington, north central Idaho and extends south into northeastern Oregon.  The peculiar and picturesque dunes, which characterize the Palouse prairie formed during the ice age by soil blown in from the glacial outwash plains to the west and south, the Palouse hills are now mostly actively farmed random humps and hollows.

I had joined four others for an Aaron Reed photography workshop, “The Palouse – Exposure Northwest”.  One could just visit the Palouse and wander around without an organized group, but having a leader that knows the area extremely well, if nothing else, will save time wandering from site to site.

Our excursion began early in the morning with a drive to Steptoe butte. Other photographers that had traveled there from all over North America joined us and some even came there from other parts of the world, although I am sure I was the only Canadian on that morning.

There were toe-to-toe tripods waiting for the sun to work its way across the manicured rolling dunes of the Palouse. As the sun rose a colourful landscape was illuminated, shutters were released, and the excitement began. It took me a while to really look into the landscape and isolate patterns. I am used to photographing landscapes that include mountains, trees, lakes and rivers from my part of the world, and it took me a while to watch and see just the patterns of the undulating landscape.

The interesting light only lasted for about an hour, then the patterns caused by the sun’s low horizontal light were gone and it was time to look for other subjects. Reed had picked out other places to go and until late in the afternoon we spent our time photographing deserted buildings and derelict cars and trucks.

While we stopped I saw a tractor plowing the miles of fields. I liked the dust clouds surrounding it so I ran out in the field and made several exposures. When the farmer finally drove to our location he stopped (covering us all with a thick coat of dust in the process) and got out to say hello.  We had been photographing a particularly distinctive old clapboard building and I asked him how old it was. His comment was, “Well, the house I live in was built in 1901 and my aunt lived in this house long before that”.

Our final destination of the first day was Palouse Falls State Park and the spectacular Palouse falls with its 186 feet (57 meter) drop.  The scenic and impressive falls can’t be seen until you are nearly on top of it. The broad, broken plateau of black basalt that stretches out to the horizon falls away and there they are: the thundering waters of Palouse Falls pounding down into a circular bowl carved out of the cinder-black rock.

We wandered along the precarious edge making pictures till the sun dropped below the horizon around 9PM. Actually the best time to make images of the falls was just as the sun went down because the contrast between the bottom and the top was pretty drastic.

The itinerary of sun up to sun down photography was repeated on the second day. I will say the long days were tiring, but I’d do it again. Well, after a good long rest.

Spending time getting tips on landscape photography from a photographer of Aaron Reed’s caliber was great as was the camaraderie of the others I met on those two days.  And the opportunity to photograph the Palouse was an exceptional experience.

I always appreciate any comments. Thanks, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

Photography and Light

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back lite Frog Ferry ride Helmkin Falls tree fogcolor car 1Sky view

“Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.”  That is one of my favorite quotes by George Eastman, American innovator, entrepreneur and founder of the Eastman Kodak Company that popularized the use of roll film and was one of the major forces that brought photography to the mainstream.

Photography is really all about light. When photography was first invented it was called heliography, which means writing or drawing with the sun.  Scenic or landscape photographers should be concerned with the quality of the light they are capturing, and portrait photographers definitely should be involved with the light they apply to make flattering portraits of their subjects.

We use terms like intensity of light, reflected light, backlight, and horizontal light when describing the details of a photographic composition.

When I refer to the intensity of the light, I am considering the harsh light in the middle of summer when I struggle to retain detail because of the contrast between the shadows and highlights in a scenic, or when in the studio I determine the number of lights, their individual output, and how to position them for the best portrait.

Our camera’s sensors see reflected light.  Two factors that I take into consideration are the amount of reflection that comes off different surfaces and how much colour I can actually capture. Both reflection and colour are subject to the different textures of surfaces, and governs how much light and colour I can actually capture for my final photograph.  Colours change as they reflect off different surfaces.

Backlight provides the drama that separates a spectacular image from an even-toned, ordinary image as it builds a rim of light around a subject and draws the viewer into a picture. The horizontal light of morning and evening can make a composition dazzle. When the light is soft as on thinly overcast day it sometimes is especially colourful, and appears to even be three-dimensional.

Most people I know are concerned about the weather, but to me weather, such as rain, snow, or even the hot, clear, cloudless days we get during the summer here in Kamloops can be dealt with.  When I say that, depending on the subject I have chosen to photograph, I am selective of the light I want.  I get up early in the morning to photograph the geese on a nearby pond, and I want the light sunny and bright so I can see the sparkling colour of their eyes. When I set out to capture a broad landscape I want blue sky with appropriately placed white, billowy clouds. For scenes of a waterfall I hope for some overcast clouds, and when I prepare to photograph a wedding I hope for an overcast day with high clouds.

I have been told that the problem with photography, as apposed to mediums like painting, is we must take whatever light and subject matter we have available and make it work.  Because we don’t always get everything in a scene just as we want, photography is also about problem solving.  However, if we choose another perspective when dealing with the light in our composition, then we shouldn’t look at light as a problem to sort out, but as an opportunity to work within a particular light range that will allow for unique moments as we make each of our images very personal.

I will finish with a quote, I think I have used before, by noted wilderness photographer Galen Rowell. Rowell was one of those scenic masters whose books, writing, and photographs are a must for those studying the art of landscape photography. Although Rowell was talking about landscape photography, I think his words apply to every type of photographic endeavor, “I almost never set out to photograph a landscape, nor do I think of my camera as a means of recording a mountain or an animal unless I absolutely need a ‘record shot’. My first thought is always of light.”

I always appreciate any comments. Thank you, John

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com