Playing Ball on Running Water
November 25th, 2009
That Zen saying is one I think about when it comes to working outdoors and trying to make art. You can plan all you want, but Mother Nature is going to dictate what you can and cannot do and your success will be determined by how well you can adapt to what you find when you are out there trying to make photographs.
I’m pretty good at adapting. And I’m pretty good at planning and adjusting the plan as needed. But today Mother Nature was flat out fucking with me.
I’d seen some things happening with the changing of the seasons that is a little unusual. We’ve had an unusual year as far as weather is concerned and I think it’s resulting in a little different progression of fall into winter. There was a situation that I thought would make a good figure shot. It required an overcast sky, which has been what we’ve had constantly for the past week…and what is forecast for today and the coming week.
So I called Angie and set up a shoot for this morning. Angie has become my “go-to” model for lots of things recently. She’s beautiful, she’s a talented model who is learning and getting better every time we shoot, and she’s often available and willing to put herself through the torture that my models frequently have to endure, especially at this time of year.
When I got up this morning there was a heavy overcast. Perfect. But as I headed to my studio to meet Angie the clouds moved off to the east and clear blue skies appeared. Shit! But Angie and I went on the location I had scouted. And, as I knew would be the case, the photos I had in mind would not work with the harsh sun beating down on us.
Time to adapt the plan. We hiked around and found some spots that worked ok, but in a different way from what I had envisioned. While scouting I had spotted this log out in the lake. On the day I was there the air was still and there was that overcast. There were beautiful reflections in the still water. I didn’t think it would work today, but we went there and Angie crawled out onto the log. This spot on the lake was sheltered enough that there were still reflections, despite a brisk, cold wind. Clouds started moving back in and added a nice element to both the sky and the reflections in the lake. So, we got a photo. Not the one I set out to take today, but still a keeper.
Of course, as we headed back to the studio the clouds moved back in and within an hour there was a full overcast again. We would have waited around, but Angie had to get to work at her day job, so that wasn’t an option.
But, I have another shoot planned for Monday…maybe the clouds will be back…no telling if fall will have progressed into winter too far for the photo to still be there, but I’ll just adapt the plan to what I find then.
2010 Calendars
November 20th, 2009
I’ve finally gotten around to publishing a new calendar for 2010. “The Figure In Nature 2010” has almost all new photos, with one or two oldies thrown it for nostalgia’s sake. There’s a smaller, less expensive version here. You can order the calendars here, or just use the link at the right.
I’ve also republished last year’s calendar from my trip out west with Brooke Lynne for 2010. You can order it at the same place.
Rainy Day
November 16th, 2009
It rained all day Saturday. This is what the farm looked like through the rain and fog.
I’m back home. Drove all day Sunday and half a day today. Lots of work to do at the studio tomorrow to get ready for some dancers coming in for studio photos.
Now that I’m home I’ll have to dig around for some photos of naked ladies to post here. But it might not happen until after I get these next dance photos done. Depends on how well the studio setup goes.
By Dawn’s Early Light
November 13th, 2009
OK…here are two more versions of “my” farmhouse. The one below was shot this morning in the pre-sunrise morning twilight. The one above a bit later just after the sun rose above the Green Mountains.
I guess these photos are another of the many signs that I’m officially old. It seems it’s only old photographers who become fascinated with the changing light on a given scene. I remember that Edward Steichen made a time-lapse movie of a tree outside a window in his house. I think he was in his eighties when he did that. I’m not quite that old, but I’m finding projects like this one increasingly attractive. Maybe I’ll have to start shooting these on large format film. Or not. This was shot with my 18-200 lens at 200mm…so, on my D200 that’s the 35mm equivalent of a 300mm lens. I don’t even know what lens I’d need to match that on a 4×5 view camera. I doubt if I could afford the required lens anyway.
Don’t know if I’ll be posting any more before we return home next week. Depends on what I see up here, I guess. But this is probably it for the farm…or not…have to go and get a shot of it at sunset…
Vermont
November 12th, 2009
I’m in Vermont for a family visit. When I come up here I’ve been photographing this one farm for several years in various light and weather. There’s something about the way this farmhouse looks that just draws me to it. I’ve posted some of my earlier photos of it on here before.
The above photo was taken mid-morning today. The one below, right as the sun was setting. Tomorrow I hope to try a shot at sun up. There should be frost on the ground then.
Of course, you all know that to do a photo like this this it’s important to find just the right camera position and to be able to repeat that placing of the camera. I don’t mind minor variations in the crop and composition, but the point of view needs to be pretty much the same. I’ve walked all over the place and tried many different camera positions before settling on this one. It happens to be that I shoot these out the living room window of my mother-in-law’s house. That’s the only place that gives me the right elevation to clear a bunch of obstructions. I’ve tried walking closer, but there is a serious slope between my mother-in-law’s house and this farm, so moving closer destroys the composition. So I’ve just had to settle for shooting from the comfort of the living room. That will make the dawn photo tomorrow a bit easier than if I had to go hiking.
I’m on a dial-up connection up here. My mother-in-law hasn’t joined the world of the internet. So I won’t be on here much until we return home next week. But meanwhile, enjoy the sights of Vermont.
Art Walk
November 8th, 2009
Friday was the “First Friday” Art Walk in Dayton. It was also the night for the closing reception for the Creative Soul of Dayton art show where I had a couple prints on display. With that show ending my prints needed to be picked up either right after the closing reception on Friday or sometime Saturday. So I decided it was a good night to wander around the art walk with some friends.
Above are Fen and _G_ and a lovely new model I’ve started working with recently, Ophidian Marie. I shot this at my studio before we headed out for the evening. I was actually testing a new light modifier that I just purchased. I’m very pleased with the results.
We went to dinner where Gary M met up with us and then to several galleries, ending up at the Creative Soul exhibit in the old Armory at Sixth and Patterson.
_G_ was quite impressed to see that they had hidden my photo of her at Ash Cave in a corner and said she felt she should hide in the corner too:
My other print in the show, “Brooke In A Stream,” was in a bit more prominent location. So we got Gary to take this shot of the four of us there:
At 10 p.m. the closing reception ended and I took my prints off the wall and headed back to the studio. All in all a very pleasant evening. No print sales, of course, but that seems to be the norm this year.Fall
November 4th, 2009
Waterfall, that is. After Angie and I did our Fall Colors shot we went to a nearby waterfall where I’ve shot a number of times. In the past something has always prevented me from getting the shot I was after. Sometimes the light was wrong. The waterfall faces south, so if there is any direct sunlight it is on the waterfall all day and the trees produce mottled sun and shadow that can be very unattractive, not to mention being beyond the ability of the camera to hold detail at both ends. The waterfall is seasonal, coming pretty close to drying up when there hasn’t been rain for a while. So other photos have not worked well because there just wasn’t enough water.
But this time everything fell into place. The cloud cover was perfect for just the right level of contrast. It’s very unusual for there to be this much water here at the end of October, but this fall has been far from usual as far as weather goes, so the water flow was about the best I’ve seen in this spot.
And, fortunately, I had the beautiful and talented Angie with me to add just the right extra element to the scene that it needs for my eye to feel it’s complete.
So, there you have it. Thanks Angie.
I finished the shooting for the Fall Dance Concert at Ohio University last night. So, today’s task is editing. I should soon have some of those photos to share here.
Fall Colors
November 2nd, 2009
I’ve been trying to get something with the fall colors this year, but the leaves just haven’t cooperated around here. They pretty much turned brown and fell off the trees. The colorful days were few. On my trip up to Detroit and Chicago I saw fantastic colors on the trees, but I wasn’t shooting on that trip, so I didn’t get to take advantage of them.
But by hunting around I was able to find a few places where the leaves still had some color after they had hit the ground. Wonderful Angie is pretty much always available when I need her, so on a relatively warm day we set out to find and capture something with the colors. I think this one did about as well as was possible this year.
I’m in the middle of working on the dance concert at OU. Have to take off in a bit for an evening of shooting. Hope to have some new dance work to share in a few days.
Wishing You A Spooky Halloween
October 30th, 2009
There’s Theda getting familiar with a very lucky Death. Just wanted to share something in keeping with the season. The trick or treaters, including that cute little boy in the last post, will be coming by looking for candy tomorrow night. I don’t think they’ll get any treats like Death did when he came calling on Theda, though.
I’ve seen half of the dance pieces that I’ll be photographing next week. Sunday I’ll watch the rest. Then Monday and Tuesday will be shooting days. I watch the lighting rehearsals, get familiar with each piece and take notes on the best exposures for each piece…and often for different parts of each piece if there is much change in the light levels. Lighting rehearsals are slow, but they offer a good opportunity to get to know what’s involved in a dance. I’ve blogged before about what I consider the necessity to know what’s happening when I shoot dance…not to just shoot it like a basketball game. I try to understand each piece and work to capture something of what the piece is about in my photos. It’s impossible to do that, but it provides my goal and direction for what I try to do.
Monday and Tuesday will be technical rehearsals. I’ll get to shoot each piece each night. Sometimes at a tech rehearsal they will run a piece more than once to get any technical kinks worked out. So it gives me plenty of opportunity to work to get just what I want. I would prefer to shoot the dress rehearsals, but at OU there is an audience for their dress rehearsals…usually classes from local elementary, middle and high schools. It’s rude and disruptive to photograph when there is an audience, so I won’t do it…and the school of dance agrees with me and doesn’t allow photography at those rehearsals anyway.
Maybe one of these days digital cameras will get to the place that they won’t be so noticeable during a performance. I see some developments recently that could get us to that point. There’s really no reason cameras have to be so noisy. There’s really no reason we need single lens reflexes with a noisy mirror flopping up and down. If I had a camera with a bright viewfinder (not through the lens), excellent auto focus, and high ISO performance like the latest pro Nikons…well that would be the perfect dance camera. With usable 6400 ISO and a short f/2.8 zoom…something in the 35-90 range (in full frame 35mm terms…I could get by with my 80-200 if nothing else was available) I’d be able to just go to the back of the performance space and shoot without anyone even noticing.
I have hopes that I’ll live to see a camera that will do what I want for dance photos. The Leica M9 isn’t it because it isn’t auto focus. I’ve shot dance with my Leica M2. It’s possible, but focus is a major challenge. I just did zone focusing and only used my wide angle lenses on the Leica for shots of the whole stage back in those days. I know better than to think I could get away with using the M9 for the main dance camera. I’ve actually been watching the new mini 4/3 cameras thinking one of them might provide what I’m looking for. They don’t seem to be there yet, but maybe in their next generation they will get there.
Compared to what we had to work with back in the 1970s when I started photographing dance using Tri-X pushed in Acufine…well the current crop of digital cameras are just fantastic. But we always want at least a little bit more, don’t we.
Grandson
October 27th, 2009
My grandson, Titus, came by my studio over the weekend to get his photo taken. He’s about one year and one month old. I think he’s pretty cute and a delightful little boy. But, hey, I’m not prejudiced or anything. I think this one does a pretty good job of catching his personality and mischievous energy.
I haven’t been doing much else with photos in recent days. Just sticking close to home and working on other things the past few days. Tomorrow I’ll be heading down to Athens to start the process of photographing a dance concert. That will involve four trips to Athens, two to watch the dances and two to photograph them. I missed the spring concert that I usually photograph because it happened while I was on the trip to Glacier National Park. So I’m looking forward to getting back to shooting some dance.
I’ve added some lighting do-dads to the studio that are particularly suited to shooting studio dance things, so I’m hoping to get some good dancers to make the trip to my studio soon for some shooting. This upcoming concert is usually where I see who the outstanding dancers are in this year’s crop of seniors, so I’ll probably have someone to shoot soon.
