REAWAKENING TO LIFE

Nikon 5400, color capture to BW. It does a great job with the ‘bokeh’ – which is the blur quality of out-of-focus portions of the image.

I walked past these arms of dead wildflowers everyday when I come into work. Traveling to get unique images would be great, but great possibilities for photographs are usually in sight, as long as you are willing to look at the mundane with freshness.

A simple quote from my bosses on their secret to photography (who are in Antarctica photographing the endangered icebergs and who were both BBC Photographers of the Year):

“All it takes is vision.”

Maybe influenced by the trip to DC and referencing the nation’s obelisk? A boundary marker around the house where I work. The wonders of shooting in digital color and converting them to BW.

I shot 6 rolls of film this past weekend with the Yashica, and they are sitting in my bag unable to be processed until Wednesday…ugh. I shot a ton of statues and art work in the museums, trying out lighting schemes and dissecting the way the figures approach the viewer (or vice-versa). It reminded me of my time in Italy, and analyzing how heavenly and spiritual subjects are represented in an earthen visual language of statues and paintings.

How and why does gold represent holiness?

Still one of my favorites to shoot with is a $20 cheapie called a Holga. There’s no way in Photoshop to create the organic-ness of a purely crappy camera. Shot through a red filter, Ilford HP5, and scanned in.

I still love film, no question about it, and the way it works in toy cameras. There are ways to take the lens out of a Holga and strap it onto a digital SLR, but I haven’t been impressed enough with the results to want to do this.

This is a gravel pit in the middle of Quebec’s fishing country. When we passed by it on the way in, I knew I had to make some time get back there to shoot around because the landscape was so surreal. Representing and conveying this weirdness is attempted by shooting a high-resolution film in a low-resolution camera.

It was great being alone up there with just a camera to defend myself from Canadian gypsies or brown bears if they decided to make their presence known. Canada is still one of my favorite places to shoot.

Drab color and contrast in the original, so I upped the saturation, used a raw converter to go black and white, and gave it another shot.

I am trying to figure out what form this blog will morph into, so bear with me in these early days. Should I post more images or keep it to once a day? Post image data? Keep my thoughtful and inspiring insights about daily life to myself? Explain theological mysteries or my contempt with modern economic superstructures?

I guess when I have it, I will post it. Right now I have a ton of images that have remained hidden on my computer for wayyy too long, all of which need an audience.

Looking for things to shoot with my Nikon 5400. This camera sat in my drawer rarely used for about 2 years. I have a new found love for the swing-out LCD screen as I can set it on the ground or hold it up above me, get real close, and have a wide-angle option.

A fair amount of tweaking went into building up the oranges and blues, bringing out contrast, and making an image out of some mud and leaves. I find that I either want oversaturation or BW, but rarely do I want to try to emulate the real colors a scene actually portrays.

An image fresh out of my new/old camera – a Yashica GSN. My grandfather graciously gave it to me after finding it in his basement. I had previously lusted after one that I saw at a flea market for $40 (and I don’t think it even fired…).

There are rumors and claims that it is as sharp a lens as a Leica (ahem… I make no claim such as this), but it has a f/1.7 killer fast lens, and I’d say it is pretty freakin sharp. I burned through a roll and processed it with sweaty palms. Can’t wait to shoot more. Thanks Pop.