Mercurial II
I’ve compared water drops to mercury before in this blog. But for those who have seen beads of mercury, you’d have to admit that these water drops, photographed from the inside of my pickup’s front window, look more like silvery mercury than beads of water. A good photo? You’ll make that judgement. A different view [...]
Breaking Ground
OK, so in a minor way I am breaking ground in this blog because I am A)publishing a painting and B)I am posting someone else’s work. Why, you ask? The answer is that I am assigning a “Copy Da Vinci” portrait assignment to my studio photography students and I thought this might also teach you [...]
Emily
This is a photo that I took a few years ago and used as a retouching demonstration for my Studio Photography class. It takes about 20 minutes per portrait to do the things I think need to be done, though I have Photoshop actions and filters that would do some of the same things in [...]
Window Seat (iPhoneography)
When I travel, I am as captivated by looking at the scenery as any other tourist. But if the situation allows it, I also like to take photos of people looking at the scenery. I guess I’m a bit of a voyeur in that sense. In this case, I was on a plane flying over [...]
Shadow and Light
This is the fourth in a series of sunrise shots that were all taken within 30 minutes or so of each other. This photo was almost rejected (which is my way of throwing things away – kind of). The rejection would have been based on the fact that so little is well exposed on this [...]
A Little Coffee
I took this quite a while ago using an iPad app I had read about called Photo Soft Box. You set any number of patterns on your iPad, find a dark room and an object that has interesting reflectivity and then take photos. I think it’s pretty cool and a creative eye might find interesting [...]
I Am No Claude Monet
Nor was meant to be. (As TS Elliot might say.)* But just as Monet painted canvas after canvas of haystacks in different light, I seem to photograph clouds at sunrise fairly regularly. Redundant? Just as it was with Monet, for me it’s not so much about the subject; it’s about the light. And the place. [...]
Still Seeing Green
I took this photo this summer but when and where I don’t remember. For me, this is unusual since taking a photo is rarely a casual or unconscious decision. I am generally pretty “focused” and very aware of the subject, the place and the act. This photo isn’t anything to write home about, though there [...]
Sunset Cruise
This photo was no accident, though I had no idea what I’d get when I starting taking photos of the water contrail behind my brother-in-law Scott’s boat last night on Lake Okoboji in Iowa. I like the glow of the sunset still visible in the background but I especially like the creamy, dark blue look [...]
Another View
I think this is the third year I have photographed this lilly and this morning when I took my tripod and camera out to the garden, my goal was to try to see this beautiful plant in a way I hadn’t seen it before. I have said before that photographers have the power to define [...]
Collage – Slovenian Wooden Boats
You’ve seen most of these before but I was playing with an iPad app called Diptic and kind of liked this collection.
Instagram Collage
Call this one a “remix,” which is the word used for taking things and putting them together into a new form. Is it lazy of me to repost? Of course not. It’s hard work doing what I do – playing with my iPad and cool new apps like PhotoShake.
Street Light
Early yesterday morning, I went out on the deck, where Deb, my wife, was standing. She said it felt a little like Hawaii and I politely disagreed, since it was 46 degrees it didn’t smell like the tropics. But it was hazy and humid. As she started to list the things I had to do, [...]
iPhonography
I didn’t make the word “iPhonography” up. It is a “school” of photography these days and you have noticed that several of my recent posts have a different look. That’s partly because I’ve been use my phone quite a bit to take photos. It is also because I have been using an app called Instagram [...]
What Is Reality?
Here’s something that just occurred to me when I saw this picture: Much of “Reality” is what we perceive superimposed with what our culture tells us we should think and feel about our perceptions. Thus, the distorted image of the Colorado state capitol building reflected in a nearby office building isn’t real. But if that’s [...]
Writing With Light
Photography does mean “writing with light.” But you probably knew that. Did you know that if you ride on the back of a golf cart at night and expose the structures along a certain path at the Moon Palace south of Cancun, you get something like this? You do if you use a shutter speed [...]
Procession
This is another unique Christmas decoration that gets put out once a year. There’s nothing like a donkey and camel procession that says, “Christmas.” (Behind the scenes: For those who might be interested in seeing how framing, composition, aperture and angle affect the outcome of a photograph, check out this alternative view of the “Procession,” [...]
The Wittenberg Wiener Man
I’d like to think that if I went back to Wittenberg, Germany (where Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses), I could get a better photo of the Wiener Man. Like the girl I posted a few days ago, he looks a bit suspicious. A better shot would have people waiting in line for the wurst [...]
Leafy Bokeh – Paris
I wasn’t looking for bokeh* when I took this photo. In fact, I didn’t know what it was at the time. But here it is in all its glory. Also, here is green in all its glory. This time the green is basswood tree leaves in a park in Paris. There is snow out my [...]
Details
Most of the photography I do is very personal and maybe even selfish. I rarely think, “What will they say about this one?” when I push the shutter button. When I frame something, I am more often studying the object being photographed than I am recording it for posterity. Thus, the details that I often [...]
E Pluribus Unum
Ethan’s second birthday party was this past Saturday and it was an interesting event – twenty-nine guests and enough presents to keep a young person and his parents occupied for a long time. In between the action my eye was caught by a series of Russian nesting dolls sitting on a hutch that had been [...]
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