23 Jan 14. For this week's creative submission I've selected an image of a cone flower that is down to its last few petals. A critical eye will likely note that there are a number of small red colored areas that might be considered distractions and which I should have removed. I actually spent some considerable time doing just that but in the end felt that my efforts at removal were more of a distraction than are the colored areas. They of course represent other flowers in the background that add a bit of information relative to the setting of the cone flower. So, depending on your perspective, they need to be removed or they add to the whole picture. Either way, I'm hoping that your eye eventually decided to concentrate on just the cone flower. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/160 sec @ f /11.
24 Jan 14. The subject for today is the white frilly material with the tiny water droplets on the tips. The substrate for the frilly stuff I'll leave to your imagination. Since this is macro Friday, the goal here will be for you to look at this image at somewhere at or above 100%. Taking the girls for a walk last week on a rather foggy morning, I found several examples of today's image along side the road and took the time to try and capture this example of natural recycling. What initially caught my eye was the fungus, but the dew drops held it long enough to make me want to photograph it. Now for those of you, if any, who are seriously interested in macro photography, let me introduce you to an author/photographer whose has recently written a few good books on the subject whose name is Harold Davis. He is a CA based photographer who does a lot of close up nature photography who believe that the digital capture is the score and the finalized image exiting digital manipulation software is the performance. Two of his books may well be of interest to you and these two, among several he has authored, are Creative Close-Ups ISBN 978-0-470-52712-2 and Photographing Waterdrops ISBN 978-0-240-82072-9. This shot of water drops was taken prior to reading his books; next time I think I'll try a different approach. In addition to books on photography, he also had written a few on the digital darkroom that are really great for those beginning to work digitally or those who are somewhat intimidated by the software. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/60 sec @ f /7.1 with full flash.
27 Jan 14. A couple year's after we were married, and were no longer living from day to day financially, we began to collect pieces of art to decorate our home. There were several approaches for us to follow among which our favorite was the annual art show held in Bellevue Square when it was still an open parking lot type of store groupings and the art show a part of the summer Seafair activities. One artist whose work we really admired was Nell Wheeler, a Canadian who had settled in the Seattle area and who passed away in 2007. We purchased 3 of her original works over a period of 4 years with the final purchase being one I saw her painting in a local bank and to which I committed when it was roughly only 1/3 completed. It was a painting of a large rock off the coast of Washington state shrouded in heavy fog with several seagulls flying in front of the rock. I immediately liked it even though it was only a hint of what it was to become when I purchased it and it is to this day still my favorite oil in all our collection. That purchase was over 40 years ago and until this past weekend I had always wanted to go see where she got the incentive to paint it. With the wonderful weather we've been experiencing all of January slated to end this week, we set out mid-morning Friday to go to the coast to an area where she might have gotten her inspiration. Considering the fact that an artist can paint what they see as they want it, I have no way of knowing exactly which rock she was painting, but I believe that we found it on this trip to LaPush, WA. The painting being one primarily of fog, the weather on Friday was perfect as it was forecast for morning fog burning off in the late afternoon. Absolutely perfect weather if I was to mimic her painting with my photography. And so it was. We arrived in moderately heavy fog that mostly burned off before the day was over and began to return as evening set in. I found the rock(s) I wanted and proceeded to photograph them all day long remaining until a bit past sunset. The image I'm sharing with you today is my version of her painting although her painting is depicting a much heavier fog with a greater number of seagulls. Still, it should give you a feeling for the large rocks that can be found near the shore along the Pacific Coast and how they appear, or don't, in the fog. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/2500 sec @ f / 8.
