Maryland’s Eastern Shore

I’ve mentioned Virginia’s Eastern Shore quite a few times in this blog.  The Eastern Shore extends between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.  The Bay itself is one of the most important water resources in the world, and one of the most environmentally threatened.  We had the pleasure of spending the last week at St. Michael’s, just across the Bay from the Baltimore and DC areas, with the great photographic innovator and teacher, Tony Sweet.  Tony, as I said, is relentlessly innovative in his pursuit of new ways of creating art, of using the tools at our disposal to express something of our personal vision.  Interestingly though, we got to talking about the great Baltimore based photographer of the 40′s and 50′s, A. Aubrey Bodine, whose images though apparently quite “classical” nevertheless also reflected an intense dedication to innovation.  This first image is inspired by my fondness for his work.  Bodine loved capturing the activities along the harbors and ports of the Bay.  Taken just after sunrise at St. Michael’s (Maryland) harbor.

This next image though is much more contemporary.  We had an on-going conversation with a Blue Heron at Tilghman Island, just west of St. Michael’s the following morning.  This guy was without a doubt, working us just as much as we were working him.  The fishermen seemed to be in on the deal too, and I think they were the ones who were prompting him, with fish of course, to hang around so that they wouldn’t be bothered.  The photographic problem here is a very dull sky, literally white with clouds, no detail at all, behind an otherwise potentially interesting scene.  Texture overlays to the rescue.  (That involves layering a thin texture over an image in Photoshop, hopefully not over doing it, to provide, some texture of course.)

The purpose of the tools, in my view, is to help us tell the real story, a story not always captured by the camera, in the moment.  The job of photography in part is to communicate what it was really like to be there, the feel of the moment, not just what the sensor was able to capture.  One guy’s opinion of course.

Is It Always Winter Where You Take Pictures?

No, of course not.  I had a buyer ask me just that question though, regarding a collection of black and white imagery, which included quite a few infrared images.  Light reflected off certain materials, when photographed with an infrared sensitive camera (or rather one that is sensitive mostly to infrared and not to most of the visual spectrum we normally see) will indeed appear white, a bit like snow.  This is an approach to photography that has a long storied tradition. Infrared film, made mostly by Kodak and Ilford was the tool of choice.  Kodak no longer makes their brand.  The film was very difficult to use, but still (though I never had the chance to use it myself, or rather was never forced to use it myself), the results were often worth it. Why?  In my view, the mood.  Infrared speaks to us of other worldliness, or being out of the ordinary.  It captures beauty, tinged with just a touch of anxiety, a feeling one might expect when in an unusual place.  Perhaps anxiety is also a part of the spiritual sense of some places.  I happened to hear today about a new video game based on the work of Thoreau, arguably one of the best writers of all time when it came to describing the experience, the mood of being in nature.  A video game? Interesting concept.  I wonder if the gamers will be able to capture that complex sense of being alone in a beautiful wild place?  This image is from today, spring 2012, Connor Pond in Harvard Forest.  (Click on the image for a better view.)

Misty Manteo and a Lightroom 4 Warning

Hanging around Manteo, North Carolina, on the Outerbanks, courtesy of  Al, Donna, Chester and Maya.  Very relaxing and wonderful (thanks!) but the light has been a struggle.  The vegetation is popping here, too early as it is in many other parts of the U.S.  However, you wouldn’t have known in this morning.  The ocean of course brings with it humidity, stark contrasts between hot and cold, and fog.  It looked like it was clearing around 9, so I thought I’d try some infrared shoots, going for a different look in an area that has been photographed, a lot!  Infrared though, at its best requires sun, shadows and chlorophyll.  In the absence of those elements, things can get tough.  Nevertheless, the marsh and the sea tried to be helpful, as did a passing boat.

Design elements, shapes and leading lines are still visible.  The Causeway Bridge and the NC State boat ramp near by also helped out.

And some more relaxed ducks.

We will continue to be vigilant, for other opportunities as they arise.

Incidently, in the image above, “One of these things is not like the other” (with apologies to Sesame Street).  Can you spot it?

Tech note and tech word of warning:  Images captured with an infrared converted Nikon D200, converted to black and white in Lightroom 4, and tweaked with George De Wolfe’s PercepTool, which is a very powerful set of Photoshop actions that I highly recommend.

Now for the tech word of warning!  I am a huge fan of Lightroom, and Lightroom 4 looks great to me, so far, with one rather substantial exception.  This is technical, but I’ll try to make it brief.  Those of you who use Lightroom know that you can easily send an image into Photoshop for pixel level work, etc.  Up to this time, that image was then rendered in Photoshop quite nicely using whatever tonal changes you made in Lightroom.  In other words, where you started in Photoshop reflected exactly where you left off in Lightroom.  That is not the case using Lightroom 4 at this time. If you send your image into Photoshop CS5, you will find that the images does not look like it did in Lightroom 4.  This is a major problem and my perusal of the various Adobe internet fora suggests to me that Adobe is on the case.   However, the problem has not yet been fixed.  What to do?  When you hit control or command E to send your Lightroom 4 image into Photoshop, you will get a warning dialogue box saying that because ACR 7 is not installed, you must choose between several options before you go into Photoshop.  One of those, thankfully is, “Render using Lightroom Adjustments” or words to that effect.  That’s the right answer.  If you are like me, and blythely turned that warning dialogue box off, you can go to Lightroom preferences and look for an icon that allows you to “reset all warning dialogue boxes” or words to that effect.  It’s always something when it comes to software isn’t!  And don’t even get me started on Nikon Capture NX2 and Nikon software support.  I would not recommend that one two punch to my worst enemy.  Nikon makes great cameras, but their software is problematic and their technical support for software is poor, at best.

Watercolor Dreams

I’m not normally drawn to extensive post processing of my images.  Frankly, too often, the results are not particularly pleasing.  It can be so tempting the put the pedal to the medal in photoshop or a range of other image manipulation software tools “because you can.”  That being said for well over a hundred years photographers have been engaging in all sorts of image manipulations on a routine basis, so I don’t view the quandry as an ethical one, unless of course you are engaged in photojournalism, product photography or scientific photography. I recently had the chance to take a course with a wonderful photographer, Deborah Sandidge, who is explicit in that her goal is to use the images she captures in the field to create art and she will use the computer in whatever way serves that end.  It was a fascinating experience for me.  I used her suggested techniques to process a number of images for her critique.  Then I just let the images go.  Didn’t publish them, didn’t even look at them.  Since the photo ops have been decidly absent the last few weeks, due to work, flu, etc. etc. I decided to revisit them, and let them see the light of day.  It’s a pretty random assortment, but we’ll see what you think. (Click for a better view.)

From the White Mountains….

You can get a sense of where I’m going with this.  The inspiration is watercolor. From Central Park….  The tool in use is a Photoshop Plugin called Topaz Simplify.

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From our own Elm Park…

I was reading an interesting comment today from the print master George DeWolfe, in his work, Black and White Printing, also a book I would highly recommend.  He makes the point that the image captured by the camera is actually two dimensional, and as such, doesn’t reflect reality.  Our mind processes what we see, which is two dimensional, and changes what we see into a three dimensional experience.  Post processing in digital imagery takes that two dimensional image in hand, with the goal of making it both three dimensional, and emotional as well.  It seems to me the only real limit has to do with how we define our comfort zones in photography.  It is always interesting to me to think about how much many of us cherish the stark reality of a good old black and white print.  But, wait a second.  There is nothing realistic at all about a black and white print.  The world is in color.  A black and white print is inherently a massive abstraction.  Perhaps it comes down to personal preference.

Quite the Mess

I have written before about the work of Robert Glenn Ketchum.  He is without a doubt one of America’s great landscape and nature photographers.  Some of his best work, in my opinion, was on the Hudson River Valley.  An environmentalist to the core, he does not shy away from troubling vistas.  His work is not anything like “eco porn” as it is sometimes described, beautiful but essentially meaningless pictures. He tells a story with his work.  I cite him in the rather unusual context of a blog with a title “Quite the Mess” because of his ability to deal with just how messy nature can be.  We are implored as photographers to simplify, get just a few elements in your photos, and above all, get an image that doesn’t include a lot of distractions. I actually agree with that advice.  On occasion, such opportunities fall right into your lap.  More often when you’re trying to capture what is really happening in the wild, it ain’t going to happen.  Or, if it does, you will have lost your story line.  Case in point, the Swift River (Middle Branch) running under the old stone bridge at Gate 30 of the Quabbin Reservoir (located in New Salem, Massachusetts) a few weeks ago.

Could some one get that tree out of there!  No, I guess.  I actually debated the wisdom of putting these messy vistas on view.  I can hear some of my old teachers now.  ”Some things are beautiful, but don’t photograph well, that’s the way it is…..cope!”  But it occurs to me that we run risks when the work is always pristinely simple.  Have we at least paid attention to the way nature works, the way things look when they are in fact left “wild?”  So, ladies and gentlemen, from my “messy” portfolio..

I have to comment on these bells.  I tried every way I could think of or was physically capable of to create a compelling composition.  The problem here is that the tree branch from which the ice bells grew cuts across the frame in a rather mundane fashion.  Such is life.  This fallen tree created a platform for all sorts of wonderful ice forms.

A work of classical fine art?  Perhaps not. But the story here is, in part, the weather. Much of the “mess” resulted from the Halloween 2011 snow storm.  Such storms reshape the forest.  Nature obeys the laws of, nature, of course, the rules of photography not withstanding.

On closer inspection, things start to make a bit of sense.

With apologies to Robert Glenn Ketchum!