Changes

     I'm feeling restless. Spring is here and I just want to go out and make photographs. However, as of this writing, the province is in its third lockdown due to the coronavirus and my travel options, once again, are pretty much limited. Up until now, we've had a pretty good run.  On my social media feeds, it seems everyone has been posting pictures of flowers, birds, trees budding out and just the general return to life of our natural world. After a winter of isolation under the demands of a global pandemic, it seems that the celebration of the vernal season is even more intense than ever. I love the passion that people are bringing to creating images in celebration of the warmer season and longer hours of daylight.                    

      In the spirit of the season,  I too, have contributed to the  frenzied celebration.   

                                                                             

                                                          

    I also find myself wanting to create images that are a little different. I want to try to make photographs from a slightly different point of view. I want to frame a vision of the world around me with an eye to creating interest out of the commonplace or mundane. However, I don't want to go too far outside the conventional.

                                                           

...

     Abstract art has its appeal, but it has never been my forté. I find that I can create images that are interesting and visually appealing with the simple use of form, texture, angle of view and other visual elements. I feel no need to inflict a visual guessing game on the viewer.                                                                             

   In the words of American photographer, Garry Winogrand, ''There is nothing more mysterious than a fact clearly described.'' So, for the present, I'm challenging myself to create interest from the prosaic.  Considering the seemingly interminable endurance test of the pandemic, it may be the only option left to me. 

...more later 

    

On Photographic Expression

     A while ago, a good friend and fellow photographer asked me an interesting question. "Do you consider yourself an artist?" It's a question that I've been asked before and so I gave her my stock flip answer. "Nah. I'm just handy with a camera."

     I don't know why, but I've always shied away from the idea of considering myself an artist. To consider myself an artist in any field of creative  endeavour seems to me to be taking on a mantle that I haven't earned.  At different periods in my life I have participated in various forms of the arts. Music, (I played in a couple of blues bands.)  Writing, (This blog as well as having a few small pieces published in local press.) and, of course, photography. In any of those creative fields I have generally considered myself a student of the craft. 

     A fairly long time ago, I wrote a blog post about my definition of art. https://multifarious-musings.blogspot.com/2012/08/on-artistic-expression-in-interest-of.html   To me, art is the communication of concepts. Fundamentally that definition  comes down to two things, communication and concept. 

    For photography it works this way. It doesn't matter how beautiful or interesting the subject matter is if I don't have the skills required to make a good photograph of it. Conversely, It doesn't matter how skilled I am as a photographer if I portray the subject in a boring manner. Or as the great Ansel Adams is quoted as saying, '' There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.'' 

    So old gray bearded photofreak, how does one avoid the dreaded ''fuzzy concept''? For me, it primarily comes down to asking a few simple questions before making the image. ''Why am I taking this picture?''  ''What aspect of the scene or subject  do I really want to emphasize?'' ''What skills and tools do I have available to make that happen?'' 

     Those of you who follow me on Facebook have probably seen the above picture already. It was taken on a dreary rainy day. Apart from a quick trip downtown, I had spent most of the day indoors editing pictures from my old laptop and saving them to an external hard drive. When I stepped outside for a break, there was a brief break in the cloud cover and this blast of golden light shone through. The light was amazing! I had to capture it! I quickly grabbed a camera. (my little Fuji X70  https://refractivereasoning.blogspot.com/2018/10/fuji-x70-little-camera-that-can.html ) Okay, I had a camera, gorgeous light, I needed a subject. Fortunately, I live very close to the William St. bridge and quickly went over and managed to get the shot. I was lucky to get it. Within a few minutes, the break in the overcast closed up and it was back to being a dull dreary day again. 

    Okay, enough of the backstory of the picture. What did I actually photograph here? The obvious answer is the bridge since it is the object that takes up the most space in the shot. A visually astute person might suggest that it's the buildings downtown as almost all of the leading lines in the shot direct your eye to them. Remember, that at the outset, my intent was to capture the beauty of the golden light. To my mind, that's what the picture is all about. The bridge and the distant buildings provide nothing more than a means to showcase that beautiful blast of light. Don't believe me? Here's a shot of pretty much the same scene taken under more mundane conditions. Don't tell me it's not about the light!

  

 The problem that plagues most of us visually, is that in our day to day lives, we see things just long enough to identify them. It's not just a traffic light, it's a study of three distinct colours of light. The plastic lawn chair in the backyard can be a study of shape, contrasting lines and monochromatic colour. If I am photographing things just to identify them I might as well be working for the police dept. 

     
I think that if ''Art is the communication of concepts.'' (my definition) it would serve us well if we were to think in terms of abstract concepts when attempting to make art with a camera. Here are some examples.

This isn't just a bunch of flowers.
It"s a blast of colour!

This isn't just a frozen mud puddle.
It's an abstract pattern of frozen ice crystals.

 

       

    

  

This isn't just a picture of orange leaves. What makes the picture work is the contrast 
of warm tones (the leaves) verses cool tones. (the background)

   

     So, in answer to the question posed at the beginning of this post. Am I an artist? No. But I will grudgingly admit to being a student of the arts. What can I say? It's a process. And I'm in  love with the process.                                                                                                               

            

   

            ...more later

    If you like what you see here, feel free to hit ''like'' and share to the media platform of your choice. Leave a comment if you like. The deal is, ''If you keep reading  'em, I'll keep crankin' 'em out!

It's All About The Camera

     ''I really love your pictures. You must have a really good camera'' That is probably one of the most irritating, backhanded compliments a photographer can hear. Yup. It's all about the camera . I'm just the support staff. I just haul the damn thing around. Usually I just respond with a somewhat snide, ''Yeah. I taught it everything it knows.'' 

                                                                                                  

Manitoulin Sunrise
A shot I took on an eighty dollar Kodak digital
camera that I bought on sale at a Canadian Tire store

    You would be hard pressed to find a creative activity that relies  more on  technology than photography or filmmaking. I mean, someone whose favourite pastime is knitting, is capable of creating clothing with nothing more than a couple of long straight needles and some skeins of yarn. I know that I don't have the knowledge or skill set to perform that task.  Perhaps the non photographic crowd can be forgiven for thinking that, in the field of photography, it's the camera that does the lion's share of the work.  

    It was George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company who, in 1888, coined the slogan, ''You press the button, we do the rest.'' Thus, photography was simplified for a massive market. That simplification has resulted in a perception of photography as a straightforward process of simply aiming a camera and pressing a button. That perception is valid if the intended result is nothing more than a snapshot for the family photo album. (Does anyone keep a family album anymore? Or do photo collections  exist solely on the hard drives of computers or the memory banks of cell phones?  Perhaps in a future post I'll make a case for printing as the best way to save important Images.) 

   

Snapshot of Greg and me after a sightseeing flight
over Georgian Bay. Matt, the guy who took the picture,
is a very good photographer and is really  really good at
flying airplanes!

    Don't get me wrong. I'm not disparaging the value of the family snapshot. Like most people, I have a lot of photos of family and friends taken during various events and celebrations. They are some of the most important images in my collection. However, I would not put them forward as stellar examples of the photographic craft.  To move beyond the basic snapshot requires some knowledge, a photographic skill set and, yes, ideally, a slightly more sophisticated camera.

 Emphasis more on the knowledge and skill set  than the camera. While working in several camera shops I had customers with top of the line professional series cameras who couldn't take a decent photo if their life depended on it. I also had customers who were doing amazing stuff with nothing more than a basic camera purchased second hand. As in all forms of human creativity, the tool is only as good as the person behind it.

     Ultimately, almost every photograph is a snapshot. Consider the minimal amount of time required to press a shutter button. Consider also that the subsequent exposure of light to film or to an electronic light sensor is usually measured in a fraction of a second. Making a photograph is really just the final act of what is (hopefully) an assiduously applied process. Perhaps my earlier comment about schlepping the camera around is rooted more in reality than it is in sarcasm. Almost every photographer I know owns several camera bags. We're obsessed with camera luggage! You know that you're in a good camera shop when the camera bag section is almost as big as the section for cameras and lenses!  A photographer with any experience knows that much more time is spent carrying the equipment than actually using it. Even a studio photographer is probably going to spend more time setting up lights and backdrops than actually shooting. Photography is really about what the viewer doesn't see. It's about the time spent in the process of getting the shot. 

    Here's an example.

    The picture above is an image that I've seen in my mind hundreds of times. It's an image of one of my kitchen chairs illuminated by the under-cabinet light over the sink in my kitchen. I liked the shadows cast by the dowels of the chair from  the single light source. For quite a while I would see this little scene while passing through the kitchen to the front door of ny scruffy little home. Each time, I told myself, ''I want to photograph that.''  Simple enough, right?

    Okay, to start with, the little light under the kitchen cabinet was not really powerful enough for photographic purposes. However, introducing another light source would reduce the effect of the shadows cast by the chair back. I could open up the lens aperture to gather more light, but that would reduce the depth of field (area of acceptably sharp focus) in the shot. I wanted  both the chair back and the shadows to be reasonably well defined. I could shoot at a high ISO (increase the camera sensor's sensitivity to light) but that would reduce the overall resolution of the shot. Solution? Put the camera on a tripod to steady it and allow the use of a longer shutter speed with the lens stopped down and a low ISO. Problem; Using the tripod with the shot as originally planned, introduced an unwanted shadow into the frame from the sole light source. Solution? Shoot from the opposite side of the chair into the light source. Problem; The kitchen table is in the way. Solution? Reduce the height of the tripod and mount it on the kitchen table. Problem; Can't see the focusing screen of the camera when mounted on the table. Solution? Stand on another kitchen chair to look down into the focusing screen on the camera. Problem; Having the camera and tripod on the table changed the overall framing of the shot. Solution? Take the camera off the tripod and change lenses on the camera. And on it went....

     Kind of a lot to simply make a photograph of some shadows and a kitchen chair. I probably spent the better part of an hour at it. Not to mention some time spent in post processing the image. Overall, I'm not really happy with the shot. I'll probably shoot it again with some minor changes. Yeah, I know. I'm a tad obsessive.  But if I have the knowledge and equipment to make an image in my mind's eye a reality, why not do it? It's the attention to detail that makes the difference between a good photograph and a merely adequate one. But hey, it's all about the camera. Or so I'm told.

My first camera. An Imperial Instant Load 900.
 I bought it with grocery store coupons when I was 9 years old.  

                                                                                                                                                                           ''I really like your pictures. You must have a really good camera.''  ''Yes. I was lucky to get it. Now I'm in the market for a hammer that drives nails straight and a guitar that plays beautiful music.''

        ...more later

    

    

         

    

    

         

Waiting

     We're all waiting.  It's a new year. (relatively)  South of the border, there's a new president in the white house. Vaccines to prevent the spread of the coronavirus have been approved and, albeit with some glitches, are being rolled out and administered. But still, all of us are in some form of lockdown and we're all waiting.                                                                                   

    But maybe it's not so bad. Maybe what we've all needed is  a time out. I'm still in the process of backing up files from my old laptop. In doing so, I've probably deleted more files than I've saved. Do I really need twenty photos of the same sunset? Pick the best one of the group and move on. Am I ever going to use that photo of the flower which is not quite right? Hey, it's a pretty good shot. But by my standards, ''Pretty ain't good enough!''  I mean,  the subject was beautiful but did I do a really good job of capturing its essence? I know that I could probably spend some time in Photoshop or some other post processing program trying to enhance it enough to save it. But to what end? For a handful of ''likes'' on social media? Does a heavily doctored picture really represent who I am or who I aspire to be as a creator of visual images? .........Delete! 

     This exercise of going through old photos has been something of a revelation to me, both as a photographer and as a human being. What is the criteria for saving an image from the past?  Though photography is one of the most immediate forms of human creativity, every picture is an image of the past as soon as the shutter closes and the picture is taken. To my mind, for a photograph to be successful, it has to have historical significance or  have a timeless quality to it.

     Regarding historical significance, almost all pictures of family and friends are saved. Also saved are pictures of community events, images of streetscapes whether local or taken on my travels. Even if the value they possess is questionable now, they might be of interest or have some historical value in the future.

    In regards to the timeless quality, I'm entering an area where the criteria is more subjective. Does the image elicit an emotional response?  Will  it peak the interest of the viewer? In regard to the first two questions is a third one. Does it do it well? Often it's that last question which keeps my cursor hovering over the delete button.                                                                                 

    That immediacy of photography is the craft's greatest strength and also its greatest weakness. In going through the hard drive of my old laptop, the question that keeps coming to mind is ''Why did I take so many shots of such a boring subject?'' The truth of the matter is that the subject wasn't boring. It was  my  approach and technique (or lack thereof) that rendered a boring image. If it is true that  American street photographer Garry Winogrand was right. ''Everything is photographable.''  The better question I should be asking is ''Why did I fail to capture the essence of my subject?'' or ''What could I have done to make the image better?''  Better yet, I should be asking that question while still in the field with the subject right in front of me. It would save me the process of examining and deleting twenty expendable images later.

     So the upshot of this exercise is this. I've got to stop being so lazy when it comes to the editing process. Otherwise my collection of photos becomes just a clutter of lacklustre images with, hopefully, a few gems hidden in the mix. I put out a post a while ago about shooting with intent. https://refractivereasoning.blogspot.com/2019/06/shooting-with-intent.html  I need to start doing that more in my own work, both while out shooting and in the editing process. As New Year's resolutions go, at least photographically, that's a pretty good one.. 

    To quote the great Imogen Cunningham, ''Which of my photographs is my favourite? The one I'm going to take tomorrow.''

            ...more later

    

  P.S. If you like what you see here, feel free to comment, ''like'' or share on the media platform of your choice.   

      

    

    

         

Post Christmas Week And A New Lens To Play With

      Christmas is over for another year. Now begins that quiet time between Christmas and New Year's Eve. In some ways, it's a time I enjoy even more than the big day itself. No rushing around to get gifts and stocking stuffers ready. No need to prepare an elaborate feast. There are enough leftovers in the fridge to prepare simple meals or perhaps just a turkey sandwich as needed. It's a time of complete decadence. I can sleep in if I want to. Conversely, I can stay up late reading, editing photos or  just surfing the web. I can even be so daring as to enjoy a cup of coffee past my usual cutoff time. Such luxury!

    Christmas in our household is a relatively low key affair anyway. I've long ago given up on excessive rushing around in an attempt to please everyone on an extensive list. To paraphrase my own writing from a post I published a while ago, I doubt that the celebration of the  arrival of the Prince of Peace was meant to cause stress and mayhem in the souls of those that would follow his teachings. https://multifarious-musings.blogspot.com/2011/12/ghosts-of-christmas-past.html

    So Christmas is over and I've got some time to play with my toys. This year I acquired a zoom lens for my Fuji camera system. It's a fairly big one. Well, big for me. One of the reasons I switched to the Fuji system is that the cameras are smaller. (a little more suitable for travel and street photography)  Although I sometimes dabble in wildlife photography, I'm not known for hauling around one of those huge bazooka barrels attached to my cameras. But,  compared to either of the other lenses in my Fuji kit, this thing is big.

At 55mm this lens isn't so bad.

Zoomed out to 200mm with the lens hood attached, we're
entering ''Holy Crap!'' territory.

    Christmas Day being what it is, I really only had time to test the lens with a few close-up shots of Christmas ornaments on the tree.                                                                                                     

    But, this morning, I took it for a little walk up to the dam near my home. Yeah, yeah, I know. I photograph this place too often. But hey, it's a beautiful spot. And it's handy. And when I try out a new piece of kit there, I know that I've already got about a thousand images on file for comparison. Anyway I really like what this lens can do. It allows me to pick out interesting details of a landscape. (or in this case riverscape) I even didn't mind it's overall size too much. I could easily operate the zoom, aperture and focus control rings without having to take my gloves off. I loved how I could feature specific aspects of a scene with which I'm very familiar.

                                                                            

   

 Is it a lens that I'm going to leave on the camera all the time? Probably not. But for those times when I want to pull things in a bit closer or simply narrow my angle of view it's more than  adequate for my needs. It's a nice piece of equipment to have in the old LowePro. 

    Since this is my last blog post for this year I want to close with a note of thanks. To say that 2020 has been a hell of a year would be a huge understatement.  If there's a silver lining to this pandemic, it would be that I've come to appreciate, more than ever, the sense of caring and community that exists in this small town where I make my home. Thanks for all for the ''likes" and comments on social media. Thanks to everyone who has purchased my prints and postcards.  Thank you also to all who follow and read this blog. Your kindness and support is greatly appreciated. 

    Thanks also to the shutterhounds of the Paris Photo Collective.  Although the  group has essentially been reduced to a Facebook page due to the pandemic, it's great to see that people are shooting and posting their work. Keep the passion alive! I'm confident  we'll all be able to meet in person again in the new year. There'll be coffee, laughter, wild stories, and...oh yeah, maybe some pictures and photography stuff! You know...the usual insanity! 

     Wishing everyone all the best in the New Year. Stay safe.

                                                  ...more later

     

 

     

    

                                                      

     

Fall Colour Season 2020

    Well, I guess the fall colour season is over for another year. About a week ago, a pretty substantial windstorm blew in and pretty much annihilated the last of the leaves  left on the trees. Ahh November, that dreariest of months. Almost no colour left on the trees, not enough snow for a pristine winter wonderland. 

     With the restrictions of a world dominated by a global pandemic, my travels  during this fall colour season were somewhat diminished this year. From what I heard, in chatting with other photographers, many places, provincial parks , conservation areas, etc. were functioning on a ''reservations only'' basis. They were trying to control the number of people who access these places to view and photograph the sweeping vistas of colour. So, for the most part, I limited my fall colour photography to places and scenes I could access easily within a short walk from home. This year my images were often just a small burst of colour in the in the overall drama which is the fall colour season. My usual ''Autumn at the Dam'' photos were published with my last blog post.  https://refractivereasoning.blogspot.com/2020/10/gratitude.html

     My last blog post was entitled ''Gratitide'', published (appropriately enough) on the Thanksgiving weekend. One of the things in my life for which I'm grateful is being a photographer. The strange thing about it is that I don't always have to be actively engaged in the craft to experience the beauty and wonder of the scenes and situations in front of me. One beautiful Autumn morning I went to the dam near my home and just sat, savouring the beauty of the scene.   Sometimes it's better to just be in the moment rather than fiddling about, trying to make a photograph of it. Sometimes less is more. 

     A few years ago, I saw the movie ''The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty''. The  scene that stuck with me was the one where Walter Mitty finally connects with photographer Sean O'Connell played by actor Sean Penn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfjkiTB1fHQ 

I remarked to the lady I was with, that I could completely relate to Sean Penn's character in that scene. 

     In reality, the cameras, the photographs are not the be all - end all of my existence. My photographs are, at best, an adjunct to the life I've lived. Through photography, I can more completely experience the wonder that is right in front of me whether I photograph it or not. 

While photography is a method for me to share my perceptions of the world around me, ultimately, it is the perceptions themselves that matter most.

           ... more later

  

     

     

Gratitude

    It has not been a very happy Thanksgiving weekend  in our little household. Yesterday, I had to have our beloved  house cat, Goofy, (the Doofer) put down. I won't go into the conditions that led to having to make that most difficult decision. Suffice it to say, she had lived a long and good life and her time had come. Goofy came to us shortly after we moved to Paris. She was the runt of a litter of kittens that had been born next door. As the runt of the litter, she was always a small cat, but she lived her life with an intensity and ferocity that belied her diminutive size. I'm so thankful that she was a part of our lives for so long.             

 

     So it's Thanksgiving. It is hard to generate a feeling of happiness in the face of powerful loss. I had a hard time sleeping last night. I guess I missed the comfort of my little cat curling up on my legs while I dozed off. I awoke about 4:00 a.m.  Feeling kind of restless, I went downstairs for a snack. The house was a little cold. I bumped the the thermostat up a degree and was thankful to hear the faint sound of the furnace in the basement kicking in. We had had some trouble with it last year. I returned to my room and pulled up the wool blanket folded at the foot of my bed. Thankfully, I had remembered to wash it the day before. It had dried  on the clothesline and had that fresh scent that only comes from fabric dried outside. I was thankful for it's comfort.

     This morning I grabbed my cameras and went for a walk. It's become something of a tradition for me  to post some fall colour pictures on social media after I was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the digital age. The sky outside was kind of overcast. Not quite the kind of crisp light that I prefer for fall colour shots. I was thankful for getting some shots earlier in the week under bright blue skies. They would make for a nice Thanksgiving post.                                   

 

     The camera I was using this morning is my Fuji XE-3. I purchased it earlier this year (pre-pandemic) as a 60th birthday gift  to myself. https://refractivereasoning.blogspot.com/2020/04/bridges.html  Unfortunately the camera had a minor glitch and had to be sent back to Fuji for warranty service.  I was thankful to get it back in time for the fall colour season.

     I wandered  up to the dam and did a few shots there. The XE-3 performed flawlessly. I enjoyed the usual photographer's satisfaction of working with a really nice camera. I was thankful to live in a place where I could take beautiful photographs so close to home. 

     I later mosied downtown and was greeted by John, owner of John M. Hall Linens, who was laying out some colourful matts in anticipation of the weekend crowd. I took a few photos of his colourful merchandise. In the words of Harry Chapin, ''All my life's a circle.'' It occured to me as I walked away, that the Canadian made MacAusland blanket that had provided  me some comfort last night was purchased at his store. I was thankful that I lived in a town where caring merchants still provide good quality stuff.                                                                                   

   

 By now, you've probably noticed that I have used the words ''thankful'' or ''thankfully'' a lot in this post. I have learned something this holiday weekend. If you're looking for happiness, first find gratitude.

    Thanks for the love and the lesson Doofer. I'll see you on the other side.

           

                     ...more later