Posing the environment

Water and its reflection was a strong element in many Impressionist paintings because it was such a dynamic subject, always changing the appearance of light’s reflections from it by shape-shifting with the wind, current and tides.  Pay attention to rippling water on a bright day and notice how the colors change with the curvature of the waves, first reflecting the sky, then the shore, then other waves.  It was these multitude of small areas of color the Impressionists captured with their pigments, creating dimension and movement with their brush stokes.

Reflections even now help set the tone of an image, creating anticipation for the viewer even before the substance of the whole image becomes apparent.  Manipulating reflection is one way to change how an image is perceived and received.

Take this basic reflection image:

5 image HDR, ISO 100, 14mm, f/7.1, various shutter speeds

Calm for a Great Plains composition, it promotes a late afternoon stillness that doesn’t really convey the heat in the area right now.  All the cool colors counter balance the warm tones in the building and trees, suggesting a pleasant spot for a picnic or just to sit and watch the geese.  A fairly traditional portrayal of such a scene, rich in detail with emphasis on drawing rather than coloring.

This image of just the reflection is much more Impressionistic – less drawing emphasis and more on placing colors in conjunction to offer the suggestion of form.

ISO 100, 44mm, 1/100 sec., f/7.1

I wanted more of that effect for this image so I tossed a rock in the water just below the bottom of this image and then made several shots as the ripples expanded into the reflection.  By combining them in Photoshop I got this result.

ISO 100, 44mm, 1/100 sec., f/7.1

Probably more abstract than Impressionist as the form is falling apart but it nonetheless shows how reflection and movement can change the nature of an image.  Compare this to the first one above – do you not feel less calm and more “agitated”?

Periodically we outdoor photographers can actually manipulate our surroundings to deliver an specific mood.  Might as well take advantage of it when we can!

Just old fashioned

I’m not a Luddite opposed to new technology but I have outgrown much of my geek youth that reveled in pursuing the latest thing, be it hardware or software.  It’s marvelous to me the advances in digital photography.  Heck, going digital got me back into photography, giving me a way to finally realize all the mistakes I’d been making and how to use basic camera controls to stop making them.  If it wasn’t for digital my OM-1 would probably still be sitting on the shelf listening to me mutter under my breath about how it never delivers what I saw at the time.

With all the technological marvels in the past ten years of photography, though, the basics are still the same.  Light and how we manipulate it through lenses, apertures, shutter speeds continues to be the primary ingredient to begin a photograph.  Subjects, composition, perspectives, design elements and such continue to be important in creating images that capture attention and say something beyond documentation.  I think it’s great how photography connects the past with the future as we rely on 19th century basics to pursue 21st century image making.

As I learn more about photography it amazes me the efforts people put into it in the 1800′s – the equipment, the chemicals, the science.  Far from point-and-shoot the elements available to people then required effort to come together into an image.  The wet-plate photography of Jackson, Brady and other contemporaries of the time delivered amazing images but at the cost of dragging around everything you needed to each location.

I enjoy the physicality of large format photography, getting your hands on film plates, focusing on ground glass, calculating exposure.  But that’s an intentional form of photography I usually don’t have time for while traveling on other business.  So what to do?  Now we just drag around a few sliders in software packages and enjoy the look of the pioneers of landscape photography.

ISO100, 28mm, 1/1250 sec., f/4

Noon glare

Wow, time has really gotten away from me.  I knew the days were going by without posting anything new but I certainly didn’t mean to go this long.  Too much time on the road and not enough spent on photography.

Not that travel can’t include some time behind the camera; it’s just my schedule usually doesn’t allow for much of that early morning “beautiful light” you hear photographers gush about so much.  Invariably I’m wandering down the road on my way to or from some meeting and glancing around for something interesting only to find what I’m looking for in the middle of the day.  Right when the sun is supposed to be the worst, when all the landscape photographers are at siesta.

So  you work with what you find.  I’m a big fan of shadows as a way to show a different perspective on subjects so I was lucky a few days ago to see an old barn right by the side of the road.  A little exploring and I found this image:

I liked how the harsh, overhead noon sun gave me the chance to show two perspectives of the subject at once, providing a schematic of the nature of the subject that wouldn’t be immediately apparent from a heads-on photograph.  The angle of the sun was just right to cut across the top of the latch, emphasizing the front of the subject while leaving the screws holding it in place in shadow.  It would be an impossible composition using early morning or late evening sunlight – this one has to have overhead light to show this perspective.

Of course it helps that the harsh light works well for the old wood and that the metal is so worn it doesn’t have a shiny surface to glare.  As a rule to be broken, using overhead light is another tool to keep in mind for just the right circumstance to tell a specific type of story.

Thanks for the memories

Olympus E-3, 14-54mm, 1.3 sec, f/9, ISO100

The home of baseball in Omaha and the college world saw its last game Thursday.  Rosenblatt Stadium will go the way of so many iconic ball fields as the desire for more modern facilities by the powers that run baseball as a business overrule the sentiments of the patrons who provide the money.

I only attended a few games here, mostly during the College World Series that is an annual pilgrimage for fans nationwide.  Being there is an intimate event because of the size and friendly nature of people who go.  The same people will see their way to the new ballpark downtown but it’ll be years before there’s a hint of the same atmosphere.

Better fans than me can describe what it’s meant:

WSJ Article

Local TV station news article

The real nature of reality

Ever notice how buildings don’t appear to be falling over when you look at them?  They should.  Look at a picture of a building taken from ground level, an image that shows the whole building from first to last floor.  You’ll probably see a building that is leaning, appearing in danger of laying down on the street below.

But that isn’t what we see, is it?  Our brains have this marvelous ability to correct for perspective.  We “know” the building goes straight up from the ground so our brain interprets the image from the eyes to show us that.  Keeps us from dodging apparently falling buildings during a downtown stroll.

Philosophically it’s an interesting discussion about the nature of reality.  Buildings do actually go straight up in the air (normal ones, that is) to minimize the effect of gravity.  So that is reality.  But our eyes, behaving as a camera does, really captures an image of tilting perspectives.  To our mechanical eye-system leaning buildings are a reality.  Then our brain, armed with learning and knowledge, corrects the image before it reaches our consciousness, adjusting the eye’s version of reality into the real version of reality.

And people complain about photographers manipulating their images….

Speaking of which, there are a couple of ways to deal with leaning buildings in photographs (assuming you want them to look “normal”).  The first is to buy a view camera, or any camera where you can adjust the plane of the film/sensor separate from the plane of the lens.  It’s not something you usually worry about because the vast majority of cameras the typical person uses has these two planes fixed and parallel to each other.  And if all you do is shoot straight ahead with your camera parallel to the ground that’s not a problem but you’ll find all your buildings will have their tops chopped off.  They’ll be straight but headless.

A view camera enables you to keep the film/sensor plane (essentially the back of the camera) parallel to the object you want to be straight, while allowing you to move the lens plane upward until you get the whole building to show upon the film/sensor.  Very cool trick, but there’s that view camera thing to deal with.  Not very user friendly in our digital, snap-and-go society.

Fortunately there’s a software solution that will work much of the time.  Photoshop has a Lens Correction tool that enables you to mimic the action of a view camera – sort of.  You can adjust your image as if you’re tilting the lens plane up or down, or side to side.  For example, here’s an image I “corrected” using this tool.

Mamiya 6MF, 50mm, Kodak Plus-X 125, scan from negative

Mamiya 6MF, 50mm, Kodak Plus-X 125, scanned from negative, PS adjusted

It’s not a perfect adjustment nor an actual mimic of a view camera.  For example, in the corrected version the tall building has gotten “fatter” a bit.  With a true view camera the building would retain the same proportions, it would just lean forward and straighten up.  At least this way the image mostly matches what our brain is telling us reality ought to look like!

Towers

Olympus E-3, 14-54mm lens, 1/60 sec, f/13, ISO100

So much of the land here exists on the horizontal, stretching west from the bluffs on the Missouri River in an undulating but generally level line toward the Rockies.  In Nebraska the climb from Omaha’s 800 or so feet of elevation to the highest point in the state at 5400 feet progresses at a pretty steady 10 feet per mile.  From a distance the irregularities of hills and valleys smooth out like a table top, making you believe you can see like an eagle to the next town.

The vertical interruptions Nature offers are the trees lining the streams and the tall grasses of the plains, nearly insignificant heights over the distance you can see.  Only man has been able to breach the atmosphere with heights can stand out against the line of horizon.

Outside the few cities and large towns, agriculture brings verticality to the plains.  Silos, windmills, water tanks and grain mills protrude into the sky, identifying the sites of human impact.  And of course the late comers that are essential to modern farming – power lines and cell phone towers.

Vertical on these heights brings a new imagery to the plains as the sunlight creates contrast in three dimensions instead of two.  The sky is no longer in opposition to the earth; now it is a backdrop to connections between sky and earth.

Hidden Jewels

The grand architectures of this country vary by the region they were developed in, either adapting a much older style to the unique characteristics of the area or developed anew in response to an American vision of how space should be limited and defined.  Although we think of houses as being models for architectural adventurism, much of the evolution in building styles has been with commercial property.

Prior to modernism, Bauhaus, Art Deco and all the styles we see coming out of the times after the two world wars, there was an architecture being developed in the middle part of the country.  It evoked the openness of the sky, the solidness of the land and portrayed the features characteristic to the region.  The Prairie style is so associated with Frank Lloyd Wright we believe he created it and was the sole purveyor of it, but this is not true.  Several people had a hand in the original design and development of this so-American architecture, not the least of who was Louis Sullivan.

If you wander around the western part of the midwest or into the eastern part of the Great Plains states, you’ll find the Jewel Box Banks of Louis Sullivan.  There are eight of them, scattered in small towns in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota and Iowa.  Each displayed a common theme with elements visible even now in Prairie homes, yet each was uniquely suited for its location.  Surrounded as we are by glass and steel boxes it’s a pleasure to stumble upon one of these buildings and see how craftsman ship once existed in architecture.

There’s a sign on Interstate 80 outside Grinnell, Iowa that says “See Louis Sullivan’s Jewel Box Bank” and gives an exit number.  By this time on my 14 hour drive from Ann Arbor to Omaha I was stopping pretty frequently to break the monotony of the road and escape the crazed Sunday drivers.  Knowing Wright once worked for Sullivan in Chicago I thought I’d see what the teacher had created.

View to the front of the bank

Detail of great stained glass windows on eastern wall

Detail of tile mosaic around clock

Detail of terra cotta moulding

View to the back of the bank

Grinnell Jewel Box Bank

As you see from these images there is a wonderful combination of structural simplicity and ornate delicateness about the bank.  Using a mixture of brick, marble, stained glass and terra cotta Sullivan accurately captured the economic optimism of the decade or so before the Great Depression.  Money was a religion then – making it, investing it, spending it, displaying it – and banks like this reflected religious motifs as accurately as their more sacred cousins down the block.  You can learn more about the Grinnell bank and Louis Sullivan here.

Can you imagine explaining to a building contractor that you want construction like this?  Artisans to make the terra cotta reliefs, tile setters to craft the mosaics, glass experts to create the stained glass patterns and stonemasons to build the counters and floors.  Not to mention the woodcarvers to create the intricate designs in furniture and wall coverings.  They would think you were crazy, and yet the building has a comfortingly modern feel to it.  Except for the clutter resulting from multiple municipal agencies using the facility you’d believe the bank staff had stepped out for a bit and would be returning soon to continue business.  A solid reminder that not all of the country was eroded by the Depression or subsequent boom/bust financial situations.  And a glimmer of optimism for our own future.  What can possible keep down a country where such vision exists?

Steel Cascade

I’m fascinated with elemental things, basic substances that are used in unique and novel ways to emphasize their properties.  The smooth curve of molten glass or the burnished surface of silver medallions.  Fractal complexity of clouds and waves or the flow of water over a rounded boulder interrupting a stream’s travel to the sea.  Everything following the physics that govern how energy is converted or transferred from one state to another.

Contrasting shapes, tones, colors and texture is a favorite artist expression, sometimes in harmony to please the eye and then at times clashing harshly to make a point or draw attention.  In the rare instances where harmony and harshness find balance my breath is taken away, wonder at how the artist saw a proper blend of two severe contrasts that would result in such a pleasing symphony.

Doesn’t it seem there’s a Golden Harmony about contrasts?  Like the Golden Mean or Golden Proportion of designers and architects, there seems to be a similar aspect in visual art.  As if the artist has moved us closer to the perfect Platonic form for the element depicted, drawing us closer to the essence of the object by clashing two opposites together in a new, novel or proper manner.

Nature of course does this effortlessly, sneering at Man’s crude efforts to portray pleasing proportions by mixing over eons with forces we can’t duplicate or conceive.  It’s perhaps what I look for in a photograph, that breathtaking blend of elemental aspects molded in the proper proportions to display ultimate unity.

Peering backwards to see the nature of reality

The Bath House

We fight Nature’s fractal approach to the world constantly, throwing up our gauntlets of stone, mortal and wood with our Cartesian assurance of lines, angles and foundations.  Yet over time, in the end, Nature’s way wins.  Nature recreates itself constantly, following a mathematics we’ve yet to embrace yet one that defines the world around us.  Building on what is already there, adapting existence to environment, modifying to grasp evolving opportunity.

The movie Avatar showed this in stark contrast.  The organic symbiosis of Pandora’s native inhabitants surrounding the mechanical, linear civilization bent on extracting some perceived wealth.  Another example was the fluid, adaptable culture of the Plains Indians portrayed in Dances With Wolves, revealing again the clash of philosophy with the westward expansion of whites intent on locking their environment down so it could be controlled.  This story of Man vs. Nature has been played out in myths from hundreds of cultures, across the span of written history.

How is it we continually ignore the lessons we see every day?  We live in a dynamic environment that adapts, changes, bends with stress and recovers.  Our contribution to this seems to be limited to structures sunk into the earth, intended to stop change and inhibit further adapting.  As if saying, “from now on, this is the way things will be forever,” a silly presumption in the face of our evolving existence.

We seem to want a permanence not found in the world.  As if that which we leave behind for the future is more important than that which we contribute to the changing present.

A photograph does stop time for an instant, revealing what was at that moment.  Even simple snapshots accomplish this.  But don’t really great photographs transcend their moment in time to tell us something at all times?  A soldier kissing a nurse in Times Square, a naked child running from a war, a venerable statesman glaring at the camera – all moments frozen by the image but nonetheless continuing their story independent of the instant.

Limited spaces

Imagine your life circumscribed by a room of 300 square feet, just over 15 feet per side.   All aspects of your life – cooking, eating, sleeping, etc. – carried out in a space smaller than a McMansion’s bedroom.  Not a prison, but a homesteader’s cabin, surrounded by farmland and endless prairie.  A startling contrast in living where passing through a threshold takes you from the wide open spaces to a small box containing all your belongings.

We read about one-room schoolhouses and hear stories from our grandparents about several kids all in one bedroom, but do we really grasp the radical difference in lifestyles of a hundred or so years ago versus today?  Agrarian society values the outside, the farmland, over the inside, which is simply a place to rest from efforts before resuming the next day.  Yet our modern world is literally built around inside spaces that we hold with greater value than the outdoors.  I sense for many people the outdoors is something to be endured pending a safe return to the security of their inside world.

How would you live your life differently if the outside of your world was more important to you than the inside?  Oil washing up on the Gulf beaches must have residents there wondering – how is the value of my inside world affected by what’s going on outside?  Will it matter the quality of space I’ve created in my house if all around it is dead?  Much of what we hear called environmental disasters seems to elicit a strong public response only when our inside world is threatened.  Doesn’t that seem odd?  Life “in here” began “out there” but we behave as if there’s no connection, no value to being connected.  As an outdoor photographer I feel my life on the inside is enhanced by the outside and I want to reduce barriers between the two as much as possible and, through my images, stimulate my viewers to be a part of outside as they chose.

A photography colleague of mine works along the same lines, although he’s in an environment different from the Great Plains.  Jimmy White takes his camera into the waters around the Caribbean to connect viewers with life there.  He has a post about the oil spill’s impact on Florida along with some of his photos describing what’s at stake.  Connect with his voice and use the power of our social network to realign your value for the outside.