Oxherding Is Fun

Every time I get deep into digital editing, as I did recently with many HDR processed images and some selective color work, I am always drawn back to the basics and simplicity in photographic technique.  With all of the whiz-bang, special digital processing of imagery it is good to remember the fundamentals of photography and design/composition.  As an exercise I went back to my library of images from Pedernales Falls State Park looking for images to process via monochrome that incorporates the fundamentals.

Fundamental Composition/Design Elements:

1. Balance and off-balance elements
2. Lines – leading, diagonal to create tension or not
3. Rules – i.e. thirds, golden ratio, quadrants, etc.
4. Color, shapes, textures, etc – all characteristics of the subject to gain attention
5. Framing subjects
6. Highlight lighting and defining by shadows
7. Avoid distractions in image

Fundamental Photographic Elements:

1. Quality of light, direction of light, resulting highlights, shadow
2. Exposure decisions via shutter speed, aperture, and ISO sensitivity resulting in tonal range
3. Focus point decisions resulting in depth of field with aperture, distance, focal length
4. Composition elements above
5. The biggest rule of all… finding that intangible that draws me in, creates a story, or in some way connects me and the viewer to the image

This exercise in image review on the computer helps with internalizing these fundamental photographic and compositional elements making it easier to apply them when we are with our camera in the field.  Then later you can break all the rules after knowing them first except for the last rule above.  It is the one rule to rule them all.

The Gallows, Pedernales Falls State Park, TX

I love how images have the power to move and motivate and make you feel things over again.  Working on this image I returned to Yosemite, stood on the old road that Ansel used to drive into the valley, smelled the incense Pine in the air, and again marveled at God’s glory.  I got chills.  And I remembered why I shoot nature.

I enjoy pictures where imagination comes into play.  Such as below where you have to wonder just what is hidden in that lurking blackness within the fissure of the rock.  Dark areas, because of natural human apprehension, work well well to engage our imagination.  Another area that can easily peak our viewers imagination is street photography with people in a natural setting.  We are always concerned with the story involved in these areas and the mind starts to make up scenarios if the photography is done well enough. For nature/landscape photographers, if we can find a way to engage the imagination we have found the magic connection between photographer and viewer.  It is step beyond the appreciation of beauty or grandeur found in a nature image.

In the image below I need to decrease the amount of items competing for the viewers attention but I did not like the straight monochrome version.  I decided to take the greens of moss and lichen that were all over the rocks and ground out of the image by making the background layer monochrome. But before doing that I created 5 layers for the different color leafs and doing a color selection masked those leafs creating a layer mask on each layer.  A bit of color controls on each of them and blending adjustments and I got the image I wanted.

A Chilly Autumn Day in Devil’s Den State Park, AR

We humans have tendency to “humanize” the world around us and naming spots in nature is a case in point.  Below are two HDR images; one of Devil’s Den State Park in Arkansas and the other of Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park.  Titles, images, descriptions, even poetry fall away when you are there.  The veil falls away and the one breath remains.  That is my goal with photography or any of my artistic endeavors, to try to capture that one breath.  Nothing too lofty, I hope… 

I climb once more
into your december soul
rock wall ……cold
no hand ……hold
no crag to grasp

can I resist the leap
through air so packaged,
………printed in crystal copyright blue
…………………..(ulysses butterfly cmyk(92%, 59%, 0%, 4%))

breathless flight
the fall
a brief superman
……..carried upon wings of plastic
at the velocity
of society
…….guaranteed

fourteen false summits
…..and you and I are already starting at the top

a heart
granite hard
still bleeds

green and gray

with nary a touch of red

jewels sparkle lit  ….like christmas lights    ……..hung by ozark squirrels

amber jade garnet emerald  ….and a turquoise sky  ……..wet diamond white refraction

pierces eyes unblinking — all is light and change — in the forest between the eye and the i

The late afternoon sun lights up an Ozark forest within Petit Jean State Park, Arkansas.

below the brown and bare
deep shadows dream

maybe brown and bare
are not what they seem

————

I really had a rough day shooting a while back at one of my favorite Texas spots; Pedernales Falls State Park.  The river was running high and brown; ugly.  The day was high noon; short shadows and stark light; blah.  Shot lots of stuff and came back with all crap.  But I took this brown mud puddle and played with it, tumbled it around, pushed pixels beyond where they should be, and salvaged.

rustle the chilled leaves on a chill wind

among giants
painted with brush strokes
as smooth as obata’s muse upon the wet tip of a
…masterpiece.

the giant itself
gave birth to these ozarks
before time and i could imagine the forest as any thing but
…beautiful.
——————–

I have followed William Neill’s photography since we visited Yosemite awhile back and saw his art in the Ansel Adams Gallery.  Recently Neill published an ebook entitled “Impressions of Light” that uses camera blur to soften the details of the image which in turn strengthens the appreciation for light, overall context and wholeness.  I find I get to use my imagination as much as my eye in his images and thus have a stronger reaction.  I tried his technique on recent hike through Devil’s Den State Park.  This image inspires me.  As with his work and this image the descriptive word used often is “impression”. This takes root from the great Impressionist artists of the late 1800s with their emphasis on light and leaving out details.  They achieved a gestalt with out the accumulation of details; rather with light, color and the viewers imagination.

hiking upon a carpet of wet autumn leaves

the spirit takes flight

on the back of wafting leaf carried by a chill wind

A very well respected photographer spoke at our last CapMac photography group meeting whose main passion was portraiture via black and white film photography — his art is excellent.  While he embraced digital workflow in his commercial work he called HDR the “tube top of modern photography” and he did not veil his disdain for flickr and its content. Not long ago at this same meeting Trey Ratcliff spoke to a packed house on his HDR photography.  The juxtaposition of traditional versus leading edge could not be more apparent.

I have this ideal that artists are explorers ready to tackle new frontiers and the tools to get them there but that is not the case universally.  HDR is just one more tool to see the world in a new way and create new art.  The technology digital arts curve is still bending upward and dragging photography along with it.  And the democratization of photography has exploded into a nuclear column rising at a breakneck speed; but it has not even mushroomed yet.  Although his overriding message was a good one, simply: “Follow your passion”, but I am wondering if that include a passion for tube tops?!?!

Anyway, here is my HDR for today, a subject fitting for the “tube top of modern photography”.

Photography is dead. Long live photography!