Whither?

For beauty, for significance, it's space
We need; and since we have no space today
In which to frame the act, the word, the face
Of beauty, it's no longer beautiful.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh

There comes a time of diminishing returns, when one puts forth daily, beauty, only to gather in return, no space. In the effort to connect, to inspire, to converse, their is empty.
Pink Floyd says for me, "Is there anybody out there?"
Whither do we go? Whither do we do this?
For the diminishing. For the few. And whither this diminishing?
Reds turn to jade and people become a shade of jaded.
What we once called beautiful, is no longer beautiful.

Subtract

Photography is as sculpture. You take a cluttered scene, like a lump of clay, and you begin peeling away.
Eventually, the form that remains is the sculpture. In painting, the blank canvas is added to until a painting emerges. Addition.
Photography is concerned with subtraction. Seeing only what is necessary for the scene. Discerning what we can whittle down to the essence of the scene. The most powerful photographs are the simple.
It should be the daily study we undertake. To subtract from the scene what we can. The uncluttered landscape. The uncluttered life.
In our culture, it is usually the addition we dwell upon.
Most difficult to live Thoreau's adage,
Life consists in the abundance of things we can afford to leave alone.

Break Down

Three weeks off the foot. No mobility. We are juggling about between Allison having her girl and Meme in her broken left leg above the ankle. Tough times. Melanie exempt for she is the only one with an actual job.
Testy times. I do not think anyone really wants to be doing what we are doing. I do not want to be unemployed, I will not speak for the others.

Dreaming of Shooting with the big boys

New friend on Facebook John Spohrer from Apalachicola, a master naturalist, daily posts really good close-ups of wildlife and plants, along with landscapes. When I asked him today what he used to get such close clarity in his night heron, he said he used the Canon 800f5.6 on the Canon EOS 1 DX, top of the line pro camera and lens combination. The lens goes for around 14K, the camera around 8K.
We can only dream. On reading about the EOS, it sounds grand. Totally weatherized, you can continue shooting in salt,mud and rain. The 800, while a monster, is fast and really brings in the wildlife from afar.
Some day I am going to dare ask these pro guys how they afford such equipment.
My pitiful D3100 with the old Nikon 180mm on TC-201 is a sad excuse for trying to capture clarity clearly.
But, it hasn't kept me from going out and using it and trying to get the best that I can from it.

Pondering the Palms

I took the poem, The Palms, written in 2009 from Orlando Regional Medical Center, as I pondered the palms surrounding the hospital, and re-adapted it to today's Palm Sunday.
It was told as if two were journeying the day after the actual triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem upon the donkey, with the fronds being laid upon his path.
We are continuing upon that path today.
May you have a day of lifting your palm in praise.

Down the way we came
weary in our journey
we had to stop and rest
unable to continue on
beneath stars of night
by embers we laid
where the path led
trying not to think ahead
beneath the palms
our pathway strewn
with broken fronds
upon journey end
then we learned
upon our path
the Lord had come
we took a trampled frond
and held it high
Hosannah in the highest
To you we lift our cry!

Christina's Lake

Always be ready. I was up at the Alligator Lake pavilion looking at the red-shoulder and red-tail hawks, taking casual shots,mainly watching others snap away, when this little girl ran out to the shore line. In my mind I immediately visualized Andrew Wyeths 1943 painting of Christina's World. It is a perhaps Wyeth's most famous painting of the crippled girl looking up the hill of the farm toward the barns.
In the first photograph, I cropped to the near horizon line of the original painting. I probably should have cropped the girl further to the left as well. In the second, which I originally on facebook tinted all the way through the clouds, I liked her stance. Here, I reworked it to leave the clouds alone and only tint the foreground a brown tone. I likewise used infrared, backing it off, to mute the bright red of her shirt.
In the third, it is as taken from the Canon S95.
I notice that I need to watch my placement of the horizon line, as I seem to like the 50/50 split in these.

What is wrong with the picture?

When expectation does not meet realization. It was going to be a slam dunk. I would print thirty Alligator Park specific 5x7 photographs. I would mat them and place them in sleeves. I would title them. I would offer them for the low price of ten dollars. I would place them on a main traffic aisle.
And so I arrived at Alligator Lake Park Spring Festival at 7:45 and helped Katrina, Sandy and the other artist lady set up the tent and their prints. I then set my table with Holy Land head dress table cloth on the corner. I placed four photographs out of the basket. And I waited,and I waited. Folks would walk by, and walk by. Even Melanie walked by and said, Where are your photographs?
They would casually look,more of a glance. I think only Rick, Shelley, Jordon and Doc Bloodworth actually flipped through, and rather rapidly at that, not looking at the title on the back.We are adept at making snap judgements. We are way beyond ponder. Or, they just are pondering kind of photographs.
The festival was to last until three. I left at one. I was done, the lack of interest painful, uncomfortable. The lady next to me, having started watercolor a year ago, sold several note cards. Sandy the yupo artist and painter sold cards and a print or two. I am not sure if Katrina and her photography booth sold. I hope so for she was kind to offer the tent and time.
So much for expectation. Now the realization and all that entails. Do I just quit this venture called photography and trying to show? Do I simply do it for myself? I know I could save myself much time and money if I did. I have a hundred dollars worth of prints I sent off for enlarging. I am not sure if it is even worth ordering frames for them. More money. More expectation and realization.
As I said, I deleted the link to Facebook on this after eleven saw it.
It was not an indictment on Facebook, the fun and keep up with friends place. It was a indictment on me for sub par work. For overpricing work, even at ten dollars. I should have printed up notecards and sold them for no more than five dollars. That is what the one year old artist did. She had lots of note cards, prints and a few originals. Plus, it was a bad venue to try and sell, unless it was plants,seeds,birdhouses or environmental related. Live and learn.
Expectation and reality.
.

Square Gourd

This is the latest 6x6 for the Gallery auction upcoming in May. It framed perfectly from the photograph, the old gourds. I mod podged it onto the board. Had a hard time with the air bubbles though, having to stack bricks over the print with wax paper. I am thinking perhaps a photo spray may stick the photo better to the wood. Anyhow, I gave it several top coats, giving it the appearance of canvas. You can see the brush strokes. Thanks to the color theory class recently, I was able to mix a close purple, matching the purple tint of the photograph. This would be a good method to use for a series of squares, with one 24x30 photograph cut up. The rainbow forms each morning on the floor and JT was behind, watching me as I lay upon the floor, wanting food, not rainbows or photographs.

There are twelve gourds awaiting me in the shed to paint as well. I guess I am waiting for the weather to dry out the back yard and warm things up. I do not care for all the dampness and cool when working in the acrylics. I need light, sunlight. Lately a not common commodity.

The Alligator Park Festival is upcoming this Saturday. I would like to do several 5x7's in the minimum and show them there. Price them at 10.00. Another test if you will. Folks may go through and look. Time running out, but I do everything lately with time running out.

Limits

The experiment or punishment of the D3100 continues, confining it to only the 35mm 1.8. It reminds me of my beginnings in photography when the Yashica JP my high school physics teacher sold me for twenty-five dollars, along with the Sekonic meter, had a 135mm lens.
It certainly did not lend itself to vista landscapes. So I suppose that is some of the reason I am drawn to close-ups and tight focusing. The sapling was bent in that direction early on.
I do not mind the narrowed field of focus, it equates roughly to a 55 to 85mm lens on full frame. I would appreciate it if Nikon would offer a wide prime in the equivalent 24mm range, but I can manage with this 35mm.
These two shots were handheld toward sunset. Another advantage with the 1.8 fast aperture. It allows for handheld shots that otherwise would need a tripod.
I am thinking this combo, with the Canon S95 works for now. If I need the wider angle, the Canon offers that.
Limits are good. They force you do work within your parameters. This is turn frees you to be creative within those boundaries. I have long ago given up wishing for the grass is greener philosophy. That, if only I had a Canon Mark 3 I with L lenses, I would be as good as..... I will never afford such. I have what I have. It is paid for. I know it. I will plug away with it. There is much, much to learn from it. I have not scratched the
emulsion yet.

Another method of limiting oneself is likewise location. Often I will limit myself to the yard, the park or some other place, seeing if I can extract an interesting photograph from what would normally not be considering interesting. The other photographers are busy posting exotic and grand photographs from rare places, with sun and sky hopelessly doctored up by their post processing trickery or in camera filters and lenses.
This is fine and they are making a living awing us, I am just plugging away in the backyard wondering about it all.

Three Lilies

this was taken after the below, with the 35mm with the 35mm 1.8 lens. Very difficult time getting the fill flash not to over expose.

The caption was, her beauty lingered far beyond her beauty, or her beauty remained far beyond her beauty, or maybe the memory of her beauty lingered far beyond her beauty. These three Cana or Calla lilies from the front yard pond have been inside over the kitchen sink, formerly on the dining room table. Now they have returned outside. I find them more appealing in this brown and white state. In the pristine white state, they are much more difficult to get a decent photograph. Too much white. We all need some blemishes and flaws, it makes us much more interesting. White is bland.
I held these up by the stem in front of the Canon S95 on a tripod. I clustered all three as well, but the individual shots seemed better.

 And the cluster of three.
 Which do you prefer? Separate or together?

Go take a Clyde

Well, it looked good to me in color. It would look equally good in black and white. I would create a Clyde Butcher, that large format photographer. Wrong. Just because you set the camera to monochrome does not assure you a good shot.
When shooting monochrome, you have to do a great deal more thinking and observing. The rules of color are out. The eye in color, of which it is accustomed, will accept most of the tones and hues. It is a different animal in monochrome. What is bright light on a cypress trunk is color is a washed out white in monochrome,,,,what the heck...I just erased three paragraphs...I totally dislike this computer. I am not going to even try and retype all that....
Suffice it to say...it is more difficult than one would think trying to Go take a Clyde...geesh. sorry computer.

Irish

This morning the plans were to kayak Itchetucknee. The sun and overcast kept me from going. Then, fog set in. I could not pass that up. I quickly loaded up the Pelican with Logan and we put in at Alligator Lake. There was no real plan in mind, just a quick trip. We went to the far side of the lake and into the cypress hammock. There I tried to get the kayak to stay in one position long enough to get a shot. Composition is quite difficult from a kayak.
The contrast under the canopy was a bit too extreme and so there was difficulty achieving proper exposure. Expose in the shadow, highlights blown. Expose in the highlights, shadows blocked up. I took the 35mm 1.8 prime lens finally and set the color to monochrome. I set the exposure to manual with a wide aperture and an ISO of 400. It was a morning of experimenting. Not much was pleasing in that I thought, now that one sang.
All kind of just whistled or hummed along.
I would have finished up sooner but I lingered until the redneck drinking beer at the dock with his girl left. There is nothing more aggravating that some redneck making stupid comments while you try and unload.
Logan wanted to kick butt too.
By the way, last night we watched the Tom Hanks movie where his cargo ship was hijacked by Somalis.
What was it, Captain Phillips? The Somali called him Irish. Hanks did a bad Irish accent. Wimp movie too. Why did the crew not have guns aboard? Stupid.

This photograph was taken as we were leaving the lake. I also had parked in the handicap spot,with valid sticker of course, for when mamma rides with me, but never the less, I felt also the red neck would surely say something about that. I was prepared to say, I got a wooden leg bub... So I waited. The parking lot was full of boat trailers and trucks. I have never seen it this full before. The almanac must have said today was the day to fish.

I have noticed, as I predicted, that the Logan, Wolverine series I am doing is getting little to no interest.
I have likewise noticed in the past weeks a drop off in the amount of people liking and commenting. It never was anything to get excited about, it is less so now. I continue to attribute it to an over saturation of material from me, what with the several sites I maintain. Two, the material, if it is not awesome and beyond beautiful it garners little interest. And by the same token, it isn't shared. Sharing is the hallmark of a good photograph it seems. The high level of talent out there just causes folks level of interest to be way beyond just ordinary posts. I must learn to only post when something is really worth posting, not posting morning,afternoon and evening even if it is not worth the trouble.
What are your thoughts. Ha. I threw that in because...you guessed...no one bothers with my rambling on...