Lately I’ve been capturing time lapse sequences of sunsets here in Sedona, Arizona. And by photographing them I seem to have reprogrammed my brain for the way it sees light change. Almost as if by capturing and working with images that compress time into a shorter period I am extending my vision of light and time.
Let me explain.
Because of this new awareness I am now seeing the shadows slowly crawl across a scene as if I am becoming hyper-aware of the changes. Capturing a time lapse makes you take time to slow down because it takes a fair number of images created over a relatively long time period to have enough material. In a sense it becomes a meditation.
Now in this particular case it was a bonus to set the camera up then retire to the bar to observe the changes taking place which was a fun way to work/play on a personal project. My wife and I got to enjoy a glass of happy hour wine and one of their stellar appetizers. (it was the calamari, cooked perfectly and served with a sweet/spicy sauce over a bed of carrots and light greens)
Images captured with the Lumix GX8 & 12-35mm f2.8 Vario lens. Time lapse was processed in camera then imported to Adobe Premeire CC 2015 for processing slight movement. I was hoping that the clouds you saw in the beginning of the video would have hung around and colored up to spectacular… and they did as they moved out of the frame. Color was bright salmon to the south… Oh well, still nice movement of light on the red rocks.
Last night I had the honor & pleasure of sharing some thoughts & ideas with the students of Gene Devine’s Business Operations and Management for Photographers class at the Art Institute of Phoenix. It was a great group who asked the right questions about being in business.
I’m very glad that this kind of a course is available for those working to become professional photographers. The business of running a photography business is often neglected in classroom environments. Sure we all want to create fabulous photographs & art! But if we don’t understand how to market, price our work, run the business and know if we are making a profit or not we won’t be around very long as professionals.
Instructor Gene Devine ‘awarding’ me the Art Institute Cup! (so proud!)
If you are newer to photography as a business make sure you learn as much as you can about marketing, pricing, negotiation skills, bookkeeping and staying profitable. If you’ve been around the block a few times & are making it as a pro get out and share your business acumen with high school, college and other groups learning how it should be done to stay successful.
Paraphrasing here but you’ll get the idea. The lyrics go something like this,
“I want it all, I want it all, AND I WANT IT NOW!!’
We live in a very now society. Information is almost instantaneous. Look at the web. I just typed the search term photography into my browser and had access to About 1,020,000,000 results (0.66 seconds) from Google. Holy Crap! The reason I bring this up is that technology has spoiled us in many ways. This quick access to information has spread to the ability of cameras to give us a quick result that’s good enough. AKA in focus and a decent exposure.
This leads to two things I’ve noticed. The lament that a photographer isn’t creating ‘enough’. Enough new or exciting or different images. Or worse. A photographer thinking that they are creating wonderful images and not receiving the just kudos.
Let us now move on to today’s quote.
“If I have any ‘message’ worth giving to a beginner it is that there are no short cuts in photography.” Edward Weston
Granted that when Weston shared this quote the processes for attaining images was more difficult than we have at our disposal today. But the abiltiy to see, and bring that vision, to our final images still takes knowledge and time.
Practice. Experimentation. Study. Making mistakes. Education. And, more practice. Push the limits of the new tech.
Rinse and repeat.
Don’t do the same thing over and over and expect different results. That’s someone’s definition of insanity often attributed to Einstein.
That is what ultimately leads to creating compelling imagery.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – What are you doing daily, or weekly, to take your image creation skills to the next level?
PPS – Esoterica – Weston was pushing the material he had at hand. For example, in his iconic studio photographs of the peppers and nautilus shells did you know that the low rated ISO of the sheet film used made it necessary for very long exposures? Some as long as 4½ hours!!
In a post a couple days ago I talked about an art installation at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Arts and how it moved me and made me sad…
Well, there was another installation there that saved me from spiraling too far down into the depths. It was Bruce Munro’s Ferryman’s Crossing.
When I first walked in to the Crossing I thought, “WTH??? It’s a bunch of CD’s on the floor…
First look at Ferryman’s Crossing
And despite my initial reaction I decided to spend some time checking it out. Glad I did.
The CD’s are tilted in two directions with lights flashing down from the ceiling from different angles, timings and places. This is not an environment you want to be in if you are epileptic but strangely enough it is a very calming place to be. There are large expanses of concrete receiving the reflections bounced off of the cleverly placed CD’s.
Sounds of a stream with birdsong and wildlife are piped in while the reflected lights play as a dance upon the walls. The longer you stay in the art the more you see. Yes I said in the art. You can walk as though on the banks of the stream. As in Joseph’s Coat from the bible many colors appear among the CD’s while the soft reflections play upon the walls.
Here’s a short video to give you a feel for the movement within the art.
Maybe it’s because I consider myself a ‘child of the water’ and enjoy all kinds of water I felt more at home here the longer I inhabited the space.
I did think to try and push the envelope of my creativity to see what I might capture with my camera. So in addition to the ‘straight’ images I photographed here are a few from my experimental foray. I looked for slightly different images to tell the story of this art piece.
Zooming the lens slightly during capture led to the electric colors and patterns
Rotating the lens and moving during capture…
Images were captured with the Lumix LX100 camera. To make the colors appear richer I set an underexposure of approximately 2 stops. Slight processing and enhancing with Adobe Camera Raw using the highlight and shadow sliders…
Sometimes we need to spend time in a place before it begins to share it’s innermost secrets with us.
Writing this Photo Art Quote post for the blog used to be a bit of a chore… But I find more and more, this time of thinking about art and how it works for our business, and health, and state of mind for creating has been quite interesting. It has forced me to think about the creation process in all areas of art, not just photography. How all artists including photographers become and stay creative.
Which brings us to today’s conversation. The quote is from New York writer Michael Kaninwho won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay and wrote comedy material for comics, actors and movies. Obviously successful but seems to have found the day-to-day part of the job a chore…
“I don’t like to write, but I love to have written.” Michael Kanin
This quote caught my attention because there are times when working on a photo project I just want to toss it out and go on to something new. It usually turns out that these become the finished images that show the most depth and of which I am most proud to have completed. Don’t get me wrong. I love photography! But there are occasions when the work that’s necessary to bring a project to fruition seems like it will go on forever. Of course, there are times when you have yo know when to quit when enough is enough. But when is that?
Our society has become a ‘I want it now!’ creature. Things come to us at the speed of the Internet. (which is really, really FAST! A search on the word ‘photography’ gave this result – About 979,000,000 results (0.66 seconds) ) We have access to more information than ever before and I find that to be a blessing and a curse. A blessing because the access to material and the ability to learn new things is incredible and I embrace it. And, I believe it to be a curse for the exact same reason. It can be difficult to concentrate on a single project when so many ideas are clamoring for attention.
Digital has made it easier than ever to create. The question becomes is it just ‘good enough’ and it’s time to move on? Or can we delve deeper to create something of more lasting value?
I suppose it’s a question for the ages and one we should probably revisit with regularity.
So do you labor enough to take your images to the next level? Or is an image ‘good enough’?
Down in Scottsdale yesterday to meet up with some photographers and deliver a family portrait. I stopped by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and was reminded of how powerful art can be. I had no idea what was on display but just thought I’d get a quick lift.
Wow! A different experience awaited me within those walls.
Betye Sarr has been creating art about the black experience in the United States for over 60 years. And it was a poignant reminder of how terrible we were as a people. Even to having a constant ‘put in your place’ language that started with children. One piece especially moved me deep to the core.
It was very simple.
A dress hanging from the ceiling.
Hemmed with offending words suspended above a small child’s chair with a small framed portrait of a black child.
Two spotlights.
A corner.
‘A loss of innocence.’
Detail
From ‘Loss of Innocence’ Dress detail showing the repetitive words hemmed into the dress – Tar Baby, Niggerbaby and Pickaninny.
I was moved.
From the SMOCA Description of Betye’s Show
There is a touch of alchemy to Betye Saar’s artwork: transforming the simple and mundane into powerful art. Since the 1960s, her compelling, astute and expressive works reflect on African- American identity, spirituality and the inter-connectedness between different cultures. This timely retrospective brings together recent work as well as historical pieces created over her six decade long career… more
I wonder if I will ever be able to create art that moves people as much as this installation moved me.I think we as photographers can find inspiration from many different places..
How about you? Where do you find inspiration??
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – images were captured with the Lumix LX100. I call this sweet little camera the ‘Pro’s point & shoot’. Solid magnesium body, all necessary exposure controls available on the outside on click stop dials. 24-75mm f1.7-f2.8 Leica lens.
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