Paul Grecian - Photography

I listen carefully to what show attendees say to me when seeing my work. At this last show in Hawley, as in many others, a regular comment is that I must be a very patient person. I often hesitate at this because I simply feel it misses the mark on how I approach making an image. Truth is I’m not a very patient person.  I don’t just stand or sit waiting for something to happen or some creature to pass my position.

I think the confusion is that many people equate wildlife photography and nature photography in general, with hunting. I am not hunting with a camera. Maybe a better description is that I am exploring with my camera and then communicating with as much emotion as I can, the visual experience. Sometimes my images are the result of pre-visualization, maybe for months or just seconds before making the image. Sometimes I just walk around and allow myself to respond to what I see and feel. Other times I do stand or sit in a spot where I have pre-visualized a certain image or type of image I want to make. Usually though, I am on the move observing and thinking about color, form, perspective, and compositions, but mostly letting myself respond to the visual experience I am having.

It is more often true that any image I make was made as I came upon a subject or situation in the field. Many of my images are the result of planning to be in a certain location under specific conditions in order to attempt to make an image I had already considered. This means being in the desired spot often while it’s still dark with the needed equipment and a predetermined creative approach. In fact, this approach may be considered the exact opposite of patience. I’m not saying I never exhibit patience, it’s just not my strongest character trait (at least with regards to making photographs).

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Independence Day here was rainy, but that didn’t hold back an early crowd that enthusiastically came for a good time. I was busy right away. I was very pleased with people’s response to my work, including two young girls who were at the festival with their parents. For fourth graders, these two young girls spoke excitedly and intelligently about both the images and the subjects. Wow!

There are also a lot of kids who work this festival and all of the ones I have interacted with have been friendly, mature, and hard working. In my building, a wet floor can get slippery. At all times there was a young woman reminding folks to be careful as they walked in and there was a young man constantly mopping the floor to try to keep things dry.

Today’s first sale was of the image Her Grace. This is an image of a female cardinal in a spruce tree(?). The female cardinal’s warm coloration makes for a nice contrast with the cool background colors. Working in a blind, I used a long lens on a tripod to isolate the female against a smooth backdrop.

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Nicer weather brought about a large early crowd. Several previous customers came out today and selected new pieces. That is always gratifying. I love hearing I’ll see you again next year as well. I had time to walk through the fairgrounds a bit this morning and all I can say is, if you like to eat, this is the show to be at. I mean the variety and quantity of food is staggering. This is also a show where people bring their dogs and here too the variety is amazing. I could do an great photo essay just on the dogs that are brought to the show. Day 4 tomorrow will be strange as I’m not used to shows longer than 3 days. One at a time though is the way I approach it.

It is typical during shows to be invited to do other shows or events. I was asked to consider participating in an interesting show in upstate PA as well as go on a cruise which sounding very enticing. I always take the information and see what my calendar will allow. Sometimes someone will make me an offer for my work that is unusual as well. I received a barter offer from a gentlemen today who liked my seascape images. He offered me a trade of my work for a week stay in his beachfront house in North Carolina. I gave him my card.

The first sale I made today was of the image Winter Reds, a 5×7 print matted to 11×14. This is a newer image made this past winter during what was probably the nicest snow we had during the season. It is an image I blogged about previously as well.

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Day 1 went smoothly enough. It was hot however and I think that may have resulted in a thinner crowd. A bit of passing rain too meant quickly closing the barn doors (Building A pretty much is a barn). The plus side to a smaller crowd is more time to spend with each customer, which I enjoy. Another plus is smaller lines for food and drink! I am set up again across from my Canadian friend Karen and her assistant Sandy. Sandy has a great Canadian accent.

Last year I blogged on which of my images represented my first sale and I will do that again this year. So, today’s first sale was an 8×10 print matted to 11×14 of White-throated Sparrow.  This is a winter image made early morning. The sparrow is puffed up to trap heat within its feathers, giving it a very plump look. The morning light is warm in color and emphasizes the red in the berries. I was able to find an opening in the brush to get a clear view of the bird’s eye while allowing the surrounding brush to frame the bird in soft reds. This is a film-based image made with a Nikon camera and a Nikkor 400mm f3.5 with 2x teleconverter (a very sharp 800mm equivalent focal length).

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A question I am sometimes asked at shows is “Why does this image have the look of being 3-dimensional?” The image that receives this question most is Blue Bird, an image of a bluebird on fall arrowwood.  The explanation is that there are two elements of this image that lend it a sense of being 3-dimensional. The first is the limited depth-of-field. That is, the foreground (including the bluebird) are perfectly in focus while the background (distant trees) are rendered only as impressionistic form and color. This situation implies distance and the mind interprets the scene as having something close and something far away. The other element contributing to the 3-d effect is the colors in the image. Warm colors (some of the leaves and stems of the plant) appear to the eye as advancing, while cool tones (the bluebird here) appear to recede. That combination of advancing and receding color right next to each other are interpreted as subjects being close and more distant.

There are other ways that a two-dimensional image can have a three-dimensional look. But of the ones that I place in my booth, this particular piece receives the most remarks.

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Here we are at the end of May! I’m preparing for my next outdoor show - Peddler’s Village Fine Art and Contemporary Crafts Show in Lahaska, PA. Then comes the marathon Kutztown Folk Festival (9 days long), followed by a show up in Hawley PA and another in Delaware. That takes me through July. I’m working hard to print, mount, mat and frame enough work so that I don’t have to work evenings after a show day. In other words, I want to get my ducks in a row right up front. Somewhere in there I will need to get into the field and make some new images as well.

In the mean time, here is a piece I titled Ducks in a Row.It is of a mother wood duck (third bird from left) and all of her young. I find the different postures of each of the birds gives this image great character. My favorite is the bird on the far right who seems to be wondering why he’s the only one with wet feet. This image was made with a Canon EOS 1D Mark II and a Canon EF 500mm f4.0 L IS lens with a Canon TC1.4X to bring the total glass to 700mm. I changed my position slightly to include some reflected blue sky on the left. My initial images with all green reflections were not as interesting I thought.

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The day after a Sugarloaf show is pretty similar to the day after any other show I do. I’m tired and sore, but up at 6:30am to read and have my coffee. Oh yea, and get my daughter out of bed to make sure she gets on the school bus. First thing, if I haven’t already done it the night before, is to process the credit card slips and prepare any checks for deposit.

The day after a show I often take myself out to breakfast at a favorite local diner (you know, where they know your name and they bring the coffee without being asked). Once back home I create a list of pieces sold, update the inventory files and the running totals for each title sold. This allows me to know long term what the most popular pieces are and where they are in the limited edition.

Once I finish the bookkeeping, I can either head to the bank or consider doing some printing to replace what sold. I may also just decide to lay on the couch until dark, but usually not. If I have any orders to ship, that comes first. Turns out that I did have a piece to ship, so I worked on preparing that for UPS. It was the first piece I sold as a result of the show. Someone who had been to the show a couple years ago, contacted me to purchase it.

So that’s it, lots of bookkeeping and maybe a bit of preparation for the next show, but nothing too extreme. After 4 days of setting up and actually working the show, a half day of taking it easier is in order.

The piece I am shipping is shown below. It’s titled Flight Unfurled.

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I’ll be setting up at my first show of the year next week, but I still have time to develop a few new images. The snow of last Friday was a rare opportunity for me to actually work with the flakes falling and nothing stands out better in falling snow than red Northern Cardinals. The thing that can really work against you though is that in order to make it clear that snow is falling, the shutter speed has to be fast enough to stop the falling snow. Otherwise, the snow looks like white streaks or even just a heavy fog.

But stopping the snow doesn’t end the challenge. Snow can be stopped in a position that you don’t want, like right in front of the bird’s face, obscuring an eye or even the whole head. So you have to time your image perfectly by anticipating just where the snow flakes will fall…………..no, not really, I’m kidding. What you need to do is make a lot of images and then edit when you get home. I concentrate on composition and exposure, and on the placement of the bird’s head and it’s movement. When dealing with multiple birds, the level of awareness of head placement is even more important.

So below is an image of two males and one female cardinal during a pretty heavy snow fall. I positioned myself to keep the distant tree off to the side. The other image here is the culprit that not once, but three times, scared off the subjects of my photography session. Damn you sharp-shinned hawk! Nah, it was cool to see too. It showed up twice while I was working in a blind, and once while working directly in the falling snow. A very pretty bird, it must have been as frustrated by it’s failures as I was by it scaring everything away.

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I’ve been moaning about our lack of snow here in Bucks County, PA for awhile. Little as it was, we got a few inches last Friday. It was enough to cancel school and keep my wife at home. That meant I could go out, and I did. My intent was to do landscape imagery, but I brought along my telephoto just in case the birding looked good. Well, the landscape lens never made it onto the camera. I spent about 3 hours working inside a blind and out in the snow composing environmental images of birds against various backdrops.

I’m a sucker for cardinals in snow images. And there were a lot of cardinals around. Males, females, some bright red, others more drab, but all looking good to me against a snow white background. The snow at times was quite heavy and it was encrusting my lens and camera. While the equipment I was using is sealed, there is a limit and I was getting a bit uneasy. It was also quite cold, making a battery replacement necessary just as I had composed an image.

Interesting too was the presence of a menacing sharp-shinned hawk (or was it a Cooper’s hawk?). Three times it disrupted my image making by scattering every bird in the area. After it’s third time causing chaos to my image making, I gave up on the birds. That and the snow changing over to ice and I had enough. Too bad, as I was really enjoying the conditions.

Focusing in the snow on fast moving little subjects like birds with long lenses, and eyes watering from the cold wind is a real challenge. I try to pre-compose potential images in my mind and keep an eye out for that configuration to occur. Otherwise, I work the situations that present themselves with an eye to maximizing the graphic nature of the scene. I use autofocus when I feel I have time to recompose or can trust that the sensor won’t be fooled by an obstruction. Often, manual focusing is the only way to go and if I have to work fast, I can get it wrong. A strong image without perfect focus can still be used for a small print though.

The image below is just such an image. I like the composition and color contrasts, but this image will be restricted to 5×7 prints or smaller (perfect for a holiday card though). Other images I made I believe will lend themselves to 11×14 or larger.

With shows starting in less than 2 weeks, I want the snow done. I’m thinking about spring already.

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I made it a goal this year to look at advertising as a way to get the word out about my work and where I’ll be. Typically, I’ve let the promoter do that work, but this year I’ve allocated some funds and time to enhance my customer list and create press-releases for local papers.

My first show this year is at the Garden State Exhibit Center in Somerset, NJ and the show catalogue has just arrived. In it I’ve placed a small ad mostly to let previous customers know I’ll be there. The Sugarloaf staff worked up the graphics and I provided the image and general content instructions.

Here is the mock-up and below it a scan of how it appears. I’ve blurred out the other elements of the page. My booth number in the actual ad shows that I’ll be set up in space 325. It’s not a big ad, but it stands out well enough. Sugarloaf sends quite a lot of these catalogues out and so my web site listing will be seen by many more people than will actually come to the show. Since the catalogue comes outs a couple weeks prior to the show, it gives people a chance to explore my web site to see if they are interested in other pieces of my work as well.

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