Feeling Sorry for a Goose……..

And laughing a bit about it as well. Sometimes the impact of an image is that it makes you laugh. On this blue sky morning at a local lake I was working during morning rush hour (geese taking off and landing after roosting all night). These are really fun birds. They talk up a storm before taking off and are of various degrees of skill when it comes to landing again. It’s hard not to think of these birds as people commuting to work.

For this type of image, I am working with long glass (500mm with a 1.4X teleconverter) and on a tripod. I keep autofocus on the continuous mode and select a large array of sensors to keep the birds in focus while they are flying towards me. I want an image with little or no overlap of the birds so that each is a distinct form. The one bird on the upper right is just plain having some trouble. Maybe it’s just not comfortable with the whole flying thing, but for some reason Don Knotts comes to mind.

(c) Paul Grecian – http://www.paulgrecianphoto.com

****************************************************************

It’s a Secret……..

I have been wanting to print a new fox image for a while. In reviewing images I made at one particular den, I chose this image to be a new 7×10 print. These two kits were part of a den of 6! Romping around and playing with each other, they provided a lot of entertainment and some frustration. Their almost constant movement made it challenging to create anything coherent.

I wanted to create behavior pieces but ones that were visually pleasing as well. Composition is always important as are color and lighting. The soft light kept highlights under control and the warm-toned grasses work well with the fox’s fur. Ultimately, it was just a lot of fun to work with them for the 8 days I could spend hanging out in the field.

In this image of two kits, one certainly seems to have something to say that is not meant for my ears!

It’s a Secret!

*******************************************************************

Descendo

The moon is a highly evocative subject whether it’s a sliver, a crescent, or full. It speaks to such a range of emotions from fear to romance. Trees have a similar effect on people, evocative as well, they speak to strength, loneliness, rebirth, and joyousness. Combined, these two elements of moon and trees, make for a pretty powerful visual and emotional effect.

In this image of a morning moon setting against a pre-dawn sky, I composed to place the moon off-center and behind branches. The exposure was made off of the sky and then decreased a bit to make sure I had detail in the moon. The trees are in silhouette but with a twist! Since there is snow on some of the branches, there is a dimensionality to the trees that is otherwise lacking in such an image.

The image was made with a Panasonic G2 and Panasonic 100-300mm lens at around 250mm (which is 500mm equivalent in 35mm terms).

Moonset behind trees

*****************************************************************

Winter Trifecta

 Certainly one of the aspects of winter that I find interesting from a visual stand point is how it simplifies the landscape. Bare trees and snow-covered ground both contribute to a sense of the austere. Add fog as a component and the landscape all but disappears. I call this the “winter trifecta”.

With this “trifecta” of conditions, I can concentrate on making images that are mostly suggestive of the landscape but still fully representing the feeling of winter.These kinds of images also speak to larger concepts such as being alone, quietness, and visually allow the contemplation of form and light.

There is definitely a quality or feeling to the image that is calming and which I very much like.

(c) Paul Grecian

****************************************************************

Looking Up

It’s hard for me to not anthropomorphize the behavior of animals looking up to the sky as being spiritual. There just seems to be a natural interpretation of any animal with their eyes searching the “heavens” as seeking guidance or being lost in a sense of wonder.

As someone who spent their college career in the study of animal behavior, any form of anthropomorphizing was unscientific. As an artist now, I don’t have to fight that urge. In fact I think it has become a part of my image-making process. I look for the “expressions” in animal subjects that relate to my own emotions and feelings. My work isn’t just about the animal in my image, but also about how their behavior speaks to our own lives.

This little kit Red Fox was part of a den I worked at for over a week. I  feel like I caught it in a private moment of youthful contemplation of the universe. Color isn’t important to the image, so I rendered it as a black & white. To instill a sense that it was unaware of my presence, I composed so that it blends into its surroundings but made sure that the eyes and ears (pointing forward with its line of sight) are clearly visible.

****************************************************************

Artistic Process

The artistic process differs from medium to medium and is of course a never-ending learning process. As an artist working in the medium of photography, I cannot help but compare my medium and process to others. I find it both helpful in understanding my own medium but also in growing with it. And although I have been working in digital format for almost 10 years, the medium still feels new to me.

There is one aspect of working in digital format  that may be more important than any other. Unlike working with film, having immediate feedback on the camera’s LCD means being able to respond both to the scene in front of me and to the image I just created. And so as in painting, sculpture, or even composing music, I can analyse the result and adjust the process to do things differently.

Mostly, people think of that feedback as a way of checking that the camera is working correctly and that the image reflects what was desired. That is helpful, but maybe even more important is that the image itself becomes a new thing to which I can respond. Just as a painter lays down a brush stroke and then responds to how that brush stroke changes their feeling about where to lay down the next brush stroke, the photographer can respond to an LCD display of an image to determine what next direction to take.

In the image below that I made in Acadia National Park this past August, I was able to respond to the image I made as separate from the scene in which I was working. The image I made then could send me in a different direction than the scene itself would have.  As a result I could respond by changing focal length, perspective, polarization, exposure, composition, and if I chose to, also white-balance and application of a variety of other camera-based controls. The immediate feedback offered by the camera’s LCD allows me to be more creative in the field and ultimately with the final print.

This image was made with a Panasonic GH2 with an Olympus 9-18mm m4/3 lens at 18mm hand-held.

Cloud and Grasses, (c) 2012 Paul Grecian

**************************************************************

“Crossroads” Write-up

Having just returned from an extended trip to Acadia National Park, I am still catching up with messages and what else has been going on back here. One nice find was this wonderful write-up about the 2-person show I am currently doing with painter Richard Harrington at Artists’ Gallery in Lambertville, NJ. The article appeared in a special Friday supplement of The Times of Trenton

Nocturnal Shore

**************************************************************

Just a Drop Will Dew

Soon after I started making pictures (over 30yrs ago), I quickly became enamored with “macro” photography (photography of small subjects working with specialized lenses which allow you to focus close to your subject). My first “serious” lens was a used Sigma macro lens. It allowed me to explore nature in a way that made even the yard of my Philadelphia apartment seem like a wilderness.

I continue to explore nature through this close-up photographic technique, although now I do it with a variety of close-focusing lenses and in natural areas rather more diverse than my Philly front yard. However, it is the visual simplicity that I can achieve with macro-photography that really keeps me going back to it.

In the case of the image below, a simple line (leaf edge) and the contrasting almost-perfect orb of dew create an image of simplicity and tension. I am drawn to water droplets as characters in my work. They appear as jewels on misty mornings, after a rain, or when the appropriate dew point and I intersect.

For this image I was working with a Canon 40D and a Canon EF 100mm f2.8 macro lens set at f2.8. I had a shutter speed of 1/640 and set the ISO to 400. I set the camera to Aperture Priority and metered in Pattern mode.

Dew Drop – (c) Paul Grecian – http://www.paulgrecianphoto.com

*******************************************************************

 

f/8 And Be There – Misleading?

I often come across photography related quotes and wonder what they originally meant. The quote “F8 and be there” is attributed to Weegee (actually Arthur Fellig) who was a famous street photographer during the 1930’s, 40’s and beyond. Arthur Fellig’s quote was meant to explain his secret to success. I believe it represents a philosophy to keep technical decisions simple and be where your vision takes you. The quote has been the mantra of photojournalists, travel photographers and even nature photographers. To some it implies that great images are the result of happenstance. But in a way, it represents a truism without much meaning. Photographs, wherever they are made and regardless of the subject, always require a “be there” component. The “F8” element speaks to the need for sharpness (the f8 aperture is the sharpest point of some lenses) and also a reasonable depth of field. The ability to work quickly is a necessity when working with action subjects.

The quote though in some ways over-simplifies the process. What made Fellig’s work so captivating was not his use of f-stop or even the fact that he was “there”. Personally, I dismiss this notion of “right place, right time” as helpful in explaining the success of an image. Every image has a place and time element, it is what the photographer brings to that place and time that makes an image meaningful.

In a January 19, 2012 New York Times article, Roberta Smith writes about Weegee’s photography  – “The combination of grit, humanity, intensity, merciless opportunism and spatial precariousness, coupled with an eye for uncanny details, regularly resulted in pictures that you can’t stop looking at….” For Arthur Fellig to explain his success as “f8 and be there” only suggests to me that he was so comfortable with who he was and how he wanted to portray events, that he could be anywhere at any time, not worrying about mundane technical questions, and create stirring images. For me, the real meaning of his quote is simplify your process and be true to your vision.

************************************************************

Yin Yang

The image I show below is now a new print that I have titled Yin Yang. I enjoy the visual simplicity and Zen feeling that the image conveys. With its equal parts of light (Yang) and dark (Yin), I created an image with visual balance which has a similar form to the well-known Tai Chi symbol.

The image itself was made in Maine in the area around Acadia National Park on an overcast day. Working in overcast conditions allowed me to maintain tonalities without harsh highlights and deep shadow. The dark part of the image is a reflection of the mountain that towers over the pond while the light side of the image is that area in which the mountain does not reflect (just the overcast sky).

The image was made with a Canon 5D Mark II and a Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 II L IS lens on a tripod topped with a Really Right Stuff ballhead. For this type of imagery I also like to use mirror lockup and an electronic cable-release.

You can order a matted print here – Yin Yang

"Yin Yang" (c) 2011 Paul Grecian - http://www.paulgrecianphoto.com

****************************************************************