I’m still feeling like winter………

I know what the calendar says, but I’m still scrapping my car windshield and wearing winter coats. I’m also still working through some wintry images and enjoying it. We didn’t get much snow this past winter, but some of what we did receive was lovely. It was the kind of snowfall that left a visual impression of the land instead of overwhelming it.

The image below was made during one of our March snows and it was one of the most visually pleasing snows I’ve ever experienced. As a result I bolted out of the house the morning of and went to work. With the sun rising, there was both warm light and cool shadow to work with. I concentrated on those aspects of the land that excited me the most, contrast and form.

I used an Olympus OM-D E5 with a Panasonic 100-300mm lens to isolate and compress the composition. Working in RAW format, I then developed the image in Lightroom and finished it in Photoshop.

(c) 2013 Paul Grecian – http://www.paulgrecianphoto.com

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Texture

 Certainly snow adds an etherial feeling to an image, emotionally it may be the most important element in a winter scene. I also find however that snow adds a great sense of texture to an image. In fact, it may even emphasize the other textures in a scene by breaking the image up into an almost pointalistic painting.

The soft, even lighting of a snowfall is critical as well, preventing areas from becoming too light or too dark. In the image below, I composed in layers and included some winter red berries to add color punch to the image. For me though it is the texture that turns me on most, something that when working with a two-dimensional medium really gets exciting.

The image was made with a Canon 5D camera mounted to a Canon 28-300mm L IS lens on a Gitzo tripod. I selected a focal length of 150mm and worked almost wide open and at 400 ISO to attain a shutter speed of 1/60 sec. (fast enough to stop the snow falling from being a blur).

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

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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

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Breathing the Same Air

I am continuing to prepare for my two-person show at Artists’ Gallery in Lambertville, NJ. I have the honor of exhibiting with artist Norine Kevolic who works in both paint and wood. What is especially exciting to me is that for this show Norine will be hanging landscape paintings for the first time at Artists’ Gallery. I feel that our work speaks to and in informed by a shared response to nature. In fact our postcard for the show presents two rather different works but both made at the same local lake, Lake Galena.

Our show runs from March 8 thru March 31 with an artists’ reception on March 9 from 4-7 pm. The title of the show, Breathing the Same Air, was chosen after I read Norine’s quote for our press release. She stated “My aim is to create a sensuous work in which one feels they are breathing the same air as in the painting”. I knew immediately that Norine and I shared a similar motivation which needed to be reflected in the title of the show.

Breathing the Same Air

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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

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Foggy January

I’m really appreciating being able to get back to making photographs. Earlier this week I saw fog again when I awoke and took off, straight to my favorite lake! There were Canada Geese in large numbers and a distant Bald Eagle perched on the opposite shore high in a tree.

Even when working at a location I’ve been to a thousand times, I need to take time to absorb what I’m seeing and feeling. What moved me to start the process was the mist rising off the water against a winter woodland and a large stone in the foreground.

In the field, I used a Canon 5D Mark II camera and a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 L IS II lens on a Gitzo tripod with a Really Right Stuff  head. I like to work with the mirror locked up and a 2 second self-timer. This image was made in color and converted to black & white. I developed the image further using levels, curves, shadows/highlights, and some sharpening. When all was finished I applied sepia toning to emphasize the mood.

(c) 2013 Paul Grecian

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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

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The Maine Thing – Day 8

During the evening of our last day in Maine I walked outside my friend’s house and was struck by the most star-filled night sky I’ve ever seen. There was a very clear Milky Way and a tremendous number of stars. Having done some night image making before, I immediately set up the tripod and camera for some long exposures. The sky was great, but I wanted something more in the image. I needed something to ground it.

Composing at night can be tough, but I knew anything I included other than sky would be in silhouette. Well, anything except an alternate light source or something reflecting that light source.

My daughter had just gone up to her room and turned on her light. My first thought was to have her turn it off. Then I realized that the window would be a great addition, as would the warm incandescent light. This image was made with a Canon Eos 5D Mark II and Canon EF 17-40mm f4.0 L lens. I used an electronic cable release, and in Bulb setting counted to 30 in my head.

Window to the Night Sky (c) 2012 Paul Grecian

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The Maine Thing – Day 6

Day 6 in Maine was fairly overcast, perfect for hiking in wooded areas. The image below was made on a trail starting at Jordan Pond. The trails are mostly for hiking, but also horse-riding and offer wonderful views of rather pristine woodland. What really amazed me was how interwoven  the Plant-life is with the geology. Trees were growing out of stone and even in the nooks of other trees! For example, I saw several fir trees growing out of  bifurcations in birch trees.

For this hike I selected to use a light weight Micro-Four-thirds system again. In this case it was the Panasonic GH2 with an Olympus 9-18mm lens (equivalent to an 18-36mm in 35mm format). Compositionally, I am using the trees to frame the distant view. From a color standpoint, this is a monochromatic piece, so I am emphasizing the different tonalities of green (as I would with grays were this a black-and-white image).

View from trail near Jordan Pond

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The Maine Thing – Day 5

One of the attributes of Acadia National Park that I especially like is the ability to park in the right lane of “The Loop” just about whenever I wish. This gives me the freedom to explore and respond to the landscape freely. And since the park is never really closed, I can do this for sunrise, sunset, middle of the day, or middle of the night!

One location on the loop that I like is at Otter Cove. Here, the mountains reflect into still waters lined by forest. I see it as a serene view, without great drama. Therefore my image represents it using symmetry, subtle tonality, and lots of sky. The clouds both provide visual interest to the sky but also minimize the landscape further. There is both direct and indirect light hitting the land along with shadows of the clouds themselves. This image was made with a Micro-Four-thirds system camera (Panasonic GH2) and an Olympus 9-18mm m4/3 lens. This lightweight camera and lens combo is a great travel kit.

Otter Cove, Acadia (c) 2012 http://www.paulgrecianphoto.com

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