May’s Photo Wrap Up
May proved to be a difficult month for me by way of posting photos to my 365 Days Journey Through the Past project. I found myself thinking, what’s the point? and then didn’t want to continue, but I did anyway. I’m trying to scratch out a theme of my photography history and can only come up with what the photos aren’t; they aren’t photographs of people. I have some, but mostly it’s about things. I do enjoy the vision photography has gifted me with, though. I love finding beauty in the mundane.
Ode No. 4 to Wrought Iron: Ornamentations
Photos taken at Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, Greenwood Cemetery.
Ode No. 3 to Wrought Iron: Details
Photos taken at Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, Greenwood Cemetery.
Ode No. 2 to Wrought Iron: Finials
Photos taken at Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, Greenwood Cemetery.
Ode No. 1 to Wrought Iron: Fences
Photos taken at Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, Greenwood Cemetery.
Let’s Wander The Cemetery, Shall We?
Overcast. Misty rain. Solitude. Perfect day for a walk in the cemetery.
Cemetery No. 3
Cemetery No. 4
Cemetery No. 12
Cemetery No. 13
Cemetery No. 14
Cemetery No. 17
Cemetery No. 19
Cemetery No. 20
Cemetery No. 24
Cemetery No. 31
Cemetery No. 33
Cemetery No. 34
Today I wish I’d had someone else with me to help me select photos. I love so many of them that it was difficult to choose a small selection to represent the whole experience. Initially, I picked 34 images for this post thinking everyone would be as fascinated by them as I am. But then, reason brought me back to reality. Thirty-four is too many for one post, so I cut the selected photos down to twelve. I have a Flickr account where I’ll post them all. You can find them in my New Orleans set or my Cemetery set.
April’s Photo Wrap Up
I know, I’m wrapping up a day early. I think wrapping up on a weekend is a good thing. It’s like bundling up multiple endings into a neat, little package, and that feels good.
Wordless Wednesday
Wire Moe
118/365 Many Reflections
Europe, I thought. Belgium. Brussels. I remember that Rue just down from the Grande Place somewhere. I remember the corner triangle, the old buildings, even the Smart cars. There were Smart cars in Belgium long before there were Smart cars in the USA. Yes, I remember. Such a lovely, old city. Except…
118/365 No. 1
…it’s not Brussels. It’s downtown Indianapolis. And those aren’t Smart cars. They’re normal cars. But…???
I’ll tell you my favorite downtown photography secret. Shhhh. *Indianapolis Power and Light* (IPL). Seriously. If you go downtown, go to IPL on Monument Circle and look in their windows and at their mirrors. You will be amazed at the variety of photographic opportunities you’ll find there.
118/365 No. 2
Look! It’s Loomis-Fargo & Co., armored transport for all your security needs. I’d trust my money to it. It’s so cute! And, as we all know, cute is important when you need armored transport.
118/365 No. 3
Besides for the fun-house mirrors, IPL also has these beautiful colored mirrors inside the building viewable through picture-glass windows. They make for great abstract images as you can see with the above photo. Yesterday’s post was of a photo taken through the window looking into a round, green mirror.
118/365 No. 4
I left Monument Circle and, being chilled because, after all, it was February, I went to Starbucks on Ohio Street. I ordered a grande, no whip, white peppermint mocha and sat at the long table facing the street. As I warmed up and sipped my coffee, I noticed the reflections in the windows of the building across the street.
118/365 No. 5
After a while, I turned inward to think about, oh, I don’t know, whatever was on my mind at the time. That’s when I noticed the reflection of my hand in the window. A single ring graced my finger. I took it off and placed it on the countertop.
I’m fascinated by mirrors and reflections. A lot of my photography incorporates them. It’s because I see life through reflections. I don’t see it clearly. Sometimes, though, I wish I did.
116/365 A Stark White Hall, Two White Chairs and a White Scarf with Colorful Baubles
116/365
Not one of my better photos.
In 2007, I wandered through Herron School of Art and Design with my newly-acquired DSLR, the Canon EOS 30D. I was with a friend and we were discussing art and what makes art. We entered a white hallway with a couple of white chairs lying about the hall. A white scarf with colorful yarn baubles draped over one chair. The hall was stark and not really interesting except for the scarf.
I wanted to show that with photography, it is possible to find beauty in the mundane so I proceeded to photograph the scarf at various angles because obviously the scarf was the subject, not the white hall or the chairs. This photo was the better of them all but five years later I find it rather mundane because what I remember is a stark white hall with two white chairs and a white scarf with colorful baubles. I failed to capture that image at all!
I am still reading Galen Rowell’s book Mountain Light. (I read a few pages every morning while drinking coffee.) He mentions a number of times how important it is to look at your photographic failures because you can learn just as much from them as you can from your successes. He says most people ignore their failures or toss them away. I know I’m notorious for deleting blurred images or too dark images without understanding why they were blurred or too dark. Yes, I most likely hand-held when I should have used a tripod for those blurred photos or I shot before checking ISO or Shutter Speed or Aperture Priority for those too-dark photos (or thinking I can recover something in camera RAW…haha!). Those are simple mistakes that are easily rectified. Though I do need to take the time to understand where exactly loss of quality starts when I hand hold a camera.
Then there are photos that look perfectly fine but they still don’t cut it. I can go into the importance of knowing design principles so that you can work with them (or against them, if that makes the better photo). I can go into knowing your camera and how it sees and interprets the light falling onto its sensors so that you can adjust accordingly. I can go into knowing what your personal vision is so that you can see what is meaningful to you. All these are important when reviewing failed photos. But I’m not doing that with this post.
For this post and this photo, where I failed was in not knowing what it was I wanted. At the time of the photo I could not verbalize that I saw a stark white hall with two white chairs and a white scarf with colorful baubles. All I knew, at the time, was that the scarf was the most important thing in the room. So I took close-ups of the scarf. Now, five years later and with many design classes behind me, I know the image that I should have taken was a wide-angle that incorporated the whole whiteness of the hall with just a speck of color. All that white with a small speck of color would have drawn the eye directly to the scarf and placed it in context so that the scarf becomes the focal point.
So the next time I walk into a stark white hall with two white chairs and a white scarf with colorful baubles, I’ll know how to approach it.
Ocean of Clouds
I wish I knew what these formations are called
The clouds washed over me like an upside-down ocean. I raced to grab my point-and-shoot camera from my purse before they morphed into something more mundane. I had been reading about lenticular clouds in Galen Rowell’s book “Mountain Light” and what causes them so I was primed to look for unusual cloud formations. I ran through the parking lot snapping whatever photos I could get and I wondered if anyone else noticed them. No one seemed to be looking up even though I was making a spectacle of myself.
I really wish I knew what air pattern caused these cloud formations. I want to call them wave clouds, especially the first one, because it looks like a small ocean wave with white caps. I also want to call them lenticular clouds, but my understanding is that lenticular is only encountered on the lee-side of mountains because of the way the air drops down. Indiana doesn’t have the right geography to cause lenticular clouds. The converging of these cloud forms seems to be creating a vortex; not a vortex for a tornado, but a vortex into the sky and I wished I was directly under them to see what lay beyond.
Just as fast as these clouds coalesced together, they changed into something less dramatic.
In my readings on Rowell, I am learning that it’s not always just luck that gets you the photo. It’s also knowing the environment and anticipating the possibilities and then seeking them when they present themselves. Although it’s not about clouds, one of Rowell’s most memorable photos, Rainbow over the Potala Palace, Lhasa (Tibet, 1981), didn’t just happen because he was standing there. The story goes that he and other photographers were in Tibet when the rainbow appeared. In his mind’s eye, he envisioned it shining down on the Potala Palace. Unfortunately, the Palace was nearly a mile away. So Rowell went running, keeping himself at an angle that would maintain the rainbow. No one else followed him since they already got their rainbow shots and were ready to call it a day. Rowell knew the properties of rainbows, the angle he needed to maintain to keep it in sight, how much time he might have before the light was not conducive for rainbows, etc., and he got the shot. But he wouldn’t have if he didn’t understand the properties of rainbows.
When I look at these clouds, I wonder what caused them so that the next time the environment offers up a similar situation, I am ready with a better camera and lens to make the photo.
(I’ve uploaded each cloud separately to my Flickr account. You can see them here.)
UPDATE (2/25/12): Gary at krikitarts said they’re called ‘Asperatus’ clouds. You can read about it in this online article: The cloud with no name: Meteorologists campaign to classify unique ‘Asperatus’ clouds seen across the world. According to The Cloud Appreciation Society, the name isn’t official yet because they must have the blessing of the World Meteorological Organisation in Geneva. But the term has been widely adopted anyway and has a strong chance of becoming a new term.
91-100/365 Catching UP
February derailed me. I put a lot of computer time into the Super Bowl and TURF:IDADA Art Pavilion (which was actually part of the Super Bowl events) then promptly got sick. Also, I am rather disheartened right now because I feel like my photography has stagnated. I remember taking a watercolor course a long time ago and although I don’t do watercolor today, one piece of advise the instructor mentioned has stuck with me for all these years. She effectively said, “You will get to a point in your watercolor when you know it isn’t done but you don’t know what else to do because you’ve done everything you know how to do. This is when you start pushing in colors and working through this stuck phase. Don’t give up. It will look like there is nothing else you can do but if you keep working on it, suddenly it becomes the watercolor you envisioned.” I’ve kept this in mind all these years. It’s not just with watercolor, it’s with life. Right now I feel disheartened and I feel like I’m stuck, but I’m pushing through and working on things, even if my photographs are bland and mundane. And hopefully, one day my photographs will suddenly become what I envisioned.
Anyway, I’m catching up with February’s images in this single post and hopefully will be back on track.
TURF: IDADA Art Pavilion Revisited
Art is not just a one-time experience. To really understand it, one needs to return to it and study it or contemplate it. My first time visiting TURF: IDADA Art Pavilion was rewarding in itself but I knew it needed a second visit. My first visit delighted me with the ambitious nature of the project (showcasing Indiana arts and artists) and allowed me to be amazed with my initial experience. I left with favorites. I knew my experience was incomplete so I went back where I gained a deeper appreciation for the installations I enjoyed and those I didn’t understand. TURF: IDADA Art Pavilion is open through February 5th—just two more days! (Three if you count today.) It is part of the Super Bowl XLVI event and is worth taking time to visit.
Meditated Terrain
Installation Artist: Greg Hull
A cascade of monitors featuring waterfalls flows down the wall, through the rough terrain of black umbrellas, and under a bridge—the very bridge I cross over to move to the next installation. As one of the first installations, it crosses me over from the mundane world outside and takes me into the world of art and metaphor.
The Insatiable
Installation Artist: Jawshing Arthur Liou
A snake or dragon slithers across a screen, each scale alive with smaller videos of a night market. I pause to watch it undulate up and down the screen. Time stops for me as I stand mesmerized by its hypnotic movement.
The Road Ahead Leaves a Trail Behind
Installation Artist: John Himmelfarb
I didn’t understand this installation the first time through. I was too focused on the rusted cans and the beauty inherent in their abandoned character. Because of this, I didn’t see the complete installation. This second time through, I stood back and all at once I noticed the odd juxtaposing of progress and the debris it leaves behind.
Coffee Table
Installation Artist: Nick Allman
I once lived in a house with a hole in the ceiling. The bathroom tub sat precariously over this hole. I look at the fridge, broken through the ceiling and crashed into the floor, and see a bathtub and I think, That could be me under there.
Stardust to Stardust
Installation Artist: Brian James Priest with Christopher Iseri
I sit in a chair and contemplate the swirls on the floor canvas. Each swirl chalked in with a charred bone. Each swirl a microcosmic similitude of the macrocosmic heavens.
Crossroads
Installation Artist: Casey Roberts
A diorama of a fox contemplating drums and a movie of a man turning to nature; one a still life, unable to fulfill the suggested idea, the other real life, quite capable of becoming what it suggests.
Sanctuary (Apocalyptic Considerations)
Installation Artist:Jamie Pawlus
The sanctuary of an outhouse amidst a cacophany of sayings and slogans and surrounded by ravens. Nevermore
Vinyl Downpour
Installation Artist: Lobyn Hamilton
Vinyl pours abundantly out of a spout, bubbling over the ground and splashing across the walls. I long to be immersed in that liquid. I long to stack vinyl three or four deep on the post in the center of the turntable and listen to, not just the music, but the mechanical sound of the arm settling into the grooves, of the arm retracting when done. And I even miss the scratching sound as the needle jumps across the vinyl when I am careless.
I enjoyed the second time through as much as the first time through. I was wowed the first time but the second time I began to understand a deeper meaning each artist included in their installation—whether they intended that meaning or not. As a viewer, I bring my own background to the installations and add my own meaning to it. That’s the nature of art. It’s a dialogue; a dialogue between the artist, the art, and the viewer. And that is why I like to go back, to return and continue the dialogue.
Patience and Super Bowl XLVI
I stood quietly leaning against a pillar and watched the shadow. It moved ever so slowly. How long? How much longer must I wait for it to finish scraping across the “I” of the XLVI? I must have been standing there for an hour. It felt like an hour. I looked at the time. Only five minutes. Groan.
I stared at the shadow. It stayed motionless. I blinked. It inched. Patience, I told myself. You came down to Super Bowl Village so you could get a photo of the giant XLVI. Don’t blow it because you lack patience.
I had seen photos of the giant XLVI and of the Indy cars that would only be on the circle through today and I knew I had to experience the Super Bowl hype. So here I am, with hundreds of others, taking photos, with hundreds of others.
But I came at the wrong time. I didn’t want a photo of Super Bowl XL! But that’s what I would get if I didn’t exert patience. Yes, I exert patience, because it’s hard!
Super Bowl 2012, Extra Large
While waiting for the perfect moment, I wandered around Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument hoping to get an interesting shot from behind. Not as many people crowded the area. I suppose because most people want photos and memories of XLVI and not IVLX. I had hoped for something interesting, but the energy was not as great behind the giant numerals.
Standing on Soldier's and Sailor's Monument Behind the XLVI
I wound my way back to the front. The sun had moved enough so that the numerals became XLV. But XLV is sooooo last year!
Super Bowl XLV is so last year!
While I waited, I went to the end of the Indy cars, hoping to get a decent shot. Nope. Besides for the hundreds of people crowding around the cars, I still had issues with light and shadow. I gave up on getting a decent Indy car photo, especially after hearing one photographer call out another one for getting in his way. Crowds can be that way sometimes. So I pushed through the hordes and went back to the XLVI.
Indy Cars
I parked myself against a pillar in the place I had staked out on my walk-about and willed the shadow to disappear so that I could get that one photo I had come downtown to get. Patience paid off. The sun shone straight down Meridian Street and onto the XLVI.
Finally!
In a few minutes, the shadows would start creeping up again as the sun crossed behind the buildings on the other side of the street. I knew I had a keeper with the above photo. It showed the numerals and I liked the angle, but I wanted more. I wanted something unique. I know the circle well enough to know there are unconventional perspectives. My favorite is finding reflections in windows. So, while everyone aimed their cameras towards the XLVI, I aimed mine at windows. I took a number of photos in this way, but this one is my absolute favorite.
Reflections on Super Bowl 2012
I know no one will call me up and say, “Hey, we want to use that photo on the cover on Indianapolis Monthly!” But that’s ok because I love it. I waited patiently for the light to be just right and I got the shot.
(Now I will shamelessly direct you to my Flickr Super Bowl 2012 photostream so you can see other photos I took. A number of them are reflection shots. I will be adding more to it because I fully intend to go back, hopefully on Monday. I also wrote about my experience at TURF: IDADA Art Pavilion, which is an art pavilion created especially for the Super Bowl.)
The Seance Parlor–A Comparison
When I went to TURF: IDADA Art Pavilion the other day, one of my favorite installations was “Step On This Side Of The Curtain” by Holly Streekstra. The mood was haunting and flickered between light and dark. I captured a few photos using ambient light but knew that they were most likely blurred so I decided to use the on-camera flash. (Ugh! But what’s a girl to do under such low-light conditions?) I especially loved the globe chandelier because it was so reminiscent of a past era. I waited for the globe lights to be full-on and with my on-camera flash I captured this Victorian parlor.
It looked good on the LCD monitor so I thought I had a pretty decent photograph of that room that I could use for the review I would later write.
When I got home and downloaded all the images, I began my work flow. My photography work flow is to download the images onto my computer and into files sorted by date taken. Then I use Adobe Bridge where I quickly scan and delete obvious rejects; blurred and out-of-focus, too dark, redundant, bland, etc. This makes the remaining photos easier to work through.
Sometimes I am automatic in deleting images because I know that blurred images and too-dark images are not usually keepers. Because of that, I almost…almost…deleted this photo.
But I couldn’t. It wouldn’t let me. My heart quickened when I saw it. I remembered the dizziness I felt when I entered that room. I remembered the whispering voices, the surreal furnishing, the otherworldly mirrors. I remembered looking into a mirror and seeing the reflection of the globe chandelier but not my own reflection. I remembered all that because of this image.
If I were to choose a favorite photograph from all the installation photos I took that day, this is it, hands down! I wish I could say that I intended this photograph, that I had the presence of mind to play with the slow shutter speed in order create an otherworldly feel. But that’s not what happened. This photo is an accident.
Or, maybe it wasn’t an accident. Maybe, just maybe, a ghost made this photograph.
I like that.
Saturday In The Park–Holliday Park
I haven’t been posting photos to 365 Days Journey Through the Past for the last couple of days because I’m rather discouraged. Don’t get me wrong, I’m on track. I’ve been adding them to my Flickr account and at the end of the month they will be included in the monthly wrap-up, but right now I can’t help but wonder, what’s the point? I can tell that in the past during January I wasn’t really inspired and under other circumstances the photos would remain filed away on my computer because they really aren’t that good.
Part of my problem right now is that I don’t know what direction I want to go with photography; nature? people? animals? urban? other???? I love cemeteries and have tons of cemetery photos. I also love urban decay and have done some fun things with that. But I’m not inspired by either one right now. I want to include a human element to my photos, also—I had a lot of fun photographing my friend’s children!—but I’m still rather reticent to ask strangers if I can photograph them. I think I need an infusion of newness. I love Indianapolis, but I’ve been here too long without a change of scenery! I need a vacation!
Anyway, it snowed FINALLY and the snow is still on the ground so I thought I’d go to Holliday Park and see what I could find. At first it was the same stuff as always. I live a few blocks from Holliday Park so I go there a lot. Then I went into the Nature Center and sat watching the birds and squirrels through the one-way window. I lifted the camera to my eye and before I knew it, I got lost taking photos. Enjoy!
Taken Outside the Nature Center
Pinecones; I bet the Nature Center had a kid's day where they covered pinecones in peanut butter
White-Breasted Nuthatch
Red-Bellied Woodpecker and Hairy Woodpecker
Part of the landscape is a small stream.
Cardinal
I used my 55-250mm zoom lens. I set the white balance for cloudy, which worked well outside. When I went inside the Nature Center and shot through the windows, I assumed I should keep it at cloudy. But, nope, when I color corrected in camera RAW, I learned I should have set the white balance to fluorescent. I’ll have to read up on why the indoor lighting superseded the outdoor lighting when my subjects were outside. Hmmmmm…..
UPDATE: I pondered this over the course of the day and came to the conclusion that the actual light hitting the camera sensor was from inside the building, not the outside light, and therefore need to take into consideration the indoor light situation. That is my conclusion at this point, but I’m still going to look into it.
Fun Photography Challenge
Indianapolis Children's Museum
I had the most wonderful opportunity to practice some photography skills. I would test my ability to shoot moving objects in low-light conditions without a tripod with the end results being photos for print! How could I pass it up? I had been reading some photography books and wanted to try out some of the new things I learned so I packed my camera bag and headed to The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis to meet my friend so I could babysit her kids while she went to a meeting downtown.
Yep. Babysit. Those children were my moving objects. The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis was the low-light condition and I had no room in the stroller for a tripod (nor could I have effectively used it and kept my eye on the kids without stumbling all over the place and losing the kids). And I promised my friend photos she could print.
I wanted to carry as little gear as possible so I made it a goal to shoot with only my Canon EOS 30D and a 50mm 1.8f prime lens. That meant using the on-camera flash, which I’m not partial to; I prefer an external flash when flash is needed. I preset the ISO to 800 and the white balance to fluorescent since that produced the better image. I set the aperture to f/4 as a starting point. I didn’t want the flash to be the overwhelming light source when I used it, so I set the flash output to -1.7, more like a fill-flash. I was used to using spot metering but decided to go with evaluative. And I went with continuous shoot mode, planning to get at least three shots off for every image. I had read that this helps with camera shake. Usually the first photo will show some signs of camera shake because of depressing the shutter release. The middle one will most likely be the better image and the last one is recovering from the series. I discovered that there were little differences between the first and middle images, probably because I was hand-holding in low light, but that the last one was always horrible. Maybe because I was mentally done after the first two so I pulled away by the third shot.
I haven’t photographed children since my own children were young so I was thrilled to have human subjects who would challenge me. I started out without the flash just to see if I could hand-hold it and get decent images. What I learned is that the light in the building cast odd shadows across the children’s faces so up popped my flash. I was actually pleased with the fill-flash setting since it opened up their faces but didn’t overpower them. There were very few times I had to make any adjustments other than for shutter speed and sometimes for aperture. This freed me up to focus on the antics of the kids and try to outguess their moves so I could capture them having fun.
No Flash
On-camera Fill-Flash
The 50mm 1.8f lens limited my shots also. I discovered I tended towards centered portraits, which makes sense for this lens. I had to wrestle myself to get any photos with the focal point off center. Next time I use this lens exclusively I will take on the challenge of the rule of thirds!
I took 192 photos in all. Subtract the repeats (because of continuous shooting mode) and you have 86. From those 86, here are 14 of my favorites of the children. Enjoy!
(Dangit! The slideshow uses ALL photos for this post, which means redundancy and I can’t correct for it. So there are 17 photos total in the slideshow.)
