Lesson in Focal planes

Ok Little brother, and anyone else who happens to read this blog, I am giving lessons today! This lesson is about Depth of focus and the art of photography, If you look at this first picture you will notice that pretty much each stem of the Crocus shoots pictures are in sharp focus. This is what many professional photographers would call "snapshot" it's a pretty picture and the subject is in focus, but to the professional, the pictures is cluttered and has no attention drawing point in it. Go ahead and click on it and see a bigger version of it to study it a little bit.
Now we come to the next picture and you will notice that there seems to be a huge portion of it that it out of focus, and indeed, there is. What has happened is that the depth of focus has been shallowed out to the minimum of the lens set-up. Because it isn't a specifically designed "macro" lens, the minimal depth is about 1.25 inches, rather than millimeters, however it is what I have to work with so it will do. As you look at the picture you will notice that the very front stems are in focus, from the ground to the tips. Both the foreground and the background of the picture are out of focus and the eye is naturally drawn to the sharp field. The Camera has not been moved from the first picture, only the F-stop has been changed thereby narrowing the focal plane. Go ahead and click on it and study the larger version for a minute or two.
Now we come to the 3rd picture and this time the focal plane has been shifted to the center of the group. Again the eye is drawn to the sharply focused stems in the center of the field. Notice that the white stripe in the center of the bent stems is in clear focus, making it very easy to identify these stems and the blades of the Crocus plant. Would you have as quickly noticed that in the first or second picture? Maybe, but probably not, and now there is now doubt what you are looking at, because it was brought to your attention by the selective focus.
Now we come to the last picture where the focal plane has been moved to the back of the group. Does it do anything special to the picture, other than making the front really fuzzy and the tips in the rear sharp? Not really, because there is really nothing in that area to show. So why show you this picture? Because it shows you that you weren't really missing anything from the other two. Generally it is quite expected to soften the areas of macro pictures that don't have any specific details to look at. The goal is to direct the eye of the observer to the interesting parts of the picture and keep them from wasting time on the useless background.
I hope this gives you a better understanding of the uses and desirability of the soft background in photos. I also hope that perhaps you will take notice of it and how it is used in the pictures you see around you day to day. There are many places where it is desirable to have perfect, crisp, clear focus throughout the entire picture, such as landscapes and forensics, but for Portraiture of specific artistic subjects, sharply focused pictures are a detriment.

Discovering my gift..

I don't know if it's true or not, but I have been told that I have a gift for photography. I don't see it so much as a gift, but rather a drive. I constantly feel the need to capture something that I see, in a way that will make it interesting. It doesn't always work, so I go out and see if I can do a better job with it. I don't really know if I will ever be completely satisfied with the results that I get.

I guess you could say that I am driven to do it better each time. Sometimes this means by getting better equipment, and sometimes it just means finding a new way to see it. One of the things that the professionals and the critics say consistently is, "see it differently". and what they mean is that if you can get an image of something in a way that hasn't been done before, then you have something interesting. One of the best examples of this would be the Eiffel Tower. How many different ways have you seen pictures of the Eiffel Tower? Daytime, nighttime, holidays, in the rain, in the sun, at sunrise, at sunset, from the top, from a plane, from a helicopter, from the bottom, in the snow..... and so on and so on. In the 100 or so years that the Eiffel Tower has been in existence, it has been SO photographed that it is nearly impossible to come up with a new way to get it. Reflected in a window? Yep. In the background of a cafe shot? You bet! Try as you may, you will not find a unique way to photograph the Eiffel Tower, however, simply finding a way that YOU like can be all it takes. Do you want to see it backlit with the setting sun? Then this will be your picture, perhaps you get the chance to see it when the clouds are so low that they obscure the top, then you have something that perhaps not many people have done. Truthfully, most unique picture opportunities came along by happenstance rather than good planning. The photojournalists who have managed to get those particularly memorable pictures were not the ones who planned the best, they just happened to be in the right place at the right time with their gear ready to go.

Sure they have a great body of work behind them ( or in many cases still to come), but the truly iconic pictures of the ages are just pure luck. The Execution on the streets of Vietnam, the photographer turned a corner and saw the interrogation happening, he lifted his camera just as the commander pulled his pistol and stuck it to the head of the saboteur. Dumb luck, and he has said so more than once. Sports shots? the guys catching the ball in the end zone, the perfect contact punch from ringside? All Luck. Yes, there is skill and practice in the way the camera was set and loaded and held, but you can have a million technically amazing shots in your files, but it is a fluke of timing to get the "perfect" picture.

I have been entering pictures in various contests this past year, and once I enter I then have to keep looking through the other entrants. Every contest seems to have at least a dozen or so pictures of certain iconic places in the world. If it is a nature, or outdoors geared contest, there is always the pictures of The Grand Canyon, Arches National Park, Yellowstone and Yosemite. I will not argue that these aren't awesome amazing pictures. Technically wonderful shots that show beauty and grandeur. They are also Common. Everyone with a camera gets something similar. I am just as guilty of submitting common shots, but I am trying very hard now to study the previous contests and the winner and to see if I can find something unique to submit. A common submission is a rainbow, usually from a rainstorm backed by the gunmetal gray storm clouds that spawned it. There is the occasional waterfall rainbow too, but I think I have found an interesting twist on the theme, I took a picture of a waterfall rainbow as it stretched over gorge wall covered in ice and snow. I don't recall seeing this particular style done before. Now I have done it! There are often various pictures of state and national parks, showing the big attractions, the waterfalls, the geysers, and the lakes, the trees or the wildlife, but what about the historic structures inside the park, in a way that they are rarely captured? Stone picnic tables in winter covered in snow and tree shadows. Something that isn't seen as often. It is built on spectacular colors or a once in a lifetime scene, but rather the way that it is, when nobody is around. People don't get to see this image, because they aren't there to see it. The question though is can I make that image compelling?

To show the tables in the snow is not really enough is it? How about a series of tables set in a tableau that makes them appear as steps on a hill? Covered in snow to resemble mushrooms? In the same place they are every day of the year, but surrounded by virgin snow? Does any of this make the image of something as mundane as picnic tables seem compelling? I hope it does, because it is what made it compelling for me!

In the end it comes down to who is looking at the picture and how it makes them feel. One day it may move them, and the next they may find it to be pedantic and a waste of time. That is the nature of art, what moves one person is nothing to the next, and yet we all keep trying.

My current favorite pictures

As some of you will undoubtedly remember from a few weeks ago, I have a new camera, and I am loving life playing with it! There is just no stopping the ideas flowing through my brain and the endless possibilities that keep popping up before my eyes. I want to try new things and shoot in different ways. and to show my vision of the world. I feel almost like a veil has been pulled from my creative eyes. I am seeing the world once again in a way that makes me glad to greet each new sunrise. I wait for inspiration to strike, and it seems that I never have to wait very long. Today it was a sunset. Yesterday it was a barn fire!
I am always looking to learn something new, and to refine my own picture style. I am steadily getting my comfort level back with the higher-end camera. I have been using the point and shoots for so long that I have to get my steady hand back for the longer lenses, and to see how to capture the images that I want so that they convey the stories that I am trying to illustrate. Each time I break out the camera I learn a little something that I didn't know before. I find new ways of doing things and especially seeing things. I want to show things in a perspective that maybe nobody else has tried. Although today with all of the amateur photographers out there with high-end, pro gear taking great pictures and trying to be the next Ansel Adams, it's all likely been tried. The odds are that what I do will be noticed by my small group of friends and family on facebook, and perhaps a few friends of friends steered by the linked pictures, and not much more than that.
What I would like to be able to do is to sell my pictures and make enough money to travel and take more pictures. I love to take them and to show them and to have someone tell me that they like them. My firemen friends like the stuff I do for them, at their functions, and after I get a few under my belt and get my technique figured out, I will be much better at the fire scenes too. I have been taking pictures of musicians for years, but this is the first time that I have had the gear to get a good ambient light picture of the guys on stage and not needed flash to keep the fingers from blurring.
The one thing that I don't want to be is the guy with the shingle in front of his house who gets the call for the school pictures. Senior pictures! I like doing portraits of people that mean something to me, I want to show them to the world the way that I see them., I want to be able to capture that little bit of attitude and recklessness that I see in these people. I can only really do that with people that I know. My niece is one of those people. I will give you, that she is so photogenic that it is nearly impossible to get a bad picture of her, but it is still a skill to do it without being boring about it. Catching her being goofy, without being obvious about it, and keeping her in a playful mood makes it really easy to get great shots of her. So what kind of photographer do I want to be? Well, I guess that I want to be the one that people call after an event and ask me if I was there taking pictures, because they are looking for something different, or better than what they have from everyone else. They will know that I will have the background pictures, the pictures capturing real emotion and real action, not some staged, gimmicky, "aww" shot. Not the treacly kiddie shots that most parents take with their cell phone cameras, but the picture of the guys doing the work, the grimace of pain and strain, the dust and the dirt of the events. The stuff that shows how the work gets done, and why people were there.
But then again there are always some really cool "aww" pictures too. They aren't all throw-aways. Sometimes you have to be sneaky to get the really cool pictures. I have been called paparazzi on more than one occasion! It helps that I generally know my subjects and they get accustomed to the fact that I have a camera and they never know when I may be shooting. They forget that the glass is looking for a subject to see, and when they are their most comfortable is the best time for shooting. But there are those who are ever vigilant, lest they be caught being natural, and for those subjects it becomes a challenge to get a great shot. Sometimes you can position yourself in the right place and lie in wait for the right time to present itself, or you just become ubiquitous with the camera and sooner or later you get a great shot of that elusive subject. What ever way works is fine by me, I'm not too picky about the how, I'm much more interested in the "how did it come out?" The bonus of digital is that you can take 200 pictures, be happy with 100 of them, ecstatic about 10 of them and toss the rest and be out nothing but time and experience. A person can learn.

Life is about learning, and photography is about capturing, so a photographers life is learning the art of the capture, I guess.

Warm blooms...

As summer approaches, there are more and more flowers blooming all over the place, and every now and then some are so cool that I just feel like taking a few pics of them. Sometimes I get carried away and get 20 pics of the same blossom, and other times I get one and I can never find that particular bloom again, and I want more!!

So this is a peony that I have in one of my yards. It was left by the people who once lived on this property, and it grew wild for about 20 years and nobody paid it any attention, then I unknowingly mowed it down the first 3 years that I owned the property, then I realized what I was seeing there and I let it grow. Boy, I'm glad that I di, it has proven to be an amazing little bush. It blooms every year and the blooms are huge and SO sweet smelling that you can't believe it. The sad part is that the blooms are so big that the slightest wind or a good rain will knock them down, because they are too big for their own stems!



I have no idea what this bloom is called, but I have a bunch of them in various colors and I really like them. They are low to the ground and really bright.
They come in so many colors that I have to get pictures of all of my favorites. The more neon-y colors are my favorite. They are like little electric sparks in the garden. They have come from a wildflower mix that I bought a few years ago, and it takes 2 years for them to show up, but when they do... Man is it worth the wait!






I love this little one because the blooms are still opening and they are uncurling in such and neat way that I wonder how nature puts things together sometimes! They kind of remind me of a bouquet or roses and rose buds mixed together.
No matter how you slice it they look pretty darn cool.

Not all blooms are flowers, at least not our "normal" definition of a flower. But Mushrooms are also a flower of a sort, because it is the head that grows the spores which eventually become the seeds of the next generation. And they look so cool!






Never take for granted the lowly little Mushroom, after all, he really is a "Fungi"!! LOL old, stupid joke but still funny!
When you live in a place where most panoramic views are blocked by trees, hills or buildings, you tend to appreciate them more when you actually see them. I am lucky in that I have a place where I can see this basic view every day, and some people might think that this would get boring. Truthfully it is far from boring, because it is nature that changes the view, stars, wind-blown dust, blooming fields, harvested fields, waving grass, painted trees, fluffy clouds, flat clouds, gray clouds, white clouds and snow! Look out in the rain sometimes and later you are treated to a rainbow. These things are all out there to see, but you have to look now and then to catch them.

There is nothing more ephemeral than a view in nature. If you forget to look you may never get the chance again.

My current favorite picture

Click on the blossom to see a bigger version. See the sparkles and the details.

Why I take pictures...

I was recently asked what I get from a picture, why do I take them, and I thought about the answer for about 5 seconds, and this is what I said...

What are pictures for me? Many times it depends on the picture, and when I am taking it. Pictures to me are many things and a huge part of my life. I have aspired to be a "Photographer" for much of my life, along with so many other things, but pictures were always something that were simply a part of my life, whether I was working hard on them or simply snapping memories. Most of the time they are simply that, memories. A snapshot of an event or a day, or something that I simply wanted to be able to remember later. But in recent years, especially with a digital camera, where the cost of film and the associated processing are no longer a factor, I take pictures in a much different way.

When I got my first digital camera, I took it with me everywhere and took pictures of anything simply because I wanted to see how the camera captured images, what it did with light and what I could expect from it in various settings. I have never been the type to stage a picture, for me they have to be natural. If they can be easily recreated, I'm not very interested in taking the picture. I try to capture certain moments and moods. Many of my friends consider me to be a paparazzi because I love to take pictures of people especially when they are not expecting it. I try to capture the spirit of a person, to see them in the unguarded moment when the picture will show you their soul, when you can see what they desire, or regret, or what they truly love. I like to capture the moments of unbridled joy, when someone is so happy that they simply overflow with the emotion. Sometimes I can catch someone pondering some deep problem, and you can see the thoughtfulness or the worry, or the care that they are taking in a decision. I enjoy taking pictures of children playing. There is something special about children, there is a purity of emotion in them that adults try so hard to cover up. With children, there is no tact, or deception, you can see in their faces what they are feeling and to get those special pictures is always a joy to me.

When I am taking pictures of buildings or landscapes, I look to capture the mood of the subjects, a field of blooming flowers is a happy picture, and I try to find a way to make it look happy. A dead tree standing in a hedge is a sad subject, sometimes. Sometimes it is a subject that feels of grandeur, or an indomitable spirit. The lone sentinel holding its' place long after its' fellows have fallen. The lone tree standing in a field, in the summer time gives a feeling of hope, there is shade and respite in the stark world, under the spreading shade of the lone tree. In buildings I can see the past, walking along beside and among the present and the future. It is one of the things that I love about Odessa, the Old buildings being used for modern things. I enjoy walking into an ancient building, the facade rebuilt many times over the centuries and yet the interior is as modern as any building being erected today. The juxtaposition of new and old, to capture this in a picture shows that history can continue to exist, while being utilized by continuing generations.

Sometimes I see something that captures my attention and I simply enjoy the aesthetics of the colors or the textures. Today I took some photos of clouds. They were interesting to me in their formation and layers. Capturing a sunset is special, because no matter how you try, you will never, ever see two sunsets that are the same. Every day is different, and every location has it's special charms. Sometimes the sun is reflected from water, and sometimes blurred by snow. Sometimes there is a rainbow, or the evening star, the planets trailing the sun closely into the horizon.

Sometimes I look at pictures that I have taken many years ago and I can remember exactly what I was thinking when I took them. I am taken back to that exact moment in time and I can relive the feelings and the emotions.

This is what Pictures are for me, they are truly pieces of the fabric of my life and in some cases, extensions of my soul.

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Sunlit birch against threatening sky
















sunset trees against purple sky














Glowing cloud














Nature is the best artist ever.