Week 20 - 365 Day Challenge 2013

Day 134 - Waiting for the Wind and Rain by J. Binford-Bell

It was a busy week. So busy that at times I didn't take up the camera for other than recording progress on projects like the garden and my Sego palm that is getting new fronds or to record the developing clouds that brought little to no rain until they reached the mid west. Most of my photographic treasures posted this week were taken in the week before. Photos ignored on the first flush of uploading to the computer. Photos I finally noticed when I took a break from those projects to sit down and do some meditative dry darkroom work.

The opening photo was taken on the road to Eagle Nest. I was early to meet a friend for a drive to Raton (yes, again) and I have no idea how many times I drove by this windmill meaning to stop. I always mentally access the sky and colors. You have to stop on the side of the road and get out of the car so you can walk up to it and cut the power lines out of the image. That day, May 10th, it seemed worth the effort. And it was, but remember how you used to leave film in the camera? Well, the digital equivalent is leaving images in a My Pictures folder. Images like the one below taken during my trip to Trinidad, Colorado.

Day 135 - Reflections in a dark window

I so loved the buildings in Trinidad and managed to get so many good images. The extraordinary ones got posted immediately and some got shuffled past.

Day 136 - On Commercial

Day 137 - Fred's I think

A lot of my photographer friends are really fond of bracketing exposures, which is something you can get your digital camera to do automatically. I am more fond of "bracketing" images or compositions. If the light is right and the sky spectacular do not just take a picture of Wheeler Peak just to the right off frame but get the whole mountain range in pieces and back off the zoom and get it all together.

Day 138 - Oops

Posted the above photo the day I took it. It is in a folder in My Pictures that includes a bunch of progress photos of the garden. I walked out on to the porch with my camera and the light had changed from thirty minutes earlier. This is the hill just to the southwest of my studio and the clouds had literally popped up.

Day 139 - Toward the south from studio Stoop

Also buried in a folder of project progress photos. These are the photos that get overlooked not merely when you upload but later as you scan through your files. I tell myself I should immediately pull them out and put them someplace else. And in this particular instance that someplace else is a subfolder under the a folder for the 365 day challenge. My right brain is still looking for a left brain organization that allows me to be able to find what I am looking for. And that became rather important this week with three people asking me for a photo they would like printed.

Day 140 - Kissed

And a bonus photo this week. It was taken and posted in another of my blogs. And shuffled from folder to folder in an effort to not lose it. It wound up in Week 20 but there were eight photos in Week 20.

Rain over the mountains

It is one of those examples of taking all the pictures and not just the one you stopped to take. To the left is another break in the trees with a vista containing the Teeth of Time range. I was walking back to the car and turned to take one last look before getting on my way back home. This was that last look.

Week 19 - 365 Day Challenge 2013

Day 127 - Pond Scum

Cannot believe I opened this week with pond scum. But it may be the western version of Monet's Lily Pads. Or it may just be a painter with a camera fascinated with shapes, patterns and colors. Or recording the unusual. It was a spring day and yet there is a lushness of August in the pond. A lushness that vanished the next day and returned it to the barely thawed lake of reflections I know and love.

Day 128 - Wheeler Peak dressed in new snow

And then winter returned and brought with it some fantastic images to record. The above of a freshly covered Wheeler Peak was one of my favorites of the week. And that day there seemed to be no bad pictures of this vista.

Day 129 - Solitary 

Day 129 was back to my lake of reflections and without the pond scum. Various people are calling our weather bipolar and it really is. I never know how to dress in the morning as I grab the camera and head out for my early morning photo exhibition. Love the stillness of the air and the water in the mornings. National Geographic says all landscapes should be taken in the golden hour around dawn and sunset.

Day 130 - Curtain of Reflections

Early morning is absolutely the best for reflections on the water because there is no wind. I have taken photos when the water is so still it is not easy to see that it is of a reflection. I was accused once of posting a photo upside down. I like my reflections with just a hint of ripple. And have come to rely on my fur companions. Magique will go up and put her paws in the water to drink. Then I just wait until the ripples are just right. She was actually cropped out of this photo but she remains in a lot I post.

Day 131 - Dancing light

Not my Lake of Reflections. It isn't quite big enough for the grand waterscape, and because it is smaller the water ripples differently. On this day it made the light from the rising sun dance.

Day 132 - Shivers

The clouds were my subject in the above picture. Been a while since we have had spring clouds. Yes, winter clouds are different. And the dawn was doing wonderful subtle paintings in the sky. But I fell in love with their reflected image. And just as I snapped this one there was a rogue breeze that shivered across the surface of the water giving me an impressionistic photograph of a spring morning.

Day 133 - Facade

And yes, not every morning gives you a Monet. And some days give you whole folders of wonderful images. The above is from my trip to Trinidad, Colorado, and one of the images I had not processed. So on days when I return from my morning walk with nothing spectacular to post I go back to the folders of abundance and process another.

Never trash the also ran's until you are sure they really do not have worth.

Just the Two of Us

Old Couple by Togan Gokbakar
Visual Prompt by The Mag: Mag 168

Just the two of us

Becoming one

with the layer of years.

We two meld

enmeshed in dress

and moves.

Two faces

melting into one 

continence.

Side by side

one look one voice

where once there were two..

J. Binford-Bell

May 2013

Week 18 - 365 Day Challenge 2013

Day 119 - Picture windows

It was a confusing week in more ways than one. I have my albums for 365 days divided into months on Binford-Bell Studio Fan Page on Facebook and into weeks in my picture files on my computer and here on my blogger posts. Then I have to know which day numerically in the year. I got off a day somewhere in April and that meant I got off my months in albums. To make matters worse I always end up with more photos in my weekly files than I actually post. I am going to blame it on April. April is always chaos.

Day 120

April is the off season in the high country. Because of mud and flood season not only do tourists not want to come but locals take themselves off to somewhere else. But this year due to lack of snow there was no mud and flood and we found ourselves wishing for it. It is still very much an erratic spring and so there are days it is just much nicer to sit in the studio at the computer and process photos taken on a nice day. Much of this week was a visual return to Trinidad, Colorado. And some of them have been posted in other forms in an album entitled Trinidad.

Day 121 - Lady of the Wall

The photographer supposedly owns the image regardless of how many configurations the artist puts it through. But define own. As I found out in a TED talk copyright does not apply to many creative endeavors like fashion or photography. The dividing line with copyright seems to be whether it is utilitarian like clothing or part of the creative process like a painting.Some argue that our ability to copy and compete generates more creativity. But clearly far less income. Best course is obviously to never let your large resolution images out of your control.

Day 122 - Alien

The argument can be made that the more your images get around the more known you are especially if you get credit for it. And photography is not all utilitarian these days. We are not just recording war images. And when a photographer goes into the dry darkroom of their computer they cross the line into digital painting. Should your unique manipulation of an image anyone one with a camera could have taken be subject to copyright?

Day 123 - Lift off

So this sculpture being displayed on a street in Trinidad would be able to receive copyright protection but would my image of it? Certainly not the one I uploaded from my Nikon because I imagine this sculpture or sign has been photographed tons of times.

Day 124 - Cut and Dry

Maybe that is why most photographers sell their work cheap. To discourage those that would simply steal it. But we can also sell the same image multiple times. Limited edition runs provide some value to the buyer and that the photographer oversees the printing process. And if I carefully horde my original images I can modify it again and re-introduce it. It is all about the original image, and I frankly think every photographer of has an unique eye. Who of us cannot pick out an Ansel Adams even if it isn't one of his iconic images?

Day 125 - In Memory of the one who left

And that artistic eye is not just in what we choose to record on the flash drive of the camera but what we produce in the dry darkroom of our computers. And Ansel Adams did manipulate his images but in a wet darkroom.

Day 126 - Tres Amigos

So why does week 18 have eight images? Because I got off count somewhere. Try to see it like a baker's dozen. The first post of week 19 is pond scum. Hey, you will have to see it to appreciate it.

Week 17 - 365 Day Challenge

Day 112 -Mallards pairing off

The 365 day challenge is an interesting educational experience for a photographer. It does help you to remember to take your camera everywhere with you but it cannot provide the inspiration to actually take a photo. There are times that everything you see through the view finder looks like a photo you have already taken. Or one that does not fit with a level you have already established.

You get to look closely at what you expect of yourself photographically and whether you are measuring up. The two Mallard ducks above I was happy to capture but found my inner editor criticizing the clutter in the composition and that I snapped it with my wide angle instead of my long lens. Realistically you so often do not have the right lens on or the time to change before the object flies away.

Day 113 A

Day 113 B

Because of the bipolar weather I found myself falling back on still life or arranged compositions. In the green house the geraniums were blooming nicely. A cluster of flowers had broken off so I placed it to photograph. I do not much like the garish colors of this flower. They look wonderful on a deck or a patio and seem to represent the lushness of summer, but I find them too vivid and the leaves too green. So happy with the composition I began to look at ways to be happier with the color. in 113 A I reduced the saturation. And in 113 B I did the black and white option which shows the structure of the flower more.

Day 114 - Murphy Pensive

There are times you really have to push through your reluctance or barriers to reconnect with your muse. No doubt this happens even for the professional photographer on assignment. The 365 day challenge is challenging because of that. Day 114 was a bit of a break through but by day 115 I was back to finding the definitive geranium photograph.

Day 115 - Pretty in pink

Day 116 - ensnared

And on day 116 my mood was obviously coming out in my photographs. And so I took off on a road trip to change my mood and perspective. I had to drop off work in Trinidad, Colorado for the Trinidad Area Arts Council show Splash. Trinidad is a town I have driven through on the interstate. Now I was deep in the center of the city. Sometimes inspirational is just a change of scenery.

Day 117 - Reflections of Trinidad

Trinidad is an old mining and railroad town which had its heyday at the peak of both those industries. It is being restored and repurposed. Lots more pictures coming from my short time there and other visits but I came home tired and just post processed one or two. Week 18 will probably be a bonanza of Trinidad photographs.

Day 118 - Set in Stone

Some weeks you just have to keep on keeping on. There is usually a door of gold as a reward.

Week 16 - 365 day challenge

 It was a rough week for me and the USA. I had just completed Week 15 with post Day 104 when the news broke about the Boston Marathon bombing. I decided to dedicate Week 16 to beauty. And because my last post for the week would be on Earth Day, also to the earth. And if it took more than one photo a day to lighten the mood I would do that.

Day 105

Day 105 A

However I had no idea how hard it would be to get out with the camera and take those beautiful and heart warming and soul lifting photographs. Fortunately I had over the weekend taken some great photos I had yet to post process. And that was good because there was the broken waterpump. And some less than stellar weather as winter seems to hang on.

Day 106 - Wheeler Peak from Black Lake

Day 107 - Cows grazing

Day 108 - Linda's Horses taking in the sun.

What little good weather there was, however, was not missed by horses or cows or locals soaking up the early morning rays before the spring winds settled in driving everyone back to shelter and me to my studio where I contented myself with photos of my plants.

Day 109 - one of my Euphorbia

Flowers are not blooming yet unless they are in green houses. And we even had some snow. I am behind on planting in my poly tunnel but did finally get my strawberries and some other veggie starts out.

Day 110

Day 111 - Another of my Euphorbia

Hopefully I will be more inspired next week and nobody bombs anything and towns do not blow up and my car runs like a charm. And please no wind. No snow but give us rain.

Pushing the Envelope

Monhegan's Schoolteacher, 2004 by Jamie Wyeth 

Pushing the Envelope

Up late

Waiting until the town slept

before taking her bath

flaunting herself

in ways forbidden

by day and her job.

Curtain open

She reads forbidden literature

as nude she dries her hair

eats the cookie

her diet forbids

not the school marm now.

Warmth of the fire

pagan glow of the winter moon

a throbbing heat unsatisfied

in a sleepy town

a book

and a brazened display.

J. Binford-Bell

April 2013

See The Mag for other responses to this visual prompt