Week 25 - 2017 in Photographs

Day 169

 If there is a theme to this week it is landscape. This was the week I wish I had the extra wide angle lens my sister owns. Everything I pointed my camera at seemed to sweep beyond my wide angle lens. So the photos here are a just a segment of what opened before.

Day 170

 Framing of a photograph may be becoming an art of the past because digital and mega pixels means you can just shoot and come back to your studio and crop to the important part.

I began photography at seven and so I still frame in the field. Though I admit with the zoom lens I have learned to bracket manually. Wider than I think I want and then narrower than I think I want, even though narrower can be achieved with cropping back in the dry dark room. What cropping there was this week was off the top and the bottom.

In the wetlands photo below there is a road and a culvert where I am typing. 

Day 171

 And in this cloudscape the camera lens captured sky and fence I did not want. The original still exists as a digital file on my computer, but this is the crop I like.

Day 172

 I love the dawn views from my deck. I have photographed them a lot. But below the bottom fringe of trees are telephone wires and the neighbors' houses. A horse barn made of scrap materials and a horse trailer which has seen better days.

Day 173

 And these daisies bloom in an open lot between two houses beside a road.

Day 174

 And this field of wild irises goes beyond both edges of the photo; beyond the expanse of my wide angle lens. The mountain behind and the road in front was unnecessary. But I decided I liked the dry grasses in the bar ditch and even the snow fence. They define the seasons before the purple spring. And the cattle add scale and depth.

Day 175

Week Four - 2015 in Images

Day 22

Finished up one painting this week, in the middle of a second, and just began a third yesterday. So my focus has been on painting. And my morning outings as been with the dogs and not the camera. There is a major snow storm moving in so all the same scenes will be new again. Snow changes things. Including mood and desire to take the camera out. January thaw continues on the whole. But then there was the day it didn't snow here but just on the high mountains.

Day 23

Everyone is probably getting tired of the snow capped peaks where I live. They often look rather stock photoish to me, but I admit to being overly fascinated with them this winter. Trying to come up with the perfect stock photo I suppose. I have found different places to take pictures from of this highest part of New Mexico. The camera has not gone on walks but it has gone on drives. No worries about snow or chuck holes with Big Blue.

Day 24

My camera's main focus this week has been is-it-done-yet photographs of paintings. Feeling guilty I took some extra time on the computer to post process a couple previous photos I took like this still life above. Or the water in the Rio Grande below taken when I had to run to Espanola for some things.

Day 25

A fan on Binford-Bell Studio Page said it made her dizzy. I wanted to reply, "Yes. And your point?" But I just posted the water flat. Cropped the bank line out of this one below. The flat line of the bank can be rather static even in a non-static body of water.

Day 26

Definitely a hodgepodge week with photographs. In part because I have designated next week as black and white so some of the photos taken this week are going to be seen next. And some of them posted this week were from last. I did a blog on Sidetracked Charley about the Creative DSLR Selfie and the photograph below is the lead selfie of those.  

Day 27

The creative selfie is suppose to say something about who you are. So a shadowy me before the reflection of a map where I live and the landscape I so often photograph behind me says a lot. But even people without cameras make statements about themselves in various ways. Decorating your space is one of those. If you do not hire a decorator. I rarely take portraits of people partly because where I live people are seldom in the scenes I focus on. My portraits of people are often their unconscious creations be it what they hang on their walls or leave in their yards like old and rusty cars.

Day 28

Week 47 - 2014 in Photos

Day 323

Interesting week which allowed little time for photography, and post processing. But it was also a week interesting weather. I love snow to photograph. It is great for black and white treatment. But I am a lover of color. So between snow pictures I post processed abandoned files using max color. Brightens up a dull day of blowing snow.

Day 324

Scrappy first appeared on my Facebook timeline. Post of cute cats. But there is something a bit more artistic about this photo. Light, brushes in the foreground go to enhance Scrappy's pose on the cat ladder.

The first photo was junkyard and so is the following one. I love rust patterns. And combined with remnants of paint on this barrel it almost looks like a survey map of an undiscovered ocean.

Day 325

And then there is snow. And so much snow nobody much was out which made for fabulous untouched scenes. This is the color version. Color provided by the bare branches of the aspens.

Day 326

And at the end of the snowy road was the ranch keeper's pickup cooling off. Do not know the age of this vehicle but in spite of occasional breakdowns it keeps on running. Older pickups are easier to fix for those of us that leave hours from the nearest dealership. This truck, in my opinion just keeps looking better and better.

Day 327

The below photograph was taken at the same location as Day 326. The continuing snow shows up better in the black and white version. Eighteen inches of snow had fallen over night and it continued to snow throughout much of the day but lighter.

Day 328

The falling snow against the frozen ice surrounding  open water for the ducks added to an interesting mix of textures. And this is a color photo. Falling snow reduced the color saturation quite beautifully.

Day 329

Week Ten of 365 Day Challenge - Landscapes

Day 63 - The Heart of the Sangre de Christos

I live in New Mexico so of course I know how to take landscapes. But when I read that portion of a digital photography book I was surprised to find tips I had never considered consciously, so I figured maybe a week of conscious taking of landscapes was in order.

Rule One -- wait, there are no rules in photography or art -- merely guidelines. One guideline, therefore, would be foreground. Really easy with the long lens on to zero in on just the snow capped mountain above. But per this book on photography foreground is critical to the composition. Ergo I did not walk forward and photograph over the fence. The fence and highland mesa vegetation provides context and depth. 

Not day 64 - Blowing snow

This is using the long lens to zero in. I really like this one but very little foreground, if any.

Day 64 - Wheeler Peak

Better photograph? Frankly for me the jury is still out. I think the one that breaks the rules - oops, guidelines, has more impact. But if I am entering contests where the judges are stickler for rules?

Day 65 - Taos River

Guideline two - landscape does not have to include the complete scape as it were. Sky and complete trees are not necessary.  Snap takers have a tendency to point their cameras at the horizon and see how much of the landscape they can get into one frame. This was about how little. And movement. Horizons often have a static effect so if the horizon is not key do not include it.

Day 66 - Shadows on the snow

Guideline three - complete trees are not necessary. If you have the bottoms you do not need the tops and if you have the tops you do not need the bottoms. I played around with this a bit on a grove of aspen and found that you do sort of need one of the other. Not done playing with that limit, however. And in this photo the concentration is on bottoms and the shadows the trees cast. But the tree on the far left has neither bottom or top in the frame and I think it works fine.

Day 67 - Wide Open Spaces

Guideline four - this one is mine - what originally prompted you to stop the car and take the picture? I have driven by this particular spot on the road between Cimarron and Raton more times than I want to acknowledge and never stopped but always turned and stared. On this particular day I was racing to get home to avoid the snow storm that was moving in. The clouds in this picture are the precursor to that storm. I stopped. Was it the clouds to give a break to the often endless blue? The cattle pens in the foreground? Or the line of fence and power poles that gave a sense of the distance between where I stood and the bluffs and mountains beyond? Or some combination of all that?

I was in a plein aire class once and was confronted with a beautiful canyon along old route 66 to watercolor. After taking a few reference photographs I found myself painting out the line of power poles that ran through Tijeras Canyon in the middle of my composition. I got home with my masterpiece and when I sat down to do the detail work I put the power poles back in per my photograph.

Day 68 - entering Moreno Valley

Guideline five - this one is also mine. You do not have to live with power poles and lines if they have no purpose in the composition. There were two poles in the foreground of this photograph and more annoying, power lines in stark black across white snow. To crop them out eliminated the foreground detail so I decided to practice my cloning in the dry darkroom. Tip - I find it easier to work down than across with the cloning tool and you can rotate the photograph.

Day 69 - Palisades in Cimarron Canyon

Guideline 6 - Not all landscapes are horizontal. Though it is amazing how often I think of landscapes in that context and I have been to Utah.

Having done a few weeks of intense study on dedicated subjects next week is going to be "What I see is what you get." If you want to see the day by day posts go to Binford-Bell Studio 365 Day Challenge - March. There is also an extended discussion on days 67 and 68 about power poles.