Black and Whites of 2016

Shadows on the snow

For me photography is a journey. It began with a Kodak Brownie camera my father gave me. And except for college classes I have been largely self taught. I constantly give myself challenges designed to improve my images. And in the last couple of years I have worked at doing better black and white photographs.

It is a two fold process. First there is the taking of the photograph. And second the post processing of it. I thought that would be easier than loading in black and white film and ruining it. Those college classes were centered on black and white but we didn't turn it over to Walmart. We developed it in a dark room. When I no longer had a dark room I loathed my results with black and white. Digital cameras and dry darkrooms seemed a good opportunity to be able to do both as in college.

Dark Woods

And something not color or black and white like the above image. Yes there is a hint of gold in the grasses at the bottom of the dark woods. And the snowy woods below. I call it sneaking up on black and white by reducing the saturation of the digital image. These two images of a dark woods I have printed and matted and framed. They are hanging at Enchanted Circle Brewing in Angel Fire. They are two of my favorites of all the photographs I took this last year.

Snowy woods

But I have also decided to not be a coward and just go totally black and white instantly. I find I do it when the color gets in the way of the image like in the original of the pots below. It is a decision not made when I load film in a camera or when I set out with my DSLR in search of the perfect black and white image. I make it in the computer contrary to what the best photography books say about that. 

Indian Pots

 But even in color photography I often look toward the monochromatic scene. I loved the Blue Ridge Mountains for that. But even though it is a very different color I love the canyon lands for that too. Not blues but oranges. And the pots above were in earth tones. Except for the wall.

And the ravens below were black against grey ice on an overcast day.

A Venue of Ravens

And the trees below were clouded in fog.

Foggy Woods

Key to black and white for me is it first has to be a good composition. The photograph must have merit as a photograph. And it must look better without color. Often the color is a distraction.

Still Life in Silver

Week Three - 2016 in Photographs - A Week of Still Lifes

Day 16

 The weather was awful and it was wonderful to have an excuse to work inside with the camera.  Painters popularized still lifes in the days before cameras. The story is they could not afford models so they assembled things on a table and painted away. Art lessons frequently involve the painting of various objects. It is a great way to practice shading and shadows and how to give a three dimensional object volume on a two dimensional surface. 

It is also a good exercise for a photographer because you have control over light and ergo shadow. And you have control of content. What photographer has not wanted the straggler in an elk cattle herd to move just a bit to the left or hold that position until the sun comes out from behind the cloud.

This week includes two types of still lifes or three if you count the Alternate Day 17. A still life is by definition the depiction of inanimate subject matter, most, typically a small grouping of objects. Still life photography, more so than other types of photography, such as landscape or portraiture, gives the photographer more leeway in the arrangement of design elements within the composition. I divide still lifes by whether I picked the arrangement or I found the arrangement which may have only needed a tweak or two. Day 16 fits into the latter category. I only moved a slightly out of place grass piece or two and waited for the light to be right.

Day 15

Day 15 is an arrangement completely of my making. I chose the objects, assembled the platform and draped the cloth and positioned the objects. And even turned the platform a bit to take total advantage of the ambient light in the studio. The result had a very paintery feel so I used a post processing filter which simulated brush strokes.

Day 21 was just there. It had been just there for weeks. The snow a bit less. I just stepped out of my truck with camera in hand and snapped the picture. I just, after weeks of parking my car there, finally realized the artistic quality of two logs buried in snow to the right level.

Day 21

I have always thought there is a bit of accidental luck to photography. It can be so much being in the right place at just the right time. And it seems that hold true for still lifes also. Take the two photographs below. You may recognize some of the same objects as are in the photograph Day 15. Just a the addition of a cut crystal vase and another ornament. All artistically rearranged. Then my cat, Thicke stuck his head in.

Day 17 Alternate

Day 17

I, of course, was in a panic that he would rearrange things. But not such a panic that I didn't depress the shutter button. He was so very still checking out his reflection in the silver plate I maintain he was another inanimate object. BTW he broke nothing. These two still lifes looked great in black and white, which is unique to photography or etchings.

If you know you are going to be treating a still life photograph as black and white or even sepia you do not have to be careful about the colors of the objects you use. But frankly I think that is much of the fun especially with reflective objects which will pick up the colors around them. And playing around with the colors as well as the shapes and weight of the objects adds another dimension of complexity to the process.

Day 18

 If you are new to still life photography you might want to begin with a few easy pieces like Day 18 above. My friend Terry Atkin Rowe is a master of this sort of still life. I frankly love the complex; an arrangement you can stare at for hours and constantly find something new in it. This is the way I don't declutter my studio. It is future art.

Day 19

 So I might begin with a few objects, some of which were already there like the vase and the brass platter and the ceramic bowl (containing vinegar to freshen the room). Then to fill space I add a couple of things. Then a few more like the chunk of driftwood from the Colorado River. Then below the decorative balls. And change the light by putting cardboard behind the screen. And pull in a couple more candles.

Day 20

To come up with these seven photographs I took maybe a hundred. There are others which I can rework with software. Day 20 has writing showing on the cardboard. I could crop it out or clone it out or see if another digital image of this arrangement does not show it. Even after you take the picture there is arranging which can be done.

Week Two - 2016 in Photographs

Day Ten

Next week will be still life photography. But his week had me wondering about the term still life. Life in the mountains of New Mexico seems quite still in the golden hours surrounding sunup. Nothing much is moving except maybe the clouds and a bird here on there. And the colder the winter morning the more still it is.

So I looked up the term still life: A still life (plural still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, pocks, or shells) or man-made (drinking glasses, books vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, and so on), per Wiki.


So it would seem the fence posts with morning frost apply in Day Eight. Other definitions I found imply an arrangement over which the artist or photographer has some control and can rearrange. That would definitely apply to the photographs I will be presenting each day on Binford-Bell Studio this week. And showcasing on a blog next week.

Day Eight

I wanted to inject the consideration of still life into today's blog because it was with me the week I took these photos; the lingering question of is this still enough. And so it had an effect even though I was out and about with the camera instead of in a studio out of the wind and cold arranging things.

But doesn't the photographer arrange things even if they are not movable. We walk back and forth sighting through the view finder. We stand taller or squat down or zoom in and out. And even with clouds (which are animate) we wait for the right moment when the sun is illuminating the edges or a whiter puff drifts across a darker cloud. Though if the temps are in the single digits we wait less.

Day 13

But if photographs with clouds are not still lifes the photograph below of the Crown of Thorns blooms in my studio is a still life. I had dropped my camera off the desk moments before I took Day Nine. It was a test to see if the lens (less the shattered filter), and camera still functioned. And it is always good to do such tests on still (or inanimate) objects. Lens and camera passed though it took more than one test to assure me of that.

Day Nine

Clouds are definitely animate especially with a weather system moving in. The photo of dawn below I got to stand in the doorway of my studio on the heated door mat, so I got to wait a bit more for just the right degree of sunlight illuminating the clouds.

Day 11

And on Day 12 I was waiting for the rapidly moving clouds to expose more of the top of Touch Me Not. But I ended up settling for a clouded top because the clouds behind me let the sun peak through and highlight spots on the mountain. So sunlight is animate.

Day 12

Which means that shadows are also animate. And I found that sunlight in the studio and shadows which were cast by it played a huge part in my still life creations. Raising the question of just how still is life ever?

Day 14

BTW Touch Me Not is inanimate. Unless there is an earthquake.

Left Behind, a Magpie Tale

Still Life 1907 by John F. Peto
Visual prompt provided by Magpie Tales

Left

this earth

Leaving behind

his hat

and umbrella.

He left us

the remains of his life.

We are 

what we leave behind

in others.

Left behind

a hat, umbrella 

and bag of memories

of the little things.

J. Binford-Bell

May 2015

John F. Peto painted still lifes.

He was largely unrecognized in his lifetime.

He died in November 1907 and this may well have been his last composition.

He left it behind.

Week 36 - 2014 in Images

Day 246

One of the down sides of doing the 365 day challenge is knowing just how fast the year is going past. Soon it will be fall and I will be out seeking aspen photos. The upside to have a whole year of your best photos packed away in weekly folders is you know where to begin to look for last year's aspen pictures and therefore know when to plan this year's photo treks.

And in my third year, or is it fourth, I am able to make comparisons between the years. The big one this year has been rain. That is reflected even in the photo below of my butterfly bath. It was so dry last summer I did not even think of doing one. Living off a well in a drought you begin to conserve water. I wish Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix would think like that. But this some the rain water has kept the butterfly and bee bath full on most days. And I have been rewarded with a plethora of bees and butterflies and flowers like the Borage blossom floating among the marbles the insects rest upon to drink.

Day 247

Another boon from the rains have been the fields and the water flowers. Last year the owner of the field behind me did not graze his horses there because it was too overgrazed from the year before and he would have had to haul water for them. This year the stream is running and the grasses and wild flowers are lush.

Day 248

Love taking photos of the hoofed lawn ornaments behind my house. And next week I believe you will get one or two more photographs because a new variety of wild flower has sprung up and the field is a riot of lilac and lavender colors. The dappled grey looks particularly wonderful amid them.

Day 249

I did photograph other things this week. I was into still life compositions again. Not ones I arranged, other than picking my angles, but those I found around like the butterfly and bee bath above or the glass vase of pears below. Or the drum in the closing photo.

Day 250

It had been a dry week and so I dug back to the week before to rework the photo below of the two inch rain we had. Seems to have worked because it is raining even this morning as I compose this blog.

I often paint water into my desert mixed media compositions for the same reason. It is like calling up a return to a wetter time.

Day 251

The drum below is a tourist thing. An object of art as opposed to the spirit. Most drums were painted with symbols which when the drum was beaten were to invoke the spirits portrayed and call up the rain or the buffalo or the harvest. We have only the ruins left by the Anasazi to prove it did not always work. But it must have worked enough to establish a belief system around it.

Day 252

Week 33 - 2014 in Images

Day 225

The photograph before is not dawn. It is a sunset looking east. West was in reds and the clouds behind me were in pastel hues. One of those rules I try to follow is always look behind me. You can get to focused on the view before you in photography and miss so much. I think I will start always making a full slow turn when out with my camera.

Day 226

I finally have two flourishing hollyhock plants. I have loved hollyhocks since I was a kid when I and my friends used to make hollyhock dolls with toothpicks and float them on the pond. They are wonderful with water sprinkled on them. So when it had not rained I sprinkled them with the hose and then took the picture.

Day 227

My geraniums have not done well outside this year so the largest geranium I left inside the studio. It has gotten very large and bloomed all summer long. The pot contains three different colors of geraniums but the pink is one of my favorite especially with the early morning light coming through the studio windows. Photographing flowers inside means no worry about wind changing the focus.

Day 228

True dawn. But the clarity of the trees silhouetted against the glowing clouds is what I like about this photo. I usually have my wide angle on when taking dawn or sunset pictures but on this particular morning I had on my 55-300 mm and knew the light would change too much if I stopped to change lenses. I was surprised at how close the trees were on this distant hill with the 300. And I remembered to back off just a hair to ensure all in focus.

Day 229

Duck eggs are grey. I found that out with a purchase of them at the farmer's market. And the artist in me could not eat them until I had photographed them. They looked perfect in this silver serving tray. Had not done an arranged still life for a while.

Day 230

Hummingbirds are the opposite of still. But in the evening after a long rain they are so hungry and metabolism down they will sit on my garden fence and wait for an open spot at the feeders. After a summer of me feeding them they have gotten quite used to my presence and the camera so this little one just sat while I took a photograph with my long lens. I get good macros with this particular zoom. And it very nicely puts the distance out of focus on the right setting.

Day 231

My closing scene is looking south as the sun moves toward setting in the west. It was taken on the same day as the first photo. I was turning around to go back inside when I caught the quality of light in the south. No photo to the north. That is where the house sits blocking my view. But I did turn to check if the light of the setting sun was doing anything fabulous on it.

Jackalope Still Life Photos

Water Jugs

Arranged with a friend to meet her in Santa Fe so we could do Bandelier National Monument the next day. It sounded like a wonderful opportunity. But what turned out to be the best photographic challenge was the Jackalope Pottery store right next to the hotel where we stayed. I have featured these in my 365 Day challenge. But their popularity on Binford-Bell Studio Fan Page has been unexpected.

As I said in my last 365 Day Challenge blog here I love textures and patterns. Jackalope Pottery offered plenty of both. And after my concentration on still life photography in my studio I saw the immediate opportunity around every corner at this retail store.

Skull and Pottery

 The arrangement of a still life was basically in the post processing with these photos. There were electrical cords and price stickers that had to be removed with editing software. In fact I did not even consider the above photo for a while because of two electric cords and two stickers on the fountains and a hanging tag on the skull. Just seemed a bit much. In t he end I decided if nothing else it was great practice.

Exotic Window Grilles

Pottery Patterns

 The above picture had the most price stickers to be cloned out. Almost every terracotta jug had a white sticker. And there were almost as many in the Cross and Grills photo below. So many in fact I actually missed two. They are still in the photo. Can you find them?

Cross and Grilles

More pots

 The photograph above and the one below I could not resist playing with after I removed the price stickers. It is one of my favorite post processing treatments in my photo editing program. Beyond removal of stickers and unwanted objects none of my other Jackalope Still Life studies was post processed. The artistic enamel effect, however, seemed to really punch these two up.

Terracotta planters

 But accents in Blue and White was almost perfect as taken. It needed only a slight crop and the removal of a couple price stickers. I really am getting very good at that by now. Lesson learned: Do not pass up a photo because of something small but annoying.

Accents in blue and white

Photographers do develop favorite haunts. Followers of my work will know I have a couple ponds I return to again and again for their reflections. And some favorite trees which because of their placement or individual artistry I capture in all their season. Then there are the green house windows dripping with moisture distorting the flowers inside. No doubt I will go back to Bandelier. But odds have it I will be back at Jackalope before that.

I know I have not mined all the possibilities. Nor are all the photos I took there represented in this blog.

Week 32 - 365 Day Challenge

Day 218

Every photographer develops their own special subjects. Mine were once landscapes and textures. Yes, odd combination. I did landscapes because they facilitated my sketches for my paintings, and textures because of a long ago assignment in Photography 101 at the University of New Mexico.

Day 218 has textures but I was also inspired to take it because of my self-assignment this winter of still lifes. This is just one big still life. Jackalope Pottery in Santa Fe, New Mexico is full of textures and still lifes. It has been a couple weeks since I was there with a photographer friend and I am still mining that folder of new treasures. This week there were three I pulled up and looked at again. I am going to take the liberty of posting them here together and out of order for the week.

Day 223

All of my 365 day challenge photos get posted first on my Binford-Bell Studio Fan Page on Facebook. The keep track of how many hits a posting gets and Day 223 got the most this week. Day 218, which I opened with, got the second most. So I am going to guess still life photography appeals to more than me.

Day 220

Day 220 was another Jackalope still life. It was not as popular with my fans as the other two but garnered some interesting conversations with photographers. I guess there are other creative photographers that are attracted to textures. The photograph below is another study of textures taken this time at the top of a hill where I walk my dogs.

Day 222

The area where I live was originally settled during the Hometead Act of 1862. I do not know if this old wooden fence post was placed quite that early but it held up barbed wire for a very long time. It only fell in the last year. All the old posts are being replaced with far less interesting green metal t-posts. I felt, over and above the rich texture study it presented, an obligation to record its passing. Given its location no doubt it will remain and get recorded again with snow on it.

Day 221

Clouds are not a still life especially during the Southwest Monsoon Season. Look it up. It exists. Hardly a day goes by I do not aim my lens at a cloud formation. Most people would put this into the landscape category but I really think it is texture. But then maybe every photo in this week can be called texture.

Day 219

The texture of the flags is smooth and almost liquid as the winds move them about. I was drawn first to the colors and movement. They are not a still life. The challenge was to capture that sense of movement. Yes, I have my favorite subjects, but spawned by that first university class in photography, I feel a need to step out of my comfort zone and challenge myself.

Day 224

Back to those clouds and the question of are they landscape or a study in texture. Maybe light and shadow? Or like the flags a challenge to capture the essence of a moving object(s).