Week 23 - 2015 in Photographs

Day 155

Mostly a landscape week. But I had a couple pictures from the Aztec mill in Cimarron, New Mexico I had not processed yet. It is not all about finding the time to take the photographs. But like in the film days there is darkroom time to factor in. Now we call it dry darkroom. And when time is short I have the tendency to rate my photos and then do the best, or those which I think are best, and save the rest for when I have the time. It is summer and between art community activities and gardening there does not seem to be adequate time.

Day 156

And summer is when I like to take my spare time driving around with my camera. The rains have made the plains green and the wild flowers bloom. But June is that month in the high country when we seem to be balanced between the remains of winter and the hints of summer.

Day 157

We are currently already building up for an early monsoonal season. It is one of my favorite times in New Mexico because the clouds are so varied and changeable. Believe it or not when you a a photographer cloudless blue skies get boring.

Day 158

And noisy skies make the best black and white photographs. I am a lover of color as anyone who is familiar with my paintings knows. I came late to black and white in digital photography. Of course when I was studying fine arts at the University of New Mexico all we got to shoot in photography was black and white. And Ansel Adams made New Mexico famous with his black and white photographs.

But the subtle colors in the mountain scene below are also a favorite. Once out of school and with color film I used to seek out the monochromatic or close to monochromatic landscapes. I loved the Blue Ridge mountains because they are blue. Distance does that. The mountains in the photograph below are between 30 and 50 miles away in Colorado.

Day 159

On the same day I took the majority of this week's photos I visited the Dawson Cemetery. I particularly loved this cast wrought Iron cross painted silver. It and the white painted iron crosses behind if marking the graves of the victims of the Dawson Mine collapses made a perfect black and white composition. There is an almost other world silence about the Dawson Cemetery.

Day 160

The morning with the heavy moisture from the wet spring shrouded the Palisade Cliffs. It was the one element always missing in previous attempts to record this geologic landmark. They are awesome but look flat in the New Mexico sun. The fog game them distance and size.

Day 161

I have taken several of the photographs I took of the cliffs and transformed them to black and white. But I loved the shades of green in the photograph from the deep blue green of the firs to the bright new spring green of the cottonwoods and the yellow green of a low bush in the foreground. The pink and peach of the cliffs is a perfect offset to the greens.

Week 44 - 365 day Photographic Challenge 2013

Day 302 - Magique 

I think no photographer picks up a camera and decides to be Ansel Adams. No, I will correct myself, no sane person buys a camera with the belief they can become famous. Most photographers first get a camera handed down from a family member and begin taking pictures of the family pets. That was especially true in the film era with the inexpensive Brownie cameras by Kodak. And obviously the picture above shows that not all of us get too far away from or first favorite subjects.

The digital age, however, has changed to some degree the path photographers take. I will leave nameless all the friends I have that think if they go out and buy my camera they too can take prize winning photographs. Good luck with that. Taking pictures of our pets has provided us with lots of training and experience.

Day 303

And you no longer drop your film off and hope the wizard in the darkroom works some sort of magic. It is back to photography 101 where you worked your own photos in the college darkroom. Only now it is a dry darkroom, and I do not care how much you paid for your photo manipulation software. There is no substitute for the eye of the artist. You might be able to save a composition with a good crop or dodge out the Pepsi can in the foreground you never noticed but you have to know what you want to achieve.

The end days of fall leading into winter are a bit challenging. Anyone can snap an aspen on their iphone or the first snow of the season but the days in between are a bit challenging. You find yourself wishing for the first snow or at least a heavy frost.

Day 304 A

The perfect reflection of a winter scene in a not yet frozen pond is all about being in just the right place at just the right time. But the photo I took a few minutes later was better because the breeze had come up and changed it all.

Day 304 B

The reflection is not as perfect in picture two but the texture is better because of the shivering of the water. And the sun peeked out and put a bit of light on the distant trees. If you grew up taking pictures of you pets you developed the patience to wait to see what they did next.

Day 305

And Photography 101 taught you black and white was the bare bones of an image. If the basics are not there not much that fancy digital camera can do for you.

I was so ready to get into Photography 201 and work with color. But it meant more time in the darkroom. I think that is true even with the computer programs we use today.

Day 306

So many more variables with color. Especially if it is something like clear drops of water from melting snow. Snow does not stay pretty long.

Day 307

And the winter weather has taken just enough color out of the landscape you find yourself back to looking for colors in the sky or unique shapes of trees hosting two hawks. Or you retreat back to still lifes.

Day 308

It is still all about form and composition and light and shadow. It has never been about megapixels. Though having just upgraded to more megapixels I am not about to sacrifice them. I can still take a great picture of my dog. And I have taken pictures of pets long enough I look for the unusual in the pose. I do that with the landscape too.

Week 30 - 365 day Photography Challenge

Day 204

Week 30 I was out and about with my photography friend, Terry Atkin Rowe, from Virginia. Photographers do not ask why you are taking another picture of just pots, or boards or painted metal roofing because they are right beside you taking pictures too. I cannot say same pictures because even if to the untrained eye we are standing in the same place aiming at the same grouping of pots at Jackalope in Santa Fe I can guarantee we are taking a different picture.

Day 205 - the one and true cross

I would love to take a photographic workshop at Jackalope. It would be so much fun to roam around the piles and displays with say 20 other people with cameras and later look at the pictures they took. I bet there would not be two the same. And it isn't all about the picture taken but the post processing afterwards. Day 204 required the removal of a lot of price tags - true cloning practice. And there were also several in Day 205. I missed one, however. Can you spot it. It would be difficult to take out with the clone too but it could be cropped out easily. And I am not totally happy with this crop for another reason. What do you think that is?

Day 206 - New Muffler Needed

Another stop for Terry and I was the old Dirt Floor Gallery that is abandoned. We did not break in because there was plenty to occupy our artistic eyes on the outside of the creative junk yard establishment. The photo above was part of a wind break?

Day 207 - Meanwhile back at Jackalope

The Dirt Floor Art Gallery and Jackalope were to different days. But while I cleaned my scan disc of images from the day along the Rio Grande I did not have time to post process any photos until after Bandeleir National Monument which was the day after Jackalope. Photos taken at popular tourist stops often fail to win my heart. So I lapse back to giving my attention to Jackalope pots or rusting metal walls. First they are the photo less taken and second they are more what I want them to be.

Day 208 - the Second true cross?

I love patterns to the point of almost abstraction. And I confess to reducing some of the Canyon Walls to just that - abstractions. But that will come in Week 32. I took enough photographs during the few brief days my photographer friend was about that I can fill several weeks without taking another new digital image.

Day 209 - Cloning graduation exam

The above photo did not have as many price tags as the first image but they were in more difficult places. And I did not miss a one. Note to Jackalope - put them inside the pots.

Day 210 - Heavy Metal Pollack

And then there is my masterpiece for the week - a photo that took absolutely no post processing or digital manipulation. But it is a masterpiece of framing your shot. I really want to print it on canvas and hang it on my studio wall and mark it sold for the first copy. There really is no explaining what an artist will take pride in.

Second favorite is the leading photo and I worked hard at getting all the price labels off those pots. Every single one had a white price tag. But again it is the framing of shot I am most proud of. I had to cant the camera and bend over just so to get the composition just right. So I repeat: It is not about your camera or even your mastery of the dry darkroom. There is no substitute for the artistic eye.

Clouds in Black and White - Life on the Dry Line

10% chance of showers
J. Binford-Bell

According to NOAA I am living along the dry line. The dry line is a weather term for the divide between dry atmosphere to the west and moister air up from the gulf to the east. And what we get from this are dry thunderstorms. The clouds form over the mountains and then move away to be tornadoes or flooding events in the mid west. Here we get the 10% chance of rain. And some fantastic clouds to photograph.

Across the Valley
J. Binford-Bell

No rain but lots of opportunities to practice ones dry darkroom skills. Black an white is ever so much more than the absence of color. And done well it brings out details in the clouds the color digital image only hinted at.

Alone on the High Mesa
J. Binford-Bell

Photography began with no color. Ansel Adams made the west famous with his black and white images. And in spite of advancements in color photography we return to our black and white roots but in digital.

Downpour on the High Mesa
J. Binford-Bell

Most digital photo manipulation programs have an effect called black and white. Do not be seduced. It only takes out the color. Black and white is so much more. It is brightness and contrast, shadows and highlights, and yes vibrancy. An intricate dance of elements not unlike clouds themselves. Don't get me wrong. I am a color photographer first and perhaps always. In the days of film I only took black and white when it was a class assignment. I hated having non-color film in my camera. But in this digital age I can have it both ways.

The view from my studio
J. Binford-Bell

And clouds I have found are just beautiful in black and white. It is what is called a noisy sky. Literally because some of these silent images were accompanied by distant thunder.

Trees in Ojo
J. Binford-Bell

The above black and white and the opening photo actually are not pure. They have remains of color in them. Something which was done in the black and white film days with tinting. How much color to leave in and how much to take out is another thing to play with. I am by no means a master. Just a student who is more comfortable in color.

Ojo Valley
J. Binford-Bell

Life on the dry line is interesting but frankly I want rain and the land needs it. Rain will bring back the colors in the land.

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 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.

First you take the picture

Images in the wall

And then you hit the darkroom. In the film days the distance between the two activities could be days or weeks. First you had to finish the roll of film. Waste not, want not. Then watching the timers during all the various baths to process the film. That was the boring part. Though your tummy always hurt for fear that you had done something wrong and ruined the picture you thought you had taken.

And it was expensive. I took several college photography classes in part to have access to the darkroom facilities with and the tools and equipment. Out of college and into color photography I would shop for the best processor I could find. Never the cheap ones like Walmart. Now I have my dry darkroom in my computer. Yesterday was cold and blustery and I spent several warm hours in my computer dark room.

Blue window panes

Sometimes you have to do very little to an image beyond adjust the brightness and contrast. We all did that automatically with the photo enlarger, the negative and photo paper. And sometimes you pushed the limits even in the wet darkroom. Class projects demanded it sometimes. But we were all artists and sometimes we just played around. The wind howling outside my Black Lake Studio yesterday seemed to entice me to stay warm and play.

Do you see Jesus?

And then sometimes there is a photo that requires a little teasing to bring up what you so clearly saw when you snapped the shutter. In this case I first noticed the reflection in the glass in the field taking the picture. When I stood directly in front the reflection was me. So setting up the picture took some teasing too. Getting the light just right which meant standing in a -10 degree wind chill waiting for the sun to pop out from behind a cloud.

Reflections in Time

Then the captions. Sometimes I have noticed the titles come easily. And sometimes not. I also was in the studio yesterday matting and framing up photographs I had printed in Taos. My sister and I each have three that were accepted in an exhibit of New Mexico Women Artists in Raton at the Old Pass Gallery. I was really stumped on titles. I was going to do La Cerva I, II and III as they are all of the same building. My sister and I figured out one before going to bed but that almost made the other two more difficult because they are like a series.

This morning as I awoke the titles were all there in my head: Through a Window Darkly, Window Pane Trip, Windows of My Mind. You might notice windows are a reoccurring theme of mine. So are doors.

Closed

BTW photography is cheaper these days because you don't need that dark room but it becomes rapidly more expensive when you opt to print. I was giving that a lot of thought yesterday. Maybe I need to charge more for my photographs. I began rather low because I was an emerging photographer even though I was a professional painter. I was going by the rule of thumb of three times the cost (print, mat, frame) which I could keep relatively low due to the fact I can mat and frame my own work.

But both my sister and I have won prizes. I have just sold my forth photograph. Time to rethink pricing? They say the economy is getting better.