My Favorites of 2015

Clouds' Illusions 

Maybe this blog is less about good photographs than the soul of an artistic mind. I posted 365 photographs in 2015 as photographs of the day. To get those 365 I was out with a camera or in front of my computer post processing some portion of every day. I would daresay I took thousands of photographs. Some I posted on other platforms and for other reasons than the 365 Day Challenge. 

And there are always other reasons to take photos. Reasons people with iPhones take pictures; a great garden, a special flower, a new kitten, selfies, self portraits, great sunrise, WIP photos of art work or home projects. Occasionally those personal snaps make it into the 365 Day Challenge just because it is a reflection of who I am. And the same is true of these favorites in this blog. They were photo of day for one of the days of this year. But they are also the ones I remember most. And the are mostly those closest to home. The opening cloud formation is one of many which rises over the Sentinel Tree on the hill across from my house. There is something about the shape of the hill or the land behind it which creates currents that builds fantastic clouds.

And the two photographs below are from my garden. I don't paint flowers. I do not pretend to be Georgia O'Keeffe (besides I like her landscape work better), but I photograph flowers. It is a relatively new focus for me. My sister, Deborah Binford Baker, is the flower photographer. It is not as easy as it looks. So many variables to factor in not the least of which is breeze with large petal flowers like poppies. The one below owes a lot of its charm to the light, and using a very fast speed. My camera thinks flowers are sporting events.

First poppy

Poppies and hollyhocks grow like weeds. I am not a gardener of Prima Donnas. I will spend more effort on vegetables but flowers need to volunteer. I also do not spend a lot of time in capturing their digital images. The hollyhocks before were a quick snap of a stalk bent under the weight of an afternoon rain. Before I staked the stalk I took its picture.

My other favorites are experiments. Frequent followers of my blogs will know I love to do reflections. There are a whole bunch of rules on reflections oddly enough. When I began taking them I followed those rules. Now I am into breaking them. Number one rule is never flip a water reflection. Reflections look upside down. The one below I flipped. The trees are never right side up in a pond reflection. A little accentuation of the ripple effect using a filter and instant Monet.

It is wise to remember at this point that I am a painter first. Well, that is a matter of focus. Pun intended. Photography was a hobby and a support for my paintings. I do not like plein aire painting for myself. Outdoors is for movement. So I take pictures and take them back to my studio. The advent of digital cameras and post processing programs gave me the luxury of playing with my pictures before I played with my pictures. Lately this playing around has given me an itch to paint with oils. Now I just need a small business expansion loan.

Monet's Pond

Meanwhile I am turning some of my photographs into faux oil paintings. Yes, I could just print the photograph on canvas. And I have done that. And is that any different than doing the painting, taking the photograph of the painting, and then doing a giclee (just French for ink jet) print of the painting?

On the icy shore

Another of my learning curves has been in black and white images. Here again my sister is the master as it were. But I have been working at black and white post processing of some of my images for some time. And taking blacks and whites. Yes, my camera has a setting which would allow me to skip right around color. And yes, a photo is better in black and white if you have that intent. By intent I mean looking for certain elements of design which make a good strong black and white. Elements like noisy sky (or background) and strong light and shadows. The original digital image is in color but from the moment I aimed my camera my mind said black and white for the photograph below.

Meeting room at the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico

Another area of exploration has been the DSLR selfie, a self portrait without aid of tripod. I do not mean to be anti tripod. I own three. I just often find them more work than aid. And with the selfie they do not give you the deer in the headlights look of the iPhone. And unlike the iphone the DSLR selfie gives you the chance to include context. At the very least the "I am a photographer" element. I like the one below because it seems more like a painter's self portrait than a profile shot for a web page. Well, except for the DSLR.

Selfie with Camera

I don't take portraits. Used to do a lot of candid portrait work. Seemed to open me up for requests to do weddings. I don't do weddings. Or children. But I do fur kids. And I currently have a kitten, Thicke, who is a ham. He loves to pose in bowls, baskets, basins, and boxes.

Thicke in the Basin

So now in addition to my camera going in the car with me it goes around the house with me. 

To sum up these favorites of 2015 are very personal to me because of subject matter or as milestones on my path to being a better photographer. 

Exercise 3 - Shoot Something Different

Tall Wild Sunflowers Dancing

I am most comfortable with sweeping vistas, towering clouds over mountains, and reflections is ponds. This year because of the abundance of wildflowers and flowers in my garden I have made an attempt to do something my sister is best at. Or my photographer friend Terry Atkins Rowe. And it is not that I have never photographed flowers. My loyal readers have seen my portraits of orchids. Such beautiful posers in the controlled environment of a green house.

I do not have a macro lens but my 55-300 mm zoom does a great job at macro if you can get far enough away from the subject. And I like the fact that I do not have to lie down on the ground or erect a tripod necessarily. I often do go into the human tripod - butt, two feet, and elbows on knees. Butt on ground only if it isn't wet.

Thistle

You are never suppose to shoot down on a flower so unless they are tall like the Tall Wild Sunflower or up on a hillside like this thistle it does require some kneeling. Something which I was more than happy to do this year with the salmon colored poppies in my yard.

But because I really am not the photographer in love with painful digital detail, my photos of flowers, I like to think, are more painterly.

The first Salmon Poppies

And perhaps, poetic. And the out of focus is every bit as important to me as what is in focus. Especially since the lovely background above was in fact my driveway. But the out of focus seed pods in the solitary poppy below is the making of the subject - the last poppy of the season.

The last poppy of the season

But at some point one has to make a stab at that mega pixel challenge and see if you can get a flower with pinpoint accuracy. Then you can say I can do that just do not choose to. Rather like Picasso who could draw very, very well but didn't.

Onion Blossoms

I also do not like to cut my flowers and take them out of their environment to control the breeze or the background. The onion blossoms were in my bow tunnel so quite unintentionally they got the opaque plastic behind them.

Hollyhock

The hollyhocks got the rest rest of the plant for their setting. They looked their best in the evening light.

Double Ruffle Purple Hollyhock

It was upon coming in from attempting to capture my hollyhocks at dawn that I caught the growing light on the geranium in the studio.

Pretty in pink

A word about self assignments. There are those we give ourselves consciously and those which are rather subconscious. And some exercises like the 15 foot circle I have blogged about can be done in 10 minutes and others which take a great deal longer. The pick a shape exercise was a few days. The flower pictures were over five weeks. And it was the blooming of the poppies which made me dedicate myself to trying to truly capture them not the article I have been linking to. It just made me see that flowers have always been something I was not good at and sort of avoided.

Reflections, which is exercise #4 on Five Self Assignments That Teach You To See I have been doing for about five years. It has ceased to be an exercise and may have become an obsession. I am debating doing a blog about that or not since reflections are so often featured in my photo blogs.

That leaves me with exercise #1 - Pick a color. It would be so easy to wait until fall and do yellow.

Week 27 - 2014 in Images

Day 183

Flowers figured huge this last week. Whether they were the delicate blooms of moss in a pond or the orchids in a friend's greenhouse or my the hardy flowers in my neglected flower beds.

I spend much of my garden time with vegetables because they are edible and prevent trips to the store. The flowers that grow in my care are those which require little to no care like the delicate yellow columbine below.

Day 184

And they bloom because of showers and not my diligent watering of them. The monsoon season in the New Mexico mountains has begun. It is forecast to be better than the average and we need it because of the drought. Clouds get a lot of attention this time of the year.

Day 185

I took my paintings to Trinidad, Colorado's Gallery Main last Wednesday, the first day of the photographic week. And in the days preceding I was busy packing and getting the UHaul trailer, so rather than walking around with camera in hand I kept it handing during my normal chores and snapped quick picks. Orchids are always good for that.

Day 186

And the painted chair is a great prop for them.

Day 187

And the poppies in the front yard required no walk abouts. I was post processing the photos from the hanging of my show Meraki and could not resist giving this poppy below some added attention. It has bloomed on my day away. Amazing flower the poppy. It unfolds to huge dimensions out of the bud and does it in a very short time. The winds and heavy rains do them in quickly so you have to be quick at recording them.

My biggest orange ones are against the house. This week the salmon colored ones in the bed across the driveway have been blooming and will figure large in the photos in the coming week.

Day 188

As will clouds, no doubt. The surrounding mountains manufacture them from the upflow of moisture from Mexico and the Gulf of Baja. They grow in what seems like just minutes from small whiffs of clouds to huge formations taller than the mountains they cap. It is rather fun to watch. Especially when you have the time and the camera.

Day 189

Week 26 - 2014 One Image a Day

Day 176

And the year is now half over. All my paintings for the Meraki Show at Gallery Main in Trinidad, Colorado are packed up. Today I will load them in the UHaul Trailer and take them tomorrow up to the gallery to hang. And all the focus I have had on painting will be over. Or Not. I already have three more canvases to stretch. And two different ideas dancing around in my head for what to paint on them.

But there is no doubt I will have more time to give to photography. And I look forward to that. The land has a fullness about it, a lushness which you can breathe in. The monsoon season is setting up and this next week has a chance for thunderstorms every single day.

Day 177

First poppy photograph of the summer. My plants are heavy with buds. They do not fare well in heavy rains so you have to dash out with the camera to quickly record them. And I will. The orange/red ones have a fire to them but I love the light and delicacy of the salmon colored ones yet to bloom.

The ponds I photography are blooming too. Small delicate blooms which rise above the water level on this stalks in vast numbers. It has been an interesting challenge trying to record the feel of this blossoming of the waters.

Day 178

Day 179

Summer is not all about flowers. With the monsoons building it will be a lot of clouds like the opening photograph of dawn. But it is also about trucks and bugs. The weather is more pleasant for long walks and drives with the camera. The truck is Eagle Nest but the Volkswagen is just down the street.

Day 180

And the gazing ball is on another walk. Nice weather allows you to linger and see what is around you.

Day 181

Like the family of geese gliding across a still pond in the early morning light.

Day 182

And there is more wildlife out enjoying the fruits and grasses of summer. I have captured a lot of photographs of elk and geese. They have not made my 365 Day Challenge photos because while they are good photos their specialness is only that they are great captures.

Composing a New Work

For the last few days I have been in my studio drawing. Working on both new compositions and improving the compositions of drawings I have done previously. Per Wiki: The term composition means 'putting together,' and can apply to any work of art, from music to writing, that is arranged or put together using conscious thought. In the visual arts, composition is often used interchangeably with various terms such as design, form, visual ordering, or formal structure, depending on the context.

I like the term flow. The painting should take the eye of the viewer through the images on the canvas or paper. A good composition flows and draws the eye into a journey. A bad composition is static. It can be the reason you sometimes look at a painting and feel stuck or irritated. But you don't want to make your composition so rude that the viewer feels manipulated either.

Jan Vermeer was one of the masters of subtle composition. Line and light were his tools to draw the eye to the focus of the painting which was never in the center of the work. There is the rule of thirds and the rule of odds, perspective and view point to consider as well as source of light. And when translated from drawing to paper - color.


Some of this is almost second nature once you have learned it. And learning can be quite complex. There is unconscious learning from just having viewed a vast number of works of art and analysized why some pleases you and why some does not. And then there are fine art classes. And books. We must not forget books.

But you can also learn a lot from your own drawings. I never throw a sketch or drawing away. Or for that matter a tracing of the drawing for transfer to the canvas. I find that in working from the sketch to the canvas my mind will make subtle changes often that alter the finished work for the better.

The sketch in conte on the right is a new one from a photograph. It is the second sketch of the same subject. The photograph as it appeared in the magazine was rectangular on the horizontal. I thought it was flat. Editors in magazines love to crop and not always for the bettering of the image but to allow space for copy. I wanted it square and drew it first to be in a 12 x 12 canvas but it felt cramped. So I drew it again. Now I was far enough from the original image it began to have a flow of its own.

The drawing on the left is a subject I have done twice before. I like the theme but don't think I totally have what I want from it yet. This time it will go on a longer canvas - 28 x 18. I think that will allow more room for a more complex flow of the eye. The same sketch cannot just be applied to a taller canvas. Elements must be moved - rearranged.

Sometimes you get lucky and the very first composition is the right one. But often you have to tweak and tweak again until you have reached sympatico. That is what erasers and tracing paper are all about.

Friday Fotos and story

Stage one uniting current bush to pond

When I first moved to my land here I saw it as pasture for my llamas and horse. Improvements had to do with fencing and grass seeding to improve the pasture. Lawn was in my opinion unrealized pasture. When due to time constraints I got rid of the livestock I had more grass than I could handle and I had to get a riding mower to keep it trimmed. I look at that move as the beginning of the end. I went from that to raised gardens for growing lettuce and veggies and now my flower bed.

Up to now the flower beds had been things that came with the house and were merely added to her kept up and as I blogged earlier this year I lost control of a few. I am not sure why I decided to do this new free form flower and herb garden. It began as an idea to link several things together and minimize the problem of mowing around each. Now there is one large feature to mow around.

Adding more plants and beginning to enlarge around pond.


Weeding around the back of the pond

I added the little pond the year I started the studio. I figured while they built I would make a rock garden water feature in my yard. But the studio ended up being my project and the pond got abandoned. In spite of landscape cloth laid under the dirt I got weeds. I pulled them up and laid more cloth and then more dirt.

It is not done yet (who knows when a garden is ever done) but I am further than I thought I would be. I am surprised I have not given up on it. The garden will wrap around the little pond and end in a rock garden with or without fountain/waterfall. The pan figure is a butterfly bath. There are round rocks in the bottom of the dish and just enough water that the butterflies can land on the rocks and suck water. I added new plants this week including lemon balm, sweet herb, tarragon, straw flower, painted daisy, and a low spreading ivy edge as well as three different thyme.

I need quite a few more rocks to edge the bed and the pond with. The wagon in the picture is my rock transport. I have plenty of rocks up along the drive area. I am like this little ant making trip after trip. When I can afford to build my deck on to the studio it will overlook this garden. Maybe that is why I am doing this or maybe it is just that my mother's craze for gardening has finally entrapped me in my old age.