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. 

Week 52 - 365 Day Photography Challenge 2013

Day 258

First let me say there are eight days in this week. I haven't a clue why. I began this challenge on Tuesday, January 1st, 2013 and the 365 days took me to New Years eve. In spite of some errors in day numbers I caught and corrected with my weekly blogs here nothing cosmic happened. The day numbers came out right but there is eight days in this last week.

I will not mention what week number my internal filing system says this is. I blame that on not beginning to put my photos into weeks on the computer until I had already did six or seven weekly blogs. Like all calendar systems I can only assume mine is just a bit off. But then I am an artist.

Day 359 - a Hawk in a Pine Tree

A photographer friend and I were discussing our divergent goals for our photography recently. She is a birder. I am not. Well, except for casually. Yes, there is a hawk in the sentinel tree but the photograph was about recording the light on the trunk and the patterns in the snow. I took the photo on the fly as it were. I was walking out the front door with the dogs dancing around my feet ready for their morning walk. I braced against a support on the porch. No time for tripod.

My friend falls solidly in the tripod school; sure that the only way she will get $3000 a photo is to always tripod for absolute and acute clarity and detail. I am a happenstance photographer. By the time I went inside and got the tripod and set it up to snap this picture that wonderful sense of light would have been gone and perhaps the hawk with it. Dogs would have definitely vanished up the hill and be somewhere behind that tree.

Guess I will never get $3000 for a photograph but then I am a painter that takes photographs as possible things to paint. I have won prizes in all but one photographic show I have entered but for me it is all about recording what is artistic; not what is painfully real. Case in point - Jessica's tea pots.

Day 360 - Jessica's Tea Pots

I am not even sure that my new 24.5 megapixel camera isn't a step too far toward that stark detail I really do seem to avoid like the plague. Since I got the Nikon D3200 I have discovered all the blur and selective focus options on my post processing program. Well, maybe not all but I am moving rapidly toward that goal. And this next year want to work on layers and filters.

Day 361

And if Mother Nature gifts me with a photo already somewhat out of focus I jump on it. Love the rising fog between the trees and the far mountains. It accentuated the distance to the far horizon, which is lacking on a totally clear sunny day.

Day 362

And I love the abstract. I seek out and find textures and colors and effects of light. I try to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. Okay, I confess. I spent too much time reading Alice in Wonderland. And I am first and foremost a painter. A camera is just another way to create a painting for me.

Day 363 - A Painter's Tools

In fact I still print out a photo I took or pull it up on the studio laptop and use it as inspiration for colors or details of light in a painting I am working on. I have sat with my sketch pad and altered what the camera recorded to make it a bit more artistic for the painting I am conceiving. I am willing to concede that I might not be a photographer after all.

Day 364

But there is also the argument beginning to build among photographers that there are divergent aspects of this relatively young medium especially since the advent of digital. Nobody has come up with a name or names yet. Maybe it will take history to discover it. There is Ansel Adams and his ilk (sorry, I cannot rattle off names here because while I admire them I do not follow them) and then there are those that really just want to paint in pixels and light.

Day 365 - Balancing Act

And so I end with a photograph of one of my papier mache sculptures in my studio. In the year ahead I will continue with the challenge of posting a photo a day or a pixelated art work. Looking back over the last three years of my involvement in photography those works that have won prizes seem to fall into the fantasy or creative end of photography. And those have been the works which sell the most.

It may be a bumpy road but I have a sense of where I am heading this year. Hang on. The road may not always be smooth. And the stark reality a camera can capture may make appearances from time to time if I find it worthy. I may even get out my tripod.