Upside Down Rainbows

Paradise Pond by J. Binford-Bell

Rainbows

are all around us

when we choose to look.

Liquid colors spreading below us

arching above us

held in a tear.

A promise

of brightness that is for us

if we but open our eyes and see.

J. Binford-Bell

April 2012

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Muckn' Around - The Creative Process

Psychedelic Morning by J. Binford-Bell

I have a friend in Australia that would call this muckn' around. I would call it pushing the envelope. She may well be more accurate. But the truth of the matter is all creative people must push their limits. I think the average art patron would be shocked to know how many "failed" creations their favorite artist creates. Since the first cave paintings artists have rubbed out, painted over and redone works of art. Available space, cost of materials, etc means often an artist decides to reuse a platform for new artistic expression because they have moved beyond the older style of techniques.

But sometimes artists just try something outside their norm and it doesn't work. I am about to take a canvas off the stretcher bars because the painting did not work. Photographers that learned their craft in the day of film are likely to see each snap of the shutter as too dear. Digital allows you to snap away to your hearts content. And photoshop programs allow you to go where you would not dare. Be it a painting, a poem, a photograph we all learn from our mistakes it is hoped. And we grow by muckn' about.

It is snowing today so I have been muckn' around with my camera in my studio and pushing the envelop in post processing.

Will hiding behind the plants

Willow up close and personal

Willow, the artistic approach

It was rather fun to take a random shot of my cat and crop it down to a great up close shot. And then I wondered what it would be like in my current favorite technique on my dry darkroom software.

Vase and Aspen twigs

If you are an out and about photographer a day stuck in the studio can be boring. I was trying to shoot this vase when I got the picture of my cat. The object of this exercise was to get natural lighting on a still life per the directions in this photography book. The neck of the vase still shows some reflection off the windows but I did not need to use a flash and there is not a hard edged shadow. Lesson learned but not mastered.

Garden of delights

I usually go hard edges and bright colors like the vase so on this landscape I blurred and softened. It is called lateral learning to explore the far extremes of a subject. And whether you call it muckn' around or pushing the envelope there is something to be learned in getting out of your comfort zone. It is not important to create a masterpiece each and every time. But it is important to explore beyond the limits you have set for yourself.

Creative Process - Intention

Red Tail Hawk by J. Binford-Bell

Yes, this is the second blog in the same day when I specifically stated that my intention was to do a blog a week on the creative process. But there I was walking around with my camera in my hand and thinking about intention.

I had my camera on the walk so my intention must be to take a picture or two or three though I will be honest and admit I have sometimes walked for hours and never lifted it to focus. But I have made myself a promise this year to take the camera with me everywhere (except when I intend deliberately not to take it but that is another blog) so I was out on my morning walk with the dogs and the Nikon D90 went with us. I don't, however, always take the entire camera bag with me. It gets heavier every time I have any money to spend. But I had been using my wide angle of late for those pond reflections featured earlier. I changed to my long lens this morning, checked the battery and the memory card.

My intention was clearly to not take sweeping vistas but to focus more narrowly on my world. My 70mm to 300 mm lens is good for long shots and oddly enough macros. I was looking for evidence that spring has begun to emerge from beneath the melted snow.

Great Mullen sprout

And it can get up close and personal with the pollen blossoms on the tall aspen trees. It was also a desire of mine to get a picture to post on Facebook.

Aspens in Spring by J. Binford-Bell

This photo above was to illustrate that aspens do bloom and that is why we are all sneezing currently. Amazing the number of people that only visit in the summer that have no idea why us locals all bemoan sneeze season. This is it. It was suppose to be a straight forward informational photograph but obviously subconsciously I wondered if one can make such a photograph interesting?

But I digress. We were talking intention. There were several intentions guiding me this morning, 1) use another lens, 2) get a photo of the tall aspens and their pollen pods, 3) look for distant wild life. If number 3 had been my only intention I would have walked around for quite a while not taking a picture. The Red Tailed Hawk didn't show up until I was finally back in my driveway.

My Neighbor

In short I think intention can be very different than focus. You can hold more than one intention in your mind at a time and therefore allow for serendipity. But had I gone out solely focused on snapping a picture of a hawk I would have set up on a tripod in a blind and probably not seen anything worth taking a picture of.

I think the same could apply to painting. If you narrow your focus on only one subject or one approach to that subject you may miss an awful lot of creative happenstance.

Creative Process - Just Do

Ice Bloom by J. Binford-Bell

When I was writing all the how-to-write books advocated sitting in front of a typewriter or computer for a set number of hours. At that time the blank word processing screen could be hidden behind a solitaire game but now you can so fill you computer screen with nonsense you will not know the word processor is awaiting your first line.

But I think it is all about intention. You sit before the computer with the intention of writing. Now I sit in front of the computer with that intention, dry dark rooming the perfect photograph, and coming up with an idea for a painting. Oh, and press releases for my work, and finding new exhibits or venues, shopping for equipment for the camera or materials for painting. So even the intention and purpose has gotten blurred.

I started this blog, in the beginning, to explore the creative process and then I got into just showcasing my work, allowing a venue for my poems, etc. I am lucky some weeks when I post one poem or one new photograph and sometimes that is in order to have something (anything) to link into G+ of Face Book. Keep that audience interested!

This blog is a promise to return here more frequently and back to my original direction at least once a week. More blogs on the Creative Process. And in customary blogger egotism I am doing it mostly for me. We teach what we most need to learn. Today it is INTENTION.

And I a finding intention is not just sitting in front of my time wasting computer. And it is not sitting in front of it. It is focusing on what I intend to do while here - or not here. At the moment the intention of photography is best served with camera in hand and an assignment be it outside or inside. This week my assignment has been reflections in ponds (and an accidental remnant of ice here and there).

Brightside down  by J. Binford-Bell

Magique at Pond's Edge by J. Binford-Bell

The weather has been great outside and with the ice just melted the ponds have been like mirrors in the morning. But more than just capturing reflections it has been about composition. How much can you reduce the image to heighten it. And of course the object in the foreground to give scale and depth.

In Brightside down I cropped off the tops of the real trees. And of all the photos of reflections in the pond the one with Magique in the front held the most magic. And then there was the one where Magique chased the geese who flew in the pond and messed the reflections all up.

Sunrise Geese by J. Binford-Bell

With art, be it photography or paint, you sometimes get what you get. The artist will recognize the happy accident. But unless you are in the studio with your paint or in the field with your camera, and dog, you won't get any happy accidents at all.

So my new intention is to not sit as much in front of the computer unless my intention is dry darkroom or a blog on the creative process.

Oh, to return

Egg Island by D.J. Ajakarta

Oh, to return

To that simpler time

snug and warm

safely enshelled

safe from the hateful.

Oh, to unbreak 

the egg

remain secure

and unknowing.

Oh, to return

back into the egg

Back to the silence

and safety of the calcium womb.

J.  Binford-Bell

April 2012

A tip of the hat to Tess Kincaid of Magpie Tales for this prompt.

From one extreme to the other -- the creative process

Dawns first light by J. Binford-Bell

The end days of winter are rather colorless. Or less colorful. Even the evergreens seem less green. So maybe that is why I am in a black and white mood. But I am telling myself it is because I am into light and composition and for that you do not need color.

Both Sides by J. Binford-Bell

In fact color may obscure the light and even the composition. Once the aspens are out in the photo above it will be striking in color. Taking this photo and making it black and white lets me know where I want to return mid summer.

Bare Bones by J. Binford-Bell

And black and white lets you reduce a photo to the bare essentials. In this case it was the trunks of the aspens or rather the reflection of the trunks of the aspens that was the strongest element.

I most often push the color in my photographs. I live in a very colorful place - New Mexico. And my paintings are vivid. Taking out the color was at first just an exercise. But now I am finding things to really love about it. And I think those things will make my color photos that much stronger.

The Bell by J. Binford-Bell

There is always something new to learn

Sunrise Bell by J. Binford-Bell

I have recently stepped up my collection of tech toys. Once a computer and a camera was enough. The big advantage of my newest toy, the Tab, is I get to carry along with my books on photography to read when killing time. As a result I have been learning some of the do's and don't's of good photography. And true to form questioning a few.

One that I am currently researching is the golden rule landscape photography: Only take a landscape picture within 30 minutes either side of dawn or dusk.

I assume the person writing this rule lives on the prairie or the open sea. I live in a valley surrounded by mountains. This morning I stared at the mountain behind where the sun rises this time of year and watched the sky grow light for over an hour. Still no sun. Valley still in shadow. And once the sun does pop over the whole area is drenched in light. Bright light! The bell picture above was taken at 8 a.m. From the shadows you can tell the sun is still low on the horizon. The sun had just finally made it down the wall to the bell. Sunrise was about 6:50 per the chart. It had not popped over the mountain this morning at 7:30. Obviously I need to define sunrise: a) the time in the morning when the sun first appears or full sunlight arrives, b) the colors and light visible in the sky upon the sun's first appearance in the morning, considered as a view or spectacle.

Sunset at Arches

The above picture taken at Arches National Park clearly shows the line of dark vs light in the process of the sun setting across a western landscape but the sun was still above the horizon. It had not yet turned the clouds red and pink, etc. It was probably in that last hour of good photography before the world goes dark. And that can happen really quickly in the west.

Sunrise at the Grand Canyon by J. Binford-Bell

The canyon rim is in light, the canyon bottom is in the dark still. My sister and I spent more than two hours photographing what my digital photography book calls a narrow one hour window. So my question is sunrise where? Top or Bottom? Here or there?

Sunrise by J. Binford-Bell

So I have the calendar with all the sunrise and sunset times if my world was flat. It is not. This morning I walked a path I had taken often with a camera but without one. I wanted to record in my mind and not in pixels which hills got light first and which trees reached into the first rays. I noticed things I had not seen as I walked the same route with a camera from one Kodak photo opportunity to the next.

The book talks about not taking the "Walk Up" photo. Or don't set your tripod in the first available spot. I found this morning there is something to be said for not taking the camera also. I recorded spots I want to go back to with the camera and the tripod.

This afternoon I am going to Raton. It is a trip I take often but usually in the morning. This trip is going to be in the afternoon. The same landscape can look very different depending on the time of day. And I will easily admit that at high noon it is flat and boring. UNLESS, teachers used to hate me, there are fantastic clouds building over the mountains! BTW that usually happens here in the heat of the day.

Thunderstorm over Eagle Nest Lake by J. Binford-Bell