Week One - 2016 in Photographs

Day One of 2016

Every year I wonder if I really want to do another 365 day challenge in photography or another weekly blog post about the week past. And yet for I believe the beginning of the sixth year here I am. I also went through the 2015 and selected out some of the best of the 365 photos to post in other blogs such as the best landscapes, etc.

I find these challenges beneficial to me in the growth of myself as a photographer. And they give me a command to post daily on my social media which keeps my presence active.

The reviews, like the one I did today and will post the results of later, are also good for me. Looking back on an entire year is a very interesting process as a developing artist.

Day Two

However, there can be a bit of ennui at the closing weeks of the challenge. And it lingers until the opening week. Or two. But that ennui can make me look for a different angle or a new trick to post post process. As 2016 begins the subject is again trees. But I uploaded the new version of my favorite photo processing software and played around a bit. Day one is a familiar grove of aspens which I made black and white, a common treatment for me and aspens, but then I applied extreme contrast. I like it.

Day two was just contrast. I was looking for a way to heighten the snow flakes against the background row of firs. Expect to see more of this sort of handling of a digital image.

Day Three

Day three is nothing new. I love the condensation on green house windows. Often I photograph from out to in and the image in the fog, as it were, is a flower. This one was from inside to out.

Day Four

Day four was a freezing fog event. And I wanted to make the ice and frost on the branches stand out in the photo. It is the sun which does that best. And usually when the frosted object is between you and the sun. Pointing the camera directly into the sun has dire effects on the camera I am told so you wait until the sun is behind a branch and take the shot. I used this in both Day four and Day five.

Day Five

And for Day five I used a backlight trick in the software and then made it black and white.

Day Six

Days six and seven are just photographs of trees and the shadows they cast. Some times trees with no tricks are enough. Especially if snow is involved. 

Day Seven

It is snowing as I write this blog so no doubt it will be featured in my photographs. But I am also getting in the mood to do some more still lifes. I didn't do a lot of them last year but those I did were enjoyable. And the forecast looks awful for the next week. Good time to stay inside and play.

Week 52 - 2015 in Photographs

Day 358

Yes, there is eight days in this week. But if you divide 365 by 52 it does not come out even. Or maybe I am off in my count but every one of the 52 posts in 2015 contained seven photographs except for this one.

And yes, it was a snowy week. And I found myself looking for new ways to photograph old subjects. Or new views to capture in the old neighborhood. Looking with the camera lens for what I had overlooked before. The cattails with snow caps was one of the overlooked previously shots. As is the landscape below. It is trail which goes up the mountain that I have never walked. It always looked too closed in for my tastes. But the freshly fallen snow made it lovely to photograph. No, I didn't walk it.

Day 359

Day 360

And sometimes the familiar just looks different. In the case of the wagon wheel landscaping feature above it was the light and shadow which made this capture more memorable than the half dozen snaps I had taken before.

And I have taken pictures of orchids before. Maybe too many times before. But I have never zeroed in on  the birth of an orchid stalk. Orchids are rather the opposite of amaryllis in this respect. Amaryllis decide to bloom and shoot up a stalk open a bloom in days. Orchids can take weeks. In both cases their showy flowers can cause you to overlook the beautiful structure of the plant itself.

Day 361

This has been the year of Old Mike (often mistaken for Wheeler Peak) and actually Wheeler is visible in this shot. It is the tiny dark point just to the left of the highest point. Wheeler is in fact taller but not by much and from most of the angles in Angel Fire it hides behind Old Mike. Not that it matters. It is the high ridge of the Sangre de Cristo mountains in the center of the Enchanted Circle. And I am always looking for a new perspective for a photograph. My sister thinks I should do a photographic book of my views of the mountain. I think it would be interesting to have all the local artists/photographers cooperate on such a book.

For me it is not so much the mountain itself as the trees upon it. I really love the trees.

Day 362

 I think all photographers have one subject which dominates their photographs. My friend, Jessica Duke, is into birds. I confess I mostly photograph birds when they are in trees or sliding across the surface of a pond with a reflection. They are an element in the photograph, rather like Wheeler or Old Mike sits in the midst of a forest of trees, and not the photograph itself.

What attracted me to the Chickadee in the conifer was the branches of the pine. 

Day 363

And my favorite tree is the aspen. Especially in winter. All seems laid bare to expose its beautiful and simple architecture, not unlike the orchid without flowers pictured earlier.

I love the way snow finds places to pile upon its branches. There is something about an aspen in the snow which cries to be processed in black and white.

Day 364

 I close this year of photographs with a snowy lane I have photographed often. It reminds me of Robert Frost and Monet. Robert Frost because of his poems, and Monet because he revisited lily ponds like I revisit trees.

Day 365

No doubt 2016 will feature more trees. Maybe the same trees again. Maybe 2016 will hold a trip beyond my customary borders, back to my beloved canyons of Utah with very few trees, or off to the shores of Maine with less trees. But the trees will be found and chronicled in pixels.

Week 51 - 2015 in Photographs

Day 351

 This is a just the details collection of photographs. Yes, you can get tired of taking scenic landscapes and need a break. Plants or portions of plants figure highly. And while photo 351 looks like a pot the picture is really about the crack.

Day 352

Day 352 is reflected light on a stucco wall in a green house. It seemed to have a plant like feel too it. But it was a green house without the banana leaves featured below.

Day 353

 I love banana leaves. Especially with droplets of water on them. Such interesting textures and patterns.

Day 354

Day 355

 And as the new leaves unroll they can become sculptures in their own right.

Day 356

Sword plants are a very different leaf but they cast some very delicate shadows against textured stucco walls.

Day 357

Stucco walls provide wonderful texture. In fact they are a key element of four of this week's photographs.

And on to the last week of the year. And the process of selecting out the best 365 photographs for an end of the year blog. If you have your favorites of this past year please make a comment to help me with my selections.

Magpie 299 - So long, Farewell

Airport
Visual prompt by Magpie Tales

He was off

So long

Farewell.

Til' later

she mumbled.

Gave him

a kiss.

A once 

we were more 

than friends

goodbye

kiss.

She

could not wait

didn't walk to the gate.

The car idled

in the unloading area.

Her friends awaited her.

He

didn't hang on.

Didn't squeeze her 

against him.

It was so long, farewell, goodbye 

for both of them

They just didn't say it in words.

J. Binford-Bell

December 2015

Week 50 - 2015 in Photographs

Day 344

Comes now that interesting time when I try to make sense of the photographs of the last week. Or consequently the mind set I was in when I took them, saved them, post processed them and subsequently posted them. If it is possible to divine all that.

Photography is probably first a method of recording. Painting held the artistic notch in visual media. And in the earliest stages it recorded the static. Long exposures made it a difficult art for people. The first surviving photograph was taken by Joseph Nicephone Niepce in 1826 or 1827. It was of the view from his upstairs window at his estate, Le Gras, in the Burgundy region of France. As you would assume he took numerous exposures in various lights.

The one he showed the world was called The View from the Window at Le Gras. We have to take him at his word about it being his first. I would image he tossed quite a few before. And several after.

But I digress. I was trying to explain what was going through my mind this week when I was out and about with my camera, then at my computer post processing. And why three of my four posts this week are ice. I do not have Niepce's excuse that the camera was not very portable. We make them that way now. But he didn't with a still life of his desk. Out his window had to be better light. Or maybe just "because it was there." A quote often attributed to George Mallory in the New York Times article about climbing Mount Everest.  

I first began taking photographs of the strange shapes in the ice on the ponds, because they were there.  And it was strange. And oddly beautiful. When I first ever encountered this odd occurrence I attributed it to kids throwing rocks. But I have made rather a study of it. It occurs mostly in the early winter when the ponds are going through a freeze and thaw cycle. It makes for thinner and thicker parts of the ice surface. And the lowering of the temperatures of the water freeze the various forms of botanical life in the pond. And then thaw them and freeze them again. In this process they out-gas and those gases push up the ice cracking it and breaking through in the thinner parts.

And it isn't just the spider web like cracks but frozen bubbles too.  They are also a bit of a challenge. You obviously cannot walk on the thin ice to get a better perspective. Or wade out or boat out. You are stuck on the shore. Might be a good subject for a drone.

Ice cracks are a subject of three of my photos this week. I will not confess to the number I took and trashed. I think the one below looks like a Hopi Shalako Kachina. 

Day 345

 I think I felt a bit guilt about my ice obsession, so I pointed my camera at the light on the trunks of the aspens on the hill above the pond. The light was beautiful.

Day 346

It is to be noted I took only one photograph of the trees. I guess I was in a bit of a strange place this last couple of weeks. Week 49 was all about trees. Just trees. And frankly I could have made this week all about ice. Just ice. But if you google images of first photograph you will find  Niepce took way more than one. Monet did waterlilies ad nausea so I am going to leave the subject of my mind set of late. Artistic license.

Which brings us to the still life with deer skull. It was a cold and blustery day and I was not going to be enticed out with my camera even at the prospect of more ice pictures. Sitting at my computer I dove into the dry darkroom and chanced upon the still life with deer skull. I will confess that two versions of this arrangement are not the only ones remaining on my computer. There is at least one black and white version. And one applying a filter called colored pencils.

The two posted here are the polar ends of my exploration. And my favorites. And there is a similarity between the antler shapes in the ice and my deer skull. I will leave that to those into Jung or Freud. 

Day 347

Day 348

Which brings us back to ice. A week of warm weather erased my ice surfaces and began the process all over again. This time with much thinner ice. I was enchanted. Ice, ice spiderwebs, and reflections all in one photo.

Day 349

And from the sublime to the ridiculous I give you exhaust stacks on a roof. I thought they looked like an army of versions of R2D2. 

Day 350

Remember I am an artist. We are all a little crazy.

Week 49 - 2015 in Photographs

Day 343

It was all about trees this last week of photographs. I love trees. Especially old trees. They are majestic overseers of life around them. And in them. At the top of the tree above is a red tail hawk. The oldest trees seem to get the hawks. Maybe because their top branches are taller or sparser. Or maybe they are just old friends. To date a tree you count the rings after it has died. But my sister and I found an approximation method based on the girth of the tree near the base. The Ponderosa Pine above is probably over 200. There is a tree across the street from my house, the Sentinel, which may be 300. Those familiar with my blogs have seen a lot of photographs of it.

Day 342

The same tree in the first photograph is in the background of the picture above clouded in freezing fog. The tree in the foreground has some issues, but it made it through another summer. It is also featured in the last photograph from another angle. And more heavily decorated in frost. The freezing fog is a major player in this week's photos. And no, they were not taken on the same day. It is a not an infrequent occurrence approaching winter in the mountains. I love the fairy tale appearance of frost on the trees and will rush out of the house with camera to catch it before the rising sun breaks through and melts it away.

Day 341

Aspens, sans their leaves, look marvelous in frost, so they get their pictures taken often by me when so dressed up. Aspen trees are seldom solitary as a grove is all one plant rather like a fairy ring of mushrooms. A family lives for just about 110 years I read. 

Day 340

When the freezing fog burns off there is brief time when the frost remains highlighting the tree branches against a blue sky. It is definitely one of those things you have to be in the right place at the right time.

Day 339

I would assume it is the moisture content of the air which determines the density of the frost, but it also seems that Ponderosas just make a better show of it. Maybe the long needles collect frost better. They come out of the fog looking like flocked Christmas trees.

Day 338

And put that against a clear blue sky it it is magic for a brief moment.

Day 337

Week 48 - 2015 in Photographs

Day 335

 This week's posts are about snow and ice and frost. Next week will be all about trees in this winter weather.
As the year comes to a close I remembered I had promised a theme week now and then through the year. There have been a few but not as many as I had imagined. Maybe I will do better with that next year.

I am a landscape photographer living in the home of wondrous landscapes so focusing on the details has to be a deliberate aim. And I am definitely not a tripod photographer. My long lens does the best close ups oddly. Try not shaking when the temp is in the tens.

Day 330

But I really love this time of the year. The lakes are waxing and waning ice. The air and water crystal clear. And the snow provides less cluttered backgrounds.

Day 333

 The surface of the pond above was like glass until a breeze shivered the surface. It made for a better photograph. Below is the same pond from the opposite side. The stream coming in keeps the ice away. Love the details in this closeup. Essential photographic equipment, a good pair of snow boots. And more into winter the snowshoes come out.

Day 332

Day 331

 I have photographed these rolls of barbed wire before. But the remnants of snow and the light made this photo better than the others.

Day 334

 The patterns of ice formations and clear water was what I focusing on as I walked around the pond. The perspective of the hill made them more obvious. And the aspens framed the shot. It is one of my favorite photos of this particular shoot.

Day 336

And there is, of course, the required photograph of aspen trunks in black and white. I think the light made this one more special than most. I love aspen trunks. Maybe even more than I love the aspens in the fall with their glorious crowns. Still seeking the penultimate one.