Photographic Studies

I promised to discuss the idea or concept of photographic studies, not the study of photography, in last weeks essay. If we look up “study” in a dictionary we will find something like this.  Study: 1. a piece of work, esp. a drawing, done for practice or as an experiment. 2. a musical composition designed to develop a player’s technical skill.  Obviously this definition was created before us photographers got into the business of creating art, about 170 years ago as I recall. This photographer and I am sure others, expand that definition to include:  an image or series of images done for practice, experiment or just to see what we can make of it/them.  Sometimes a photographic study is only a singular image.  Most often I find a number of images compose my study.  Studies seem to result from a half formed idea, we see or think we see, when viewing an image(s) of potential.  Sometimes it is the challenge, sometimes the conditions or situation are such, that good images should result and it is the photographers job to find and recognize them. When we are in this mode of creativity we are no different then graphic artist sketching with his pencil or the musician honing is skills.  My late father in law, Bill Parks, was just such an artist.   He taught for many years.  I remember he always kept a small pad and sharp pencil in his pocket, his hands were never idle.  I learned a lot about how to see and not to just look, from him.  Modern technology allows us to do these studies almost as frequently as we desire or as our imaginations dictate.  The North Point Water Tower set is an example.  I am hard pressed to pick my favourite image.  That is one reason I show them all.  I know, some times to much choice makes the choosing harder.  The technology is both blessing and curse.  That simply means we must strive for Golden Mean. (In philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, the golden mean is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency.) I have often taken one image and treated it in a number of different ways.  Sometimes as in the example of the North Point Water Tower the study is a number of different angles and views of the same thing and/or place. In the last essay I talked about Hoar Frost.  I used a few images to illustrate.  I have now gone over the entire inventory from that day.  Wow! Some good stuff and some not so good.  I had intended to grouped some of the successes together and present them here as a Hoar Frost Study.  I got sidetracked and instead offer one image as a number of variations.  Way easier to decide too. Studies are not new to me and any reader that has followed up some of the previous essays, by looking at the photobucket or flicker gallery, will have seen them or parts of them.  My series of Nacmine’s Railway Bridge is one I am very proud of. From the Hoar Frost series one specific image caught my attention.  Yes it is the same image that lead off the essay First Snow Of Winter Nov. 2012.  This became one of those “to see what I can make of it,” images.  I think the image lends itself to the more artistic then rendering view.  It is therefore a study within a larger study. The introductory image is the master or starting point.  I think is a good one and one that has good potential for variations.  In February and March of 2011, I wrote several essays called Variations On A Theme Parts One, Two and Three.  Here we go a step or two further. I was careful to only use “image tricks” or “editing tools” that are readily available to almost everyone.  Programs like iphoto and Picasa have them or some of them built in.  Many image management systems have them and often affordable image editing tools come with them or many of them.  Some of the utilities that come with your camera also have them.  You too can experiment and if you don’t like the result, destroy the evidence. Another option is to purchase one or more of the stock images at Ideal Totem and As I Found It.  You can do anything to you want to with the digits you purchase.  Just remember to only work with a copy, never the original.  Depending on how large you want the result pick a size that will give you a reasonable resolution, that’s why both sites offer a variety of sizes.

Some of the changes or alterations are dramatic and others subtle.  This is only a small fraction of the possible.  Not all those alterations will be pleasing to your taste.  Given the cost of experimenting in the 21st century, it is truly anything goes.

Slide Show

hope you enjoy this experiment.  Some of these are good enough to make it over to As I Found It or Ideal Totem.  Others are well beyond the mandate to those sales sites.  Images like these are within the mandate of Sui Generis Images Galleries which holds only fine photographic art.  I think highly of this set.  If I didn’t I would not be showing them.  What we are showing here is a small part of the possible.  The limits of the possible are limits of human creativity and inspiration.  A limit I am still unable to define and have no hope of ever reaching. As always our dear readers areI welcome to comment on or question anything here.  The discussion is always open or if you want to know how something was done, ask.  I take complements too, my ego likes to be stroked just like everyone else. If you or someone you know is in the market for very high quality fine photographic art visit Sui Generis Image Galleries. There is still enough time to order that absolutely unique seasonal gift.  The photo artists at Sui Generis Galleries will gladly give you a firm for 60 day quotation on that image in a class by itself.

First Snow Of Winter Nov. 1, 2012

Often the first snow or real snow (not the stuff that malts as soon as sit lands) of winter offers some great photo opportunities.  Here are a few of the ones I ceased when that wonderful white stuff fell on Calgary earlier in November. These are crab apples still hanging on the tree.  These carb apples do that and are an important source of food for some of the bird species that winter here.  Specifically but not exclusively the Bohemian Waxwings.  See Waxwings Descending for more and pictures too. I like to include these bright red apples in my snow and hoar frost images.  The sky was dull gray and as can be seen in some of the other images almost monochrome.   Crab apples, Mountain Ash, Cotoneaster and some other trees and shrubs have colorful berries or leaves.  Just look for them in your neighbourhood or park.   I just walked around my block and sometimes through the alley looking for opportunities.  It is polite to ask you neighbours before you go into their yards but stuff next to the side walk or handing over the fence is fair game.  Almost all of my neighbours know me and I am welcome, just remember to leave gates as you find them i.e. open or closed. On the evening of the 31st and morning of the first we had a fair amount of hoar frost along with the snow.  Damp and windless conditions are not common here, so I am always ready when they happen.  That carb apple tree is in my neighbours back yard.  This poor spent False Sunflower is in my yard.  I do not clean up my flower beds in the fall I do that in the spring.  Two reasons:  One, the spent flowers trap the snow.  Living in a semiarid climate with frequent chinooks means you use every trick possible to collect moisture for your garden plants.  Two, they often make very nice photo subject don’t they.  If cleaned up nothing to photograph.

Not all shrubs loose all their leaves in the fall and not all change color.  Green is nice and the contrast with the hoar frost is striking.  You can see how dull the sky is.  When the sky is close in tone range with the subject, ice crystals in this case a strong contrasting color is very helpful.  I too would prefer and deep blue sky but you take what nature gives and make the most of it.  I could have used artificial light such as a flash but choose not to.  It is a much greater challenge this way and requires a lot less equipment too.

In this one I did make it into a monochrome and placed the black mask around it.  One could have used a white or colored mask.  Nothing magic about black.  An image like this can easily be colored with what ever color strikes your fancy.

You will find much better images of like subjects in the galleries of Sui Generis, As I Found It and Ideal Totem.  Don’t be shy, come and have a look.  You are welcome to buy a few too.  You are never under any obligation so as I said, don’t be shy.   I often post to Facebook, Flicker, Photobucket, Piccsy and YouTube.

Fine Art Photography — FAP

Fine art photography (FAP) refers to photographs that are made in the creative vision of the photographer as an artist. Fine art photography generally stands in contrast to photojournalism, which is a visual account of news events or a record of things, places and people.   Commercial photography, the primary focus of which is to advertise products or services, is generally held apart from fine art as well.   That said in my experience the commercial and journalistic often slops over into fine art. If one reviews the history of photography it quickly become clear that well made image narratives, produced for journalistic or commercial purposes, frequently become objects of art.  Often but not always this transition takes place well after the journalistic or commercial significance has passed.  If one examines the enduring images from the great photographic publications of the past, the truth of this can easily be verified.  Today many truly great images can be seen on the web, produced from the present journalistic and commercial traditions. I could find no generally accepted definition(s) of the terms “art photography”, “artistic photography” or “fine art photography.  Definitions are found in articles, essays and reference books in all media forms.  What seems to be lacking is the generally or universally accepted part.  (see: Wikipedia—Fine-art photography for examples.) The balance of this essay is more personal opinion dependent then academic.   One significant difference between an artistic rendering and fine art is the level of emotion created by the image’s narrative.  An artistic rendering, of a really great image. that is creatively presented is surely art.  Fine art takes that rendering one or two steps further into an emotional place that transcends the propose or location.   Art in general and fine art almost always has a transcendence or universality that just images can not quite match.   Fine art melds together all the compositional, technical and transcendence qualities to give it and its narrative a true universality. I have been at this photography business, all be it hesitantly at first, since I was 11, that is (58 years).  Over that time I have made images for just about any purpose one can imagine.  In my mind or better to my taste, I have created fine art works in most if not all of them.   The exception is probably in the classification snapshots.  Got a few really good ones but no true art.  In attempting to create the best possible images, of what ever subject and purpose was holding my interest, I found my creative vision could often be satisfied.   I should also note that while my vision was frequently satisfied, my technical competence or the limitations of the equipment of the day, did not always yield stellar results. A truly artistic image, regardless of subject or purpose has the qualities, often intangible, of what I call fine art.  I have some training and education in art history.  I understand the principles of composition and most of the technical aspects of most, if not all art forms.   Don’t misunderstand, I claim no pretense to executional competence for any except photography. As I Found It and Ideal Totem (my two stock photo services) hold well over 4,000 images (at the time of writing).  A very high proportion of these stock images qualify as art.  They are good and well presented, even the textures and patterns tell their story well.  A number of them have appeared and will appear in this blog series.  Some are probably even great.  Perhaps not quite as many as my ego would like, but still a good number.  None are true Fine Art.  Those images, a small percentage, have been selected to be offered as highly limited special fine art editions.  These editions will be presented in physical formats that have the same listing quality as the images themselves.  I will announce the new web site name and details in the near future.

Sun Up

We Do The Extra To Get The Image

This slide show captures the sun as it rises above the horizon.  Once the sun has cleanly cleared the distant land and water we turned our attention to the hills, valleys and trees that lay beneath us; bathed in the warm reddish glow of the first sun as it is refracted through the earth’s atmosphere.  That is just what this photographer is doing.  The sun is up and he is capturing the warm red glow on the tree covered slopes below us. It is not to difficult to get up for sunrise this time of the year as it is after 7 am EDT.  We scouted this vantage point the day before, using a compass to make sure the bearing toward the rising sun would not present obstructions. Making images like these does require a bit of dedication, a warm jacket, patents and either a good tripod or a firm surface to rest your camera on.  Many modern, point and shoot, cameras have a sunset/sunrise setting to help.  Hand holding for long exposures is not recommended.  You can see the photographer is using a tripod and he has a remote shutter release in his hand, which is not visible.  The images seen here are right out of the camera and no adjustments of any kind has as yet been made. These shots are As Found in the truest tradition of As I Found It.  When a few of them are selected for sale minor adjustments of contrast, saturation and perhaps sharpening can be expected.  Ideal Totem will not be getting any but will be getting a host of new textures and patterns as soon as I get back from the filed. In taking this sequence I made images about 30 seconds apart.  About 6 shots were cut out to reach the 25 shot number an arbitrary limit I set for the blog show.  We hope you enjoy them. In picking your place for sunrise and sunset images the foreground is almost as important as the background.  If the wrong things or something is blocking the image may not produce as desired or expected.  We spent the afternoon of the day before scouting locations for our sunrise shots.    It is a good ideal to know not only the sunrise or sunset times but also the azimuths to the objective. I use a hand held compass to check the sight lines.  Remember to account for the magnetic declination.  The times are easy to come by, most weather forecasts have this information.  The azimuths are another problem.   The information is on the web and often presented in tables.  Good but I like to visualize the situation, especially if I am planning days in advance or have never been to a location.   The Photographers Ephemeris is an app and program that displays the information in both tabular and visual on a Google map or satellite image.  This free utility is a valuable and useful.

This is one of those nostalgic images, you know the kind.  The way we were in 1967.  It is a Polaroid, state of the art for its day too.  I found it in my most reliable archive, a metal filing cabinet with  two drawers just designed for snapshots.  The designers had other ideas, I suspect file cards, then I have never been one to be concerned with what others had in mind.  It is what use I put things to that matters.  Same for you readers.  I have been taking pictures since a  boy of ten or eleven.  This essay is more about computers then photography but yet they are inexorably linked. I have been at this computing business for a very long time now.  My first experience was in 1964, in the bad old days of punchcards and Fortran II.  Punchcards for all their short comings had one advantage.  Short of physically destroying the card they never lost any data and if unreadable by the machine they usually had the info printed on them, so they could be easily recreated.  That said, I am not advocating a return any time soon; just pointing out that modernity has traded permanence and reliability for digital convenience.  We photographers have hard asset archives to maintain too.  The pros and cons of that are subjects for other essays.  As are true archiving techniques.  Today, instead of posterity we are talking about you and your short therm needs.

Over the years I have used:  hard copies, tape both magnetic and paper, floppy disks of various sizes, hard drives of different kinds and styles, DVD’s and CD’s, to protect my digital data.  Today we can rent mass storage space that will be distributed across several servers so the back up is backed up with radiancy and “Designed to provide 99.999999999% durability and 99.99% availability of objects over a given year.”

All of these mediums have short comings.  None are truly cheap over the long term.  For businesses however the mass storage idea makes lots of sense.  For example, tapes needed to be rewound from time to time, most magnetic media needs to be maintained i.e. copied to fresh media every so often and so on.   Hard drives are known to fail every once in a while.  I have had several “pack it in” during the past year, alone.  Newer systems and computers are hard put to read some of the older methods of file and data storage, this situation will only worsen over time too.

CD’s and DVD’s are good long term choices especially for images.  They should be inspected every couple of years and if any faults are found copied to new media.  That media is relatively low cost.  This works well until you start having inventories in the 100’s of gigabytes.  The average DVD is ± 4 gigabytes and the CD’s are ±750 megabytes. (I know multi layer DVD’s are more like 8 gb.)  It all depends on how large your images are but 5 or 6 megabytes is not uncommon.  Obviously if you can store 4 gigabytes on a DVD and if images are each 5 megabytes, then you can store about 800 on each DVD.

5 megabytes = 5 million bytes so a 4 gigabyte (4 billion bytes) media will hold about 800, 5 megabyte files.  Most people store their images in compressed form such as JPGS.  The standard compression is ± 50% so the 800 files becomes 1600 and if the files are smaller, more of course.

Let us assume the user has 1600 images on a DVD and he has, over time, collected 10 DVD’s worth, to back up his images.  If every image is titled with a meaningful title and each of the 10 DVD has been inventoried or indexed, all that data can be put into a spread sheet and then searched.  That takes time to organize and perhaps more computer skills then many of you want to learn.

If however, you start counting your images in the 100’s of gigabytes you can see the problem, that 10 DVD collection suddenly becomes 25.  In my case we are talking ±400 gigabytes or 100 DVD’s.  I am like most of you and do not title all my images.  As a matter of fact the only ones that get titled are the ones that are presented for sale or are otherwise displayed.  In addition, I will have several copies and versions of every one being presented for sale, those being experimented with or the “good idea that didn’t quiet work” ones.

To properly inventory such a massive collection, so an image can be easily located, is a daunting task.  I will offer some suggestions about how to deal with problems like this in future articles.  Right now let us focus on the digital media part of the equation.

Please do not relay on thumb drives or memory sticks for long term storage.  They are like the old floppy disks, they work well but they can and will fail, without notice.  Sometimes you can get the data back and others not, or getting it will cost you in both time and money.

If your collection is anything approaching manageable on optical media, then CD’s or DVD’s are your most cost effective and stable option.  I have several programs that are designed to inventory drives, CD’s and DVD’s.  These lists are easily placed into a spread sheet and as long as you have labeled the folders and images, locating a specific image or restoring all or part of your collection is quite straight forward.

It is a wise precaution to label all the CD’s and DVD’s with a permeant marker and have a printed copy of the inventory.  You can and should include a copy of the inventory(s) on its own CD that is replaced every time the list is updated or changed.

Largely depending on how much this archive means to you, it is a good ideal to make a copy of every CD or DVD labeled as back up 2 or something and stored off site.  Off site means off site, not in your attached garage.  When my inventory was much smaller I had a reciprocating deal with another amateur photographer who lived close by.

For those of you that are doing this photography stuff as an advanced amateur or professional, it is best to use one the image inventory systems that are available.  Picasa and iphoto come most quickly to mind.  I use iphoto all the time.  I do have others that are used for specific image sets or purposes.  I do not use Picasa anymore.  My bone with Picasa is the insistence of the program to automatically inventory every image on my hard drive  and to collect every face into a special folder.  Since I also have many images relating to my geoscience consulting activities I need to keep stuff separated into science/personal/professional photographer groupings.  I have no time, for this mixing stuff by someone else’s criteria, foolishness and one can not turn that feature off.  Free and comes at what price?

Since this is a blog essay and not a technical publication I can editorialize a bit.  I have a real problem with software that tries to do my thinking for me.  That is simply not possible.  Few other humans can even approach that task.  There is simply no practical way some computer program is even remotely capable of it.  I simply find the tendency to try and treat my over active mind as being anything like the average, what ever that is, annoying.  I understand why it is done.  I do not understand why I am not given an upfront simple way to turn that stuff off.  I photo for example will also find faces in your images for you but you must want that and allow it.  It is the difference between active and passive decision making.   If you are going to be a photographer at any level then your decisions must be active.  Taking that picture is just that, an active decision.  Everything that happens to that image from that point on needs to be active too.  Simply deciding to keep it or discard it or even looking at it is active.  Does that make me a control freak?  No but it does say when it comes to my hobby or art I want full control of both the process and the copyright.

Iphoto works well and has even more powerful editing tools.  I do not use the editing tools from these programs with the images I offer for sale.  I sometimes use them for most of my blog, Photobucket and Flicker image posts.

Picasa, Flicker, Photobucket and other such services are fine places to share your images.  They are not a substitute for a proper long term archive for your treasured images.  Photobucket will now take very large or original size images, the others only hold images of some maximum size.  I don’t know what those sizes are.  When I use these social media sites I keep my image sizes to under 1000 kb.  Photobucket’s approach helps but is not a true solution.  I always do two things as soon as I get back to my office.  First and foremost I import all the images from my cameras at the highest possible resolution to my dedicated Photo hard drive.  It is easy to down size it is hard as hell to upsize.  Take or make and store your images at the highest possible resolution.

One advantage for me and I realize not for everyone else, is my visual memory.  If I can get my images grouped into approximate times or palaces and can see a thumbnail, hold a negative or slide to the light or what ever,  I can quickly find the image I want or was looking for.  This visual component is one of the things that the recent computer based inventory systems offer.  It is the primary reason I use them.

The dedicated photographic drive on my desktop is named just that, Photo.  For my laptop, I use an external called Photo 2 and on my network I have Photo Backup (an independent drive) for backing up both of them.  These are out of the camera unedited or as is, images and all other images as well.  In addition, on another independent drive a have a monthly backup of any changed files/folders of Photo.

I automatically archive the “camera out”, original or master images, even the out of focus ones.  Rule number 1, never touch your original image.  The only thing that ever happens to these master files is copying from them.  It is a good idea to make them read only files.   If you think about it that is philosophically what we have always done with slides and negatives.  We make copies of them.  Sure we would project the slides themselves and handle the negatives.  Sometimes that showing and handling added flaws and scratches to them too.  Therefore about rule number 1, just follow it.

Always work with a copy and don’t be afraid to copy the copy as many times as you want.  Play with them, experiment.  Try different things.  Remember digits are cheap, it is the cost of getting them that can be high.  Don’t like a result, use the delete key.  But never, never, never, play with the original.  Your archive then contains both the original and any number of copies that you have played with.

I mentioned above that I back up my drive Photo twice, that seems like overkill right?  Wrong!  About 10 days ago Photo stopped giving me access to my data.  In tech speak the boot directory got scrambled.  The drive simply said no data and all free space.  We are talking 4.8 gb of so call free space on a 1Tb drive.  I was pissed to say the least.  I ran my fix it software and I reported no problems to fix.  Okay, I got out the data recovery software and recovered everything one bit at a time for about ±23 hours writing to a 2 tb secondary back up drive.  I then reformatted the drive, wrote zeros to the so called “Free Space” another 13 hours, and restored everything from the copy I have made only a short time before, so nothing was lost.  That only took about 6 hours.  I did loose 2 days of productivity fooling around doing all this stuff.

We all have images we treasure.  Some of them are treasured for the art, most are treasured for the memories they evoke every time we look at them.   The bottom line is the art can be replaced by some other, the memories can never be fully recreated without the stimulus and associations evoked by an image.  As I Found It and Ideal Totem are great sources of those art or interest images.  Your own camera is the best source of treasured memories.

by:  Dennis and Zoe Nikols

Picture Frames are generally composed of: Solid Wood, Synthetic Wood, Metal, Plastic or Canvas.  Other materials are possible and even probable, if it is possible someone will have done it.  These are the most common, so the ones we will talk about.Wikipedia defines a Picture Frame as:  “A decorative edging for a picture, such as a painting or photograph, intended to enhance it, make it easier to display, or protect it.”

We define it in a similar way but feel more emphasis needs to be put on the “protect it” part.  Not all edges or frames are decorative either.  In fact, many are designed and chosen to be as neutral as possible.  These images are hanging on Dennis’ kitchen wall.  Notice the frames.  Had to look didn’t you?  Sure they protect and are easy to keep clean, but they hardly enhance.  They were chosen exactly because they do not, in any way, draw attention away from the image itself.  We guess that too is a form of enhancement but when most of us think of enhancement we think more along the lines of the top image.  Here the frame protects and facilitates hanging but it also works with the mat to bring out the colors and textures of the sunflower.  

Speaking of protection, it is a good idea to protect your art from the direct and intense sun.  UV filtering glass is one good way.  It may cost more but what is the art it is protecting worth?  A photograph of a love one that you do not have the negative or digits for is way more valuable then the printing costs.  Save yourself the “could-of, should-of, would-of,” guilt trip.

It was not all that long ago, and to some extent, still is the fashion in the world of visual

art for the frame itself to be a work of art.  
This is a copy of an antique ornate picture frame.  The original was hand carved and it is, itself a work of art.  We have seen frames that make this one look plain and ordinary.  The bulk of the fames in this style are found housing paintings, sometimes prints and only occasionally photographs.  We have seen antique frames made from other materials then wood and metal.

Frames then, come in very wide variety of styles and a broad selection of materiel.  Sometimes materials such as wood and metal or plastic, metal and wood all coexist in the same frame.  The wider the selection the more difficult the choice can be.

What is it you need to know about selecting frames for your photographic art?  The same principles also apply to other art forms.

The most important components include: texture, luster, style, color, material, size, strength, shape and for large pieces weight.  The  TSLC (not a reference to Base 25 in China) are discussed below.

Texture:  All materials have a texture.  Texture as applied to materials can be smooth, mottled, rough, course, fine, high or low relief (the one above is high relief) raised, and so on.   The texture of the frame can be used to contrast or compliment the textures in the image or in the room where the image is to hang.  For example, the metallic smoothness of the sunflower’s frame contests with the gentle mottling of the flower.  The chrome finish on the narrow metal frames of the sepia tone and black and white shots, in the next image, also contrast but instead of creating a tension between the yellow of the flower and the gold of the metal the thin chrome band defines or forms a window into which the viewers attention is being drawn.

Use texture as another tool that works with color, size, lustre and other properties to achieve your desired results.

Lustre:  Here are some of Lustre’s synonyms:  sheen, gloss, shine, glow, gleam, shimmer, burnish, polish, patina, brilliance, brightness, radiance, sparkle, dazzle, flash, glitter, glint, gleam, luminosity, luminescence. It’s antonym is dullness.  Lustre was mentioned with texture a few lines above.  Lustre works with color and texture to strongly enhance the contrast or complement to the content and presentation of the image.  Photographs and other art are often presented with a texture/lustre combination, a result of the material selection of the artist.  High gloss, semi gloss, and mat are three common photographic paper lustre terms.  They are also terms that imply a finish or surface texture.  It is really the lustre that is being described. Other artistic mediums have material related texture influenced lustres.  The warp and woof of the canvas, the paper of the water-colour and thickness of oil or acrylic and the appellation of a top coat all influence the lustre of the image.

Use lustre as another tool that works with color, size, texture and other properties to achieve your desired results.

Style:  Style is one of those variable elements that is influenced by the time and place of origin.  Style is more or less an agreed on type of art, specific to a period of time.  A prime example of this is the Art Deco phase, or the predominant decorative art style of the 1920s and 1930s, characterized by precise and boldly delineated geometric shapes and strong colors.  More recently, the primary focus of modern art exists as de-constructions of previous styles of art challenging our perceptions of what we think we know to be true.  In many ways, even the simplest of landscapes can challenge normative values and evoke emotion beyond itself.  When framing style specific art, it may be preferable to use age related materials to imply an authenticity to the replication or to deliberately frame it “out of context” for added enhancement of meaning.

Color:  Color can be a strong compliment or contrast, between the image and the mats.  Mats have or can have color too.  The sunflower image has a gold frame and that gold strongly compliments the yellow of the sunflower.  In the second image the chrome is neutral in that it does not strongly assist or contrast.  The sunflower image has a dark brown relatively narrow mat between the brilliance of the frame and brightness of the flower.  The tone is contrasting but the colors are complementary.  This combination takes maximum advantage of color usage to achieve the desired effect of “making the flower pop.”  Conventional wisdom says the mat color should be used to draw or bring out colors in the image.  There are few if any browns in the sunflower but the use of a “warm”, rich, dark color enhances the yellow flower’s gradient.

We often see image art pre-framed and ready to hang, offered for sale in the strangest places.  Much of this art is very well done.  It is off the shelf in a modern and affordable style.  Often the images are well known and even famous.  They are simply not unique or limited.  Sometimes limited has some very big production numbers attached to it to.  One common presentation style is called gallery wrap.  We are not discussing gallery wrap or frameless images with a black border, another form of gallery wrap, in this essay.  We make them and we sell them too.  What we don’t make or sell are images so common that thousands of other households in North America or anyplace else, have exactly the same artistic pieces on their walls.   Both As I Found It and Ideal Totem will gladly give you a quotation for a truly limited edition image on canvas.   Canvas prints can be displayed framed or unframed.  Canvas prints are special orders at AIFI and IT.   Just use the email contact form or fax us at 888-786-0666 (403-281-5622).  These limited editions are set at 25 and will be signed and numbered by the photographer.  A certificate of authenticity will also be provided.

We have also noticed that much of this popular art comes with some kind of frame and sometimes white mats and sometimes no mats.  There is nothing wrong with black frames and white mats.  The question, is black the best contrast/complement for the image being considered, that is being placed in the context of my living or office space?  We can not answer that and no one else can either.  Only you are qualified to make that judgement.  After all, you live in your space not me or any other would be expert/advisor.

You are welcome to browse through the galleries at Ideal Totem and As I Found It.  There you will find unique images and views of often rather mundane subjects.  To our thinking the juxtaposition of the familiar and the unique often results in the most appealing art.

Macro Prairie Smoke

A little macro photography and more Botany then some want to know.

Sometimes getting in close is a must. The flower Prairie Smoke, Pink Plums (Seeds), Geum triflorum is just such a plant. “…The petals are cream-colorer, but are almost hidden by the five branctlets of deep pink. These flowers open only enough to admit insects, especially bees…” These flowers are nice but very small (±25 mm in width and ±75 mm in length) That means a 5 to 10 X magnification is desirable. This can easily be achieved by using extension tubes, bellows extensions or a magnifying macro lens. Some of you many not know what bellows or tube extensions are, keep reading for an explanation.

The top image illustrates the morphology of the plant. To my eye the long harry tendrils, which form the seeds are the most interesting part of the plant. The furry heads, most often seen in groups of three, nod in unison in the gently prairie breezes that are almost aways blowing.

Prairie Smoke’s range is: “Found across the prairies and into the lower foot-hills, especially in areas with lime soil, the range of this plant is from British Columbia to southern Ontario and south to California, Nebraska and Illinois.” These images were made in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains of Alberta. The two common names are highly descriptive. “…after blooming, the stems lengthen and the petals fall, allowing the pink plums to develop; as the seeds ripen, the color fades and the seed heads turn gray, creating the illusion of smoke with every breeze, as the seeds are carried away by the wind, the plump plums become thin, like a Old Man’s Whiskers, another common name for this plant. It is also called Three-flowered Avens.”

The second image was made using my favorite 28 to 80 Canon zoom. This is more or less just focused very close having zoomed the lens to 80 mm. If we wanted to get very close, say looking into the flower or right down to a few of the hairs on the tendrels we would need a special lens or a bellows/tubes. My bellows and tubes are old technology. I do not even know if electronic versions are even available. The next two images show what tubes and bellows look like.

The bellows are a continuous focus arrangement while the tubes are used separately or in combinations. In the example I use a 50 mm lens. These lenses were the standard for 35 mm photography. Most range finder cameras came with them and most 35mm bodies also. One would also have a telephoto say a 135, 200 or 300 mm and a wide angle such as 28 or 35 mm. One can use a 135 or 200 mm lens with the tubes too. The advantage of the longer focal lengths is they push the lens and back away from the subject. In my case I am not on my hands and knees as much. Just remember if you are going to go with old way you will give up all your automatic features. Also don’t forget you need a remote shutter release. On my camera it plugs in behind the little door on the side.

Many of the macro images at As I Found It and Ideal Totem were made using these techniques.

NB: The quotes are all from: Canadian Wildflowers Through the Seasons by Ferguson and Saunders, IBSN: 1-55013-670-4

Retouching Old Images

Get a PDF with all 11 images:  Retouching Old Images.   Before we start I need to make one thing clear.  Retouching is not subject alteration. Somehow the brand name Photoshop has been turned into a verb photoshopped. This gives Adobe a huge advertising advantage.  They do make a fine product.  That new verb means, as near as I can figure, to grossly or substantially alter an images content or subject.  In today’s speak or think, it is assumed electronically.  However the practice is very old and can be done in a real darkroom too.  I should add, nowhere nearly as easily or quickly as on a computer.  Retouching is a very old photographic practice of fixing such things as scratches, dust spots, red eye and sometimes blemishes on a portrait subject’s face.  This early retouching was often, not always, done on the print.  Advertising Industry images have, are and probably always were and will be, highly altered or photoshopped.  We all know this and simply assume it is the case.  I have often marveled at the skill of the photographers and artists in producing the results they do.

In the world of journalism altering the image content is considered very bad form.  In the world of art it is normal practice.  In my view the two worlds should be separated.  The problem is often once the images are out of the photographers hands he depends on the Good Will of others.   That is your philosophical lecture for the day.  Sorry about it but sometimes this writer just needs to vent.  One more difficulty, at what point do we cross the line between retouching and art?  I think in the example offered here, my retouching has now become illustration or art.  Many other artistic presentation forms suggest themselves.  If you click on this hot link you can down load the pdf version of this essay you will get 7 more image variations of this art.

I took this shot in the early 1970’s I think about 1973 or 1974.  I could check for sure but it is simply not important.  I came across an old 8 X 10 print in my files and scanned it.  The scan was good, the old print was not.  I remember most of the details, except the exact place.   The last image (below) shows this unit in Sydney Nova Scotia in 1976. I assume it was someplace near there when I photographed it.  I was going down the road, with wife and children when I saw this locomotive charging across the open field not that far from the highway.  I only had time to take one or two shots and did what I could at the time.  My old Mamiya 35 is not automatic and I only had a 50 mm lens in those days.  (By the way I still have that camera and it works too but is now retired. The 50 mm lens is used with extension tubes or bellows for some of my digital macro work. A great lens like that one, can always find work.)

The film would have been Kodak Plus X, developed in D 76 and printed on F3 Kodobromide paper.  The original print had not been framed or well cared for and it showed some flaws and damage.  Judging from the grain in the image it had been enlarged at least two times.  I had a few extra moments so I scanned the 8 X 10 at 1600 dpi and see what could be made of it.   It is not like me to play with a master image but in this case I did.  The sky is anything but acceptable and as you can see, my quick fixes (retouches) just made things worst.  Scanning at such a density only magnifies any flaws like dust spots.  I went for wholesale sky replacement, that is the top image.  It does the trick but only just.  I sacrificed the wonderful black mist.  This is fine for my personal collection of working steam but no contest winner and not something that would ever make it to As I Found It or anybodies wall.

To do this I used a professional level image editor, a Photoshop competitor.  Working at the pixel level, I chose a mid range gray and simply replace the pixels in all but the steam and smoke’s plume.  It is often simplest to erase areas and sub or paint in the chosen color.  Retouching at this scale is a long process.  Fixing the “red eye” or covering up a dust spot is straight forward and often quite simple.  On this scale we are talking hours.

I suppose if one took enough time and scanned the image at a lower resolution, a more acceptable result could have been made.  The original image is not outstanding in the first place.  The sun’s angel placed the head end in almost complete shadow and so on.  It is hard to be critical of your own work but you simply must be honest with yourself and others.  The top image is now good enough for its purpose. By homogenizing the sky into a uniform tone range two things happen.  First the contrast is enhanced and second viewer attention is forced to the midsection of the unit and its mechanical details.  An atmosphere of drama has been added as the locomotive looks to be working very hard.  This reformed image now also offers a host of artistic opportunities.  Look in the pdf version here: Retouching Old Images.

Now the back story:  I printed up this and other images from those trips and shared the ones of the children with grandparents and others.  I even framed up and gave away a number that were well done.  This one did not make it languishing in a box with other photos since.  One close look at the conformation of the locomotive and you recognize not North American, probably British.  What it was doing in Nova Scotia I had no Idea.  So I did what all modern inquiring minds do, I used Google and found this reference on the second page.

Southern_Railways_4-4-0_Schools_Class 5P__No_30926_at_Grosmount_Station.jpg.

They kindly provided these wonderful images.  As you can see, the unit has been repainted. The text says: “A Southern Railway’s steam locomotive 4-4-0 Schools Class 5P No.30926 “Repton” is seen standing on platform 2 at Grosmont station which is based on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. This steam engine was built in 1934 at Eastleigh and then it was withdrawn in December 1962. This steam engine attained 1,126,976 miles during service and then it was shipped to the U.S.A. in April 1967. This steam engine also returned back to England in April 1989 and then it was restored at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway between 1989 and 1990. The owner of this steam locomotive was Clifford H. Brown who lived in Alexandria, Virginia U.S.A.. Sunday the 5th of October 2008”

The same article also had this shot which I failed to recognize on my first overview of the The Railfaneurope.net Picture Gallery
Directory: /pix/gb/steam/SR/V_Schools

Notice that in the Canadian images 926 has a headlight and in the British images it and its sister locomotives have no headlight.

At As I Found It and Ideal Totem we strive to bring you interesting and unique images that fill your special needs.  Here in the blog or as Image Wrangler features we often talk less about why you should purchase our wonderful images and more about what images mean to you the viewer and me the photographer/artist.  They are not always the same and should not necessarily be the same.

One does not always need fancy special equipment, special skills or advanced knowledge, to spot a great image. Often you can capture that great image with your ordinary off the shelf camera.  You do need a camera that has the capabilities of doing the job and no, your cell phone probably can’t do this.

Getting down to the macro scale with today’s digital cameras is relatively easy.  Often the macro setting are built into the camera’s operating system or the modern lenses have very close focusing capabilities.

The top shot is the starting close focal image.  I was using a Canon 28 to 80 zoom lens.  In the bad old days I would have used a #1 extension tube with my 135 mm lens, a bellows extension with a 50 mm lens or possibly a diopter, to achieve the same result.

The technical specks are:

Aperture                                                      : 5.6 (f 5.6)
Image Size                                                  : 3456×2304
Scale Factor To 35 mm Equivalent                : 1.6
Shutter Speed                                            : 1/400 sec.
Circle Of Confusion                                      : 0.019 mm
Field Of View                                             : 15.8 deg
Focal Length                                              : 80.0 mm (35 mm equivalent: 129.8 mm)
Hyperfocal Distance                                    : 61.70 m
Light Value                                                : 11.6
ISO                                                              : 400

The second image is a crop of the first.  It is the water drop in the center of the flower that attracted my attention.  Because both of these images are in as close or tight as they are, few clues remain for scale.  These yellow crocus cultivars are quite small, only about 1/2 the size of the wild or domestic blue variety.  It was my hope that the water drops would work to magnify the pestles and stamens.  That is exactly what happened too.  Isn’t physics wonderful?

The image below was made a day or so before the rain and the image above.  It is not as close and has some context.  By the way, if you don’t like getting down on your hands and knees then perhaps this close up, in natural settings stuff, is not really for you.  That is why us stock photographers exist.  You are free to purchase lots of close up stock for your needs or desires.  As I Found It and Ideal Totem offer an interesting and wide range of close ups.

Ultimately, both the famous and the anonymous photographers offer something worth learning.  Wikipedia publishes a list of famous photographers.  I never pass up a visit to any museum of art or any collection of high quality images.  I would like to think I have developed one of those individual, instantly recognizable styles. I find it rather impossible to look seriously at any photograph and not learn something about image making and presentation.

The galleries at As I Found It and Ideal Totem are stuffed with just this kind of creative view of the world.  For example images are often reproduced in a variety of monochromatic and color variations.

My personal philosophy is quite simple.  I try to present my subject in the best possible way, given the prevailing conditions.  This is however, highly subjective and purpose dependent, resulting in the occasional failure or lack luster outcome.  See As I Found It’s and Ideal Totem’s About Us pages for more detail.   Many other blog essays also deal with this general subject.  look back over the past year or so for a wide variety.  It may seem simple but when examined it is anything but.

When lack luster images happen one of three thing seems to have influenced the objective: the light conditions were poor, or I lost a crisp focus on the subject and/or purpose, or I lacked the skills and necessary equipment to deliver the vision I set forth to create.  The reality is I am good at what I do and when compared to others I possess a unique view of the world, but is it instantly recognizable?  Why, not at all.

You can do what I have done, continue to hone your individual skills and express your unique vision.

Dennis’ tips for allowing your unique vision to escape (in no specific order):

1. Subject Focus:  You could select a few subjects that you feel passionate about.  If you have knowledge of the subject it is often easier to see past the superficial and bring out the deeper meaning and emotions.  Not all subjects carry deep emotions or have any truly deeper meaning, but  that does not mean they lack the challenge of making the mundane interesting.   It is what gives you satisfaction and intellectual pleasure that counts most.

2. Style:  Style comes down to how you express your vision.  It is some combination of methodology, technique and technology.  This is a function of:  the technology chosen, post exposure processing, your over all approach, the subject and conditions.  It is making choices and maximizing the results.

3.  Learning:  Be open to learning from others as well as from your own experiences.  I never discard a poor image without first examining it closely to see why it failed.  I suspect that I am like most of you and only like about 10 % of the total images I generate.  Sometimes I don’t like any of them because they simply fail to properly represent the subject.  If possible, go back and try again, applying your knowledge of what went wrong until you have captured the essence of your initial vision.  Keep in mind the original purpose of making the images.  It is nice to take pictures of your child’s birthday party and if some qualify as high art, all the better.  If the purpose is to record the event for relatives, future nostalgia trips or to embarrass the child later in adulthood then high art is simply not necessary.

4. Rules:  Rules in photography are not so much absolutes as they are guidelines.  Lets face it, if we did not set them aside from time to time, originality would be lost.  On average, the “rule of thirds” applies aptly, but when it comes to presenting a certain subject the best possible way, at a given moment in time, then maybe not.  Simply put, experiment, try it all!   Today multi-media is so inexpensive that all other costs are greater.  It is more expensive to travel even a short distance than to fill your reusable flash card.  Unlike the days of chemicals, film and paper that made us careful and aware of the cost of each frame, today’s digital photos are, in and of themselves, freebies and 100% recyclable.

5. Critic: You are your own worst critic, as every artist is.  It is critical to be honest with yourself and with others.  We all know this, but more often than not, we are more honest with others and less honest with ourselves.  The best way is to look at all our images critically, but not despairingly.  Apply a critical eye to which images work and do not work and evaluate honestly why that is so.  A great image of someone or something you detest is still a great picture.  Understand why.  You are not forced to show it to anyone else.  If you find anything that is not quite right understand that too.  It is back to the learning thing, isn’t it?

6.  Inspiration:  We all need it.  Some of us thrive on it.  Some of us inspire others.  All of us are inspired by someone or something.  It is that inspiration that turns the ordinary into the extraordinary.  Let it work for you.  I carry a pocket camera with me almost all the time because sometimes I find a unique moment and point and shoot.  They are not all great.  Most are just ordinary, but every once in a while I get inspired to go back with my SLR and do it right.  We all need to be open to the idea that inspiration occurs when and where we find it or when and where it finds us.

Once, my wife and I were touring a 15th century cathedral and I was inspired to photograph the vaulted ceiling.  I laid on the floor and did just that, much to her embarrassment I must add, but the results were outstanding.  That is the lead image above.  That image is outstanding because it did exactly what I wanted it to do while meeting the normal photographic standards.  It is un-cropped, essentially right out of the cameras.  One could very easily crop the left side to make it more centered and balanced.  One could leave it as it is.  That is where the personal vision comes into play.  That is how you free yourself to be you, expressing that unique vision.  Are there other things one could do?  Of course, dozens.  None are necessary better then any other, none are inherently more or less creative, all are different.

7.  Practice:  Don’t always wait for moments to find you, sometimes you need to go exploring with an active eye.  Keep a lookout for anything new, different, and hopefully, exciting.  If I have learned anything living in Alberta, it is the prairies and mountains are never the same.  You can travel the same path 100 times and easily get 500 different images!  Practicing is just as important in photography as it is in music or any other endeavor.  I am convinced that I have trained my eye to see what the lens sees.  I know, from experience, that I can size up and compose an image two to three times faster than most.  By the time I get the lens cap off, I know what I am going to shoot, at what focal length and from what position.  I would like to think this is raw talent; the truth is 50 years of practice.

8.  Self Expression:  Why do we take pictures or make images?  For me, it is my form of artistic expression.  For others they sing or play an instrument, draw, sketch or paint, while others act or write. For me, photography is my most important self expressive activity.  If you choose photography as your expressive medium, you are also choosing to share your unique vision of the world, with that world.  Few if any of us are photographers unless we intend to share our art, our vision with others.

Having looked at this cathedral’s valeted ceiling above and in essay one and here, I thought a couple of other shots might suggest the richness of possibilities of simply looking up.  They are below.  You can find more images not unlike these at As I Found It.

Lastly, it is chance, pure and simple that often has the greatest influence on our work.  It is what we make of those chances that ultimately defines our individual vision of the world and culminates in the expression of our unique style.  Most forms of self expression are directed outward from ourselves towards others.

Some would say photography is not just self expression, it expresses or even defines who we are.  I think I am still trying to define myself and so for me, photography expresses what and who I am at any randomly given point in time, although I am not sure that it ever captures any real totality of my existence.  I have often said, “Some day I will grow up.  When I do, I’ll let you know.”  I strongly suspect my epitaph will read something like this:  “He always said he would let us know when he grew up.  He finally did.”

These images show:

Vaulted Ceiling in the Grote Kerk or St. Bavokerk Haarlem, Netherlands

Vaulted Ceiling in the Grote Kerk or St. Bavokerk in Haarlem, Netherlands

This essay and its next few companions are based on a much longer technical article that will be published at As I Found It later this month.  As always feel free to join the discussion.  I know, I write so well no one has anything to add.  Yep, and if you believe that...

In the artistic community much is said about style and how that style is, more often than not, linked to some innate talent.  The style side is mostly true.  Each artist, irrespective of their specific discipline, brings their own voice and vision to their chosen art.  That which is internal to the intellect of the artist, is unique and independent of external training.  It is also smart marketing to have a distinctive or easily recognizable.  The innate talent part is way more complicated.

It would be convenient for us to instantly associate a photographer’s work as that of their own signature style.  Were it only this easy, but alas, it is not so transparent. Theoretically, most well known artists have an inherent recognizability; for example, in a room full of impressionistic paintings one instantly knows which images are van Goghs'.  Yes, but not always.  

The question is, are van Gogh’s paintings all so unique they will always be instantly recognized or is it that we have been so widely exposed to them that most his work has been seen by us before?  My experience would suggest the latter.  Before anyone starts upbraiding me, give this just a bit of thought and perhaps a personal visit to the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.  (Perhaps this hot link will do, it’s way cheaper.) 

Think of Pablo Picasso, his work is instantly recognizable right?  Well, maybe not... that is only true through prior exposure to his paintings.  If my art history courses are remembered correctly, his work is usually divided into 7 sections or time periods.  The first three are very different from that of the later sections.  If you see representative examples of all seven periods together, one quickly recognizes distinctive transitions and minor elements that are thematically carried through from one phase to the next.  If you did not know, or had never seen a selection of his work from all these periods, you would be hard pressed to identify them succinctly.  

The point is that Picasso and van Gogh both developed unique and distinctive styles over the course of time.  To that end, the photographer is no different, perhaps just a little subtler.  I think a lot subtler.  We photographers depend on the interplay of color, light and shadow.  If we stray to far from those basic components we move away from photography and move into the world of graphic art.  This blog is focused on photography, the other arts are being given short-shift here. 

The image above is not some work of the abstract.  It is as labeled the ceiling of a very large Dutch church.  Think or a moment if you have never been in this church and the image was not captioned would you know what it is?  I would think you could easily say the vaulted ceiling of some large building.   Now look at the image below.  Once the context has been changed, not so easy.   Some photographers consider context as king.  That is a part of their style.   Others have a different view as the cropped version suggests.  

So context or its lack can be a stylistic tool.  So can vivic colors, monochromes or the pastel pallet.  High or low contrast, bright to dark, sharp focus or soft, freezing action or allowing it to blur are all elements of style.
 

You can find many other images of textures and patterns, not unlike this one at Ideal Totem, specifically in the Buildings Gallery.  As I Found It's Textures and Patterns Gallery has some too.

Longer slightly more technical articles on may of the subjects covered here in the blog essays can be found in As I Fond It's Technical Library.  These are high quality downloadable pdf files that allow us to use high resolution images as illustrations.  Often the same images that appear in the blog but of significantly greater quality.

Digital Photographs for Your Website

Creating a professional website is very important to any company.  The images presented on your landing page are critical in drawing the visitor in.  Let’s examine the role of Stock Images in Website design.


This bridge is the recently commissioned Calatrava designed, pedestrian bridge over the Bow River, here in Calgary.  The bridge connects the downtown with residential and commercial neighbourhoods.  This image is by H. R. Spaven a regular image contributor to As I Found It’s galleries.

Creating a professional website is very important to any company. The main thing that matters is the number of subscribers or traffic you get to your website. Before creating and designing any website, you should consider visiting stock pictures sites, which can help your project become more vibrant. We would like to think As I Found It and Ideal Totem are just such places.  Creating a custom design is a crucial element in attracting visitors to your website. Therefore, the correct blend of elements is significant in achieving your goal and making your website a success.

For this essay I will invent a mythical company whose name is “Bridges To Success” Let’s say this company is a head hunter or personnel placement enterprise here in Calgary.  The image I selected, the one above, is the first thing you see arriving on the landing page of my new “mythoprise.”  My advice would not necessarily be to use a winter image for this. That is much more appropriate for Edmonton.  Images in all seasons are readily available at stock services like ours.

Stock images are professional photos of common places, nature, events, landmarks, and so on that can be used for commercial design and are for sell on a royalty basis.  We would like to think at As I Found It and Ideal Totem the bulk of the subjects may be standard the images within are unique.

Some conditions of use could exist that can prevent you from reusing the images or publishing them in magazines. Terms of service are usually different from one stock photography distributor to another.  We at AIFI and Ideal Totem offer special licenses for special things, however all of our images are royalty free in print or electronic advertising applications.  In return a small photo credit and/or copyright note is always appreciated and the right thing to do.

Stock pictures sites offer you a variety of digital photographs and services. The quality and price vary considerably, but if you look hard enough, you will find the right pictures for your website.  Many of the stock databases offer thousands of images in any angle that you can think of.  With stock images, you have the option to choose from ones that blend perfectly in the design of your website.  Other essays here at the AIFI Blog cover ideas and methods for making thing blend too.

So how do you find a stock picture that is right for you?  First of all, you should always consider colors and how they will mix together on your website. Keep in mind that soft warm colors represent a calm setting.  You might consider finding several photos of the same theme.  Just make sure the images blend well together, giving you a montage setting.  Look for images that balance one another or feature neutral colors.

If you can’t find the right image for your project, you can check for more images from the same photographers. Usually, they have many more pictures from different angles and colors.  By doing this, you can open a whole new window of photos that you might have overlooked.

Before purchasing any photo, you should check and see if it matches and fits the header of your website. After you have evaluated the photos, you should use the sample editions to see how they match on your website. These samples are good enough to use for this purpose, but they have a sign on them. You should then buy the photo if you are completely satisfied with how it looks on your pages.

Finding the right header image is like finding the right logo.  Not always as easy as it sounds.  Headers for websites and blogs are often wide and short that is not very tall and quite broad.  The simplest way of doing this is selecting base or starting images that have whet you want and are wide enough to do the job.  Next find images in that wide enough subset that have your vertical component at about the right height.  Select the base image size to be about the width of your digital page a 17”wide screen.  

Next crop the image to fit into your header space.  That is exactly how I choose and made the header for is Blog page.
 
Stock photography is a very inexpensive (some say cheap) method for designing and obtaining professional images and photos without the expenses of hiring a professional photographer.  Stock photos refer to images obtained under this method and may include photos, clip art, vectors, computer generated graphics and other form of imagery.  You can choose from a variety of photographs from different sizes, colors, angles and that were taken from all over the world.

Stock images at As I Found It and Ideal Totem are sold on a one off, no subscription or monthly fees, clubs to join or anything else.  Just straight up retail sales and of course lots of good free advice here in the Blog, at the Image Wrangler or on the Articles page.

MVOAT means More Variations On A Theme. These patterns are well represented at Ideal Totem, our new sister site dedicated to Textures and Patterns.   I started with this pattern, called Ice Pattern_1 shown here in its original form and color.  If you look back at MVOAT—1 will notice this pattern.  That is where it came from.   These kinds of things are everywhere, it is only that we need to open our mental eyes to notice them.  I remember at the time thinking, those a neat patterns I wonder what I could do with them.  I snapped a few shots of the pattern while taking the other pictures of the Ice Palace.

Once back in my digital darkroom I did a few of the usual variations, black and white, sepia, color negative and so on.  To keep this blog at a reasonable size I have built in links to my Picasa and Flicker albums on the same topic.  So far I have 35 different images of Ice Pattern_1 all now for sale at Ideal Totem.

Why would you do something like this, one might ask?  Why not, I answer.  I find the this image in this color range pleasant and pleasing.  Others may not.  Others may see some useful propose for all or part of these images.  The pattern subset in the lower right, is shown below.  Depending on one’s taste, I can see this repeated or, tiled as a background to a blog or home page.  An alternative is to divide the image in four and then using some, perhaps all five, or more parts, as equal sized tiles, build a very interesting background for a home page. This is one of those things where your inner creativity needs to be given its freedom.

Why would you do something like this, one might ask?  Why not I answer.  I find the this image in this color range pleasant and pleasing.  Others may not.  Others may find different colors are more pleasing or fit their purpose better.  I will talk about color variations of these patterns in the next blog.  You can see quite a few by hitting the Picasa link above.

Another kind of variation is intensity.  Here is the centre of the original image this time substantially lightened up. 
Okay, so let your imagination run free.  Creativity is just that being creative, that is, taking that which we find and making something new from it.  For those who know me well, this is old hat, I have been doing it since forever.  Any of the texture images at Ideal Totem can be further cropped or subdivided.  It is best to do with the 900 kilobyte sized files.  At $6.00 each a real bargain when you can get four easily tiled subdivisions.

All to often we forget about cropping our images.  I think we would all do ourselves a favour if we did more of it.   Now that we are firmly in the age of digital images we can loosen up on some of the constraints forced upon us in the days of film and paper.   Now don’t get the wrong impression I am a child of that time and my film and paper experience is over 40 years while my digital experience is only 10.  That is a 3:1 ratio.   Pre-made frames and pre-cut mats if used, form constraints.  We always lived with them.  I was very lucky I learned to cut my own mats early on.  That meant I was not totally at the mercy of pre-cut stuff or the custom framers.  All that means is could do what my eye and creative muse said. 

I am very fortunate, my daughter Zoe is a highly skilled professional framer and mat cutter.  She indulges me perhaps more then others might. More often then not my images are just fine at some standard aspect ratio and presented in some standard size.  Not always though.  This shot of the Big Horne sheep is one of those times.  I have photographed this herd several times over the years.  It lives near the hamlet of Eckshaw, just east of Banff National Park.  If one gets off the Trans Canada highway and takes a side road, you must slow down but you often get to see these majestic creatures and they are more then willing to pose for you too.   The might is flat but the subject makes up for that.

All that aside the top image was cropped to produce the second one.   I could have done this differently of course.  I judged that isolating the ram from the others produced a better narrative.   I judged the rocks and snow were of much less interest the viewer then his face and his lunch, the texture of his fir more so then the dry grasses.   I just cropped where I wanted knowing full well this image will probably never be printed but it will be viewed electronically thousands of times.   In effect this is a portrait of the ram.
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