Tag Archives: abstract

ABSTRACT, ART, HDR Photography, nature, photography

Elfin Forrest: In Curiosity

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For the post I am going to break it up a bit.  After spending some more time at The Elfin Forrest Reserve in Escondido I Went back to embracing the painterly thoughts ( Thank you Art Wolf).  Any way I did some work with HDR Images and truly one of the first times I feel good about them, Using a combination of Lr and Nik the images came out well.

I also post edited them a little farther, being in the area nothing feels quite real there to me.  Elfin foreest is almost to quite and every thing is a touch… well off.  Almost as if the whole area is a fantasy or a dream.

Elfin forrest is a great place for hiking and walking and I always enjoy my trips there and really should make the short trek more often.  I think My favorite of this set is probably the dark Oak tree, all though the roots are nice too.

For the Second set of images i decided to embrace the lens zoom techniques some photographers use to create representation images.  I Shot several of these more than I normally wood trying to create a painterly type image.  Also I use a long exposure and a pin hole body cap on the Image of the stream and rocks to create a similar feel.

The lens zoom images all though I like the idea of the technique i usually find my images lacking, this time i feel some of them are truly out of bounds good.

 

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Native American Village in Pin Hole

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During my recent trip to see the Grandmother in the Pechanga lands, I decided to switch gears and work with my pinhole body cap.  Pinhole photography has always been a fun thing, slightly abstract, and a little unpredictable.  I was not really prepared to shoot through a pinhole this trip, no tripod, did not bring the exposure calculation chart with me so I did what I could.  Most of the pinhole cameras I Have used in the past i built my self, so it was much easier to figure out the framing and exposure timing, but with a few trial and error shots a began to get ti dialed in, i guess that is one of the benefits of using a digital camera.  I love the soft dreamy quality in the images.  I chose to go with the split toning to add to the effect of another world view.

Again I am very interested in exploring what is a photograph in my current work, I have grown very accustomed to creating the perfect image and relinquishing some control and concentrating on framing, and some times the not so sharp is part of that.  There is nothing that can be done to make the images sharp due to the equipment used, and I am ok with that.  The images are a look back, slight abstract but at the same time beautiful in their own right.

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ABSTRACT, photography

Continuing with Abstract Portraits

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I have written already about exploring what a photograph is, and what is a portrait.  Continuing to look into the work of Sally Mann I decided to do a series of myself to add on to this continuing on this path of looking into myself in the project. I originally included this in the first post about abstract portraits, but I wanted to include it on its own.

FINE ART, photography, plants

San Diego Botanical Gardens Visit

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I have Lived in San Diego County for nearly 7 years now, and there is always still so much to explore.  I have meant to go to the Botanical Gardens for a while now.  Being there on a warm Monday afternoon was amazing, this place is extremely calm and peaceful, small streams flow through the landscapes and birds sing in the trees.  My journey started at the bamboo garden, bamboo is to me somehow a relaxing plant, learning that the San Diego zoo aquires much of its panda feed from the garden is also a very interesting thing to know.  As i wondered through the property I became very interested in the mexican garden with the terra-cotta planters with succulents and faces of dancers.

I have over the last several months began to question exactly what photography means to me, through this i have begun to explore the abstract in photographic imagery, shooting out of focus, or shooting very small portion of things and zooming the lens while shooting a subject.  Plants are a good way to explore this, they do not move and are often very colorful to bring interest into the colors.  I explored this a lot on this trip, looking for vibrant colors and interesting shapes over what the subject was.

Also I found the wooden Japanese Spirit Houses interesting was well, some how these went back to my wood project and may be included in that later on. I attempted to recreate the feeling I had while looking at these.  They are so small, bird house like but so deep in attention to detail.  They are weather worn but still standing strong protecting the ancestors spirits.

ABSTRACT, ART, FINE ART, photography

Long Exposure Experiment Part II

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I wanted to show the Images not in a the triptych forms.  These come from much experimentation, and trial in creating a something more abstract.  Focusing on the media and television creating these long exposure and surreal images.  Dealing with something of media overload.  I plan on following this deeper trying to create new images and experimenting with different things, different types of moving images and lenses, to try and get different effects.

Please see previous post on this subject

FINE ART, golden hour, photography, portratits

Double Peaks Park

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Spending an afternoon at Double Peaks Park in San Marcos California contained a lot of inspiration.  I wanted to really show some of the regrowth after the fires earlier this year.  Overall I found it difficult to tell that story.  However, I did find some inspiration in the light and some of the small details.

February ninth was not the greatest day for weather at the park.  It was one of the few days a year we had wind in San Diego and it was slightly on the cooler side.  The wind broke down the use of tripod, and there was a lot of haze flowing in over the land from the ocean.  For me sweeping landscapes of north county were in a way called off for the day.  Instead I decided that small details of the small are were something to pay closer attention to.  Also I looked into the people, going back to portraits one of my crutches but I enjoy portraits.  I also Decided to use the sunset itself to explore more abstraction in my photographic work.  Using long exposure and panning the camera while hand held i distorted the landscape, in this I tried to portray the brush fires of last year, a distant memory using light as the fire.

Rock Tracks, Inspired by “Watermark”
Inspired by An-My Lê
inspired by An-My Lê
ABSTRACT, ART, FINE ART, photography

Long Exposure Expirement

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Up extremely late one night I decided to experiment with using long exposure and the television.  Setting the camera on a tripod at approximately viewing level I made 30 sec plus exposures.  I find this to be an extension of my previous work in connecting with Penelope Umbrico. Here I am allowing the camera to observe media.  The camera is watching what I am watching and creating something new and a little different.

As a photographer I value having the knowledge to create tack sharp beautiful images, but i also enjoy exploring what a still image can be.  In this world of short video clips, and instant live streaming, to me it is interesting to freeze a half a minute of that stream into a still image.  There are faces but they are blurred and ghostly.  Identifications have been removed only these images of ghostly presence remain.  Do any of us remember the things we have viewed over the last 12 hours?  The things we watch are we really seeing what we do.  I feel these images bring all of these things into question?

Exploring my relationship with technology is an interesting concept.  Something I think we all should explore a little.  Constant News feed tickers, vines, memes, feeds what have you is constant noise.  I feel this though process began in the fall last year in exploring the landscape work of Penelope Umbrico, looking at classic land scape images in a new way.  I feel like I am exploring repurposing, altering the world around me to create no works.

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ABC, not so easy as 1…2…3…

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I Found the ABC’s project challenging not in the act of shooting or editing but in fact finding all the letters.  Particularly “N” I could not locate that bugger anywhere.  Anyway this project does force you to think a little differently and a little outside of the box, and forces you to crops the world into small areas in order to create things that we so commonly recognize.JHSlough, jerry-slough, ABC, letters-1

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Fresh Food

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I found Penny de los Santos’ images of food very intriguing.  My thoughts on the food project was to show food where food is from.  I visited Stone Farms in Escondido.  Stone Farms is owned by stone brewing as is the farm that supplies much of the produce for the Stone Company restaurants in San Diego.  If you have not been there its a wonderfully peaceful place to go visit, and grab a pint.

I like the Above look that de los Santos did in her images, deep rich backgrounds and the saturated colors of the food.  I did not want to use the set up she appears to do however, i wanted it to be organic (like the farm, itself.)  I wanted to show the idea of where food comes from, not the prepared or refrigerated stuff we pick up at the market.  I wanted dirt and the insects, the sun blanching.  There is beauty in the imperfection in the produce.  I feel i could have done more in the images, I really wish people had been working the day I was there, or the day prior when the farm workers were selling the organic pizzas made in the brick oven and from farm fresh produce.

Stone Farms Link