An Essay in Red

  

Red Letter Day...


On those rainy summer days at the cottage, when one is played out, fished out and the only chores left are outside jobs, a well stocked library can be ever so brightening. One shelf is stacked with old National Geographics. The articles are always enlightening, something new to be learned at the turn of every page. I like looking at the ads! But what I find most striking has got to be the photographs!

Romour has it that shooters for National Geo always took a red bandanna with them on assignments. A splash of red always brought a photo together, or at least the viewer's eye to the frame.  

Green lies opposite on the spectrum to red. But green is not the opposite of red. Just as hate is not the opposite of love. The opposite of love is apathy. As such, the opposite of red, is gray. 

My eye is always drawn to the red in a photo, rarely the gray!   

Song in Red and Gray...

It Was All Yellow...

Yellow...

I started taking photographs before I was five. I started taking photographs seriously while I was in my teens. And of course, back then, everything was shot on film.

For every hundred rolls of film I shot, maybe only one was a roll of black and white. Why? A couple of reasons. First of all, I started shooting landscapes because I really thought I wanted to paint rather than photograph. I could shoot a photo, record a landscape, and then paint it.





Mostly though, I absolutely love colour. Its vibrancy, its life, the vividness, the  lushness it conveys.




So forthcoming is a series of essays in colour...

It Was All Yellow...

     

"The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking

- and looking."

Brooks Atkinson, Once Around The Sun.

Patience is a virtue, sometimes it's my only one. So maybe my virtue is enhanced by the time I spend behind the camera.

My patience is found in vemodelan. I no longer feel its frustration. The frustration becomes an impulse to simply capture, to create, to venture toward new rendered images... 

 

Myoptic Photography

There are a few things I've noticed about myself as I pursue this journey into "middle-age." I don't heal as fast any more. Cuts and scrapes take a few extra days to heal over. 
And my vision has changed. 

That "fine-print" must be held a few extra inches further from my face, and lit slightly better. As I lay in bed and read at night, the book is now held more distant so the words can come into focus. As I research my world, I've  been forced to look at it from a greater distance. My vision has become farsighted. 

I now suffer from hyperopia!

But my photography has brought me closer. My photography has become myopic, or short sighted!

I have become intrigued, maybe even a little obsessed by macro photography, and especially in these summer months. I'm attracted to the flowers, the small creatures that crawl upon them, and fly into them. And fungus and lichens. But it's the flowers that mostly catch my eye.  
So, as my vision has brought me further from the subject, the record I've been keeping, has brought me closer!

Maybe I should concentrate more on the synoptic...

Daylilies... Again!

OK, last post with Daylilies for a while. I can't promise I won't shoot any more photos of them this year, but this will be the last posting this year about them!

One block north of us is a quaint little bungalow with a pretty garden. I couldn't resist, the Daylilies were catching the light just so. They were calling out to me to take a few photos.

So this is it. No more Daylily posts... 

For now...

Daylilies and Vemodalen

Daylilies

I have taken hundreds of images of Daylilies, hundreds! Why can't I resist taking them? Will I ever be satisfied with one of them? Or an even better question...




Will I ever be able to capture, and express in an image, the absolute beauty of these flowers? 

I don't think I ever will. It is frustrating, but I'll keep trying. Will I stop if I ever do capture that perfect image? I doubt it.

And until then, I'll keep trying...

Vemodalen...

The Right Tool for the Job

All our hobbies, our pastimes, all our chores or tasks involve the use of the right tools for the job. A wrench is not a hammer, a rake is not a spade, a sieve is not a colander. 

A cellphone is not a camera!

But I'm sure many people will disagree with me. 

In a pinch a wrench will bang a nail into a board, a rake break ground and a sieve will strain your noodles. But if you want the job done right, you use the right tool for the job!

Sure, you can take a quick photo with your cellphone, on occasion I certainly do. You see something interesting or memorable and a camera is not at the ready, so you use your cellphone. But, if you're going out with the intent to photograph something, you had better have a camera with you.

Let's address some of the reasons a cell phone is a poor substitute for a camera.
There are the obvious; a tiny sensor, even in comparison to the smallest of cameras; and an even tinier lens. There are no two ways about it, the lens and sensor in a phone are not equal to a camera.
Zoom, both optic and digital. How many opportunities are missed because our subject is just too far away?
Manual shutter speeds and aperture settings are vital to capturing a decent image. A cell phone gives you no control over freezing (or even blurring) the action. And there is even less chance of controlling your depth of field.
Manual metering and metering pattern selection. Even exposure control. 
Cell phones, by design, and aesthetics, do not lend themselves well to taking a properly composed photo. Were it not for "apps" and their edit tools, most cell phone photos are barely worth the time it took to take them.    



Don't get me wrong, cell phone cameras do have their place. 
Quick transfer of information and ideas. 
You see a product or display and want to quickly relay a visual of it to someone else. A quick shot, paste it into a text or email, and with the push of a button someone else has it.   
Visual memos, quick reminders or prompts, for yourself and others.
Accident reporting. No longer do you need to have a disposable camera in your vehicle's glove box. And your insurance adjuster gets the facts right after the incident!

Or in the worst of cases, not being prepared! A full memory card, a dead battery, or a damaged camera! All the images in this posting were taken with a cell phone, because I wasn't prepared!

A cellphone isn't necessarily a poor substitute for an inexpensive camera, but it is a substitute. A camera on a cellphone is simply an add-on, an "app" if you please. It's not much different than the games that come included on your new device.
Nobody has ever been heard to say,"Oh, my camera is ringing, would you answer that for me?"

Your cell phone is a tool. But, when you witness a spectacular sunset, when a loved one is looking their absolute best, when you catch that once in a lifetime fish, or are travelling on that exotic, far flung adventure, and the scene just must be captured, don't reach for your cell phone, reach for your camera. 

Because your camera is the right tool for the job!