Archives for August 2008

“The Path that leadeth on is lighted by one fire – the light of daring burning in the heart.  The more one dares, the more he shall obtain. ”
(Helena Petrova Blavatsky)

   

It’s always about the learning for me, and participating in this last photo challenge was no exception.  Despite limited time, I found my Self becoming rather obsessed with my “grotto” idea and I think when it was all over I’d snapped off well over 1,000 shots over the course of the actual week of shooting.

The biggest hurdle was properly adding the element of fire.  My very wet little grotto, carefully balanced on the birdbath, turned out to be quite a lovely “set” and one photo taken at sunset during the 3rd session was particularly and quietly poignant:

 

For the purposes of the contest, however, it was too quiet.  Though all done in miniature, I really needed more fire than just a single candle flame – but how?

It was time to break out some serious combustibles.  Lighter fluid was the most immediate one at hand, and after Bob ever-so-kindly moved the whole birdbath to a spot in the yard where the sunset light comes piercing through the trees, the better to illuminate the falling water, I rebuilt the tiny grotto, soaked it down, placed the candle deep inside, and positioned the camera.

With Bob acting as the flame thrower, the results were nothing short of amazing!  At least to my eyes. 

 

 

Now the trick was to get exactly the right balance between wet and hot.  This is much easier said than done, however, since every shot of flammable fluid creates a big burst of light and then burns down very quickly.  If I started shooting as Bob started squirting, even with the correct exposure the result was just too hot:

 

While rather spectacular, Dante’s Inferno wasn’t really what I had in mind.

As an experiment, we tried using charcoal lighter fluid, thinking it would perhaps burn a little longer than plain lighter fluid.  It was an interesting effect, both in terms of the flame and its color:

 

But even though I liked it, there was only wetness and I really, really wanted to capture falling water.

So we went back to using lighter fluid.  Lots of lighter fluid.  Lots of candles, too, since they had to be very small and ended up getting very wet as each round of shooting progressed. 

In all, there were at least 10 different sessions, each held at various times of the day (and once in the dead of night; a rather memorable failure despite the use of spot lighting), finally settling on using late afternoon light that was uncannily clear and very, very bright; as if even the weather concurred with the idea.  And after each session I would carry Matilda upstairs, plug her into the desktop computer, and painstakingly sort through the results.  Hundreds of them.  All in search of the One that best told the story.

The deadline was Monday morning at 8 a.m. EDT.  But I wanted to post my entry before going to bed on Sunday.  And when at last Sunday night rolled around I was, frankly, weary of the effort and seemingly suddenly there were no further opportunities to do more.  But as is so often the case, in the end it was the element of “beginner’s luck” that held sway.  We narrowed down the choices to a mere handful and I then solicited the opinion of some friends who could look at them with fresh eyes.

And I had my entry, taken during session #4.  It was titled “Primordial”:

 

I think that I am most pleased that this is a single image.  It required only minimal post-processing in the “digital darkroom”, always a sign for me that I’ve done everything right. 

It placed 9th in the competition.  It is not my intention to dismiss the efforts of those who scored more points in the judging, however, by definition the images that were seen as more effective were really graphic illustrations, not photographs.  The majority of entries were stitched-together composites to create something seen only with the mind’s eye, not something seen with the physical eye, as is the standard definition of a photograph.  Even the winner, a quite beautiful landscape, was a layered product of multiple exposures (which is really just a standard technique so I don’t mind losing to it.)

After a week’s reflection, what I find is that I’m more than a little disappointed that Photoshop skills are apparently more valued than photographic skills – in a photography forum.  Yet the measure of that disappointment within the whole of my reality is very small.  Because I really am very, very pleased with the result of my efforts.  I was able to create and then capture my idea, my vision, and do so very well (if I say so my Self!)  It was a learning experience, above all, and though frustrating at times it made me think outside my box, it took me out of my usual element of shooting animals and nature.  It was more lessons in timing and that most important matter of light. 

And in the end, that is all and only goodness.

“There are infinite shadings of light and shadows and colors…it’s an extraordinarily subtle language. Figuring out how to speak that language is a lifetime job.”
(Conrad Hall)

 

I’ve been working hard on my photography again, and one way to stretch my Self is to enter the challenges that Smugmug hosts in their forums.  It’s a friendly, safe place of like minds and I was fortunate to recently place 3rd in the “filters” challenge with a rendering of this old boy, titled “State of the Nation”:

 

Third place also got me into the upcoming “Mega Challenge”, a quarterly competition for the top 5 finishers in each bi-weekly challenge.  And with a digital camera up for grabs, you can well imagine everyone wants to win – including me!

The theme is “The Elements”.  And since an obvious shot, such as a tornado about to sweep over an exploding volcano, isn’t exactly within reach of most of us, I suspect we’ve all been scratching our heads over how to represent this deceptively simply idea in a single photograph.

Earth, wind, and fire.  Water.  In Chinese astrology, air, earth, water, wood, and metal.  The base definitions are similar no matter how you look at it.  I set them adrift inside my mind for days, then at last an idea bubbled up. 

I spent almost all day yesterday in an attempt to bring my vision to life.  In photography, it’s all about the light so I started in the early morning as the sun’s rays came over the horizon and eventually began to stream across our little backyard.  First I had to build the “set”.  This necessitated 2 trips over the side fence to borrow stones from my neighbor’s empty garden bed.  Next, find suitably-sized candles, grab some lighters, then drag the hose across the yard.

Stack the stones carefully.  Wet the whole setup down with the hose.  Light and position the candle, stack small pieces of stone around it.  Turn on the hose and adjust it until there was only the smallest of steady drips streaming out the end, and settle it on top the stack of stones.  Adjust the resulting water to run off the stones in a pleasing conformation without putting out the candle’s flame.

It only sounds easy.  Astrologically, water and fire have a hard time co-existing and such definition is, indeed, a mirror of real life.  But eventually I got it right and took an initial series of shots.  As the day moved into afternoon, I finally went inside to look at the results.

Close.  But no cigar.  I needed different light, more water, more flame.  And by then I also needed a nap. 

Later in the afternoon, with first lessons in my back pocket, I returned to the backyard and rearranged the set.  The next series of photographs proved much better all the way around.  The “Gotto of the Goddess” was becoming a reality:

While I am pleased and would have no problems posting any of the results as a daily photograph, I am not entirely satisfied.  Not when the stakes are so high.  The results have spiraled visions of alchemy, and I must introduce a far more compelling element of drama. 

And this means only one thing.  Night.  And smoke. 

But the after-dark session was derailed by weariness and spotting a tiny night visitor at the big squirrel feeder.  Showing us that, as Bob put it so eloquently, life is elementary:

 

“It is the hour to be drunken! to escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.”
(Charles Baudelaire)

 

It’s been a long week.  The pace at work has quickened again and I found my Self driving into the office several times.  Not that driving into the office is unusual, but this is one week I’d have preferred to skip it.  The Woodward Dream Cruise is today, and what started out as a little whim – to dedicate one day to driving the infamous strip in Detroit’s most beloved and lovingly maintained or restored products – has now become Big Business and traffic on my normal route now become a nightmare of congestion that spreads insidiously across the county like some mechanical virus for a whole week.

And if there’s one thing I dislike, it’s crowded roads.

Unable to escape the grip of firedrills before the start of rush hour, and with having to make a stop on the way home yesterday I finally coasted up the driveway.  Spent but grateful to be back on terra familiaris.  The brightly-colored impatiens framing the deeply-shaded little dooryard, glowing against the wooden fence and dark-red brick of the houses, were a sight for eyes weary of sun glaring off asphalt and concrete.  As I got out of the car and made my way to the side door of the house, a hand suddenly appeared over the high top of the backyard gate, gesturing me to come near.  Then I heard Bob’s loud and excited whisper.

The young Cooper’s hawk was here! 

It made its presence known to us two weeks ago and is apparently hanging around.  Quite the fearless little one, Bob had been watching it for perhaps ten minutes or so.  And had brought out my camera.

I, of course, dropped everything and beat stealthy feet to the backyard.  The hawk had moved to the utility lines behind the house next door and was resting while keeping an eye out for the return of the flocks of small sparrows who frequent our bird feeder and that of our neighbor two doors down.

 

 

The late afternoon light was fantastic – clear and bright and low.  Matilda sounded like a gentrified machine gun as she rattled off a hundred shots at her 7-frames-per-second speed, capturing every nuance of the hawk’s watchfulness.

Suddenly, the hawk decided to move.  Really almost too fast for my big lens at this distance even if I’d been prepared for it, in the space of a heartbeat I was both resigned to missing the shot and enthralled at the sheer majesty that is a raptor in motion.  I also thought that was the end of it.  But the small hawk had other ideas and merely moved perhaps 30 feet into the backyard proper and stopped to perch on the utility lines that connect my neighbor’s house to the pole.

 

 

A precarious perch at best for anything larger than a pigeon, this didn’t last long, and with a great flap of its long wings, the young hawk again lifted and, to our surprise, simply moved up into the deep shadows and secure footing of the maple tree in the middle of the backyard. 

It was entirely nonplussed as we moved in parallel in our yard to reposition Matilda near the edge of the low fence and I continued shooting.  Strong gusts of the day’s light winds created flurry of movement of leaves and shifting light that, combined with the surprisingly loud and incessant wail of sirens and the sounds of low-flying helicopters all spilling over from the vast, milling crowds on nearby Woodward Avenue, put the hawk on high alert.

 

 

And yet, being young and perhaps more inherently savvy than most like to give credit, the hawk would soon realize no threat was imminent and settle down to wait some more.  And I continued to shoot. 

There is much to be learned from simple, quiet observation.  While I do not rehabilitate raptors, I’ve had the opportunity to see them “up close and personal” and know that their large size is rather a deception.  To be sure, they are incredibly powerful creatures, yet that immense power is contained in a body far smaller than their feathers would suggest.  And as the wind blew in a particular heavy gust just as the young hawk drew up a talon in rest, its fragility became quite clear.

 

 

More than an hour passed before it finally headed off.  A magical hour that swept my weary mind free of the cobwebs of Man’s frenetic posturings and put the world back in proper perspective.

 

 

It’s been said by many of the work-weary that it’s always happy hour somewhere.  This was certainly one happy hour that will be remembered for a long, long time.