{"id":199,"date":"2009-01-12T07:54:40","date_gmt":"2009-01-12T12:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogshevik.com\/garneredimages\/?p=199"},"modified":"2009-01-12T07:54:40","modified_gmt":"2009-01-12T12:54:40","slug":"back-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/?p=199","title":{"rendered":"Back To Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Art doesn’t just happen by accident. It is about pulling out new tricks and trying new things.”
\n(Nicholas Meyer)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Returning to work after taking a real, true break over the holidays\u00a0combined with our\u00a0wonky weather again limits the time I can spend working on my photography.\u00a0 But I\u00a0am bound and determined to put in more reasonable hours at the office this year and to continue to shoot every day.<\/p>\n

Last\u00a0week began with thoughts\u00a0about the latest DGrin challenge and some\u00a0bits of slantingly bright late afternoon light across the fireplace mantle\u00a0reminded me of a\u00a0still life I’d once considered but put on the “backup shot” list in favor of then-easily-accessible subjects.\u00a0\u00a0Now, with scant shooting time during daylight hours and\u00a0a wide open challenge theme, it seemed a good time to at least try it.<\/p>\n

My camera will meld\u00a0multiple images together to create just one\u00a0so I decided to use that little tool to take this shot.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s a marvelous way to create\u00a0images of fireworks but now each image had to fall onto exactly the same spot in\u00a0each frame so it was a bit of work for me to get everything locked down solidly since my normal shooting style, even with the tripod, is to have everything very loose so I can move fast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After a couple of tries, I got it.\u00a0 I also attempted using HDR post-processing to achieve the same effect since I’ve been wanting to play with that, but liked the in-camera merge much better.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It’s pretty and I got the light I wanted, yet I wasn’t entirely sure about the second candle (on the left) so decided to restage and reshoot the next day using only one.\u00a0 After contemplating the results, during post-processing I carefully turned the reflection\u00a0in the mirror into black and white in order to create a more\u00a0specific focal point in the scene and help\u00a0inject a sense of drama.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nice and clear and nicely brooding.\u00a0 But I wasn’t sold on either one for the contest.\u00a0 The next day,\u00a0a return to grey and gloomy daylight, I decided to once again try some HDR post-processing on a rather mundane, wee bit of perspective\u00a0out in\u00a0the backyard.\u00a0 Once again, I didn’t like the results but I did like one of the images and again chose to do a bit of additional post-processing to desaturate parts of the image.\u00a0 It’s a technique I like a lot but don’t use often unless, as especially in this case,\u00a0it adds to the story element of\u00a0what would be an otherwise bland\u00a0and rather nondescript photograph.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I suppose it’s a good thing that my personal photography preference leans towards documentary instead of fine art;\u00a0at this point I was starting to feel\u00a0a little unfulfilled and antsy.\u00a0 But I needn’t have worried; whoever it is that seems to think documenting the hawks and squirrels in the ‘hood is my prime directive decided to shift my\u00a0jealously-guarded\u00a0shooting time\u00a0back to feathers and fur and so it was that on the one truly gloriously-lit morning of the week\u00a0I ended up with some really beautiful photos of our\u00a0local red-tailed hawk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This promptly became my choice for the contest.\u00a0 It would eventually have some of the upper branches cloned out so as to simplify the focal point but to find every bit of clarity of which Matilda is capable\u00a0ringing through delights me to the point of feeling vindicated in my persistent efforts to harness her considerable\u00a0powers over the last year and a half.<\/p>\n

Then the weather turned on us with a vengeance.\u00a0 Another big storm began to brew and as if in some sort of pathetic consolation, the pace at work also picked up, pushing my Muse temporarily off to the side.\u00a0 No sign of hawks, no time to wait for the furballs to perform any kind of unusual antics; I was left with\u00a0just our very small and now very\u00a0bleak landscape and\u00a0to reflect it, went\u00a0to black and white.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

All day on Friday the snow came down.\u00a0 First in fits and starts, then a steady stream of flakes accompanied by bitter cold.\u00a0 The hawks continued to remain absent, but the furballs were out and foraging earnestly in case they’d have to hole up for a day or two.\u00a0 Bob had dumped the last of the small gourds into the garden, and the weather apparently signalled the squirrels it was time to open them.\u00a0 This provided me with some great photo ops, of course, but to my surprise, a crop of one photo down to an unintended focal point left me with what has surplanted the red-tailed hawk as my final choice for the challenge:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I could nitpick this image from a purely technical perspective, yet even when all the nits are summed up they do not seem to override\u00a0its unique quality and subtle air\u00a0of\u00a0charming unexpectedness.\u00a0 More snow and a cooperative model allowed\u00a0a reshoot the next day and I got what I was after originally:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although\u00a0technically superior, the same emotional appeal seems to be lacking.\u00a0 It doesn’t seem to tell a compelling story or perhaps it is simply missing the\u00a0vague sense of urgency as is contained in\u00a0the accidental version.\u00a0 And it’s not just me.\u00a0 The “accident” has received an unusually large number of (positive) comments from the daily photo community.<\/p>\n

Who’da thunk it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Art doesn’t just happen by accident. It is about pulling out new tricks and trying new things.” (Nicholas Meyer) \u00a0\u00a0 Returning to work after taking a real, true break over the holidays\u00a0combined with our\u00a0wonky weather again limits the time I can spend working on my photography.\u00a0 But I\u00a0am bound and determined to put in more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}