Not Graffiti (Two Photographs)
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The designs on most coloured cardboard packaging like Kleenex boxes are dot matrix, up close it’s just dots and ink bleeds. I thought it would make good modern abstract art.
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Wood (Two Photographs)
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This is a continuation of my work at 5:1 (at that magnification light and sharpness are a challenge). The first photo is of a pencil shaving and the second is of a scratch in a wooden spatula.
Abstract Macro (Three Photographs)
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At a magnification of 5x on a cropped sensor many things look abstract. The Jackson Pollack type abstract is attractive. But with macro at this level you almost always have to tell your audience what they are seeing. In order: toilet paper, paper towel, Kleenex.
Colour Bubbles No.3
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I have seen better photos of a space station but this seems to have come close. I was shooting against a black background, so the colour is entirely due to the soap.
Bubble Cheat
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I found a way to avoid most of the fuss and bother with bubbles. Using a macro lens, and a bottle of dish soap shaken not stirred, I got some interesting bubble photos. If I had removed the label I might have been able to avoid the use of a macro lens.
Colour Bubbles No.2
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When the bubbles break up there can be some spillage, I used plastic petri dishes with the lid under the main dish but I still had some splash over.
Black and White Bubbles No. 2
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When photographing bubbles, the colours are sometimes a little strange, however bubbles make nice black and white photos. I used flash in all of this week’s bubble shots, and while not a studio flash head, the Godox 200 (200watts) was just enough power for the work. I know others use 300 and 400 watts of power or very bright window light.
Black and white Bubbles Bubbles No.1
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This a shot of some former bubbles and their remains.
PPAH (Pandemic Photography at Home)
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On YouTube there are several do it at home photography projects. Some interesting, some not so much. This week I am looking at bubbles. Six parts water, two parts glycerine, two parts dish soap and a straw. Messy and frustrating. You wait for the colour to emerge, hope the bubbles don’t burst before you shoot and depth of field is a devil. Hint: No.1: When working with bubble photography, the longer the bubble lasts the more colour.
Reflection No.1 (Two photographs)
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Normally when I talk about reflections it’s about a bird on the water, but it’s a bit too cold for that now. So a scotch tasting glass made for an interesting subject. Even alone the glass looked great, but stacked on top of another similar glass you would think that a mirror was causing the effect.
Putting Things Together (Two Photographs)
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The pandemic has lead my wife and I to do some table-top photography with flash. It’s been a long time since I have so I am relearning old skills, putting it all together so to speak. See the second photo.
Beetle with Flower
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I say beetle with flower but it could just easily be flower with beetle. Moreover a close look at the flower appears to show some strange looking faces looking back at you (or so it seems to me). Combined it’s an odd but interesting combination that breaks a few of my photographic guidelines but still has potential to create some interest.
Needles and Chilis To Beat the Pandemic Boredom (Two Photographs)b
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My efforts at true macro continue, finding subjects to photograph can be challenging. I began by pinning the chili to cork so it was held in mid air. After several hours of fiddling with lights I got a shot of the chili, and then more time was spent in Photoshop erasing the pins and learning more about how to fix backgrounds. The needle also took the larger part of the day. I have great close up vision but had a hard time seeing the hole in the needle to centre it on the camera. Both of these photographs are efforts at learning what works and doesn’t in true macro. It’s early days.
How much magnification? (Two Photographs)
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I am told that to get to 10x life size, a microscope and loan from the Government is required. 3-5x life size is a fairly good extreme to begin with. My bellows with a 50mm enlarger lens, and a 24mm extension tube can manage about 4:1. To get some context, here are details of Canadian and US dimes. Specifically the Queen’s profile and Roosevelt’s ear.
Urban Grunge (Three Photographs)
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In any modern city there are these grungy dark corners. The shapes and colour remind me of some of the older forms of modern art in museums. The composition can add to the inadvertently attractive grunge.
Windows (Two Photographs)
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There is an endless number of variations on how windows (with or without reflections) make for great photographs. Depending on how you process window photos you will be surprised at what is in the reflective portions. Sometimes you can mix the surreal, abstract and reality in one shot without compositing, often just by adjusting shadows and contrast.
Texture (Two Photographs)
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Texture has many meanings in photography; it can refer to mood, background or even the subject. I try to keep this in mind when taking and processing photos, as it’s an element I can make creative use of. I chose these photos because texture is front and centre.
An Abstract of an Abstraction (Two Photographs)
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Twist 1.5 was crafted by Alex Wyse and Ken Gould in 1978, and it has weathered many a storm in its outdoor location since then. These shots were almost inside the sculpture itself, to reflect the detail and working of the wood. Just a piece of the whole on a day when the kids weren’t playing on or in it.
Moore -ish (Two Photographs)
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I have been fortunate to have seen many of Henry Moore’s sculptures as well as the work of Giacometti, another sculptor. These photographs remind me of their work or put another way the post processing was influenced by their styles.
Dali-esque (Two Photographs)
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I mentioned earlier my criteria for the legitimacy of taking photos of the works of other artists (signed or unsigned). Here I took a piece of the whole that reminded me of Dali’s work. Photographers can learn a lot from other art forms and mimic the light, general ideas, and moods. It’s almost a must in one’s photographic education.
Abstraction (Two Photographs)
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Often when I am walking about with a camera, I am looking for something that stands out in and of itself, because of the light, the way the shadows fall. In this case it’s the corrugated wall of a church. Personally I think this works best in Black and White.
Nobody Does Abstract… (Three Photographs)
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I’ve said it before, and fairly recently, that nothing beats nature’s ability for the abstract. Many painters have tried, many famous, but it never looks quite so real or imposing as when it’s natural. There is great debate over whether photography is an art or not. I have always thought the answer was straightforward – great photographs are great art; bad photographs….just as it is with drawings, painting and sculpture.
Modern Art or Nature?
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There is a body of modern art that escapes my ability to make sense of. Moreover when it comes to the kind of randomness Jackson Pollack was famous for, my view is that nature does it better.
Red and Brown (Two Photographs)
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I posted these awhile ago in black and white. I have decided the colour is also worth putting on the blog. I used red and brown in the title but it could have been burnt sienna or rust or a hundred other obscure names in the red, brown and orange group of colours. When someone tells me what colour something is I am always tempted to ask what shade. Have you seen how many colours there are in the Pantone catalogue… But in the photos it was the abstract nature of the bricks and colour that drew me to them.
