Archive for February, 2010

The Art of Visualization

February 25th, 2010

How often do you think about photography and the photos that you take? I do it all the time. Not a day goes by that some thought about photography doesn’t pop into my head. Many times these thoughts are ideas, or visualizations, about pictures that I want to take when the conditions are right for a certain subject

Take this picture of the Wind Point Lighthouse along Lake Michigan in Racine, WI for example. Not to long ago I read a blog post by Greg Russell on his website Alpenglow Images. The post is titled House on Fire ruin – A Vertical Panorama and it’s about how he shot a vertical panorama by stitching together three horizontal pictures. The minute I finished the post I knew the subject I wanted to try this technique on, Wind Point Lighthouse.

Having shot the lighthouse many times, under many different and conditions, I knew in my mind the composition I wanted and the conditions that I wanted to take it in. Let the waiting game begin….

About a week later the conditions I wanted came to be. We had been out shooting an old mill in Illinois when, on the way home, I realized the conditions were perfect for my lighthouse shot. So we drove out there and I took my three horizontal pictures of the lighthouse. When I got home and stitched the pictures together, I was blown away by the result. There in front of me was not only the image I had envisioned, but something much nicer. This was the best picture I had ever taken of the light.

Then another vision came into my head, I saw this picture in black and white. I immediately began to work on the black and white version that I saw in my mind. Everything fell together nicely and within an hour I had this image.

I find that as I get older and more experienced in photography, I’m pre-visualizing photos much more. I still love going out, being spontaneous and taking what Mother Nature gives me, but there is a certain, wonderful feeling when you see an image in your mind, wait for the right conditions, and then make it a reality.

Kenosha Pierhead Lighthouse

February 10th, 2010

The Kenosha Pierhead Lighthouse is a 104 year old lighthouse that sits on the north pier at the entrance to Kenosha Harbor. It’s red color is typical of many lighthouses on Lake Michigan.

I shot this image on my first visit to Kenosha in March of 2008. Little did I know then how many photos I would eventually take of the lighthouse.

The lighting in this image is very typical of lighting found along Lake Michigan in the Winter months. The dark sky is a cloud bank that forms over the lake providing a wonderful contrast with the snowy foreground, (In fact, as I write this, these same lighting conditions are present).

One of the things I love about photographing this lighthouse is how it’s red color stands out so brightly in an otherwise monochrome scene.

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Don’t Ever Give Up

February 5th, 2010

We’ve all been there, waiting for the sunset that never comes. We set up our awesome shot and wait, but it never happens, the sunset doesn’t show up. So, discouraged, we pack up our gear and start to drive away. Then just as we pull onto the highway it happens, the sky explodes with color. By the time we find a place to pull over and fish our camera out we maybe get one or two shots before the color fades. We then kick ourselves for the rest of the night for not being more patient.

That almost happened with this image of the sunset over the White Mountains in California. I went out that evening hoping to get sunset pictures of the Sierra Wave that had formed over the Owens Valley. I waited and waited, but the wave clouds never changed color. I finally decided to give up and began loading my gear into the truck. Just as I began to collapse my tripod I noticed a little bit of color hitting the top of White Mtn Peak and thought I might just get lucky. I quickly got my camera back out and within 60 seconds the sky exploded into some of the most amazing color I’ve ever seen. And it all happened away from the waves clouds I had went out to shoot.

Let this be a reminder to never give up on a sunset. You never know when something magical will happen, even if there’s only 5 minutes left in the day.

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The Minarets in Black and White

February 3rd, 2010

I find it very interesting that I can look at one of my images and never see it any other way than how it currently is, but then one day I’ll look at it and see something totally different.

Last night I was glancing through some  older photos when this shot of the Minarets, in California’s Sierra Nevada, caught my attention. Now, I’ve had this image for 5 years and I’ve never imagined it as anything other than a color image, but when I looked at  it last night, I immediately saw it as a black and white and knew exactly how I wanted it to look.

It’s moments of inspiration like this, that keep my love of photography so strong. With the modern digital dark room anything is possible, and it’s a wonderful feeling to know that at any time one of my older images can be reborn.

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