Lily pads 2, Woodbury, Connecticut © Steven Willard
I selected a second image taken at the pond in the previous post, and subjected it to a completely different treatment. I’m not sure, but I just might like this one better.
Olympus OMD EM1 with 40-150mm f2.8 zoom. Processed on the iPad.
This old house, near Millerton, New York © Steven Willard
There was a time I revered Bob Villa. Some forty-odd years ago I was in the process of “fixing up” an old house in midtown Atlanta, and I watched “This Old House” with something like religious zeal. As a novice, I paid close attention to his solutions to problems that were often similar to mine. But over time I watched as Bob and his crew got farther and farther away from the kind of projects a homeowner might tackle. “It’s all shot, Bob. It’s all got to go”, was one of our oft-quoted lines from the show toward the end. We longed for the days when Bob, or one of his men would show how to replace the wax ring under a toilet. I wasn’t interested how to jack up the whole house and move it to another lot. Bob just got carried away and I stopped watching.
All that was going through my mind as I walked around “this old house” on a hot summer’s day. Now I live in an RV, and my carpentry tools have all been given away. Things change.
Olympus OMD EM5 with 14-42mm kit zoom. Processed using PhotoCopier, Stackables, and Snapseed on my iPad Air. Oh, and I used an app called Fixel to remove a couple of distracting objects. My goal, after all was to produce an image that looked like an old lith print, and telephone wires just didn’t fit in.
Fire down below © Steven Willard
What happens when you take a phrase that’s in your head and add an image that has been sitting in your files waiting for the right moment to be finished.
You’re only as old as you think.
The Great Divide © Steven Willard
Separated by age, gender, point of view and experience; how do we find common ground? How do we prevent the over-loud voices coming from the extremes from drowning out the more reasonable dialogues taking place closer to the center? How do we keep a skeptical eye on the demagogues*without letting our attention on them become fixation?
We talk to one another.
*We don’t need a tweeting Cleon for our time.
Sunrise on the Hudson © Steven Willard
This past weekend seven of us, avid photographers all, attended our own private class of the “Hudson River School“*under the able direction of Dan Burkholder. Dan, in addition to being the “Dean of iPhonography”, is an Ambassador for Olympus Cameras in the US. We gathered at Dan, and wife Jill’s home/studio just north of Saugerties for two days of intense immersion in the very deep (and sometimes opaque) menu of customization settings available with Olympus cameras.
Without going into all of Dan’s qualifications and experience (just Google him) let me just say it is always a pleasure to spend time learning from him. It is a testament to him to see how many people return again and again to take his classes or to join him, and Jill on their tours. When these people get together it’s almost like a family reunion. I know I plan to go back soon.
Check out what is available at Dan’s website http://www.danburkholder.com/index.html
* Please pardon the pun.
Olympus OMD EM1 with 40-150mm f2.8 zoom. A four frame stitch combined in AutoStitch (which may no longer be available), and processed in Stackables and Snapseed on my iPad. The image was made way too early on a beautiful Sunday morning when some of us in the class made a field trip to the Saugerties Lighthouse. You will just have to take my word for it that there is a lighthouse there…I made no photos of the lighthouse itself.
Addendum: For those people who can plan a year in advance, there are two accommodations on the second floor of the lighthouse itself available to rent that must offer beautiful vistas up and down the Hudson River.
Your serve, Middlebury, Connecticut © Steven Willard
As I sat enjoying some avocado toast at New Morning with my attention focused on my iPad, I became aware that someone was watching me, waiting for me to look up. An attractive young woman, mid twenties, apologized in a soft accent, French I think, for interrupting whatever it was I was doing then asked just what it was I was doing. She said she had sometimes seen me here reading, or typing or doing something, and she was curious if I was a writer. Hum, how do I answer that truthfully? I admitted that I did in fact write but that I didn’t think of myself as a writer, but that I had a photography blog and wrote for that
“What do you photograph”? This was a question I was more comfortable answering since I have given it some thought and have come up with a reasonable answer. “I’m an opportunist”. “So you photograph whatever presents itself”, which is exactly what I meant. It turned out she is a writer of fiction who supports herself editing and proofreading for others. I gave her one of my cards with my web address, we chatted for a minute longer, and then she moved on.
I hung out for a little longer then left to check out a flea market down the street. I didn’t stay long because it was too hot, so I got back in the car and followed my nose. And just like that I saw this odd sight. No idea why someone left a canoe on a tennis court. How could I pass this up? Here was a photograph ready to be made, all I had to do was park the car and avail myself of the opportunity.
Olympus OMD EM5 with 20mm f1.7 lens processed in Snapseed on my iPad Air.
Shapely leaves, Woodbury, Connecticut © Steven Willard
One of the photography excersises I practice now and then is to go back through my image files to look for subjects that might make successful conversions to black and white. I look for images that are rich in tones, textures, and shapes that aren’t dependent on color for clarity. I also play a game where I imagine paging through one of the magazines like Architectural Digest and seeing a wall in someone’s home displaying a row of my photographs, nicely matted and framed in black. What sort of photographs might they have chosen?
This is a photograph I can imagine gracing one of those walls; complex lines and curves, a subject both familiar and mysterious and rich in tones, not printed too large, maybe 12 inches on the long side. In reality, I don’t find too many people exhibiting photographs as wall art, though I don’t know why not.
Olympus OMD EM5 with a manual focus 50mm f3.5 macro Olympus lens from the film series, processed using Snapseed and PhotoCopier apps on my iPad Air.
Self Portrait at 68, 12/17/15
I’m not much into testing gear or much on reading them either. First, I lack the patience to do it properly, second, a test needs to be tailored to measure what you are interested in (for lenses it might be sharpness, contrast, control of flare, color correction or distortion correction, or a host of other features including price) and in the end the lens that suits you best might not be the “best” lens, just the best for you. For instance, I have found that almost any modern lens can produce images that are sharp enough for my style. In fact, as I have commented before, I often add a small amount of blur because I find many images too sharp, too clinical for my taste.
This image is how I might test a lens. This was an impromptu self portrait ( I use myself as a subject because I’m always around when I need me, and the whiskers are a good target and are a constant) taken in the bathroom mirror handheld by the light over the sink using my new LUMIX 42.5 f1.7 lens at maximum aperture. I know, because I tested the lens shooting bare branches in bright sun, that this isn’t its sharpest aperture, but I still added a little blur in Snapseed to suit my taste. Keep in mind this image was shot reflected off a cheap bathroom mirror. Forget the subject (please!) and just look at the results. Would I have gotten better with the Leica f1.2 lens at four times the price and three times the weight? Not for me. I’m happy with this lens.
Select gear that suits what you are interested in, not what some pro in an advertisement is using. Do you really need to shoot ten frames a second? Do you make a practice of taking pictures by moon light? Do you to really expect to torture your shutter through 500,000 exposures before you tire of that camera and buy another? Is shooting in the rain something you do often enough to be a factor in what camera or lens you buy? If you want to take better photographs start by taking more photographs and being more critical of those images. Seriously look at your results and identify what’s wrong and work to not make those mistakes again. But if you are happy with your images, and you are taking them for yourself, then relax and have fun.
Olympus OMD EM5 with Panasonic 42.5 f1.7 lens, processed with Snapseed on my iPad.
Remains, Kent, Connecticut © Steven Willard
All that remains, where once was a home, is the chimney and hearth; the heart of the house, around which all other activities once revolved. The hearth meant warmth and food. It was the thing that drew the family together, like television did when it was still new and before computers. But the hearth still symbolises the comfort and safety of home.
This photograph shows the back of the chimney, the hearth and fireplace are on the other side. I found no sign of the house itself, not even the outline of the foundation. That isn’t surprising as the foundation was likely just a dry stack of stones which may have been moved in pieces for use someplace else. The house site now is being squeezed by the wild grasses on this side and the woods on the other, but the old chimney is in surprisingly good condition.
Pentax K5IIs with kit zoom processed in Photoshop using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 on my iMac and Nik Snapseed and Stackables on my iPad Air.
One Way, New Haven, Connecticut © Steven Willard
Back before there was Photoshop there were layers. It was a fairly common technique to arrange reflections in things like store windows. Done well, or with luck, the two layers would build on each other, making an interesting duet. I always felt the best results happened when the two images didn’t try too hard or appear contrived. A little ambiguity feels best to me.
Pentax K10D with kit zoom.
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