Going Deep

A couple of Milky Way shots from my early morning jaunt in Arches National Park. Nothing like a star shot to put one in his place. I am in awe and truly humbled when I consider the hundred billion or so stars in just our galaxy and that there are billions and billions of additional galaxies out there! But then I have similar feelings of humility, wonder, and awe when I view a beautiful sunset, amazing geography, or even a flower. We truly live in a wonderful world, a wonderful universe! The first image was shot at 6400 ISO, f2.8, for 30 sec. The second uses similar technique except that it was shot at 12800 ISO. Processing consisted only of increasing the contrast of the sky (which also darkens the sky and intensifies the color) and increasing the brightness of the foreground just a bit.

Coming Home

On the last shoot of the Natural Eye workshop we went to Red Rocks, a chance to consolidate and use many of the things we learned, a chance for me to "come home" to the landscape shooting I am used to but with new found awareness, gentleness, and sensitivity so well expressed by Eddie Soloway's teaching.

Simplify - The Use of DOF

During the Natural Eye Workshop I found myself looking for more abstract compositions, letting go just a bit from my usual way of shooting. Eddie frequently spoke of narrowing ones depth of field as a tool to simplify the image focusing the viewers attention of the in focus portion of the image and taking the business out of the background.

Snow Day - The Essence of a Place

On the second day of Eddie Soloway's Natural Eye workshop we went on a shoot in an aspen grove outside of Santa Fe and at about 10,000 ft. elevation. As we drove up the the snow and fog increased as did our excitement to be able to try out some of the things we were talking about in the workshop. Specifically, how do you capture photographically the essence of a place? How do you record feelings, impressions, and other esthetics so that they can be understood by the viewer?

See, Do, Think

Wandering around Santa Fe on the first afternoon of the Natural Eye workshop I decided to focus on Eddies suggestion to play with color, light and shadows. He taught and I would agree that there are images to be made anywhere and anytime if we only have the eyes to see and the mind to perceive. This idea of awareness, I think was a principle teaching point of the workshop and is intimated in the title of Eddie Soloway's website, "See, Do, Think".

One activity that Eddie did during the workshop to help us be more perceptive of especially color was to have us reach in a bag and choose of different color card (he called them rainbow chips) and walk around a field and trying to find the color. It was quite amazing to me that any color, including bright and unexpected ones like purple for instance, could be found in the field of sage brush if one just looks!

Working the Frame

One of the suggestions Eddie Soloway gave was to "work the frame." He suggested hanging around a place, change lenses, change perspective, vary your metering, vary you depth of field and focus... well, you get the idea. I have always tried to get different angles on a scene but Eddie's suggestion was to take it a step further by varying techniques and types of images. "Experiment", "have fun", "be creative", and "don't be afraid of failure" were all elements of his approach to "working the frame."

Exploring Banff

A week is hardly time enough to explore Banff National Park in winter but it certainly wet my appetite to return to this wonderful place!