Sumer Is Icumen In

By June 12 it was apparent that summer heat and humidity would not wait until the June 21 solstice to afflict...no, let's be more neutral and say affect life in Raleigh, NC. My wife and I used the opportunity to escape into the climate controlled environment of the NC Museum of Art, where we enjoyed the special exhibit "0 to 60: The Experience of Time through Contemporary Art". Afterward, we explored the relatively new West Building, where we saw some works new to us.

We also revisited some "old friends".

While perusing outdoor sculpture...

...it occurred to me to attempt my own visual statement on the experience of time. As I've already mentioned, it had become apparent that Sumer Is Icumen In, and the warmth tends to make it seem to me as if movement slows down, as if lethargy affects even periodic motion such as the swaying of tall grass in the breeze. (Ah, the breeze - that was most welcome!) I realize that reptiles, insects - and for that matter many people - may have an opposite reaction to hot weather. I'm not comparing such people to insects and reptiles! I'm just personally more energetic in cold climes and cool times.

Observing a confluence of contrails and clouds behind a sculpted metallic tree, I knelt to the ground to put it behind grass and ferns, focused on the gleaming silver branches, and waited for the right moment to release the shutter.

A photograph is in a way a frozen moment, but to me this is a dynamic sliver of time. I sense tension, reaching, convergence and separation, force and motion, action and reaction. In physical science, time itself is a difficult thing to define precisely. We rely on repeatable measurements - i.e., good clocks - to get a handle on time, and the explanation of the "arrow of time" (the observation that certain macroscopic events, such as mixing cream into coffee, seem to only occur "in one direction") may lie in cosmology and entropy. But I don't mean to imply that complex thoughts about time went into the creation of the image above (though they are often flitting about somewhere in my head). I do know that my personal experience of time along with thoughts provoked by viewing the museum exhibition made me see the elements in front of me in four dimensions, rather than three or two.

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Just some rain on the pavement, that's all.

After the somewhat painterly approach of the shot above, below is a sharply etched photo that shows an artifact which looks something like an ancient painting.

Cave painting? No, it's obviously just a part of the same concrete walkway, as I'm sure the expansion joint makes clear. I think it looks like a representation of an antelope, but maybe that's just me.

Raindrops falling in an otherwise still puddle. The overlapping waves show clear patterns of interference and reinforcement as the peaks and troughs interact.

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Today the magnolias were ready for their portrait session

Yes, I was able to train my lens (actually, lenses) on some "properly finished" flowers today. This follows the sequence of magnolia shots from one tree yesterday.

Magnolia blossoms can offer their sweet fragrance for a surprisingly extended portion of late spring and early summer, but the peak appearance for any one flower doesn't last very long. Spotting some photogenic examples and having some time, I brought a selection of focal lengths. The long lenses (200 and 300mm) gave me tight framing of subjects I couldn't approach closely, and the macro lens (100mm) let me get very close to the one flower that was literally under my nose.

After photographing the large magnolias, I shot a group of tiny orange flowers. Then I finished with a dead magnolia leaf that made a striking contrast against the ground cover and a pine cone. It's all part of my continuing exploration of the aesthetics of the less-than-ideal landscape.

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Stages of blossoming in a magnolia tree, and flower photography aesthetics

Hoping to find subjects signifying the shift toward summer, I did some flower photos today. I'm saving my favorite shot for last, but first, please indulge me as I describe a fifteen minute project that preceded it. On one very large magnolia tree, I was interested to see about half a dozen distinct stages of blossom development - all at the same time. They are posted in the order that I found them, rather than order of development. In fact, these first five shots probably show the reverse of a normal progression. I hope you'll pardon some fanciful nomenclature.

First, we have the lint brush magnolia:

Next, a magnolia pet fur brush:

Here is a party-ready fake nose magnolia:

A soft-serve ice cream cone magnolia:

A candelabra bulb magnolia:

I had to find a different tree to catch a mature, open flower today, although within a very few days some of the children pictured above should be into this stage. I'm hoping to capture some of them in more pristine condition than this one:

On from the magnolias to day lilies. Photographing flowers and hoping for a little more than a record or identification shot calls for some use of imagination. I like to try to spot inherently beautiful specimens, but more important factors, for me, are finding attractive light, a complementary background, and just the right perspective and framing. Often it is difficult to make all of these things happen within one image. These are just quick attempts, but like most forms of practice, photo sketches can help to sharpen one's skills. Occasionally an image of this sort will even compete with carefully completed photographs, though that should not be an expectation for a typical outcome.

I like the way these different colored hydrangeas are arranged as if they hybridized on the spot.

This last is my favorite composition of the day. Although it's not a new approach by any means (I've played with this type of color contrast and foreground-background separation often enough before), it worked for me in a way that seems effective without being forced. I hope other viewers will have a similar reaction, but of course I want to know what you think.

All of the photos today were shot with a Canon 70-200 mm f/4L IS lens. For nine of the ten I zoomed to 200 mm. The penultimate shot (sharply focused hydrangea flowers and leaves) was done at 85 mm.

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Changing of the guard

As we approach the midpoint of spring, a new crop of flowers, wild and cultivated, is putting in an appearance. Before moving to some of the examples I photographed today, here is a last look at one of the last happy irises, shot twelve days ago, May 14. It was done at 155 mm with a 70-200. Sometimes you can't beat the flexibility of a zoom lens to get just the right combination of perspective and framing of an image.

Today I did some quick work with my 100 L, trying to create some "atmosphere". Here's a hydrangea in the foreground, with some other flowers in the background blurred into a color wash.

This fingertip-sized bud was asking to be featured and compared with the larger mature blossom near it. The image has not been manipulated in Adobe Photoshop®. I adjusted the raw file's "normal" parameters (exposure, highlights, whites, clarity, vibrance) in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom® to emphasize the impression made by the existing light.

I wonder if I'm the only user of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom who wishes that they had named the "Vibrance" adjustment "Vibrancy". At any rate, this is an excellent feature that Adobe introduced a few years ago. It permits raising (or lowering) the color saturation, but with protection of skin tones (of obvious importance for portrait photographers like me), and generally affecting blues and greens more than reds. Also, for all hues, the Vibrance slider can increase saturation of pale tones while leaving already heavily saturated colors alone, avoiding clipping. (In this context, clipping would mean that the value of one color channel may already be as high as it can go in certain areas of the image, so increasing the color saturation throughout the image would require pushing the value in those areas out of the possible range, resulting in color shifts and flattening of the luminance curve.)

My next version of this same photo did receive some "massaging" in Photoshop. I selected the background and made a new layer in overlay mode. With no change to the foreground, it adds impact through contrast. It may be too much for this one. In print, I would probably choose a compromise between the two versions.

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Vacant fruit

When we see these seeds/fruits in spring, they usually have a wasp in residence. This one was vacant, making it a candidate for an indoor portrait. I used three Canon 600EX-RT (radio controlled flash units that can be positioned almost anywhere) to highlight as much texture as I could, as well as showing the microscopic fibers around the stem.

In the first shot, I allowed a slight depression in the front to drop into shadow.

In the second version, I went for a graphic look, using high contrast and an angle that made the most of a two dimensional shape.

For variety, here's a monochrome version, with a fingertip for scale.

The final image is a focus stack of six shots. When magnification is high, it isn't possible to get much depth of field. Flat objects like postage stamps are relatively easy to render with fine detail, but something with depth comparable to lateral dimensions is not likely to be manageable with a single shot. I focused first on the nearest point, then gradually focused farther out for successive images. I then opened the six shots in Photoshop CS6 and allowed the program to blend them, using the sharpest portions of each.

By the way, the background was a very high tech piece of equipment: a black sweatshirt.

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Durham Symphony outdoor concert becomes an indoor treat

Sunday, May 19, the Durham Symphony was scheduled to play a free outdoor concert in Hillsborough, NC. Due to rainy weather, the concert was moved indoors, to a gymnasium at Cameron Park Elementary School. A sizable audience packed the room, and did not display disappointment at the change from the al fresco plans. As the official photographer, I have to admit to a little disappointment that I couldn't make use of the natural beauty of trees and grass for my backgrounds, but basketball hoops and lockers didn't pull my focus away from the musicians.

The change of venue didn't interfere with the pre-concert Instrument Petting Zoo set up by High Strung Violins.

Gym lighting is a challenge for photographers. I'll let the concert pictures speak for themselves.

It was very hot in the room, but the energy didn't flag.

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