shadetree407

> I was wondering why is the photo brighter towards the bottom. Is it sunrise?

 

 

nope.

 

the exposure went through a few hours of moonrise however. also, the rocks in the foreground (i am not a geologist so i don't know if this is right) are like a whitish quartz something or other. also, in the printing, i do a fair amount of overall dodging.

> I have a question though. Why did you shoot it on 400? Ok, one more question. To create this star trail effect, you point the camera in the direction or the star Polaris?

 

 

adam, the reason that i had to shoot this on 400 speed is because my large format lenses do not stop up any further than f5.6. for that reason alone, 100 speed, 50 speed simply does not offer enough sensitivity. in 35mm, with an f1.4 or f1.8 lens, 50 speed film works.... and yes, i pointed the camera at polaris - well... approximately so :) i guaged where it would be by the position of the setting sun when i set the camera up.

> One question, how is it that you can walk through the picture and not show up? I would have thought you would have shown up as a blur. I've seen and heard this before in other pictures but I just don't understand technically how it works

 

 

michael, the reason that i could walk right through that image (twice) and not show up is because of the long exposure time RELATIVE to the amount of time i walked right through the picture. if you perform a mathmatical integration of light striking the film at any point on the film, the amount of time photons that are reflected off me which strike the film simply do not register - let alone, the fact that i was in motion. had i stoof there for 5 minutes in front of the camera, you would then see an obvious "break" in the star trails where i was standing. also, had i had a flashlight with me, that would have REALLY shown up and destroyed the image.

old school?

 

 

yep.

james, i sent you an email on how to add color cast to a b/w image - no big deal.

 

 

and yes, the tripod was situated in the water (see my first reply in the message exchange herein) and it was frickin cold too :)))

my favorite thoreau essay would have to be life without principle & thanks for the email jason. i pulled my addy off this site for obvious reasons that you cited in your email. i agree.

 

 

p.s. here is life without principle for your reading enjoyment:

 

part 1

http://eserver.org/thoreau/life1.html

 

part 2

http://eserver.org/thoreau/life2.html

 

NOTE - to anyone who finds my email addy here and emails me requesting to buy a print - well, i'm not exactly in the print selling mode anymore. never was a very good salesman anyways and my marketing hat blew off in the wind while i was crossing over into ionian basin from solomons pass..

 

 

later...

good afternoon Jason,

 

i think i'll respond by picking out themes within your text and adding my own commentary this time around... your post is rich with material and proves to be a fertile ground to sprout thoughts -

 

> Yet your explanation - is this not a transcendental reduction too? <

 

i believe so. in most cases, this may be so, even when one is totally unaware of it. even when one is simply taking a snapshot of a family scene, what is actually going on in ones mind that triggers one to take the picture and isolate something special out of so much else that is present and beyond the perimeter of the scene... and the present moment state of mind? and yes, explanations are reductions and interpretations too that stem from a more complex scene. we must filter. it is built into our perception.

{sorry for the long sentence :)) }

 

>> The spiritual connection with a place holds an image in existence for him, yet others can easily miss it. Why is this?<<

 

perhaps it is simply this - love or rather, an artifact of love called resonance.... which, for anyone, is held in the personal. what one person may feel is rarely juxtaposed exactly within someone else - as we are individuals with unique resonant affinities of things that are placed within our perceptual view. i may respond to an object of beauty in one fashion so deeply, that i might make a life altering change in direction. yet, to another, there may be no such resonance whatsoever. <<

 

>>> The transcendental reduction is a paradox: reduction is known to us all - it diminishes being into a thing....

 

would you elaborate on this some more Jason?

 

....The transcendental reduction however liberates us from such an attitude, and opens our being to curiosity - the discovery of all that is closed off, except those with an open mind. <<<

 

>>>>It was Sam Phillips, chanteuse noire from your side of your states; who enlightened me in her track: "Trying to hold on to the earth - holding on for what it's worth". Is this not what those who are astute enough to value the planet wish for, yet are not genius enough to articulate a solution against the modern flow of concretizing tarmac? <<<<

 

i'm not sure if it is genius that is required to articulate a solution against the modern flow of concretizing tarmac. i don't think it is because the world is just so complex and people are rooted in survival though herding together... there have been plenty before: John Muir's vision for example, but most folks do not grasp the notion that land stewardship is in our best interest for long term survival. the average human being seems to be more focused on short term survival by getting a meal on the table and quenching the opposition through dominion and high quarterly profits. Muir convinced Roosevelt to set land aside in a national park format and are these just mere islands of preservation? when one integrates preserved land over the whole, it's the whole that wins because it establishes the direction. are we (humanity) but a perturbation and what single individual within this perturbation has made a major impact as to shift direction away from the course of dominion? {I am speaking long term here :) } it's like clearcutting the forest yet letting a strip of trees stand along the major highways so that people will not see the interior devastation. yet, when the greater forest get's sick, then this will eventually spread into the "islands."

 

i'm reminded of what E. B. White said: "I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet instead of skeptically and dictatorially."

 

my fear is for our kids-kids - what will we leave them to deal with and what natural event would be required to get us to clean up our act? Ansel's photographs made a beautiful statement, but it just seems they have only reached a diminishing minority of folks who care. i believe nature itself, and her mood swings, might knock the right wing and the left wing extremes into from a state of denial into a state of stewardship but before that can ever happen, the herding mentality must break. but i don't think that it will because it is the herding instinct that has permitted us to survive the survival of the fittest up to this point. i believe it would take a cataclysym event.

 

>>>>>Apologies for veering on the philosophical <<<<<

 

i don't mind. i may take awhile to respond because you leave a wealth of information and ideas for me to digest and draw upon.... and now look at what is happening - cause and effect i suppose when you come right down to it.

 

getting back to the digital explosion... it's not that i feel frustrated or burdoned. i think the right word might be alienation and a lack of desire to be running in front of a speeding bullet with technology becoming obsolete faster than the pine trees can drop cones to reproduce. i do not wish to always be behind the 8-ball and am easily overwhelmed at such a prospect - always learning how to use a new printer because the printer i bought last year is no longer compatible with the latest and greatest software... and then.... there are all of those new archival inks and papers that change even faster. at least with paint and canvas, digital has not arrived (or has it?)

 

 

>>>>>> I find that I have to separate the critique from photography, because of the dysfunctional nature of a website like this which lives one eye for an eye, or a tooth for a fang. I might be so arrogant to say that it is not that I fear what others say, but that I have no time for the politics which often ensues. <<<<<<

 

i guess humans will never change, will they? in the last 10,000 years, there has been no directional change. perhaps this is because this is the way that our brains have evolved.... leaving a million different types like hit & runs (scott bulger comes to mind) and the deep philosophical thinkers such as yourself. i think it rings true that likes attract likes and einstein stands correct when he proved that gravity pulls things with like affinity together.

 

>>>>>>> when are you going to create your own website then <<<<<<<

 

probably not - at least in the near-term.

 

like you have stated up above in letting go, i think that i am in the process of ditching the digital scene and i do more than just photography so there is a severe time limitation. photo.net made it easy to simply upload and walk away. the exchanges were a welcome (and unfortunately a hyper critical stage to vent) outcropping - but here i am in a philosophical dialogue with you through a keyboard based upon all of this technology. are we locked in?

 

i'd like to see your pictures sometime, perhaps in email to keep it private?

 

 

regards,

 

paul.

Greetings again Jason,

 

i feel it odd that this picture of Moraine Lake seems to be turning into a philosophical discussion about art & photography at an indirect level through two computer keyboard interfaces. i think this, in itself, is a sign of the times and these signs held up all over the human landscape telling us to do it this way or that way per this schedule and all of this business around us at an exponentially progressing rate leads me running for the hills - away, far away, from the digital chaos we seem to be creating in this plastic society.

 

if nothing more than something for me to fall back on and get all sentimental over (as i stated a few posts back), i think that there might be a bit more after all. perhaps it is as simple as depicting the way i wish for the world to remain, unspoiled, by mankind and all of his modifications to the biosphere in the name of his own survival. this holds, i think, from cultures, right on down to the individual. after all, it is through this keyboard that i am communicating with you and the keypads have been extracted from oil. accumulatively, yes, there is a price. so getting back to my pictures, they are nothing more of a reflection of the love i have for a vanishing snapshot in time. could you imagine a photograph of the end, a totally red 20x24 red photograph of the red giant sun much like what Barnett Newman painted back during the 1950's abstract expressionists era. ha, there would be no need for digital pixels, or perhaps just one 20x24 pixel.

 

moraine lake is a quiet place, relatively speaking, and i have spent many days there on separate trips. i will return again and it will probably not change very much with exception to the hazy blue skies which used to be deep blue - the culprit being the human explosion down there in the central valley of california where i grew up. nothing is ever static, even what we perceive to be so... and to some, i am sure that the arena of digital imaging is represents excitement and growth - after all, are many of us not being programmed by society to be faster, better, and cheaper? like i said above, i'll run for the hills :)

 

i don't understand how my experiences could dwarf your own. whether one chooses a large format 16x24, a large format 4x5, a 2/14 square format, or a 35mm size, the experience of one standing at the scene to be rendered on film would seem to dwarf any possible outcome. imagine the excitement that ansel adams had while perched on the edge of the diving board to snap a picture of the face of half dome. and then, there was that 3000 foot climb up the gully in order to get to that spot. all of that hard work and sweat and exhilaration with only a grand landscape of a granite monolith and black sky above immersed in silver gelatin - lovely. i could imagine that if you took an 8x10 camera and put black tape over two opposing sides of the 10-inch dimension, then you would have a large format rectangular experience. would you photograph any differently however?

 

 

i admire you for not putting up any of your work here. at times, i wonder why i punish myself for doing so. but i have been good for the past year as i let my computer scanner sit there and collect dust. i could upload more, but after what has transpired here and elsewhere, i am leaning towards giving it all away.... if i could just figure out a way to not let the burden of the expectations of others derail me. but never mind that, i look forward to more discussion here at a level most people consider to be somewhere between abstract and abstraction.

 

 

regards,

 

paul.

 

Good morning Jason,

 

> I guess I can only apologise for any insensitivity on my part, and not that of others.

 

 

well, i didn't think that your critique was insensitive. it was rather well thought out, as are the rests of your postings herein. it was scott bulgers final comment that i took as a personal insult - and that is something that i do need to work on, detatchment.

 

i do agree that there is a hot spot in the digitized image. it does not exist in the transparency but i didn't spend a whole lot of time with photoshop on these color images to fix any problems that rose from the scanning process. in fact, i am a rather poor scanner-toucher/upper. i did spend more time trying to make the black & whites look 'snappy' but i am not so sharp at fixing color cast offsets that the scanning process injects. i never have calibrated everything in my computer from scanner to monitor to printer and at this point in time, i'm getting rather bored with the whole digital arena anyways. it's more expensive than conventional printing - arrrrgh - and the technology goes obsolete every two years with better printers coming to market faster than i can make a cup of good coffee in the morning. i just don't feel like keeping pace and i become overwhelmed with the prospect of always needing to update software, printers, inks, just to stay 'on the cutting edge'.

 

as for your number 2 transcendental reduction, it works and it works well. i took this picture back in 1987 after about 1 year into the large format scene. after 17 years gone by, i wonder how i would look at the same scene with a whole new arsenal of lenses to pick and choose from. perhaps i would just sit there on a rock and merge with the damselflies and mountain shreiks :)

 

 

kind regards,

 

paul.

phil,

 

if the coyote could speak in english tongue, what do you think that it might have to say for mankind?

 

 

p.s. thanks for your kind words on the other picture. i do not have any more love letters to post right now because i'm not exactly in digital scan mode at this time. i'm not even sure if i want to set myself up for bashing either - lo9l.

jason,

 

it wasn't the critique which hurt, it was scotts last sentence - "It is hard for me to believe that this was photo was made by the same person."

 

i'm like saying to myself... "well e x c uuuu s e me"

 

what i was attempting to say in my response was that when people see a body of work on display, then they form opinions and expectations. then when they move on and see another display of work by the same person which is diffent and non-conforming to those expectations, it's liek a big let down or something - i dunno.... human nature i guess.

 

another point i'd like to make is that out of 40,000 negatives which ansel adams took, how many of those images were never printed and displayed? it's impossible to have a masterpiece each and every time.... but when we see an ansel adams exhibit, we expect to see the best... right? and what would we think if we saw a bunch of his inferior images (which he made tons of by the way)... we would insult him by saying "It is hard for me to believe that this was photo was made by the same person."?????

 

i went on and looked at scotts portfolio. i could have taken a few of his images (and he does have some fine images) as well and made a similar critique... but what's the point. next, i went on to have a look at all of his latest critiques and ratings. although he has rated some fine images, i could not find any positive appraisals in his verbal responses - but when he found an image that bothered him, he sure had a lot to say in negative space.

 

out of all of my pictures, this was the only one he responded to. none of the black & whites (except for a single sentence at the end of his condemnation of this image herein) did he respond to... and that's the best stuff too.

 

 

i guess that's what bothers me - the critics.

 

maybe that's something i need to work on, ehhh?

 

anyway, i did enjoy reading though your critical analysis. and i may try your number 2 sometime. i do believe there is something to be said about positive critique and there is also something to be said about negative critiqe... and the style of critique says alot about a persons character.

 

regards,

 

paul.

look deeper.

 

see if you can make the connection between the ruins and what appears to be a 'coyote' in the sandstone above. what kind of message might this portray? this image is not about asthetics, although that is what many people expect... and within expectations, lies the vast potential rangine from sheer disappointment (as is indicated by your commentary above) to feelings of wonder and awe.

 

so getting back to the 'coyote'.. first off, can you visualze it? if not, the image is a pure failure, but only from me to you.

 

 

====================

 

http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=GN&action=m&board=18934611&tid=voiceofthenativeamericans&sid=18934611&mid=141

 

http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=GN&action=m&board=18934611&tid=voiceofthenativeamericans&sid=18934611&mid=142

wow, i just stepped in here to see if any new comments cropped up and i was delighted to see that this ordinary image has drawn the amount of critical analysis that it has.... moreso than any other image that i've posted :)

 

shall i defend it: much is missing in the digital scan - like the fine raindrops on the lake which is visible in a large print. i remember standing there setting up the 4x5 and the silence was broken by the distant call a bird was making on the opposite side of the lake. i also remember the numerous damselflies hopping from one reed to another in the height of their mating season... a few of them in mating position. but these subtleties don't show up very well in pixelated format.

 

shall i criticize it: an ordinary image of an extraordinary scene... so often, pictures do fail to tell it like it was. it is with hypercriticism that i no longer bother much with showing my work much anymore. one thing is for sure... out of like 4000 negatives & transparencies, most of them are complete failures - more ordinary than this one... but the good ones that i do get make up for all of that wasted time and effort... and it's these prints that keep me making prints and stacking them away in the closet or pulling a few of them out here and there to leave along the bluffs at santa monica with a note attached - "free to a good home"

getting back to the scene at hand, i do like jason's transcendental number 2 reduction. the question remains whether i can print that to my satisfaction because i have yet to make a black and white print of this negative that breaks that barrier of mundane to exceptional.

 

if there is anything of merit to be said about this landscape, it's probably best kept in the personal... as i'm sure that thirty years down the road, i might very well pull this transparencies out of the closet and get all sentimental about the good ol' days where i'd roam around the sierras without a care in the world.

 

carlos castaneda stated that once people get to know you, you are an affair taken for granted and from that moment on, you won't be able to break the tie of their thoughts. he went on to say that it's best to erase all personal history because that would make us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people.

 

he may very well have been right.

 

gerald,

 

thank you for this comment. when someone says that it looks more like a painting than a photograph, then i feel like somehow, the photograph has succeded.

Shafik, "This portfolio evokes or awakens something very deep within us, a sense of the spirituality of nature (which we are only a part of), and which lays dormant blocked by the profusion of stimuli in modern life..."

 

 

yep... yep...

 

and so to the casual observer,

a grain of sand is a grain of sand,

but to the eye of the beholder,

a grain of sand is alive.

 

A grain of sand holds the same key to god as does the highest intellect mankind can ever dream up. Sand is used to built the highest buildings and the tiniest computer chips, yet, sand is blown by the wind which can deposit as beautifully expressive

sand dunes for our eyes to behold and it is nothing more than worn down rock and reconfigured stardust through the expression of gods will to let the natural events of our universe unfold.

 

 

 

steve, a wratten #29 filter is a deep red filter gel

aaron, no infared here. it is a double exposure. i first photographed the mountain using a deep red filter & polarizer to cut WAY down on the light reaching the film in the sky region. then i changed lenses and pointed the camera towards the sun and used a fast shutter. if you study the image, you'll see that the shadows on the mountain do not register with the position of the sun. i intentionally placed the sun on the left side of the sky but if the sun were truly in that position, the whole scene would have been backlit.

shutter speed was something like 1/2 or 1 second. can't remember.

 

robert, what do you find suggestive in this scene?

hmmm.... never thought of this scene as haunting. maybe i was too tired after backpacking up 6000 vertical feet (1/2 of it cross country) to get to these lakes. i was sure glad that the lake became mirrorlike - the fishing was excellent as well.

richard, i don't think that you give up too much information by going to medium format. i think it's a matter of personal preference and how much weight you're willing to lug around. for me, personally, i do like large prints (16x20 & higher) of images like this one and the large format holds a lot of wanted detail in the larger prints. for an 8x10 or 11x14 print, i don't think you could discern mush diffence betewen the two formats unless you have an extreme depth of field problem to contend with. in that case, a large format can be utilized to shift the focal plane to secure focus across the entire image (in some but not all) of the scene.

 

toni, nope... didn't use a filter on this image. what's to filter really anyways? the scene was bathed in soft diffuse light from a low setting sun penetrating through cumulus clouds. so the clouds added a large quantity of scattered light and highlighted the right edge of the aspen bolles. the quality of light when i came upon this scene was just spectacular. i certainly got lucky as i shot this same scene (in vertical format) a year later and the quality of th light was simply not there.

 

chris, thank you. i do enjoy walking though the forest and listening to the wind stirr the trees, or listening to birds chirp, or just letting the silence penetrate and activate my thoughts. sometimes, the camera just seems to get in the way. often, i'll set the camera aside and just find a good rock to sit on and ponder. if trees could speak, what do you think they would have to say to us? would they laugh at us or would they cry? possibly both.

yep... and as my tripod holes sunk into his, i said - so what... it's to beautiful not to snap the shutter.

 

the ice patterns (islands) are quite different than his. i have also shot this in black and white (in a different year) and waited till i had soft light after sunset so that the ice wouldn't be washed out with no detail. i was lucky both times in that the water was still and gave a mirror image. ansel had some wind which diffused the reflection. you should see this lake from the top of eagle scout peak (2000 feet higher above the cliffs). it looks like a deep blue gemstone with variated shades of blue as the depth of the lake varies.

seven, those gritty textures (diluted in sharpness & texture by computer screen limitations) are grains of sand in the real print. the camera was perhaps 2 feet away along the lower edge of the fg dune. i love the capability to flaten out the focal plane across the horizon using the large format camera. as for the title... picked something "catchy" :)

 

philippe, not too hard to print once the basic "recipe" is figured out. i can print it well on a grade 4 single contrast paper but prefer to give it a little more "punch" on about grade 4 1/2 to 4 3/4 on variable contrast paper. the fg dune receives quite a bit of overall doging while the bg dune get's burned about 5-6x longer than the fg. there is detail in the darker areas of the entire fg dune (which i felt was important) and there is good detail in the larger black area in the bg dune with some if it approaching full black. it sure is hard to get the same feel on the computer screen, even with massive photoshop corrections.

there's something to be said for being at the right p[lace at the right time. glad you made it just in time for this shot. very very nice :)

i really like this shot. very surreal with the reflection in the still water just about matching the sky & tres. very nice.

geoff,

 

what a beautiful image. the colors are rich and vibrant. oh how beauty permeates everything throughout this universe and world we live in, if we take the time to slow down and catch a glimpse, to smell the roses, to feel life within not only life but death as they are interelated and inseperable in nature.

 

thanks for clicking on my picture and leaving the link to yours

 

:)

 

i think words and pictures go together in a way that makes the viewer think at a deeper level, getting away from the technical details (especially prevalent among photographers). so i think i may end up using the technical descriptive section more like a place to insert technical philosophy or a story "behind the scene"