Category: Impressionist

Day 95 – Goldfinch Tree

GoldfinchTree

I’m busy getting ready to head out to a Photography Workshop in the Columbia River Gorge tomorrow. So, I thought I would delve in to the archives and play with the digital darkroom toys a little today. This tree was just full of lesser goldfinches back in March but I had to crop in and cut out quite a few birds in order to give it a point of focus.

Today’s quote from jazz musician Charlie Parker applies to all art forms I think:

Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out your horn.

Day 20 – Still Life with wine

Wine

I have to say I really wasn’t feeling it today. I finally decided to do something impressionistic with a wine bottle and a glass of wine. I shot it with the Lensbaby Velvet 56 wide open so it had a soft look to start with. Then took it into Topaz Impression for a Van Gough effect and finally added a texture with an artsy look to finish it off. The bokah from the afternoon light was just a little added bonus.

Today’s quote is from Ansel Adams:

Art is both love and friendship and understanding; the desire to give. It is not charity, which is the giving of things, it is more than kindness which is the giving of self. It is both the taking and giving of beauty, the turning out to the light of the inner folds of awareness of the spirit. It is the recreation on another plane of the realities of the world; the tragic and wonderful realities of earth and men, and of all the inner relations of these.

Charleston Boat Basin

BoatBasinFinal

I was about on the verge of thinking I would have to bag the Oregon Coast project because the weather has been so bad I couldn’t get over there in February. But a very brief window of fair weather followed by a warm weather system allowed be to get to Coos Bay for a couple of days. The first day started out well but by sunset the clouds were so thick there was no color to be had. The next day was characterized by steady rain. I had chosen Coos Bay on purpose for the variety of indoor activities. I got soaked getting from my car to the Marine Life Center in Charleston but as luck would have it, it stopped raining for a few minutes just as I was leaving so I had a chance to photograph in the Boat Basin, one of my favorite places to shoot. There was a boat with a load of fish that had the attention of some seagulls so there were plenty flying around. So, once again proving that half of photography is being in the right place at the right time. I treated this image with an impressionistic painting filter followed by a texture effect for a painterly look that somehow makes the weather look a lot better than it was.

Day 41 – Sunflower Impression

SunflowerImpression

I made a half-hearted attempt to go out and photograph my neighbors’ sunflowers this morning but the wind was not cooperating and I’m still struggling to find the sweet spot on my Sweet 50 lens. But this one which was completely in blur out of the camera cried out for some digital artistry. So after several iterations of Topaz software and several textures I came up this one which I rather like. Not sure I would hang it on my wall, but on the other hand, printed on wood? I might have something here.

Night Sky

NightSky

I spent last weekend with Art Wolfe in a photography workshop called “Abstract Astoria”. The idea was to make engaging abstract photographs from rusty junk and stained walls. In this case, the image was shot at a Logging Museum and this is actually a close up of an old Donkey Engine. But doesn’t it just look like the Milky Way or a Nebulae or something. Just did a little saturation and luminence adjustments to bring out the colors and added vignette and darkened the bottom a little.

Day 72 – Autumn Rose

Rose2TI

One Day is there of the Series

One day is there of the series
Termed “Thanksgiving Day”
Celebrated part at table
Part in memory –
Neither Ancestor nor Urchin
I review the Play –
Seems it to my Hooded thinking
Reflex Holiday
Had There been no sharp subtraction
From the early Sum –
Not an acre or a Caption
Where was once a Room
Not a mention whose small Pebble
Wrinkled any Sea,
Unto such, were such Assembly,
‘Twere “Thanksgiving day”

-Emily Dickinson

I felt like I needed to get something posted before food coma sets in. It is a beautiful day today but still windy. But I took a chance and ran out the door with the camera and around the neighborhood where the most interesting thing I found was the ornamental roses still blooming away. I used the big camera without a tripod and paid the price but a little painterly treatment in photoshop made those fuzzy edges look just right.  I have to admit I always find Emily Dickinson a bit obscure but to me this poems speaks of how Thanksgiving is not just the one day we celebrate at present but the memory of all the Thanksgivings before and the memory of those who are no longer here to celebrate with us. This is particularly fitting for my family which has suffered several losses in the past few years. But on a happier note, all who remain will gather at my Mother’s house today.

Day 71 – Spirit Bear

SpiritBear2

Untitled Shaman Song

The great sea
frees me, moves me,
as a strong river carries a weed.
Earth and her strong winds
move me, take me away,
and my soul is swept up in joy.

-Uvavnuk (Iglulik Eskimo, 19th century) [translated by Jane Hirshfield]

I was going to go out for a camera walk but it was so windy I thought I would never get a good photograph because nothing would hold still. So I started looking around the house and decided to photograph some of my knick-knacks. I think I came by this Spirit Bear at Indian Market in Santa Fe one year but he has been with me long enough, I don’t really remember. I wanted to give him a more ethereal quality so added some textures and gave him a Georgia O’Keefe treatment in Topaz Impression (how appropriate!) Then I started looking for a poem. Not many poems about spirit bears and surprisingly few about bears, spirit animals, etc. I finally turned to gratitude in homage to Thanksgiving and nothing tripped my trigger there either. I finally found an anthology of Spiritual Poetry on the Poetry Foundation website and while Eskimos and spirit bears may not be a good fit, the Native American connection with nature and spirituality worked for me.

Day 68 – Teasel

Teaselw

Autumn

When the trees their summer splendor
Change to raiment red and gold,
When the summer moon turns mellow,
And the nights are getting cold;
When the squirrels hide their acorns,
And the woodchucks disappear;
Then we know that it is autumn,
Loveliest season of the year.

-Carol L. Riser

 

I thought about going out and trying to capture fog this morning but after looking at the thermometer I decided I would rather not. So, I spent half the day working on this attempt to emulate an art piece in one of my Photoshop artistry lessons. I don’t think I quite captured the technique but I still think it has potential. Just need a little more practice.

Day 66 – Big Leaf Maple

BigLeafw

November

November comes,
And November goes
With the last red berries
And the first white snows,

With night coming early
And dawn coming late,
And ice in the bucket
And frost by the gate.

The fires burn
And the kettles sing,
And earth sinks to rest
Until next spring.

-Elizabeth Coatsworth

I have to say I have been trying for, well, 65 days to find the right combination of weather and opportunity to get over to the Applegate Valley to photograph. I did find some good fall color today. Though the wineries were definitely past prime, the big leaf maples were quite showy. I ended up with nearly 100 images so you may see more from this trip down the road. I wouldn’t mind going back either. No one seems to be writing poems about big leaf maples but I like this one about November.