This is the second in my black and white series from the Good Night Inn property. Where you see the lighter toned fence in the distance is where the fire burned the fence and it has been replaced. My neighborhood is on the other side of the fence. My house is just off the frame to the left.
Our quote for today is from Franz Kafka:
Anything that has real and lasting value is always a gift from within.
And now for something completely different. I was feeling like I wasn’t being very creative, falling back on my usual flowers and macro photos. So, I went out with an eye toward black and white. This led me over to the grounds of the Good Night Inn which has still not been cleaned up after the Almeda Fire and which is directly behind my house. It turned out to be a rich environment for black and white and I was so pleased with the results that I’m going to do a week long series. The images were all taken with the Lensbaby Sweet 50 mounted on the Canon M3 handheld. They were all processed using Nik Silver Efex Pro software, a plugin to Photoshop. Today’s image is an intrepid little weed growing up in the cracks in the parking lot.
Today’s quote is from Annie Dillard:
The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way. To locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse.
This Pansy was covered in pollen and what I think were bird droppings so I had passed it by. I also wasn’t very fond of the dirt in the background. But, two textures and a trip through Topaz Impressions for a Cezanne treatment, not to mention a lot of spot healing brush action, and I rather like it now.
Today’s quote is from Ansel Adams:
There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.
I don’t know about you but I am getting bored with flowers. I almost went off the rails today and dredged up something from France or Japan to treat artistically. I may yet. This one is from my early April trip to the Applegate Valley. When I was a child we used to take a picnic to McKee Bridge and swim in the river. The bridge was painted white then and had only recently been closed to traffic so my Dad loved to tell stories of driving over it. The light was very harsh this day and it took quite a bit of work in Photoshop and a trip through Topaz Impression to make this somewhat presentable.
Today’s quote is from Mary Oliver:
In every heart there is a coward and a procrastinator.
In every hear there is a god of flowers just waiting
to come out of its cud and lift its wings.
I had big plans for going out to photograph this morning but got preempted by rain. After an epic fail with my watercolor homework I turned to the ancestors for awhile and the next thing I knew it was 4pm and too windy to photograph flowers so I turned back to the archives for this photo of my variegated leaf Iris which is just coming into bloom. I wanted an impressionistic look and it was already a little light around the edges so I took it further in that direction with a light vignette and a texture which I masked out over the center.
And for our last day with Julia Cameron (at least for now):
Allowing art to move through us without impediment means resigning as its author. The work must be allowed to author itself, to take on the shapes and colors that it prefers.
Cody was following me around when I was out with the Lensbaby yesterday so I thought it might be fun to do a painterly portrait of the handsome devil. I think it turned out pretty well.
Here’s another nugget of wisdom from Julia Cameron:
The courage to create is the courage to make something out of what we are feeling.
I wore myself out pulling weeds today so it’s a good thing I have another Iris photo to fall back on. I never get tired of doing macro shots of Irises. They are so photogenic.
Today’s quote is again from Julia Cameron:
By listening to our heart’s desires and listening to them closely, we are not only led into making the art we dream of making but also into the dream of that art being realized on a meaningful scale.
Here’s another Ranunculus for you. I have been trying to get my head around the class I’m teaching for the Genealogy Library next month so photography wasn’t at the top of my list for today. So, I was glad I had this image from yesterday to fall back on.
Today’s quote is from photographer Carlos Jurado:
Art allows us to expand the dimensions of our everyday life.
Something many photography teachers talk about is capturing the essence of your subject. I have been noticing that the dandelions are taking over the little green space we have in our neighborhood and went out this morning with the artistic vision of capturing a gone to seed dandelion with the yellow of a fresh flower behind it. I had to crop in quite a bit to get to this image but it comes close to my vision though it is not quite there yet. I think I will have to go back with a different lens when it is less windy and try again.
From Matthew Fox:
The intimacy of creativity corresponds to the mystical experience itself.
So, yes, I was getting pretty bored with the neighborhood. I took a drive out through the orchards and into the Applegate Valley where I found a few interesting things to photograph, including this farm equipment. I started out with the standard shot of the whole thing but then started zooming in further and further looking for interesting shapes and lines. I rendered this as a black and white but then lowered the opacity on that layer to bring back just enough color to keep it interesting.
Robert Louis Stevenson is the author of today’s quote:
To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.