Graf Nature Photography | Notes from the woods

Morpheus: I imagine that right now, you’re feeling a bit like Alice. Hmm? Tumbling down the rabbit hole?
Neo: You could say that.
Morpheus: I see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that’s not far from the truth.

(dialog from the movie, The Matrix)

Picture it, a dark mysterious rabbit hole beckoning you to come down and explore it.  A mysterious opening into an enchanted forest.   All of these things came to my mind in making the images in this post.   They are a reflection of reality in that these are actual physical patterns, yet spark imagination of something quite different than their material origin.   I became absolutely mesmerized by them.   These in particular for me are extremely surreal.

This is part of the excitement for me in exploring nature’s patterns.    They already exist, sometimes in an otherwise benign environment, but when placed in the isolated context of a photograph, they can ignite excitement, enchantment, curiosity, and creativity.  In these rock abstracts, I am absolutely fascinated that such designs are created over millions of years.  They make me want to jump down the rabbit hole head first and see just how far it goes.

Going back through my archives I found a few images where I took a series of exposures because of a severe dynamic range issue.   I knew that this particular shot was going to be a little problematic for me because I really wanted the details to pop in the driftwood.   To get the driftwood bright enough, I know my sky was going to be overexposed.   I originally planned to expose for the driftwood in one shot, the sky in another and blend them, which is what I did at first.   I didn’t really punch the color much at first because it just didn’t seem to work well.

I decided to go back and see what Photomatix did for this shot beyond what I originally had done in Photoshop.    I popped the color a bit more becasue there was so much detail to play with.  The result is quite different, and to be honest, I like both versions.   The original one I did as a blend in Photoshop has a grittier feel to it.   The HDR one is more colorful, with clearer details.  I definitely brought out more of the green plants in the foreground, where they fall into shadow in the original.   I can see where people might prefer one over the other, it is all a matter of personal taste.   Let me know which you prefer and why.

failure |ˈfālyər|
noun
1 lack of success : an economic policy that is doomed to failure | the failures of his policies.
• an unsuccessful person, enterprise, or thing : bad weather had resulted in crop failures.
• lack of success in passing an examination or test : exam failure.
• a grade that is not high enough to pass an examination or test.
2 the omission of expected or required action : their failure to comply with the basic rules.
• a lack or deficiency of a desirable quality : a failure of imagination.
3 the action or state of not functioning : symptoms of heart failure | an engine failure.
• a sudden cessation of power.
• the collapse of a business.
ORIGIN mid 17th cent. (originally as failer, in the senses [nonoccurrence] and [cessation of supply] ): from Anglo-Norman French failer for Old French faillir (see fail ).

Quite a few folks talk about failure as part of the process of learning, especially when it comes to expanding creativity.   The videos I posted from Ira Glass talk about it being part of the process - an actual requirement.  One of the bottom lines I took away from those videos … you are going to produce some crap - so get over it.

The word has such negative connotations to it, proven by the definition above.   It is beaten into us throughout our lives, we are brought up with the equation;  failure = bad.    Avoid it!   Grades in school, jobs, relationships,  and in photographs.  It is difficult to embrace something that has such negative associations or to not let it get you down.   Just imagine a critique of an image where someone states “This picture is a failure.”   We have all said it to ourselves on occasion.  It is such a powerful word.

Failure can sometimes be a somewhat ambiguous term as well.   As Brooks Jensen describes in his podcast LW0378 - it is up to the individual to define what is or isn’t failure in relation to what they are doing.  What exactly is supposed to differentiate success from failure?  For many, simply getting out and experiencing something counts for a lot.

Scott Kelby posted a nice article by Moose Peterson on the acceptance of coming home empty handed.   Aside from judging an individual image, it is another measurable we place upon ourselves.   I can’t tell you how many times I have been up a couple of hours before dawn to drive to a spot, spend all morning poking around, to come home with essentially nothing.   You are inevitably faced with the question from someone - “Get any good pictures today?“   An innocent question, but it is amazing how the pressures to succeed can be embedded in it - especially when the answer is “Not a one…”

It can suck away your motivation.  You are faced with times where you try to convince yourself that staying in bed is better than getting out there at all.  Paul Lester wrote a wonderful post about this internal argument we can all relate to.    Failure to try is yet another kind.   Opportunities missed because of laziness or discouragement only create a snowball effect.   Not having a camera with you, or missing something when you are not prepared - “if I only would have….” and on and on.

It is a difficult monster to face - this failure thing.   It is an ugly, powerful word.  It is difficult to accept it as being necessary.   But perhaps there is some comfort in knowing that you are not alone in experiencing it.    You just don’t hear about it enough.  Even the most well known photographers have their moments.  The tendency is to try to bury it, acknowlege but hide it - like a kid trying to hide the “F” on their report card.   You hear it all the time - only show your best stuff.   Great advice for marketing, but certainly not much others can learn from.

That’s why I found it particularly enjoyable watching Tony Sweet talk about some of his earlier images in his DVD Visual Literacy.   He is a photographer I greatly admire for his style and someone I am inspired by because I think we see in similar ways.   He didn’t use the term “failure” in particular, but he did talk about some of the shortcomings of some of his earlier work and how he would do it much differently today.   In many ways, it changes the term ‘failure’ into just another meaning for ‘periods of growth’ - which I find much more palatable.

It does make you think though - are some of what I consider my successes today going to be considered failures in the future?   It’s all a lot to wrap your noggin around.   Ultimately, you will never know by just sitting around fretting about it.

Just create, and let the judgments fall where they may…

My procrastination in cleaning my camera’s sensor finally gave me a kick in the pants with some soft focus iris images I did recently.  Check out the thumbnail.   These are all the dust spots I needed to clean up in Lightroom.  I thought slides were bad!    Dust really starts to show when you do images with a lot of soft uniform areas.   I probably have some shots that are more detailed with just as many spots, only they aren’t noticeable and blend in with the details.

I am actually fairly religious about keeping lens caps clean, but I think I need to concentrate more on the mating end of the lens to the body.    I checked out a few of my lenses and found some dust in there.

What surprised me was the amount of effort to get all of these suckers cleaned off, and I still didn’t get them 100%.    All in all- took me about 40 minutes.   I started with my simple overpriced paintbrush (ahem - sorry - sensor dust cleaning accessory), didn’t seem to help much.   I also have one of those Dust-Aid gizmos.   It is a very scary thing at first placing a sticky piece of foam on your camera’s sensor, but it actually works pretty good.  Just not good enough for this case.   I still had quite a bit, despite using the Dust-Aid 3 times over.    I then resorted to a wet cleaning using Pec*Pads and Eclipse cleaning fluid.   It took about three tries with this, and another final try with a Dust-Aid - and it is about 95% clean.    I always seem to get some Pec*Pad lint somewhere in there, which shows up like a giant worm just crawled into your image.

All the lenses were cleaned and I called it ‘good enough’ for now.   No doubt the process will repeat in the near future.   If you have any other dust prevention tips or tools you have had good luck with, don’t keep it a secret eh?!   I haven’t resorted to buying yet another dust gadget - that spinning paintbrush thingy.   I refuse!!

I have been meaning to start some blog postings about previsualization I have had with some images.   Granted my brain doesn’t often think that far in advance, but sometimes I get lucky!   So I hope you enjoy the first in the “Idea to Image” series…

The plant shown here is a Scouring Rush or a lot of people call them Horsetails.   It is a wetland plant and grows in these straight stalks, usually about 2 feet high or so.    I have always thought their details were quite interesting graphically, from the points they form to the separated segments of the plant.    However, I always had difficulty composing them, just one stalk never seemed to be enough for me.   They often grow in very chaotic wetland environments, making it difficult to simplify a composition.  I always wanted to find a patch of them where they could be grouped together.

While my wife and I were taking our dog for a walk, we went on a new trail that happened to have large groups of horsetails.  In fact, they were quite abundant.   As you photographers know, sometimes your brain doesn’t stop taking pictures, even when the camera is away.    I thought this place might be just the ticket to realize the image I wanted.

Returning a following morning, I found a very close group of them and managed to push a few together to form an even tighter cluster.   I had found the composition I was looking for.   These stalks are green in color.  Later on in post processing it hit me that the green was a bit too overpowering.  What I was originally interested in was the graphical nature of these plants.   Of course, when the color interferes, black and white is the way to go.

Just converting this image to monochrome helped, but it still wasn’t quite there.   It wasn’t until I started playing with some of the grayscale sliders in Lightroom that this image really came alive. �