NATURE & WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP ON CHINCOTEAGUE ISLAND VIRGINIA: DAY 4 MORNING

Day 4: Sunrise Shoot at Taylor's Landing VA

I seriously cheated on this photograph. I wanted just the house on stilts. I tried taking the shot from a variety of angles, but nothing felt or looked right. 

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I jokingly call my 'bad' photographs the raw material from which a much better photograph can be created. I wanted the house on stilts, but how to get what I wanted from what I had. With an enormous assist from Lightroom and a couple of creative editing programs from Topaz Labs, I got that photograph.

I cropped the photograph to get rid of the pickup and backhoe. The telephone/electrical wires were distractions that had to go as well. 

According to the histogram, the exposure was right. (A big THANK YOU to Jim for teaching us how to use the histogram in camera. Now I need to master spot metering...) I didn't want the house in silhouette, so I opened up the shadows all the way. A couple of nifty filters enhanced the sun coming up behind the house and added a bit of nostalgic texture.


House On Stilts, Taylor's Landing VA

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NATURE & WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP ON CHINCOTEAGUE ISLAND VIRGINIA: DAY 3

The morning of Day 3 found us in a lovely state park in Maryland. 

Many of the trees hadn't leafed out yet, but the dogwoods were in bloom. Seeing dogwoods blooming in 'the wild' was a treat for me. Most of us are familiar with ornamental dogwoods, covered in the spring with big, showy flowers. Wild dogwoods are more delicate, softer in appearance. They get your attention without the need to shout.

One of our goal was to take photographs of reflections. Jim Clark, our instructor, also said, for those interested, that a nearby pool was home to toads. Hmm... Photographing dogwoods or reflections versus toads? Tough decision. I headed toward the water while the rest of the group made tracks to see toads.

I am not entirely thrilled with this photograph. It doesn't feel quite right. I think I should have shot it in 'portrait' aspect rather than 'landscape'. As every photography instructor I've ever had has said, "When shooting your subject, always use different exposures, apertures, angles, aspects, etc." 

Canoe Reflection  

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Original photograph. 

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Nice reflection, but a bit dull. What can I do to make the photograph 'pop'?

Voila!

April Morning At The River

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I really wish I could paint. Yeah, I know it's never too late to learn. Thing is, I don't think there are enough years left in my life to become a truly proficient painter. There are, however, amazing editing programs that convert photographs into 'paintings'. So with a bow of deep admiration & respect to my friends who are genuine painters, I give you my 'painting'.

April Morning At The River: A 'Photographic Painting' 

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NATURE & WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP ON CHINCOTEAGUE ISLAND VIRGINIA: DAY 2

During my week on Chincoteague Island, the weather was lovely. The days were mild & sunny. After a long, wet, gloomy Seattle winter, a taste of spring was delightful. 

On the second day of the workshop we were in the marshlands of Chincoteague Island. We shot from a road crossing the marsh. This was the view to the east.

Sunrise Over Marshlands, Chincoteague Island, Virginia

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This was the view to the west.

Moonset Over Marshlands, Chincoteague Island, Virginia

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After a couple of hours shooting, it was time for breakfast in the field. I had taken my camera off the tripod when someone in the group noticed elk crossing the marsh. The elk were moving at a brisk pace, so I had to shoot from the hip. 

Here is one the original photographs. Way overexposed. In the rush to get the shot, everything I ever learned about photography flew out of my head. The composition, surprisingly, was not too bad. 

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Fortunately, I was shooting in RAW. In Lightroom, I was able to salvage the photograph. It is not perfect technically. That said, I had my first wildlife photograph! Yay!

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NATURE & WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP ON CHINCOTEAGUE ISLAND VIRGINIA: DAY 1

In April I participated in a weeklong nature and wildlife photography workshop on Chincoteague Island, Virginia. The workshop was through Road Scholar.

When I was in elementary school, I read Misty of Chincoteague Island by Marguerite Henry, a book about the wild ponies of Chincoteague Island. As a kid, I was crazy about horses. I hoped during my week on Chincoteague Island I might see some of the wild ponies I had read about so many years ago.

The workshop began at 5:30 AM when we boarded a bus which took us to a site to do sunrise photography. Jim Clark, our instructor, warned us the first day would be a tough one. We would fight our equipment and wonder what the hell we were doing. He was absolutely right. I fought with my camera, wondered what the hell I was doing, while managing to lose a lens cap & an expensive polarizing filter.  

At the end of the workshop, everyone participating in the workshop presented their eight photographs.

Here is my first photograph. Sunrise Over Atlantic, Assateague Island VA (Assateague Island is the barrier island that protects Chincoteague Island.)

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I never thought I had much interest in nature or wildlife photography. A week with Jim Clark shifted my thinking. Jim shared with us a wealth of information about the birds of the mid-Atlantic coast and marshlands gathered from a lifetime of study & photography. Bird calls, mating plumage and behavior, etc.   

Unfortunately, my bird photographs left much to be desired. Jim, however, successfully planted a seed of interest about wildlife photography. 

I was much more pleased with my photographs of inanimate objects. 

Chincoteague Island Lighthouse

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I used an filter to give the photograph an faded, aged look. Remember that trip to the beach with your family back in 1967?

I'M A 'PAINTER'

When I was growing up, I loved to draw and color. In elementary school, I was as fond of 'art time' as I was of history and geography. Math and science, uh, not so much.

My mother, while thinking art was beautiful, really didn't think an art education would result in a career that paid one's bills.

Another road block happened in 7th grade. I can't begin to describe how excited I was by the idea of having an art class. A whole hour every day devoted to art! The class, unfortunately, was a soul-sucking experience. As an adult, I have come realize the gentleman who taught the art class was probably a deeply frustrated, deeply unhappy individual. He did very little to empower me. Rather I became terrified that I wasn't doing an assignment just right. I dreaded showing my work. The teacher crushed my budding art aspirations by making it clear who the artists were in the class. I wasn't one of them. 

I never took another art class until I was a freshman in college where I was required to have three art credits. I took a history of art class. The instructor was a passionate woman who loved art. By that time, however, I felt quite the 'fish out of water'. Most of the students in class were artists who knew so much more about the subject than I did. 

My next hands-on experience with art came many years later when I volunteered to help the art docent in my son Matthew's 2nd grade class. The docent, an accomplished artist in her own right, was the mother of one of the students, . She radiated with joy about art, as though teaching art to a roomful of wiggly 7 years olds was the greatest thing she could be doing with her life. One day the docent presented a slideshow featuring works of art about the weather. She showed this painting. 

Another volunteer, an artist, leaned towards me and whispered, "The left leaning lines in that piece give off so much urgency. You can feel the movement." My response... "Uh, yeah, sure." I really had no idea what she was talking about. I just found the painting gripping.

So, here I am, almost two decades later, trying to be an 'artist'. I have little confidence in what I am doing, but I am having a great time doing it. I feel like a preschooler finger-painting, making the grass orange under a tree with bright blue leaves.

There are wonderful programs available that allow one to convert a photograph into a 'painting'. Oh, yes, I know it is never too late to learn a new skill. I fear, however, it would take me many years to become a truly proficient painter, if ever. And, honestly, I'm too impatient to wait anymore. So today, I gave myself a photography assignment. 

Here is the raw photograph, taken with my iPhone 6 using only light from a bright window, 

    
Now, first finished/edited photograph. I cropped the photograph, warmed up the temperature, opened up the shadows, reduced the highlights, and desaturated the colors a bit. 

Looking at the photograph above, I was struck by the feeling of calm I gave me. I wanted to take that feeling one step further, so I converted the photograph to a 'painting' with a soft, dreamy monochromatic color scheme.

NEW YEAR'S EVE 2013/NEW YEAR'S DAY 2017

Was a bit under the weather on yesterday. Definitely not how I planned to welcome the New Year. Housebound, I spent the day in my photography playground. 

In 2013, my son John and I traveled to NYC. We were there for the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day. We had a wonderful time. Ate way too much New York style pizza. 

New Year's Eve found us wandering around Central Park where I took the photograph below, using my little Nikon point-and-shoot camera. 

Hardly a pretty picture. However, when I examined the photograph more closely, I realized I had caught two people standing close together on the bridge, looking at the pond. There was my story. 

Dorothy Parker's quote "Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye" is my new motto. From that quote sprang Winter Wonderland. 

Wish I could say I had a plan in mind when I started, but I didn't. The final photograph came about after a lot of trial and error.

The original photograph has two weaknesses, in my opinion. One is the very dull, but very winter color scheme. No crystal blue sky or sparkling snow to make the photograph pop. The other is the tangle of bare bushes in the foreground.

I opted to play off the winter color scheme rather than fight it. The lack of color reminded me of old, faded photographs. I cropped the photograph and added a fog filter to give a hazy, dreamlike quality. I removed a number of twigs and branches in the foreground. Eliminating those distractions opened up the area around the bridge a bit and brought more focus to the couple on the bridge. The underbrush in the foreground served very nicely as a background for the Winter Wonderland caption. Lastly, an aged border for that final old time photograph touch.

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ELECTRIC ANEMONE

I have discovered that one of the things I like best about photography is taking a photograph and making it something different. 

I balk at calling what I do 'art' because I really don't believe I have earned the right to call myself an artist. A 'creative exercise' feels much more comfortable.

Here is today's creative exercise.

Last spring, I took this photograph of an anemone. When I look at it, I think of white linen and pearls.  

A couple of years ago, a meme appeared on my Facebook feed asking what I would buy if someone gave me $50. Books, of course! I have to modify that response now. Extra $50? Books and photo editing software! 

Today, I purchased Topaz Lab's Glow 2. (It was on sale!) I had to take my new toy out for a spin. I rotated the photograph, cropped it a bit, and reduced the exposure of the background to get rid of distractions. Then it was time to release the lovely anemone's inner wild child!

Still lovely, in my opinion, but now with just a bit of attitude!

'Electric Anemone'