04-07-09 The Traveler

By Scott Shephard

View fullsize

My wife and I were in Frankfort waiting for our morning flight to Amsterdam and then on to the US. She was reading and I was restless. So I went looking for a picture.

What drew me to this location was the strong morning sun and the clean, almost hospital feel of the hallway (though the "Camel" sign suggests this isn't a hospital!). I took a few pictures of the empty space but then a solo traveler walked into the frame. And here's the result.

Canon 5D 1/125s f/5.0 ISO160 92mm (Canon 24-105mm f/4.0L IS)

04-06-09 J Paul Getty Center

By Scott Shephard

View fullsize

The J. Paul Getty Center north of Los Angeles is a remarkable place. It is filled with great art, including Van Gogh's painting of purple irises. But if there were no art at all, it would still be a place worth visiting. I know very little about architectural psychology but I would say that both the indoor and outdoor spaces of this complex are very "human." Or maybe humane.

The clean, white structure and the rough, stone contrast very well with the green grass and the deep blue sky. Los Angeles was clouded in smog but this place seemed very pure to me.

Canon 5D 1/400s f/11.0 ISO250 55mm (Canon 24-105mm f/4.0L IS)

;

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

04-05-09 Frozen In Time

By Scott Shephard

04-05-09-frozen-in-time

My wife and I had made our annual October trip to the Black Hills. Where our cabin was, it had snowed lightly; but a few miles away, there had been freezing rain followed by several inches of snow. I spent about 30 minutes walking through ankle-deep snow to photograph ice-encased leaves and branches. Altogether, I took about 75 photos but this is my favorite.

Canon 5D 1/200s f/3.5 ISO160 200mm (Canon 70-200m 2.8L IS)

04-03-09 The Magic Olive Grove

My wife and I were out exploring the back roads of Corfu two summers ago. There are many olive groves on the island but there was something about this one that caused me to sop the car and take a few photos.

I've learned that olive trees can be hundreds of years old. I doubt that these are that old, though the rugged and gnarled nature of the trunks suggests that they are older than trees I am used to seeing in South Dakota.

I converted this photo to black and white because I think the tones make this picture much more interesting and mysterious.

Canon 5D 1/60s f/5.6 ISO320 28mm (lens unknown)

04-02-09 The Brilliance of Nature

If you go to Olympia, WA, be sure to find the Japanese Garden. It is a beautiful, serene enclave surrounding by fairly busy streets and office buildings. I was there is late November and it was raining. (Is that the norm at this time of year?). I had taken a few photographs of this tree from the front and then decided to look at the tree from behind. And this is what I saw.

The color is striking, of course, but so, too, are the twisted, near-black branches. I could have photographed for quite a while but the rain and my wife suggested that I should move on.

Canon 5D 1/60s f/4.5 ISO400 58mm (Canon 24-105 f/4.0L)

04-01-09 Frosty Window

One morning after one of our first frosts, I went looking for interesting things to photograph. In the alley behind our house I found a 1950s era Chevy parked near our neighbor's back garage. What drew me to this subject was the soft, rust color or the car's body (which is barely visible in this picture) and the cool, blue-tinted frost on the front window.

This shot is almost an abstraction in that the eye may not know exactly what is pictured here. Frost is also "almost abstract." It seems random in many ways; though if you look carefully, there are patterns. What is the cause of the patterns? You'll have to answer that question yourself.

5D 1/200s f/4.5 ISO400 105mm (Canon 24-105 f/4.0L)

03-31-09 E Pluribus Unum

By Scott Shephard

2009 03-31 E Pluribus Unum

Ethan's second birthday party was this past Saturday and it was an interesting event - twenty-nine guests and enough presents to keep a young person and his parents occupied for a long time.

In between the action my eye was caught by a series of Russian nesting dolls sitting on a hutch that had been stained nearly black. The red and black were a great combination. I shot this with my 50mm 1.2L lens and you can see that the depth of field with this lens can be very narrow.

Canon 5DII 1/125s f/1.2 ISO1000 50mm

03-30-09 Things Not Seen

By Scott Shephard

View fullsize

This photo is a great example of what happens when you go looking for a photo. I had been inside the Codington County Courthouse (built in 1929) many times and not seen the beautiful stained glass in the dome. But when I went in with my camera, the first thing I did was look up. And this photo is what I saw.

Canon 1D 1/200s f/6.3 ISO800 47mm (Canon 28-70mm 2.8L)

03-29-09 A 20th Century Cathedral?

This is the Illinois State Office Building and I must say that while it's not quite as amazing as St. Peters, it is still somewhat overwhelming. The first time I was in the building, I was able to go to one of the upper floors and look down. Being mildly afraid of heights, I found it unsettling and wondered if any of the workers on upper floors had to deal with their own acrophobia. When I visited this time, I think that security concerns prohibited me from going past the ground floor.

Incidentally, my title is not intended to imply that working for government or in a government building is a religious experience. It isn't. Right?

Canon 20D 1/100s f/6.3 ISO800 10mm (Canon 10-22mm EFS)

03-28-09 Reflections of Florence

I was waiting in line to visit the Academia in Florence, Italy. Having nothing better to do, I looked down at a table of sunglasses that a street vendor had put out to lure tourists. And I saw the facades of the buildings and the beautiful morning sky reflected in the lenses. So I took this photo. That's all I have to say about this one.

Canon 5D Canon 24-105mm 4.0L (105mm) f/4.0 1/800 ISO 400

03-27-09 Reflections of Chicago

I like the juxtaposition of lines and curves in this photo. I also like the warm, gold tones of the reflected buildings. What strikes me about this picture is how easily something as structured and perfect as a high rise building can be reduced to an abstraction by glass panels, which seem so flat and perfect themselves.

I am also struck by the myriad of interesting things that I see when I go to a city like Chicago. What I find interesting, though, the natives seem to ignore. But I'm guessing that if someone from Chicago visited my small town for the first time, they would see interesting things that I pass by every day.

That is one of the virtues of photography - it has the ability to open our eyes to all the interesting things that surround us.

Canon 5D f/9.0 1/250 Canon 24-105mm 4.0L (80mm) ISO 400

03-26-09 A View West from the Arc de Triomphe

I was in Paris with a student group in 2007 and we had made our way to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. We had timed our visit for this time of the evening - when the sun sets and the lights of Paris come alive. There are so many views and so many things to photograph but this view caught my attention.

In this photo I am looking west along the Avenue de la Grande Armee. In the distance is the ultra modern la Defense high rise complex, which is dominated by the stark, white arch known as the Grande Arche de la Defense. There are three famous arches in Paris which line up along what is known as the Axe historique: the Arc Du Carrousel (near the Louvre), the Arc de Triomphe and the Grand Arche de la Defense. Two of the arches were built by Napoleon and one was built by Mitterand.

Compare this to "Chicago Skyline."

Canon 5D f/1.8 1/100 Canon 50mm 1.4 ISO 320

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License