There's not much art in the photograph - the art is in the amazing glass objects that were layered between Plexiglas panels in the ceiling of a walkway near The Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington.
This was taken in a Venetian glass factory on a recent student trip. If I didn't tell you that these were teardrop decorations dangling from a VERY expensive chandelier, I'm guessing you may not know what you were looking at.
Over the top of my computer, as I look out my window, I seen blustery winter weather bringing more light snow that is mostly horizontal. There is a "winter weather advisory" this morning - whatever that means.
On my computer desktop, however, I am looking at a beautiful Stargazer lilly. It's not hard to imagine warmer summer weather, is it?
There is an elevator to the top of the Arc de Triomphe but for the adventurous there are spiral stairs to the base. There is very little light in the stairwell and so I needed to use a high iso and slow shutter speed to get this photo.
One last thing: Does art imitate nature here? Check out this photo (click)
Canon 5D 1/30s f/1.2 ISO1250 50mm
This is another one of my early experiments in portraiture. Regan had come along on a photo shoot to provide company for a friend of hers I was photographing (whose pictures I can't find :-( ).
After photographing her friend, I asked Regan if she minded if I took a few pictures of her. She grudgingly agreed and this photo may show a little of her reluctance. I didn't know much about portraiture then but I did know that the soft window light I found for this portrait is flattering. I hadn't learned about Rembrandt lighting but it is present in this portrait.
I was waiting for my tour group to gather after a tour of the Roman Colosseum. As always, the ancient building was crowded, noisy and swelteringly hot. I turned away from our group and found these two tourists sitting in the flood of light entering the colonnade, no doubt plotting their strategy for their visit to Rome. This photo makes the Colosseum look quiet, cool and relaxing. Maybe that's the magic of photography. Or may it's the deception.
There are many things I like about this photo: I like the repeating lines of the columns and the repeating bright and dark made by the Roman sunlight. I also like the pock marks that show the age of this place. Finally, I like that by accident the three primary colors are present in this photo, though in very muted shades. Can you see them?
In the process of organizing my photo collection (400,000+!) I came across some of my first portrait sessions. This happens to be of a girl named Ellie and is one of my favorite portraits. I was shooting film in those days and then developing it in my makeshift darkroom. Once the negatives were ready, I used a high resolution film scanner and Photoshop to process the pictures.
Ellie was very relaxed and comfortable. I wasn't because I really didn't know anything about taking portraits. I thank her for this photo, which was taken in a doorway of an old barn north of Watertown.
In my brief foray to the cemetery, where I knew I could find a multitude of frost-covered trees, I looked for shots where the light was coming straight at the camera through the branches of the trees. The sunlight was relatively strong but still obscured by thin fog, which meant that with all the white surrounding me there was very good ambient light, as well. It is that ambient light in this photo that provides the detail on what would otherwise be the shaded side of this pine bough.
On an even more geeky note, it is a photo like this that helps me appreciate the high 23 mega-pixel resolution of the camera I use. You are looking a a compressed, resized version of the original. But even in this, I think you can see excellent detail in the needles of this tree.
It is relatively rare that we get foggy days in South Dakota - especially in winter. And I suppose if it were more common, hoary evergreens wouldn't be magical. But to me they are. My only regret is that I didn't have more time yesterday to take photos. I could learn to love SD winters if they were always so photogenic. . .
We have had early morning fog lately, which leaves the trees hoary with frost. What does "hoary" mean? White or gray, as in "hoary beard," "hoary sea foam," or "hoary frost." So ends the vocabulary lesson.
This photo opportunity was just across the street from the Ronald McDonald shot from yesterday. I was tempted to get my hair braided but decided against it. :-)
I took this candid shot in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, in 2001. I'm not sure if the young Mexican boy was aware that Ronald seems to be offering his friendship.
