Archive for July, 2009
This is about as fresh as you can get. Natalie picked a large bowl of red raspberries in our garden after dinner tonight. As she brought them in I thought they’d make a nice still life.
I chose an antique pressed-glass bowl from the family heirlooms and carefully poured some raspberries in. I placed it on our white dining room tablecloth, and added some of our collection of blue glass in the background for contrast.
I cleared a space to work on the table and played with placements until I got something I liked. This frame was made with my 100mm macro lens, set pretty wide open. I also shot a few frames with my 90mm tilt-shift lens to control depth of field. Since the photo was made after 8 pm on a cloudy evening, I did a custom white balance on the tablecloth. I used a handheld small reflector to add a little fill light on the bowl of berries, but this is basically just very soft window light exposed for about 4 seconds.
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July 06 2009 | Gardens and Photography | No Comments »
This is the first year I’ve entered the Professional Photographers of America International Print Competition. I came away from the very competitive judging with two award-winning prints that will join the PPA General Collection and be exhibited at Imaging USA in Nashville, Tennessee next January.
“Forest Primeval” was photographed on an ethereal misty morning visit to the Whatcom Land Trust’s Stimpson Family Nature Preserve near Lake Whatcom. It depicts a majestic old-growth western red cedar surrounded by skunk cabbage and ferns in a lush forest scene. Fog in the background gives the landscape a sense of mystery and depth.
A light rainy was falling on this moody day. The rain helps to saturate the colors and the overcast sky creates a very large soft light source. That helps to open up the shadows and reveal detail that would be obscured on a sunny day. While sunshine and warm air certainly make for pleasant hiking, our northwest rain forests don’t look quite right unless it’s a rainy day.
I’ve been a supporter of WLT for a long time and contributed photos for both the original Whatcom Places book in 1997 and the revised Whatcom Places II book ten years later in 2007. In preparation for the second book I visited several Land Trust preserves to photograph. It was on one of those visits that I found this wetland forest below the loop trail. I made several variations on the theme, but ultimately chose this one as my favorite.
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July 02 2009 | Photography | No Comments »
