2103_1181 Thin Ice
Last spring, during the melt-freeze cycle, I spent significant time staring at pond surfaces. The very thin ice meant I could not walk on it, so I had to work from the edges. The idea here is to face the sun, but look and shoot down so there isn't any flare, and bracket exposures to ensure a good RAW file as the starting point. I framed everything square. During processing, I converted to greyscale, then back to RGB and added a blue wash (coloured filter). That's about it.
Btw, I don't recommend shooting at f/36; there is definitely a falloff in sharpness. But I felt that in this series of shots it was an acceptable compromise, because I wanted the image in focus edge to edge and was unable to shoot straight down at my subject. These situations are rare.
It won't be everyone's cuppa tea, or in my case, coffee, which is fine by me. I stopped trying to please everyone a long time ago. Back in the 1990s I was selling quite a few calendar shots and a reasonable amount of stock photography. Then I just... stopped. For about three years I had a business card that read: "No fixed address. Travelling somewhere in North America." And what happened? I had my first gallery exhibit, started running photo workshops, and had my first book published.
When I look back on my work from the 1990s it isn't exactly a black hole, but it was not my most creative period. There were good moments and some good images, of course. But there was also a lot of "formula shooting", which by nature is repetitive. One day I was shooting in beautiful knee deep powder snow in rural Ontario with a former student. I'm not sure what I said to him, but it must have been inane, because he turned and replied, "James. Life is not a calendar."
A word of advice, especially for teachers: Listen to your students. Especially if they're older than you. Life, after all, is not a calendar.
Photographed in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2021 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
2103_1181 Thin Ice
Last spring, during the melt-freeze cycle, I spent significant time staring at pond surfaces. The very thin ice meant I could not walk on it, so I had to work from the edges. The idea here is to face the sun, but look and shoot down so there isn't any flare, and bracket exposures to ensure a good RAW file as the starting point. I framed everything square. During processing, I converted to greyscale, then back to RGB and added a blue wash (coloured filter). That's about it.
Btw, I don't recommend shooting at f/36; there is definitely a falloff in sharpness. But I felt that in this series of shots it was an acceptable compromise, because I wanted the image in focus edge to edge and was unable to shoot straight down at my subject. These situations are rare.
It won't be everyone's cuppa tea, or in my case, coffee, which is fine by me. I stopped trying to please everyone a long time ago. Back in the 1990s I was selling quite a few calendar shots and a reasonable amount of stock photography. Then I just... stopped. For about three years I had a business card that read: "No fixed address. Travelling somewhere in North America." And what happened? I had my first gallery exhibit, started running photo workshops, and had my first book published.
When I look back on my work from the 1990s it isn't exactly a black hole, but it was not my most creative period. There were good moments and some good images, of course. But there was also a lot of "formula shooting", which by nature is repetitive. One day I was shooting in beautiful knee deep powder snow in rural Ontario with a former student. I'm not sure what I said to him, but it must have been inane, because he turned and replied, "James. Life is not a calendar."
A word of advice, especially for teachers: Listen to your students. Especially if they're older than you. Life, after all, is not a calendar.
Photographed in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2021 James R. Page - all rights reserved.