To remain upright in the best of times is not easy. To remain upright in the face of turbulent times is an imposing challenge. Besieged and bombarded our roots tremble as we hazard to withstand an unrelenting barrage. When little is easy stress takes hold in response to trauma and toxic stressors undermine our stability. Yet we must stand. We must challenge ourselves to dig in, to strive and overcome. To reject the convenient inclination to devolve to our base selves and turn on each other. In so doing turning on our better selves. Ask yourself, am I taking care to take care? What do I need to remain upright amidst 2020’s withering fire of such unrelenting fury—both natural born and self-inflicted? Let us stand together in mutual promise to fortify and support our better selves, and keep seated the scourge who lies beneath. In this way we stay upright together, leaning and holding our brighter selves as one. And if you don’t want to hear it from, well, listen to Bill and Ted.
This Is Not Important — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
The moment is important. The movement is important. Tectonic forces shift as fault lines give way to the titanic pressure born of our nation’s original sin. Righteous activists are drawing back the iron curtain concealing a four century legacy of enslavement, oppression, colonization, segregation, and forced separation. A reckoning is upon as, and long may it reign until we address and redress the trauma, theft, and death wrought by racism is all its insidious forms.
Ignoring the moment is not ok. Denying the moment is not ok. Choosing to undermine the movement is active participation in amoral treachery and doles out tangible harm against our BIPOC brothers and sisters. This is the time to listen, to learn, to understand, and to empathize with our fellow citizens long denied access to the many freedoms we take for granted. This is not the time to insist in our righteousness and double-down on our own spoon fed, sugar-coated worldview with history written by the winners. I am a privileged cis-gendered heteronormative white man born in the United States in the late 20th century. I hit the birth lottery. Sure I have worked hard in life and struggled at times, but I’ve earned so many undeserved free passes because I look the part and fit a certain role. This is not ok, and to deny it is heretical.
So what am I going to do? I am going to sit. I am going to listen. I am going to learn. I am going to accept the painful stories our Black brothers and sisters are sharing across the internet. The issue of racism and the violence it engenders is being met head on, and I will not stand in the way of this challenge. In the United States we love to highlight all our past glory. I get it, I, too, am passionate about our founding mythology. It is long past overdue we spend equal time peeling back a hidden shame so unconscionable we built power structures to bury it. We ask of people to be introspective, to probe and understand our failings so we can address them, correct them, and grow. Why do we not apply this same logic to our national story? Denying America’s failings makes zero sense, and it only leaves us weaker and morally bereft. Worse yet, it leaves our most vulnerable and oppressed exposed and endangered—and in too many cases dead at the hands of those whom pledged to protect.
We are only as free as the most oppressed and disenfranchised among us. Freedom is a cudgel of oppression up until the moment it fully liberates and embraces us all. We must challenge ourselves every moment of every day to live up to our highest ideals. The self-evident truth that every person is created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Can we finally make this a reality for all Americans? And in the event I was not clear: Black Lives Matter. Full stop. End of discussion.
It is in evening blue light when the day’s last comings glow, ebbing slow each night as the final light of day goes. It is a soft kiss, a gentle embrace as day shares love with her partner night. For a few moments the two poles dance together, igniting passion in the pastel embers of yearning. It is devotion writ large, a passion play painting tenderness on nature’s most dramatic stage. Ensconced our lovers intwine but twice each day, and they are here to teach us whenever we choose to learn.
Were I to see into the future would I make this photograph?
Would we do anything were we to see it beforehand? More so, would we have in our possession the power to stop ourselves? When and where would we even want to?
Does our seeing a thing stop us from tracking it? Does our knowing a thing irrevocably change its course? Does its future sprout a new one?
How can we know when our future is here? When the heart lifts and the gifts are easy, and you well know a place you’d swear you knew before.
Out of Exile — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
A weary traveller, chastened and humbled returning from isolation made his way out of exile to this sacred place of restoration and life. To the marsh he’d seen so many times before. The same marsh he’s photographed for more than eight years with dutiful care. To this holy marsh where centeredness and peace comes easy. It is at this place he bears witness to its cyclical grace of death and rebirth marked by its annual rise and fall. The comings and goings of its grasses, the arrival and departure of migratory sea birds, the summer flourish of bugs to feed the ecosystem, and all manner of life in between. It is the marsh of his youth that will god willing serve as the marsh of his golden years. It is the marsh to which he will always return when called out of exile.
Love and Lilacs — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/5000
Today marks 43 days at home. Am I hanging in there? Yes. Am I a people starved, in need of hugging and loving, and belly laughs with friends? Also yes. I wrote yesterday how all this time home has reconnected me to my macro flower photography roots. A blessing in all the isolated madness. Well this weekend my lilacs took their first step out onto the springtime stage. They are prepping for their proper debut this week. Before I trim them up to bring their unmistakable scent inside I will get my photo fill.
Instead of the 100mmmacro lens I went with my beloved 35mm. It’s a versatile lens, one that affords landscapes, portraits, and even a floral still life. It’s the lens you take along if you can only have one. She’s a show off, too; striking sharpness wide open. Allowing the photographer to execute dramatic bokeh balanced against areas of sharp focus. It’s a dream to shoot and super fast. All I had to do was frame up a pleasing composition in decent sunlight and let the glass do the rest.
Love and lilacs. Lilacs and love. Pink and purple pastel beauties surpassed in sweetness only by their unmistakable perfume. Dating back to the ancient world purple marked out royalty. It wasn’t long before they cornered the market in total. In many cases outlawing its wearing to non-royals. And the Byzantine’s, well they were flat out obsessed with the color. To the block quote:
The reason for purple’s regal reputation comes down to a simple case of supply and demand. For centuries, the purple dye trade was centered in the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre in modern day Lebanon. The Phoenicians’ “Tyrian purple” came from a species of sea snail now known as Bolinus brandaris, and it was so exceedingly rare that it became worth its weight in gold. To harvest it, dye-makers had to crack open the snail’s shell, extract a purple-producing mucus and expose it to sunlight for a precise amount of time. It took as many as 250,000 mollusks to yield just one ounce of usable dye, but the result was a vibrant and long-lasting shade of purple.” — History.com
Thanks to nature purple is for the people; no reserved for the privileged few who managed the singular feat of being born of a certain line. Mother Nature loves all, blind to class and caste, and bestows her regal colors across the lands of even her most humble denizens. Love and lilacs always win and her purple is ours to behold.
No one needs me to explain how COVID-19 has left us homebound and siloed throughout much of 2020. Whether in isolation like me or hunkered down others, we’re riding things out void of the communal comings and goings we took for granted. Who would have thought sitting in cafe sipping on a fresh cuppa would no longer be a thing? Yet here we are. Chastened and changed, and I sincerely hope for the better.
All this time home has brought with it both new and familiar things. Each appreciated in their own special way. The principle return to past glory is coming in the form of macro photography. I’ve discussed here before how formative macro photography was to learning The Way of the Camera back in 2012. I unloaded thousands—tens of thousands of exposures on the plants and flowers hanging about my yard. Sure hope they signed those consent forms. Anyway…
All this time at the 2020 homestead is reconnecting me to my roots and my local plot of earth. I’ve lived in this home since July 1993 (bought it off my parents in 2009), and I am back exploring every inch of the property. If for no other reason than my own sanity. I use the term property loosely as it’s not a big yard by any stretch. Yet my parents being the hobbyist green thumb enthusiasts they are had this place teeming with extensive flora exquisitely maintained. I let it go over the years (understatement), but this year, banked by Covid time, I’ve been putting in work about the place. Setting to rights a decade of neglect. It’s still unworthy of its prime, but it’s no longer an unmitigated disaster and that is something!
With the cleanup has come better conditions for flower and plant life to thrive. Giving me ample opportunity to make beautiful photos without having to break any kind of social distance mores. Insert win-win corporate jargon complete with stilted laughter here. It’s been years since I have spent this kind of time with my trusted macro lens. The 100 millimeters that have been there with me since the beginning. This old friend helped see me out of a heinous depression, and I will never forget how she’s here for me once again in my time of isolation. Thanks so much for teaching me patience, peace of mind, and self-reliance. And of course the ultimate thanks for gifting me a passion that keeps on exploring.
Yet I cannot wait for my first real chase of a smoldering sunset out on the marsh. In its own way that, too, will be a trip home again.
On Dark Matters of Contrast — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/50
Black, white, and all the shades of gray coloring the in between. Mix in a dash of soft focus and toss with a hit of certainty in a cauldron of abstraction and you have yourself a recipe for creation. While it may not jive with many folks, I love this kind of photograph; varied shades of grayscale values distilled down to abstract forms painting with light and movement.
In this photograph I am making creative use of daffodil stems. Photographed at close range, a distance of about 15 inches, with a 100mmmacro lens with an f/3.5 aperture. This arrangement allowed me to execute a shallow depth of field, juxtaposing the foreground of focused daffodil stems flowing free while rendering plenty of bokeh across the photo’s blurred background.
When I look upon this photo my mind sees the flowing movement of long grasses underwater. Submerged and swaying with the rush of the tide. It’s a balanced fluid motion, a soft rocking back and forth carrying us away to far off places. Relaxing spaces full of soft beds, kind hearts, and unbridled hope. Just because a thing is void of color does not mean it is void of life, energy, complexity, and passion. Let this be a lesson in all things.
I sourced this one to the people by way of Instagram story poll. A choice between black and white and color. For insight into my own proclivity, I immediately began hammering away a post built around the black and white theme. I did this despite suspecting color would would carry the day. As a humble yet unelected representative of the people I must render unto them that which their votes beseech. So hyacinth in color it is.
Followers of my work may notice my macro photography always features targeted areas of focus. What is a targeted area of focus? Areas of the photo that have sharper focus juxtaposed to the soft blurry areas—referred to as bokeh. By shooting close in on your subject at a large aperture your lens produces a shallow depth of field. Thanks, physics! What is an aperture? Well that’s the diameter of the lens diaphragm that allows light to pass through into your camera and onto your sensor or film. Larger apertures have a bigger opening allowing more light to pass through. The result: a faster speed, shallower depth of field, and softer focus. Great for producing dreamy flower photos. Smaller apertures feature the opposite: slower speed, deeper depth of field, and sharper images. Ideal for producing detailed landscapes with sharpness throughout the image.
Either your camera body or the lens itself features f/stop numbers. The lower the f/stop, f/2 for example, the larger aperture. Whereas f/22 is a very small aperture, something like a pinhole. Understanding this scale and building your feel for aperture and f/stops is essential to effective execution of your creativity. Now get out there and start experimenting with different f/stops. Even the latest smartphones allow you to do this. So next time you go for that banging selfie, lower the f/stop and achieve some of the algorithmically staged blur!
I don’t write much about that how-to of photography, but if you found this helpful let me know and I can work more tutorial type posts into the rotation.
