It’s funny how the mind recognizes patterns and builds associations. You’ll see, smell, or touch a thing and, boom, the mind’s eye reflexively retrieves a memory. Anytime my macro lens and I get low to go side-on with daisies or coneflowers familiar MIDI sounds of my youth start humming, and my brain renders a primordial 8-bit Mario jumping from mushroom platform to mushroom platform. You know? These guys. So here I am transforming an innocuous Black-eyed Susan chilling in my front yard into the digital joy of my youth; smooth, clean flower petal edges become jagged lines of a pixelated past. Brains, man.
How about you? Have any examples of when you see (smell or touch) a thing, and your mind works naturally to retrieve another?
Your Moment in the Sun — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 400 | EXP 1/2500
Most always when shooting macro I rely on the camera’s autofocus system to home in on a single point of focus of my choosing—within the camera’s autofocus grid selection, that is. But for this shot I switched over to full manual focus. The system was struggling to capture optimal sharpness of the fly—if anyone can identify said fly that would be great!—so I took matters into my own hands. Literally.
All factors were ideal for the making of this shot. Wind was no issue, keeping the Black-eyed Susan still; there was a happy little fly confident enough to sit motionless for well over a minute; and lastly, a lone sunbeam illuminating what otherwise was a bed of flowers slumbering in the shadows with a welcome dose of drama. Altogether creating one of those moments were all I had to do was steady the hands, take a deep breath, and depress the shutter before the exhale.
Daedalus Bid You Take Heed — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/125
This is abstract. Is this abstract? I think this is abstract. A quick googling of abstract art returns the following—
art that does not attempt to represent external reality, but seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, forms, colors, and textures.
Once I decided to roll with low key black and white processing, all my mind could see is an unnamed papier-mâché sun, brooding near unseen amidst the vastness of space. The way the would-be corona is captured frozen in its solar flare tango as countless sun spots blot out the surface. This is no coneflower—this is a sun. Will our telescopes ever fix on such a sight? Of course not. But another photographer’s macro lens just might.
Those Summer Nights — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Not a bad way to wrap a weekend, eh? Summer’s in full swing here in southern Ocean County—revelers abound, commerce is pumping, and the traffic? Well it’s been something . . . Good for business and that’s what counts!
For those keeping score at home my sunset light chasing has been seriously lacking. Sure, Summer’s typically a down season for my wide angle work, giving way to more time spent with my macro lens and some good old fashion handheld shooting. But that doesn’t mean I’m still not keen on hunting one down when conditions are right. Last night offered the perfect combination of temperature, sea breeze, and cloud deck. All the ingredients for a good time on the salt marsh. With my mind in the tank for the better part of the week the fresh air was just what the doctor ordered, and fortunately my trusted camera was happy to oblige. Hands down my best sunset endeavor since I hunted down this all-timer back in late May. Keep the A+ clouds and color coming, please.
Just Missed The Round Up — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/640
Here’s another shot from last Sunday’s macro session. And as the title would suggest I just missed my focal point. You can see the sharpest section of the photo happening over the silver-spotted skipper’s right wing instead of its eye and proboscis—thanks Google for letting me know what a butterfly tongue is called. This mess-up could have been mitigated with 1) steadier hands, 2) a tripod, and/or 3) stopping down to let’s say f/4–4/5.6. Shallow depth of field can be a beautiful thing, but it’ll kill ya when you miss. Such is the way of things.
Many far better photo making type peeps than I preach photographists should only show their best work, leaving the mishaps for the doldrums of our digital libraries. There’s certainly wisdom in these words, but I’ve carved my place in this hobby without paying much attention to the rules. This is not to say sound guidance is not important, I think it’s more to say that sometimes we need to make, or at least break, the rules—particularly if it’s an activity your doing for your own sanity and growth. After all how can we grow without exposing ourselves warts and all?
Slacker Greg is is running a bit of a backlog so I beggin’ your pardon if my words are short—though let’s face it you’re here for the photos and not these silly word things, right? Right!?
Bloggers . . .
Anyways, this photo dates back to 25th July, and you’ll see something of a theme in the next few posts—flower and insect macro hybrids. My run of buggy good luck began last Sunday, and over the course of the week netted me bumblebees, a skipper butterfly, and some kind of cool ass fly. In each instance our bug friends were using purple coneflowers or black-eyed susans as their stage. It’s a p kool feeling when your able look down the barrel of your macro lens to dial in an insect with tack sharp focus. It’s a whole new world down there. From there it really makes you wonder what things look life down in the world of the planck length.
As for the title? This comes from a song I’ve only recently been exposed to, though I’ve been told it represents an anthem of sorts from my friends’ hooligan heyday.
Litter Knows No Bounds — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/320
Travel anywhere in this world and you won’t have to look hard for the litter to find you. Not that I know this from experience, but so I’ve been told—I’m not really one for wanderlust. This is especially true for those of us living along the coast where our waterways turn into a de facto mass transit system for our discarded interests. Our refuse gets around easier than we do. I’m sure somewhere on the antarctic ice sheets emperor penguins are bee-bopping next to a transient piece of plastic. I just hope they’re not choking on it.
As I was traipsing about Dock Road this past Sunday, basking in some serious golden hour light pouring over the salt marsh, I began popping off some handheld shots that differ from my more typical tripod only wide angle compositions. The twisted guardrail you see barrel rolling across the frame has caught my eye for years, but I’ve never put it to any kind of compositional use. It wasn’t until I was kneeling to frame up this shot I noticed the trash. For a moment I thought about removing the water bottle from the frame in order to capture a more pristine “natural” shot, but then thought, nah, I’m gonna keep this piece of garbage in my shot. Maybe I had a temporary moment of journalistic integrity and wanted to capture the shot as it really was? Who knows?
In the interest of full disclosure I have never set the world on fire as some kind of environmentalist/conservationist, though my desire to protect our Spaceship Earth has grown stronger with age. I have to give credit to my good buddy Ben Wurst for setting a fine example for myself and the rest of our cohort to follow. He has certainly opened my eyes and caused me to think differently. Though I get a big fat ‘F’ for not picking up this here water bottle to bring it to its rightful place in the bottom of my recycle bin. I am ashamed.
Live alone in a paradise — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/1600
. . . that makes me think of two.
Here’s a flower for your Friday. I hope you enjoy it.
This is one of my purple coneflowers that I have potted (sloppily) in my backyard. With strong light overhead, a little to my back, I fixed bayonets macro lens and popped off a few shutters. It was five minutes of awesomesauce. You should have been there. OK. Maybe not.
Regardless, and I’ve said it before, purple coneflower are some of the best floral muses out there. A real go-to for this guy.
It was just this past Sunday I dropped such deep knowledge on the Twitters. Insert very strong sarcasm. Flippancy aside I really do like the shallow depth of field. Recognizing its existence was for me revelatory. As someone who spent the better part of 30 years willfully ignorant toward anything photographic, seeing exposures for the first time elevated composition to a new plane of understanding in my sometime left dominant brain. More so, it shed light into why, despite being rather skilled with any kind of fine art pencil work, I could never grasp the nuance and subtleties of painting—I’m especially looking at you, oils. I never understood depth of field. I never saw it. It’s as simple as that. I never understood you could just blur out elements, whether in the fore, mid or back grounds, with purpose to better move the eye across your subject and through its story.
Art, man. It sounds so simple in retrospect. But I really do like the shallow depth of field.
