Froghollow

by Posted in Landscapes Leave a comment
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While passing down Lake Shore Road the other day I noticed that these rocks by the side of the road had been painted. The house on the opposite side of the road has a sign that reads ‘Froghollow’ so I have to assume that the owner of this house is responsible.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand it’s quite nicely done, but on the other it’s rather garish and doesn’t altogether fit into the overall environment. Seen from a certain perspective it could be considered as graffiti.

Still if the rocks are on the owner’s property (I don’t own the equivalent piece of land across the road from where I live) I suppose he/she can do whatever he/she likes.

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Taken with a Nikon D80 and 35-80mm f4-5.6.

New Portfolio – Black and White

by Posted in Black & White, Site Changes Leave a comment
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I’ve added a new portfolio: Black and White.

It turned out to be more difficult than I thought. It seems that I have a lot of black and white pictures.

They fall into a few distinct categories:

  • Digital pictures originally in color, but converted to black and white, often using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2. Rarely digital images taken in black and white. The bulk of my black and white images fall into this category
  • Color negatives and old prints, usually in color. Scanned and then converted to black and white, often using Nik Silver Efex Pro
  • Black and White negatives. Scanned.

I went through a large number of negatives to come up with 20 for the portfolio. It wasn’t always clear to me why I had selected some for conversion and not others. I fear that often if I had a color image that I didn’t really like I would see what it looked like converted to black and white.

Going forward I’m hoping to be more discriminating with the images I choose for conversion. I also hope to take more black and white negatives.

I just (re) discovered Aaron Siskind.

by Posted in Photographers, Photography, Reading Leave a comment
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I’m not entirely sure how I came across Aaron Siskind, but I think it’s probably through his good friend and fellow photographer Harry Callahan I looked around and found some of Siskind’s work on the Internet. I’d heard his name, but wasn’t familiar with his work. Or so I thought. As I looked through the pictures I realized that I must have, at some point, come across his work. Why? Well, because as I look at my own photographs I can see Siskind’s influence everywhere. Not that I have consciously tried to emulate his work. Rather I think that I must have seen some of his pictures at some point and unconsciously absorbed elements into my own.

Since I felt a close connection I decided that I needed to go beyond the small images on the internet and bought this book: “Aaron Siskind. Another Photographic Reality“. There’s a useful review of the book on Photo-eye Blog so I won’t duplicate here. Suffice it to say that I really love this book.

For a useful selection of Siskind’s work see his page at the International Center of Photography.

Sunlight on Snow

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We’re expecting another heatwave starting tomorrow. And, of course, we’re fast approaching Labor Day and Winter can’t be too far away. So in anticipation of the coming Winter and to offset the coming heat…..

Taken outside our house in 2011 with a Panasonic Lumix ZS-3.

An Oldie: Woman and Child

by Posted in Film, People Leave a comment
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Taken in Kathmandu, Nepal around 1999 most likely with a Canon AE-1. I don’t remember what lens was used, but it was probably either a Canon 50mm F/1.4 FD or a Vivitar 70-210mm.

Strangely for that time period the negative had been scanned to Kodak Photo CD. I think this is the only time that I did this. Although the scans are not particularly high resolution (1536×1024) the overall quality is very good.