Practical 4: A Journey

Purpose: Make a series of between 5 and 15 photographs in response to a journey. This might be a journey that is familiar to you. If this is a case, look for new things along the route that you normally overlook or perhaps that have intrigued you but you've never explored further.

Walden Pond Revisited

(click on first image to open click through gallery)

Why Walden? This journey is return to a place that I hadn’t been to in quite some time. When I stepped onto the path around the pond memories of chasing my kids on the path, walking with my parents and friends visiting Boston, and unwinding during a challenging time came to mind. I was hoping that like those other times along the path I would see something new, something beautiful and come away refreshed and renewed on sunny fall morning on December 1, 2018. The added challenge to this journey was to try to capture some of beauty and uniqueness of this place in Concord, Massachusetts through my camera lens.

Reflection:

For this shoot I used a 50mm and a 24mm-105mm zoom lens. Unfortunately my schedule didn’t permit arriving to Walden in the early morning or late afternoon. I began around 11:30 so for the most part I was shooting when the sun was very intense. By the time I got to the far side of the pond the light was less intense—but very shadowy and in places it was dark. I took lots of time to I walk along looking for interesting details or moments. There were very few people, one duck and no one in the water so the focus was on the pond, reflection and natural wonders that caught my eye. I think given the day and the light challenges this was the best way for me to approach the journey. Having the camera forced me to move slowly and to observe more than I ever have. While on the walk, I noticed more natural details than i might have on a casual walk. I noticed another photographer also engrossed in the scene around her as well—it is just hard not too once you start to see what’s there. I think for this scene the shooting style was appropriate because enabled me to capture the pond in an interesting but realistic way.

I like several of the shots but wonder what I might have been able to do with a warmer light or being able to see the pond with more vivd color. I spent some time trying to get a photo of a rock being thrown on the cairn near Thoreau’s house. I have some shots that were interesting but they didn’t make the final cut. I included a shot of a splash in the water to break up the images of calm water and to have some fun (and to make up for the fact that my second assignment which required us to show stop action wasn’t quite up to par because the water in my image was moving too slowly!). I like the way the tree’s branches frame the pond in the first image and in the image looking up several tree trunks the way that the twisted trees draw your eyes up to the blue sky. I think my favorite image is the reflection of people and trees—the people along the path are in the middle third of the image combined with the balance of the trees on the top third and their reflection on the bottom third seemed to work well. I thought about cropping a little off the left but ended up leaving it as shot. I like the second image of the sunlit plant growing out of the water because of it’s simplicity and the catch of light on the leaves. The floating leaf and its shadow was also a nice natural moment during change of seasons period. In reviewing the images I noticed that although I did take some images using a shallow depth of field they didn’t make the cut (they were mostly of fungus, plants etc.) in the mix for this selection they didn’t rise to the top. If I did this again, I would do it over several shoots or at least try to find a time of day that would provide more interesting light and to perhaps capture some more people or a boat on the lake to give this collection more variety.

Assignment 6: A Day in the Life of ... a Bride-to-Be

Purpose: To become accustomed to photographing people and to explore crafting a photo essay.

A “Day” With a Bride-to-Be

Reflection:

I shot this story over 5 days but didn’t use material from every day. The subject(s) were aware that they would be the focus of my photography for the weekend and were really great about having a camera following them everywhere. I made a shot list before the weekend to keep me focused. I didn’t end up taking all the shots. Several ideas didn’t pan out. But, I would definitely do that again as I found I didn’t shoot as randomly when I had a plan. I took almost a thousand photos (hoping that I would get 10). I could have taken more. My idea going into this was that I would capture my daughter home for one the last times before her wedding. I wanted to capture images of her in her home doing the things she would normally do—sitting at the table drinking coffee, hanging out with her fiancé and preparing for their wedding with the dress shop photos being the centerpiece of that preparation during the weekend home. In some instances I choose a moment over a “perfect image. For example,I had other images of the two of them in the living room where they were both in focus and without motion blur but this image captured a mood and moment that the others didn’t so chose to include it in the essay. Although this assignment was a bit of a juggle in the middle of Thanksgiving weekend it was great to have an excuse to document this weekend of pre-wedding activities. My biggest challenge was sorting through the large volume of images to pick the best images for the story.

What I learned:

It never hurts to take more photos than you need. Wait for the “moments”—be ready but don’t chase them. Become invisible whenever possible. Have a plan and be ready to go to plan b or take another direction if the plan isn’t working. Some of the shot sequences—i.e. the walk along the river with umbrellas was an afterthought for example. Try different perspectives (not all worked but it was good to have those options in there). In editing this time I broke out of my soft gray mold and made the images more contrasty. In most cases I like how that worked.

Practical 3: Portraits and Self-Portraits

Purpose: This assignment is all about people. And Black & White photography. Four portraits demonstrate different types of portraits: 1) A formal posed portrait using natural or ambient light; 2) A candid portrait; 3) An environmental portrait and a 4) self portrait

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Assignment 4 : Still Life — "Dissection Still Life"

Curiosities

A look at one man’s cabinet

Purpose: To create one still life that represents something significant in your life. A dissection of that subject.

Still Life_20181104_LGrant_00001FINAL_rev_withwatermark.jpg

“A Look at One Man’s Cabinet”

A still life of one man’s collection taken on November 4, 2018 in Watertown, Massachusetts. Photo by Linda Grant

Camera settings: 50mm (f 5.6, 1/40) ISO 100

The Idea

As I started to pull together objects that I thought would come together as a still life about my husband’s work—he is a scientist who studies insect behavior—I quickly knew that the collection of items that began filling every surface of our dining room table revealed a broader range of interests and told a more interesting personal story. There were collections of mounted insects, the netting a beekeeper wears when tending a hive, silk moth cocoons, shells of all shapes and sizes, glass vials, old books about natural history, an antique balance scale etc. and much more on the table. I realized what captured him more than his lifelong study of insects was his curiosity about the natural world and collecting.

As I googled for ideas for how to pull this together I came across the idea of a “cabinet of curiosities,” also referred to as “Wunderkammer” or “Cabinets of Wonder” or “Wonder Rooms”. During the Renaissance (17th and 18th centuries) royalty and other members of the elite society would collect rare objects to show off in rooms. By the Victorian era the middle class collections in “curio cabinets” became popular. Here is a link to a collection of images of older and modern-day curiosity cabinets. Objects contained in these collections were those that might be categorized as those from such areas as archaeology, geology, religious and natural history. They were unique personal collections of natural and man made objects that gathered to feed a “sense of wonder in all kinds of things in the world.” I decided to build on this idea in order to capture the sense of fascination with the natural world that permeates his personal and professional life.

References:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/55324/11-wonderful-wunderkammer-or-curiosity-cabinets

https://springfieldmuseums.org/exhibitions/cabinets-of-curiosity/

http://www.middlestreet.org/cabinet/whatisa.htm



The Set Up

My studio this time was in an upstairs room with several windows covered with sheer drapes. I taped a back cloth to the wall and draped it over a table. The objects for the still life were placed on the table. I spent several hours trying to find the right number and right mix of items and ways to display them in a visually interesting way. Sometimes an item would feel to large in the mix, too reflective or not quite right because it threw off the balance. Then I started looking though the lens to see what was too far forward, what was causing shadows in unwanted places etc. The first night I attempted to light the still life with a variety of lights but it didn’t work. I felt the lighting wasn’t capturing the objects in the clean natural way that I had envisioned. The next day I worked with natural light. My camera with a 50 mm lens was set on a tripod directly in front of the still life. I set up a stand to the right of the table with a black piece of poster board. Light from the windows came from the left primarily. I worked until the sunlight wasn’t effective. I used a large silver reflector on the left front of the table to bounce the light from the sun onto the the still life. I slipped the reflector behind my sheer curtains to get a diffuse light. The reflector had to be moved as the sun moved. In front of the set up I placed my lightbox with a silver lining below and in front of the table and added a smaller reflector inside that I could manipulate to catch the light as needed. I used this lightbox to bounce light onto the objects in the foreground. In order to see what was going on on my viewfinder I kept a black jacket handy to throw over my head. (I would have loved to hook my camera up to my computer but discovered that my operating system is not longer supported to do this). I used a remote to trigger the shots. For the most part I found this to all work quite well but, I could have used an extra stand to help hold the reflector. At the end of the shoot I took focus points in various parts of the image ( 5 different parts of the image) so that I could try to merge the image into one well focused image). Also, every so often I reviewed the shots in my computer. It helped me adjust lighting, focus and composition issues.



About the Still Life

(See key below the still life image below for object reference numbers)

I based this still life around the idea of a “cabinet of curiosities.” This seemed to be a interesting way to create a picture of someone who has passion to study and collect—almost like a museum would—items of interest from the natural world. To play off the idea of a "cabinet” I placed two small drawers in the center of the image. The drawers are “filled” with a few items that he has collected—a sea fan (5), a wasp’s nest (7), and a beetle collected 20 years ago (9), a puffer fish (6)—an item that was often found in Victorian curiosity cabinets, as well as a flower that I added to bring in the idea of something recently collected. To the right of the drawers is a bottle of shells collected on the beach—representing his collecting of and appreciation of and the beauty of “everyday shells”—non specimens. To the front of the drawers is a welk case (10)….that was picked up on the beach. Behind the shell bottle is a piece of wood damaged by carpenter ants collected to look at the patterns and lines created. On the left of the image are two mounted butterflies. Although there were many other specimens that were actually collected by the subject I added these instead because of their size and color to help draw attention to the beauty of nature that is represented throughout his collections. The mollusk set on the three books was added to showcase yet another unusual but beautiful creature. Lastly, the books, represent the many—dare I say hundreds—about natural history that he also collects and reads. Finally, I added the candle to commemorate this pursuit of natural wonders..


Key to “Curiosities”

Key for “Curiosities”1. Three old books about natural history;2. Scorpion conch or scorpion spider conch: family Strombidae [ocean] [animal] [mollusk]3. Swallowtail butterfly: Order Lepidoptera; family Papilionidae. The word papilio is Latin for but…

Key for “Curiosities”

1. Three old books about natural history;

2. Scorpion conch or scorpion spider conch: family Strombidae [ocean] [animal] [mollusk]

3. Swallowtail butterfly: Order Lepidoptera; family Papilionidae. The word papilio is Latin for butterfly. [land] [animal] [insect]

4. Candle in brass holder

5. Gorgonians also known as sea fans and sea whips [ocean] [animal]

6. Porcupine fish also commonly called blowfish, balloon fish or globefish or collectively pufferfish [ocean] [animal] [fish]

7. Wasp comb: Order Hymenoptera; family Vespidae; common name yellow jacket. [land] [home of wasp]

8. Flowers from a hanging plant. [land] [plant]

9. Stag beetle: Order Coleoptera; family Lucanidae [land] [animal] [insect]

10. Knobbed whelk or sea snail egg case: Busycon carica [ocean] [animal] [mollusk]

11. Old flask with sea shells; beach drift [ocean]

12. Baseboard with carpenter ant damage [land] [damage by insect]


What worked and what didn’t

I enjoyed the challenge of this assignment. The toughest part was finding the idea. The next toughest part was executing a vision and finding the right items for the composition. Then of course there was getting it all to work technically.

I struggled with finding items to work with the idea and the composition for quite some time as I explained above in an earlier section. I had to keep paring it down. I feel pretty good about the overall balance of items. There were a variety of textures, some nice balance of color, and variations in height in the image. I tried a variety of candle sizes and had versions with the candle lit and not lit. I ended up liking the warmth it added to the image and glow on the pufferfish.

I definitely needed at least one more stand to hold the reflector. It was hard to juggle the angle of the reflector and to press the shutter on the camera—especially later in the afternoon when the sun was setting and I was running out of time.

I took the time during this shoot to check on how the images were looking as I went along. This helped immensely. I could see problems with composition and focus in time to correct.

Overall I liked the image. I think it tells the story I want it to tell and fits with my original concept.

However, I wish I had given myself more room at the top and the bottom of the image and a little less on the left. When I used the image stacking process I needed to crop at the top to clean up the final image and thus ran out of room at the bottom. If feels a little tighter than I wanted.

I might also pay more attention to the way that the backdrop drapes (and to watch the gathering of dust). I spent a bit of time getting rid of pieces of dust.

All in all, an interesting exercise. I did realize though when working on this that I could almost do a book of these sorts of still life….alas as we have enough stuff in our household to do it. A sobering thought at the end of a long day.