Today, rather than focus on my (as always) copious opinions on the topic “Always Be Learning,” I thought I’d give you another look at the before & after of a photograph. This is the facade of the Reuter Center, home of the University of North Carolina/Asheville’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute—also known as the College for…
Tag Archive: technique
An Orchid for Easter
I know, it’s supposed to be lillies for Easter. I chose this image not only for its springlike delicacy and freshness, but also because it demonstrates that sometimes transformation is not about changing who we are, but about removing the distortions of perception to reveal a hidden and more beautiful truth. Sometimes it takes a…
Premonition
Half full or half empty? Is this dried clump of hydrangea a presage of withered old age or a harbinger of spring to come? Or is it simply something that is beautiful right here, right now, as it is today? I have been reunited with my marvelous, magical Lumix/Leica 45mm macro. I cannot overstate how…
Little Cloud
If you want to be a photographer, you have to be a bit of a stalker. You have to be willing to observe and then, well, hunt down your subject. Even when (especially when) you don’t have the right tools for your capture to hand.* It started with this picture: Why did I take that…
Camera Choice
I was hanging out on Abbie and Denis’s back porch when I spotted this somewhat collapsed mobile in the late afternoon light. After the annoyance with the airplane photo, I wanted to make sure I at least documented it for myself, so I whipped out the iPhone and made the photo above, which I think…
Color Choice
One of the best ways to learn from your own photography is to look at most of your images in both color and black-and-white. Even pictures that you took explicitly because of their color content can teach you something useful about relative light and dark values and abstract elements of composition when viewed in black-and-white….
Incidental Geometry
There was a significant amount of swearing involved in the creation of this image. I was walking along with Crystal on the pedestrian mall at Silver Spring, marveling at the blue sky and 80º weather. I spot a plane leaving a narrow white chalk-mark across the pristine sky in pleasing juxtaposition with the nearby architecture….
Boot Hill
It was 80ºF this afternoon, more than enough impetus to get me out and taking photographs. It was partly cloudy and the afternoon sun (yay, Daylight Savings Time!) was dodging in and out in an especially attractive fashion. My eye was caught once again by the elevated graveyard and raking light. I shot photos with…
Alterations
Most of the time I want to say to you: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! (Except, okay, WOMAN behind the curtain. And it’s not a curtain, it’s a computer screen. Whatever.) But sometimes I feel like pulling aside the veil and showing you how the sausage gets made (ooo, block that…
Thanksgiving Bonus: RAW
Sometimes people wonder why I bother to shoot and keep RAW files, when high-quality JPEGs are fine for most reproduction uses and more than good enough for the web. This is why. Fine fella, this rooster. But this is how he came out of the oven (so to speak): Once upon a time, this shot…