no recap

I haven't gotten around to recap .... it's so much easier to go out instead.

recap

oh, the horror of it all! - 2 versions

I'm trying to figure out where I am with this. What's it all about. That's my goal for February, what's this all about. I figured "the horror of it all" is a good place to start. Figuring out anything seems so difficult, almost terrifying. And putting anything into words is even more difficult.

Will start tomorrow (my usual excuse) :)

textures

I remember summer

I think I'm fascinated right now with the concept of working with textures. An old concept for sure, but it never struck me before that I could make my own textures! I've been walking all over the house trying to find "texture" images. I'm waiting for a good bright day to go and find textures all over town.

This is another combination of two images, one of a pink gerbera in a blue vase in the kitchen window (w/b way off, +2 full F-stops, not particularily in focus) and another of a little part of the ceiling in one of the rooms. It's upside down because I like it that way (saves me the trouble of standing on my head to look at it).

homesick

Neil, you're right. It is all about feelings.

Tonight I felt very lonely. My husband is away teaching in Nicaragua for two weeks, the weather has been dreadful, and I have a cold. I tried to make a picture of how I feel, lonely, homesick, tired - like walking outside by myself at night, looking in windows, wishing to be part of something beautiful and warm.

I had made some pictures of a wet window earlier today, thinking to use them as textures, and tonight I made this picture of a candle, the background colours are the TV. To me, they put in picture sort of my mood tonight, although, just making this image has gotten me in a much, much better mood. Go figure.

doubles

I was so happy that the thread was alive again, that I decided to make a bunch of doubles. All are from image made in the last 10 days.

Comments, as usual, are very welcome and much appreciated.

playing with moss

matches

A "multi", a blending of four separate images, 3 of the same clump of moss, one of a different one. I think it's funny how the mosses look like matches with all the red heads.

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I think what I really need to figure out is, "What is the point of any of these images?" What in the world am I trying to say with them, beyond that I think moss is absolutely fascinating. Or does it matter? What is the "essense" of these images?

Or, from a slightly different point of view, can a visually pleasing design stand on its own, without a story, especially over time?

mushroom in the sky

Composites of two different images are a lot more difficult to make than I expected. This is a composite of a closeup of a little mushroom in some moss and a picture of a couple clouds.

glassware

Another multi:

the blues

Winter is long, and there's so much blue ....

"ornamental"

Digital double exposure, same image (closeup of a glass Christmas ornament), twice, once flipped both horizontally and vertically; blended in normal at background = 100%, layer 2 = 50%.

"landscape in smoke"

Digital double exposure: the Columbia close to Northport, WA and a closeup of smoke from in incense stick, blended in normal second layer (smoke) at 34%.

"rain on pines"

Attempt at "impressionism" right out of the camera. Closeup of a pine branch by the river, in the rain, evening light.

Monday's vase

In my kitchen window

I was reading an article by Patterson in an older PhotoLife magazine last night, and he mentioned that it didn't matter to him "how" the final product was achieved (in camera, as a slide sandwich, in post-processing), so I figured I could try with one picture again.

This one I made yesterday morning - vase in my kitchen window, backlit from reflected light (reflected off snow in the backyard). Layered background and 3 copies of the picture, copies blurred using motion blurr, and blended at 50, 33, and 25 in normal. Comments appreciated as usual.

After the pause

I took some time out from photo impressionism. I think I'm getting back into it. Last night we were in church, and this is the result:

Composite of three images, two way out of focus, one more or less in focus. All made at ISO 1600, ambient light, 105mm macro lens at F2.8, aperture priority.

snowy friday

"the old bridge"

"fall in winter"

Two composites using methods described in chapter 2.

The first (the bridge picture) is a composite of one clear/one much lighter oof image, although in this case I did the oofocusing digitally using gaussian blur, lightening with curves; blended at 50% in normal.

The second is the same image twice, second layer flipped both vertically and horizontally, blended in normal at 50%.

cloudy tuesday

"frost"

Composite of two images made seconds apart, one in focus normal exposure, the second completely out of focus exposure set to F +1. I am trying to imitate one of the effects talked about in Chapter 2. The two images were blended as follows:

1. base layer (in focus photo) at 100%
2. second layer (out of focus photo) at 100% in soft light
3. third layer (out of focus photo again) at 50% in normal
   

As usual, comments, suggestions for improvement, ideas are welcome.

monday monday

A blend of three different images: a drop on a blade of grass, some dried moss, and a maple leaf. No relation, except that all three were found close to a backroad in Trail, BC (lower in elevation, no snow yet).

A blend of 8 images of a cross-country skier. I blended layers 2-8 at 50/layer# (rather than 100/layer#) in normal mode. Images made yesterday close to Rossland, BC.

just one more for chapter 1

"winter dreams"

The weather has been miserable today, not just miserable, but that heavy cold grey that makes you wish you lived elsewhere. So I started playing with pictures from September. This is a composite of three close-ups of a little purple flower by the Columbia. I am cheating though, I cropped the finished composite picture.

chapter 1 - resumen

Chapter 1 talked about 2 different kinds of multi-exposures, (1) many exposures of the same subject, slightly off register for each subsequent exposure; (2) two or more exposures of different subjets.

Both methods use a single piece of film for the result (no sandwiching). The first and biggest problem is that neither method can be replicated in digital camera at this time. So the question for me immediately became, can I replicate results using digital camera methods, and how.

The answer for me is, "No, I can't. Not really. It's not the same."

But what I can work on is the ideas behind these multiple exposure images. I can work on textures and beautiful soft images, create mood, make dream/nightmare composites, work on abstracting what really makes something what it is. For the ideas it doesn't matter whether it's film or digital.

Anyway, these are my thoughts at the end of chapter 1. And a couple more experiments:

"driving by the cinema"

"first snow"

"salud"