5 Arguments Against “Is That REALLY How You Saw It?” – #4: Are You (Color) Blind?!Posted by drfl on June 8th, 2010

We all see color differently.  For instance, it has been researched that men in general cannot see shades of yellow as well as women in general.  Men are also more often to be color blind.  I had a friend in college that was extremely color blind.  One day in one of his classes a clever college professor decided to change his chalk color choice.  He began writing with pink chalk on a green chalkboard.  Unfortunately for my friend, he was unable to take notes that day as the pink words blended into the green background. 

To become a little more philosophical, I pose a simple question.  What if the colors that you know are not the colors others know?  For example, let’s say that when you were born you intrepet the color “red” really as “green”.  As you go through life, people tell you that it’s “green”, you read books about “green”, you get conditioned know what “green” is, but you see what everyone else sees as “red”.  You would see “red” and call it “green” and everyone would agree because they have been conditioned to see it as “green”.  What if someone saw “blue” and had been conditioned to see it as “green”?  It’s really a matter of perspective.  Since we cannot leave our bodies and get into someone else’s we have no real validation that the colors we interpret is anyway the same as anyone else.  If one can wrap your mind around an esoteric concept such as this, one would begin to realize that the color world that we interpret may not really be the colors we think they are.  They are simply the colors that we have been conditioned to believe.

The point here is that if one captures a photograph, there is no guarantee that the colors will be anything that anyone else has experienced.  To continue this line of reasoning, when I produce a black and white photograph, I have never had anyone ask me if the image is “authentic”.  Simple, black and white photography has garnered a reputation of being artistic so people accept it as such.  Why can’t color photography enjoy the same benefit?  Gary Uelsmann is a well known black and white artist who combines images from different sources into a single, unrealistic image, and he has been doing it for years and all without Photoshop.  I doubt many complain that his images do are not what he really “saw”.

To this end, by the very nature of color photography, the colors will never be what you experienced from a technical standpoint.  Our brains intrepet colors from the rays of light that enter our eyes.  We may try hard to replicate those same colors in the darkroom, but we will never be 100%, nor should we be.  Color can denote various emotions, warmth, cold, and when used in this fashion helps to shape the composition before us.  Even a lack of color creates a “feeling” in the composition.  To this end, the question “Is that REALLY how you saw it?” is moot. 

Mass Believability? – 8 Those colors look a little off too me!

Technical Details:
Canon G10, 6.1mm, f/2.8
Gateway Arch, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Missouri

Looking for Inspiration #1: Take a Hike!Posted by drfl on June 4th, 2010

For me, physical exercise is one of the best ways to get my mind working. Although all exercise is great, I especially enjoy hiking. I love being outdoors and when I’m not encumbered by a camera, I’m able to really move and find things that I would like to photograph. I create a mental snapshot of a composition for later and continue on. By the end of the hike, I have a mind full of ideas which is beneficial for when I do have a camera.

Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 17-40 f/4l @ 40mm, f/9, 1/160 sec.
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Missouri

Photo Friday: Hazy OutlinePosted by drfl on May 21st, 2010

During my visit to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, it begin as an overcast morning with the clouds breaking up.  Quickly, the conditions changed and fog descended on the entire area that caused some interesting compositions to emerge through the haze.

Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 70-200 f/4l @ 70mm, f/8, 1/160 sec.
Gateway Arch, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Missouri

Using Your Subconcious as a Photography ToolPosted by drfl on May 19th, 2010

Today’s post isn’t about filters or teleconverters.  It isn’t about pixel densities or panning techniques.  Today is about something much less tangible, our psyche, or more precisely, our subconscious.  Everyone has a subconscious, we are normally are not aware of this level of thought – thus the prefix “sub” or “just below”.  Most of our days are concerned with conscious items: paying bills, making to the dentist, washing the car.  Most of us rarely stop to reflect upon our inner self, we simply we do what we do because we do.

Sigmund Freud believed that the subconscious is the place were we hold our desires, our memories, and our emotions, effects to events that occurred long ago.  It is the vehicle that motivates us through an unseen force, the instincts and “gut feelings” that we do may not fully understand.  For many of us, we are driven to photography through this unseen motivator.  Perhaps as a young child you looked at Aunt Maude’s dusty old photo album or maybe your father always took your photograph on those wonderful family vacations, whatever the experiences, these are the events and emotions that are retained in our subconscious even if you do not remember the exact instances.  As we create art we access bits of these memories, pieces of these feelings.  If we allow these scattered and disjointed fragments to permeate our consciousness, the result can be powerfully persuasive. 

For the last couple of decades, I have studied photographs from various sources, books, magazines, websites.  Some images I study for a time, others flash by quickly.  A few of these photos evoke strong emotions but regardless of the impact, all these images and feelings become stored in my unconscious mind.  Out in the field, I may have a fleeting flash of a previous composition, an abstraction of my previous encounters with art.  In my early days, I stoically dismissed these subconscious thoughts and attempted to force my conscious ideas.  Now, I allow these intuitions to mix with these ideas, hopefully leading me to something new and unique and wholly my own. 

Tuning oneself into this immersion may not come easily, but I believe it is there for all.  We are all motivated by something intangible, most are driven to photography through this force, and if we can recognize its effect on us I believe it can make us better artists.  True, the subconscious may be a much harder tool to hone than a polarizing filter, but it is always with us and doesn’t require a special holder.  Besides, some may disagree, but I frankly think that the path to understanding our subconscious is easier than figuring out a multi-flash strobe setup, and it costs much less.

Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 17-40 f/4l @ 22mm, f/9, 1/160 sec.
Gateway Arch at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Missouri

Everybody Loves Keywording PhotographsPosted by drfl on May 12th, 2010

Okay, I’ll admit it, I hate keywording photographs.  I don’t know what it is, but I have a hard time coming up with words that others might use to find my photographs using search engines.  And it is a necessity, in today’s graphical world, photographs are still reached using keywords and descriptors.  I doubt anyone remembers a browser named “lynx”, but it used to render the World Wide Web completely in text.  If you were to use that today, I doubt that very much information would be accessible outside Wikipedia, but that is exactly part of what leads to Wikipedia’s success: Lots and lots of lovely text for those search engines.  My family and friends who may read this probably know that I am usually not at a loss for words, but when it comes to my art, I want it to speak for itself, not be defined by a series of phrases.  But, I know that its an excuse and every so often I vow to change this.  Today is another one of those days.  Its been raining quite a bit in Nebraska and as such I haven’t made it out to photograph.  Additionally, my web statistics showed a pretty good drop in traffic in February and March, so I need to drive more traffic.  A perfect time to sit down to the daunting task of keywording and building some good information around the images.  Oh, and one more thing, all that neat text needs to be spell checked. Keywording, an evil necessity for photography!

Of course, I’m starting this process with today’s image, “Curves and Clouds”, please enjoy that added info!

Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 17-40 f/4l @ 30mm, f/8, 1/8 sec.
Gateway Arch, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Missouri

Photo Friday: Curved Reflections (The Arch in St. Louis)Posted by drfl on May 7th, 2010

I haven’t had a photo Friday in the last couple of weeks since I was actually out photographing!  I took a little adventure to northern Arkansas and ended up in St. Louis for a wedding. I will be sharing some of the results of this trip over the course of the next week or so. Today it kicks off with an image of the Arch at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, Missouri.  The weather was quite dynamic allowing some very interesting shots of this monument. For this particular shot I braved the numerous mosquitoes and opted for a small aperture to give a star-look to the lights and a long exposure to help streak the clouds as they floated by.

As a side note, my 17-40 f/4l’s autofocus stopped working right the day before. That lens just hasn’t been the same since it fell out of my bag when my zipper broke about 2 years ago in Kansas City. Missouri just hasn’t been nice to that lens!

Technical Details:
Canon 5d Mark II, 17-40 f/4l @ 22mm, f/16, 20 seconds
The Arch, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Missouri