I often head north!

I was reading my favorite photo magazine this morning, the April 2010 edition of Outdoor Photographer. The focus was on National Parks, which leaves some of us who live where true national parks are non-existent, almost aching for the opportunity to head west…or at least south. Some of the biggest names in outdoor photography, Jack Dykinga, Dewitt Jones, David Muench, Rob Sheppard and others all boast iconic images from equally iconic national parks – Great Smokey Mountain NP, Bryce Canyon NP, Sequoia NP, Big Cypress National Preserve, to mention a few.

What photographer wouldn’t love to spend a week or longer in each park. Without an assignment to fund such a trip most of us are limited to the occasional vacation, when Mom or the kids are likely to have something other than our photography on the agenda.

Each of us, however, also lives close enough to state or local parks, even state or national forests, that offer some great opportunities to take home iconic images of our own. From my home in Central New York I’m only a couple hours from the largest state part in the lower 48 states. The Adirondack State Park in the northern reaches of New York State is larger than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier, and Grand Canyon National Parks combined.

My foggy horizon, without going to the Great Smokey Mountain NP

So every time I turn to one of my favorite magazines, the articles and images serve as motivation to get out into the local outdoors. Less than five miles from my front door, while shooting from the side of a farm country road, I brought home the Valley Fog image here. It’s not all that different from Rob Sheppard’s Great Smokey Mountain NP images in the recent edition of  Outdoor Photographer and I didn’t have to travel anywhere.

Then, while enjoying David Muench’s Sequoia NP image, I couldn’t help but recall my may trips to the Adirondacks and one of my favorite places to plant my tripod, Forked Lake (often pronounced “fork -ed” with a bit of emphasis on the “ed” being pronounced like the man’s name).  It’s in the eastern Adirondacks and only about three hours from home. Personally, I think it often has sunsets that rival, even best, those of the great western horizons.

My reflected horizon, without traveling to Sequoia NP

While I’d be the first to grab the opportunity to head west to a Utah, Arizona, Texas, California or Tennessee National Park, and I’m often feeling a tinge of envy when I view the National Park images in the photo magazines, I also know that on any evening or weekend, I have much to be thankful for close to home even though I don’t have a National Park nearby.

Now don’t anybody think for a moment that I wouldn’t jump at an invitation to shoot at an iconic location for Outdoor Photographer.

Three-part series begins May 15

Make your reservation today . . . limited seating

The Crawl Space, an art gallery and gift shop in Little York, NY (30 minutes south of Syracuse, NY) will be the scene for three exciting workshops that I’ll be conducting beginning with Session #1 on May 15.

All three workshops will be designed for those who pretty much understand their cameras (still, you’ll want to be sure to have your camera manual with you) but are not happy with the results they get. You know, you take a weekend getaway or an extended vacation and your photos just don’t tell the story you had hoped. Visit Turning Snapshots into Art for complete information and to take advantage of the early registration discount.

If you haven’t visited my friend, Margo Pinkerton’s blog you need to. Right now she has a series of postings about two photographers, Margo and her husband Arnie, photographing the same subjects and coming home with totally different results.

It’s an interesting experience that I’d venture everyone who has ever photographed with someone else has experienced. I know I have. But it occurs to me that to a greater or lessor extent we can apply this same thought even when we’re alone in the field.

We need to be looking for different perspectives each time we venture out with our cameras. Maybe it means hiking up the nearby hill or perhaps it simply means changing lenses from a long lens to a wide angle.

It might also just mean changing the white balance to help the same composition elicit a different emotional response from the viewer. It’s fun to just see how many different pictures you can make of the same scene.

This is how I try to photograph every time I go into the field, whether for a corporate/industrial shoot for clients, or for the creative boost of a few hours on a nearby pasture or a local wind farm.

Don’t forget to visit Margo’s blog . . .

Different Perspectives–Same Shoot

Last week, I wrote with pride about having two images selected to show in the State of the Art Gallery’s  21st Annual Juried Photography show, in Ithaca, NY. Photographers entering the contest were limited to entering two images. So, obviously I was pleased with having both of mine selected. On Friday evening a reception was held to kick-off the month long show. Besides the exhibition of the selected photographs (the show actually opened two days earlier) the night’s draw was the announcement of images that were recognized as “winners” by the gallery.

Photos selected for the show were juried by gallery members. Winners from among those selected were chosen by an art teacher at Ithaca College, who selected five pieces for recognition. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch his name or we could thank him here. At the outset of the awards announcement it was also noted that throughout the month, visitors would be encouraged to vote for their favorite work. This, in response to people questioning the judges’ selections in prior years.

I guess we should not expect everyone to agree with the judge(s) in any contest, especially one that is a subjective as a photography contest. It’s difficult under any circumstances. However, when you have a show like this one, with photos that range from grand landscapes, to abstracts, to portraits and more, the judge’s decision becomes even more challenging.

I have to wonder what people are thinking, especially any contest entrant who might complain about which images were recognized. I’d bet that virtually everyone in attendance (and there was barely room to walk in the packed gallery) selected his or her favorite within minutes of arriving. There was work designed to make a political statement, a photo created with a pinhole camera, a brilliantly colorful abstract (one of the winners), photos printed on metallic paper, on canvas, framed, unframed and gallery wrapped. I really loved some and wondered about others. But, as the saying goes “one man’s meat is another man’s poison.” No where is this adage more apt than when the subject is considered art.

I think, when we photographers enter contests of any type we ought to take time to understand our audience first. Now, that’s not all that different than the way those of us who sell our work proceed every time we select a final destination for any of our images. Unless specifically requested, we wouldn’t send landscape images to the National Wildlife Federation for possible use in its calendar. We wouldn’t deliver photographs of Alaska to a gift store that specialized in work depicting the Finger Lakes region. Who would suggest macro flower images for an industrial trade magazine? We always need to consider our audience and an art gallery contest is no exception.

I am one of the photographers who did not take time to know his audience at the State of the Art Gallery. Only two days before the entry deadline, a friend has encourage me to enter the contest and I barely had time to prepare two images. What I selected were both images that had been favorites at other venues last year.

When I arrived at the gallery on Friday evening, within minutes I told my wife there was “no way I’d be one of the winners.” That was in part because of what I saw on the walls that evening. Most images presented were much larger than mine. When it comes to photography, big is often better. That said, I think all the winners were smaller than mine, so there goes my credibility in this case.  Few images were landscapes. Many were a genre I couldn’t even describe. A few, in my opinion, were either accidental or outright poor quality. One of the “winning” images fit the former category . . . again, in my opinion, though obviously not in the judge’s.

But, all the images had one thing in common. They expressed something for, or about, their creators. How well they did that job is part of what a contest of this type is about, I think.

Next time, for this show or any other, I’ll be doing some homework first. I’d bet many other photographers will do likewise. If that’s all we take away from this year’s State of the Art Gallery photography show, we win.

I awoke the other morning and the scene outside my bedroom window was of the snow covered room of the rear entrance to our basement and a barren winter sky. I was struck by the wintry yet simple scene. However, from my bedroom I couldn’t get the width I wanted without adding clutter to the edges of the frame.

Day 1 - clean and simple winter horizon, employing the rule of thirds.

Simple, simple, simple. Some say never put the horizon in the middle. Okay.

I frequently walk in the early morning and winter mornings are my favorites. This particular morning I couldn’t stop looking for the image that first captured my interest earlier in the morning. I’d think I’d found it only to quickly discover some problem, corn stalks that littered the foreground, sumac intruding on edges, contrails x-ing my views of the sky.

Day 2 - not so simple, yet somehow a gentle winter sky

A warmer winter horizon with the assist of a white balance change

Eventually my eyes settled on an eastern view that offered the clean simplicity I was looking for.

One day later, the sky had changed with the addition of a few light clouds and brighter highlights.  I shot for a few minutes before deciding to change the white balance from “daylight” to “cloud”. I cannot figure which morning was more satisfying.