The Object

Ever have one of those pieces that you put in a drawer for a couple of years, pulling it out periodically only to shove it back in because your head wasn’t in the right space yet to deal with it? That’s the underlying story behind this piece, The Object. In this case, it wasn’t just the image I was having trouble with - it was also the text I decided to attach to the image to give it a story. But sometimes, you just have to challenge yourself.

In this article, I want to share both the technical details of how this piece came together, as well as my internal conversation over the nature of abstract art and how it relates to photography.

Seeking to Understand

It’s been awhile since I walked through the creation of one of art pieces that started life as a photograph, so I thought I’d pick one of my favorites: Seeking to Understand. Although it was created a couple of years ago just after I moved to New Mexcio, the process is similar to that of many of my current works.

Approaches to Light Painting

In simple terms, “light painting” involves taking long-exposure photos in nominally dark environments, where you artfully set up or move a light source to either reveal an otherwise-hidden object, or draw in space using pure photons. Assuming you yourself are either generating or reflecting relatively little light, and/or are moving during the exposure, you become invisible to the film or camera’s sensor, leaving just the light behind.

I recently went on a light painting shoot along with other members of the New Mexico Outdoor Photography Meetup group, dragging along a Canon 5D mkII, a Pixel RW-221 wireless remote control (so I could trigger the camera from larger distances, and without line-of-sight), and a Manfrotto 055CXPRO4 carbon fiber tripod (the lighter weight was appreciated while bumbling around in pitch dark in a open space full of prickly pear cactus). Although I started out with the requisite flashlight and blink toys as light sources, I quickly went off-script and started using an iPad as a light source, plus spent a bit of time in Photoshop and Camera Raw afterward. Here’s what I tried, and what I learned.

Light Painting WiFi

Some friends recently shared with me on Facebook a novel application of light painting: Creating a four meter tall bar that displays an 80 point bar graph of WiFi signal strength, and then walking through various urban settings to visualize the “strata” of communication signals.

Digital Printing 101

One old theory of knowledge was that we were born knowing everything (having gained that knowledge in a previous life), and it was just a matter of “remembering” that which was obvious once explained. Well, with all due respect to the ancient Greeks, color managed print workflow - the best way to ensure what you print is as close as possible to the original image - is not obvious, and being a relatively recent development in the world of photography, we don’t have knowledge from a prior life to draw on.

That said, neither is it unknowable - and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to learn it yourself. After watching fellow artists beat their heads against the wall or print endless tests hoping to land upon the magic combination that works for them (and having done that very thing myself several years ago), I thought it would be worth outlining the basic workflow to create repeatable, as-accurate-as-circumstances-will-allow printing. Yes, there will always be devilish details and inevitable exceptions, but this will give you a solid foundation to build on.

The Chapel: A Timelapse HDR Short Film

More people are experimenting with combining timelapse photography and motion control to create wonderful “videos” using still image cameras. One particularly lovely one is The Chapel by Patryk Kizny of LookyCreative. In addition to some of the nicest motion control timelapse moves I’ve seen (way beyond your typical horizontal slider bar movement) and a stunning setting (an abandoned, derelict Protestant temple in Zeliszów, Poland built at the end of the 18th century), Patryk also employed HDR (High Dynamic Range) capture and processing to pull details out of the interior of a building illuminated only by windowlight.

Avian Aspirations

The primary reason I agreed to write this Hybrid Artist blog was to share information about using photographs as the basis for creating collages as well as other forms of abstracted art. In that vein, here is a quick blow-by-blow for the latest piece I finished: Avian Aspirations.

Beauty in Decay

In a post-industrial world, scenes of urban and industrial decay is the new wabi sabi: “nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect” (Richard Powell). And perhaps nowhere in the US is decay more evident than areas of Detroit. As a result, Detroit has become a rich source of inspiration for photojournalists.

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