Green.
All images April 7-13, 2008 Central Arkansas (c) by Kirk Jordan
pic one: Sweetgum in "Calico" green
Pic two: Elm
Pic three: Willow oak by night, ASA 3200, 4 seconds hand-held, with flash
Pics four and six: Unknown Oak with twist and shout zoom motion.
Pic five: Scarlet (?) Oak, covered in floral catkins.
The Mighty Works Project exists to thank God for chloroplasts.
Kirk... very cool pics and appreciate some of the spec info (not that I know what to do with an ASA, mind you, but my husband has just taken up an interest in photography and I think he might!).
ReplyDeleteQuestion for you: How much of what you do is art versus scieince? Is there a right or wrong way, say, to capture and understand/view lighting? Or is it all pretty much subjective... if the light looks good to me, then it's good lighting...??? And when you take a pic... do you have a bunch of technical parameters running around in your mind before you shoot (is lighting optimal... is object in center of frame, etc.) or are operating more on artistic and creative instinct?
I love the art form... could cruise around flickr.com all day if I had the time... but would like to have more of an appreciation for it. I just kind of point and click and hope the kids are smiling... but suspect there's a LOT more to it than that... :)
Ugh, Why can't I write a short response? I just read what I wrote and see I didn't respond to several of your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteSome quick thoughts. Clearly light which is attractive to the eye, should also be attractive as recorded, but there is never an absolute correlation.
For example, some of my portrait clients are excited when they see a bright bold-blue day, and disappointed by overcast skies. But when it comes to a portrait, soft diffused light is much preferable to hard light. A building may look good against that kind of sky, but a person can hardly keep his or her eyes open in that kind of light.
As a rule, grand things are generally disappointing in pictures. It is very hard to suggest the true scale of a mountain or the grandness of the Grand Canyon in a picture. On the other hand, things that that are insignificant or ordinary can be made powerful with the right presentation.
In the end, photography is ALL about light, so I recommend using light in all of its incarnations. Especially light that is slanted, diffused, or altered in the process of falling. Perhaps the hardest light to work under is high noon - but even that can work is some situations.
(Most landscape photographers prefer the light just around sunrise and sunset.
There is one kind of light that happens very rarely in Arkansas (but more often out west, and when it happens I go plum crazy.
The sun is setting at your back, with storm clouds before you (to the east) the sun dips below the shelf of overhead clouds and illumines gold subjects against stormy skies. Wonderful.
Fascinating, Kirk! Thanks so much for sharing your insights (and amazing talent). My oldest son has to do a photography project for school... I'm getting him on your blog tonight!
ReplyDeleteAny resources (books, videos, etc.) you might recommend for those of us who only recently learned to keep the thumb out of the frame?
Thanks!
Sarah
you very well could be the only person I have ever seen or heard thank God for Chloroplasts. That is funny, yet probably neglected from day to day....LOL
ReplyDelete