Sunsets and Streetlight Glow

My favorite time to walk is at twilight - just as the sun is going down.  There's something special about that time of day that just makes me feel happy.  And it's not just me - there is an actual invigorating biological response to sunrise and sunset.  Even the cows on my friend's ranch get frisky and playful at sunset. It's the original "happy hour".

 The photo on the left is one that I took on an evening walk.  It was just dark enough for the photo-sensitive walkway lights to come on, but still light enough that there was a little remaining blue in the sky.  The cars on the adjacent street all had their lights on, which painted streaks of white across my scene. I love how the agave, lit by the off-camera walkway lights, looks as if it's glowing.

The photo on the right is also from an evening walk and captures the beginning of a California sunset, with beautiful (drought-tolerant) aloe plants blooming in the foreground.

Movie Genres

According to AFI (American Film Institute), the top 10 movie genres of all time, along with the number one movie in that genre, with original poster art, are as follows:

#1. Animation: Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs

 From this beautiful illustration you can gather that this is
 a fantasy with a heroine at the center of the story.

You can also see a villain and a romantic lead in the
background. I like the beautiful watercolor feel to this poster.









#2. Romantic Comedy: City Lights

Here I think you get a sense that this is a movie about boxing, but the formal hat and coat give an idea that there is something else going on. I would not guess from this poster that this is a romantic comedy, but I might guess from the fish-out-of-water appearance of the central figure that it is a comedy of some sort.









#3. Western: The Searchers

 Clearly a western!  Clearly a saga on a grand scale.  The words in the picture give a sense of urgency, a mission. 













#4. Sports: Raging Bull

Although you can't see the boxing ring in this poster, it does appear to be a boxing movie - the man's face is puffy, his nose is a boxer's nose, he looks like he's wearing a mouth guard.

The eyes give the appearance that he is weary from the struggle, that he is the underdog in this story.









#5. Mystery: Vertigo

This is a wonderful movie poster - although it does not give away the plot, you can get a feel that something transpires that makes
you question reality and sanity.  The swirling lines are a vortex, spiraling into insanity.  The skewed and imperfect lettering likewise hint that all is not right, all is not what it seems.










#6. Fantasy: The Wizard of Oz

This to me seems like a pretty straightforward movie poster with no hint of the story, except that it contains unusual characters. The thing that is most striking, outside of the odd characters, is the extreme coloration of it.  A hint of the technicolor to come? Technicolor is even promoted in the text of the poster.








#7. Sci-Fi: 2001: A Space Odyssey

This one is interesting in that here are these people clearly on a foreign planet, but seemingly doing mundane tasks.  No drama is hinted at - they are just going about their jobs.

We know, obviously, that they are in space, so this is science fiction.  The lettering is also in a very modernistic font, even leaving off the capitol letters to appear sleeker, and more scientific.






#8. Gangster: The Godfather

This one makes you wonder what is going on.  We know that a Godfather has something to do with the mafia.  And here we see someone holding the strings of the Godfather.  Or is it the Godfather who is doing the manipulation?










#9. Courtroom Drama: To Kill a Mockingbird

One would say, looking at this, that this picture is based upon a book.  Interesting that it has children as central characters, but is not suitable for children to watch.











#10. Epic: Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence of Arabia is obviously someone shrouded in mystery! We only see his headgear, not his eyes.

The typeface is reflective of the beautiful and ornate art from the arab world.

Ethereal Vistas

It was the day after the rare rainstorm in Southern California so the leftover puffy clouds and sky were breathtaking. I went out driving, camera in the passenger seat, looking for images that caught my eye - interesting combinations of shapes or colors - vistas that included those gorgeous clouds. What I found was this building, enveloped in the skyscape, and part of it too.

I love the way the building blends into the sky instead of competing with it for attention. It seems to be floating with the clouds and ascending into them.  The trees in the foreground, with their dark solidity, add to the feeling that the building is detached from the earth and is instead part of the sky.


This next picture was taken during a walk with my daughter.  What caught my eye about this building was the seeming impossibility of it.  It is like half a bridge, suspended in air, with nothing holding up the distant end.

The person at the end gives a sense of scale, and for me, a reassurance that the structure will hold.  A more subtle reading shows the "bridge" reaching for the sunset, as seen in the more golden light on the left.

This is, in fact, an observation platform, from which you can view the ocean, and Catalina on a clear day.  I am fascinated by this image in that I am afraid of heights, and to see people standing near the precipice (in my mind) give me butterflies.  Yet on that day, I climbed the stairs, and ventured out to the end myself, after taking this shot.  I felt strangely comfortable, as if there wasn't "nothing" below me. And the view was spectacular.

László Moholy-Nagy & André Kertész: Photographers

László Moholy-Nagy 

László Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as professor in the influential Bauhaus school. He art was influenced by constructivism and he believed in the integration of technology and industry into the arts. He continued his work in America later in life.

This photograph was taken from a radio tower in Berlin in 1928, and almost appears to be an abstract painting. From this vantage point, the garden, walls and pathways appear as shapes and textures in a balanced artistic composition. I like that he creates the feeling of abstract art from real-life images. The two pathways near the top of the circle balance out with the two pathways leaving at the bottom; the asymmetrical composition "begins" in the center of the circle, and then my eye drifts outward from the organic shapes at the center to the more formal, strict and "harsh" shapes of the walls. The space on the rooftop gives my eye a place to rest momentarily, before moving on up to the windows on the opposite side of the building, at the edge of the frame. My eye is drawn to the shapes and the interplay between the shapes in this composition.  I find it interesting and beautiful.

 

André Kertész 

André Kertész is often considered to be the father of photojournalism.  It was said that he stuck to no political agenda and offered no deeper thought to his photographs other than the simplicity of life, and in this, he took an intimate approach to imagemaking. He did not offer opinions with his photographs, merely presented the image and let others make of it what they might.

 In this photo, Kertész has created a diagonal composition using the angle of the camera vis-a-vis the street, and using the tracks from the tires in the snow.  Even the footprints in the snow seem to be leading in a diagonal direction.  The tree and the boy with his dog form a counterpoint, and a focal point. I like this composition because it is dynamic, yet peaceful.

 

Morning Light | Afternoon Shade

These flowers in my yard are so pretty - I had to take a picture of them.  One was taken in the morning light and the other in the afternoon shade.  What a difference in color and feeling of the photo!

The photo on the left is the morning shot with all the sunlight.  The flowers are warm in color.  The ones on the right are cooler - more magenta and less yellow.  For me, I prefer the ones on the right.  They seem more saturated in color as well.

After the Rain

Rain is always a welcome treat in Southern California, and this afternoon we had a lovely cloudburst followed by beautiful white puffy clouds.  I couldn't resist going out to drive in the rain and visit some of my favorite walking paths where the recent rains have created lush, green vistas.  At Bommer Canyon we saw a full rainbow arc, and shot this picture of it.

Cape Light - Photos by Joel Meyerowitz

In looking through the Cape Light photos by Joel Meyerowitz, I keep returning to this one again and again, and I have to wonder why.  What is it that makes me want to keep looking?

At first glance it could be mistaken for a badly conceived vacation photo - somewhat drab little cottages with unkempt lawns - neat and tidy enough, but with a telephone pole (at a tilt no less) going right up through the middle of the composition, next to the telephone booth in the front yard. Yet there is a calmness and a serenity in the photo - in the beautiful, warm light of sunrise, the stillness of the daybreak, and the sparseness of the landscape. The sign by the roadside is a uniquely American convention, and the Volkswagon beetle in the driveway is the cherry on top; it is a perfect symbol for utility and the everyman - owned by the kind of person who might stay at plain little cottages such as these. There are no rigid rules of formality here. This is what Meyerowitz has captured in his photo - he has perfectly encapsulated the simplicity, charm, functionality, warmth and Americana of this place.

For me, there is also a healthy dose of nostalgia. Although these cottages are located in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, they could easily pass for the little cottages my family stayed at on the coast of Oregon during my childhood vacations. These are the ubiquitous little cabins you used to find up and down both coasts in vacation towns. 

Looking at the cottages in this picture I feel a deep sense of longing for their coziness and the carefree ease of being there in the summer.  I can picture the insides of these cottages: they probably have worn wooden floors - or perhaps linoleum which is worn thin where you would stand in front of the kitchen sink to wash the dishes by hand. They probably have a slightly musty smell from walls and curtains too long in the humidity of the ocean breeze. 

As a child we might have turned up our noses when we first arrived, just a little, at the shabbiness of the interior, at the worn sofa and the slightly threadbare white chenille bed covers.  But within two days we were piling on "our" sofa and "our" beds - now familiar and welcoming.  We could run up from the beach and into the cottage with our sand-covered feet and it would be okay - the functionality of the cottage meant our feet wouldn't do any damage. And that beach was just across the road.

These are the kinds of things I think of when I see Meyerowitz's photo, and why I can't stop looking at it.

The Passage of Time

This week's images portray the passage of time through a couple of "before and after" timescapes, plus one photo pair that shows two separate points on the time continuum in the same physical location.

Playing a game of chess with my daughter.  She always wins. This shows the beginning (first move) and endpoint (checkmate) of the game.

Cake for my afternoon tea. The cakes from Champagne Bakery are always the best.  Just added a few strawberries.  Yes, I ate it all!

Sunset through sundown in Irvine, on the walking trail.

Busy or Calm

The challenge this week: Take photographs that exemplify either busy/chaos or still/calm, then create three side-by-side diptyches which contrast the busy and the calm. I wanted to try to have each of the dyptiches represent a single location. So I grabbed my camera and headed out to some of the places I like to go walking.

This first set of photos was taken in Irvine, at the IRWD San Joaquin Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary, located at Campus and Riperian Way. The two photos in this diptych were taken at the same location, but one focuses on the lush green marsh, the other focuses on the skyline just above the marsh. You can see the same wall in each of the photos.

On the left is "busy" - the construction behind the marsh. On the right is "calm" - the marshy area where the birds forage for bugs and crawfish.

The photos below were taken at different locations.  The one on the left was taken at Bommer Canyon Trailhead in Irvine.  The one on the right was taken at the LDS Newport Beach Temple. They are similar, but so different.

The photo on the left is the "busy" one - it seems so chaotic with lines going every which direction. The one on the right also has lines, but they seem more ordered - not crossing over each other so much. It has a "calm" feeling to me, and looks like somewhere I'd like to hide out and read a book.

The final diptych photos were taken at Bommer Canyon Trailhead in Irvine:

On the left is a road that leads to old corrals (used when there were still cattle roaming these hills) and walking paths up through the hills. The composition seems "busy" to me - it hints at the activity of people coming and going. On the right is the "calm" side, a 60 degree turn to the left from the first photo.  It is a serene view over the open area in front of the Saddleback Mountains.

Outtakes and Bonus Material!

There were lots of pictures leftover from this assignment - pictures of busy or still that didn't fit into a diptych, but that I really liked. 

Here are some of the extras, beginning with the San Joaquin Marsh:

White-faced Ibis catching a crawfish

Black-necked Stilt

Tree Swallow, claiming a nesting box
with his mate peeking out from inside.

Various ducks: Male and Female Blue Winged Teal, Cinnamon Teal plus a Coot

Great Egret with a few Black-necked Stilts.

A view towards Newport Beach from San Joaquin Marsh

Back Bay, Newport Beach, CA

The angel Moroni: atop the LDS Newport Beach Temple, Bonita Canyon Road, Newport Beach, CA

Opuntia Blossom: Bommer Canyon Trailhead

Security System: Bommer Canyon Trailhead

Jeffrey Road Open Space Trail in Irvine, CA

Altering History or Enhancing Reality?

I grew up in a time when we believed that “the camera doesn’t lie.” If you took a photo, then what was printed must be reality. And it has widely been assumed that Photoshop is the demon which has given rise to the practice of altering reality. In fact, neither of those ideas is entirely true because as long as there have been cameras, paper, scissors, glue and paint, there has been photo altering. It’s just easier now.

When I first started in photography using film cameras, what I saw when I was taking the photos often did not match what I saw when I received my prints back from the developer. I experienced a lot of disappointment! Then I learned that a skilled photo processor could make all the difference. He or she could boost the saturation of the photos, or push/pull the exposure, or dodge and burn the shadows and highlights. These were important to me not so that I could alter reality, but so that I could make my photos match what my eyes saw in person. I also discovered that a good airbrush artist could remove a few wrinkles here and there on the finished print, or take out an errant tree, then re-coat the print so no one could tell it had ever been touched.  When I used an airbrush artist I was altering the photo for effect or for perfection, but not really for deception.

Those techniques are minor compared to what some photographers did even as far back as Lincoln’s day, as shown in the 1860 before and after photos below:

Here we have Lincoln’s head pasted onto the body of John Calhoun, a southern politician. It was said that “no sufficiently heroic portrait of Lincoln had yet been taken,” so apparently one needed to be created. Presumably Lincoln’s head was cut from one photograph, carefully pasted onto another one, then the whole thing re-photographed to produce a new negative. To me, this goes beyond perfecting the image. It's more towards the deception end of the scale. More about this photo and other early examples can be found here: DailyMail.com.

Fast forward to February 19, 1990: Adobe Photoshop is released into the world. I do not know what the original intent for Photoshop was, but when I began using it (somewhere around 1998), my intent was to enhance my photos in the same way I had asked my photo processor to do. Instead of having to try to explain what I wanted to someone else and maybe getting that, I now had full control over the finished image. It may have taken a lot of trial and error, and a lot of failure, and a lot of scanning of negatives, but often I got what I wanted. I was a purist at the time so no altering of the subject matter for me!

Yet a mere two years later, I was altering on a grand scale.  I was putting wings on babies, or putting them in teacups, or floating them in clouds. In my defense, I was a new mom and babies were of interest to me. Plus, Anne Geddes was the photographer du jour. And the photos were so patently altered that no one could mistake them for reality!

But altering photos can be a slippery slope, as is striving for perfection. So eventually, since I had the tools anyway, I found myself taking people out of photos who didn't belong there, or putting them in. No worries since these were just family photos and not for publication.  Well, except for the yearbook photos where someone forgot to show up for the photo shoot and I had to add them in later! So no harm, no foul, right? Below is one such example. (And also an example of some not-so-perfect Photoshopping.)

But what about photojournalists?  Do we hold them to a higher standard? I think generally the answer is yes. We trust them to show us reality "as shot," not an interpretation thereof. So it is surprising when we see a photo in a reputable publication and later find out that it has been altered. Some photojournalists have been fired for altering their photos, even just to give a better sense of what the reality was. You can read about one such instance here: "Ease of Alteration Creates Woes for Picture Editors." Yet others have not been punished for even greater infractions.

In this photo, it was the publication itself that requested the change for religious reasons:

In this iconic photo of the President Obama national security team watching the raid that killed Osama bin Laden from the White House Situation Room, the Hasidic newspaper Der Tziung removed the images of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and counterterrorism directory Audrey Tomason from the photo because of their policy of never printing photos of women in its pages. The newspaper later apologized, sort of. More about this photo here: TheGuardian.com.

For me, the example below definitely crosses the line, especially since the publication defended it's choice to Photoshop someone out. And it's even on the cover of the magazine! It seems deceptive to me and it changes the essence of this photo of President Obama surveying the BP oil spill along the Louisiana coast.  Here are the after and before:

The Economist deputy editor Emma Duncan said, "I asked for Ms. Randolph to be removed because I wanted readers to focus on Mr. Obama, not because I wanted to make him look isolated." Source: The Huffington Post. And yet, that's exactly what she did.