Motivation

A photograph to welcome Spring and Summer…….a wild geranium after a Spring rain:

Copyright Howard Grill

Sometimes the whole of an image just doesn’t work, but within it is a portion that does.  Such was the case with this photo from my recent trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  The entire vista contained in the original image didn’t seem interesting enough to hold my attention.  But within it I saw a portion that I liked because of the shapes the lines of the rolling hills made. So I limited the image to what I liked about it.  Sometimes, you just have to know when to crop!

Copyright Howard Grill

I ran across this amazing time-lapse video by photographer Dustin Farrell and couldn’t help but post it. Take a look and see just how awesome our planet can be!

As I mentioned in my review of the Gura Gear Bataflae 32L, I recently had the opportunity to spend a week photographing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  It really is a fantastic (and exhausting) experience to be able to devote a week to just photography, especially when you get to do it with a few similar minded friends!

Having returned, I have just finished the job of importing, keywording etc.  The editing job is now beginning.  Below is an early ‘pick’ that I put through some quick processing as a taste of more to come.  One of the defining characteristics of the Smokies is the amazing layering of the mountain ridges:

Smoky Mountain Ridges

Copyright Howard Grill

Interestingly, I took a series of exposures of this scene anticipating an HDR image but, while reviewing the photographs, realized that this single image really conveyed the feel of being there.  So why make life complicated.  This single exposure says it all.

When I first returned to serious photography about 7 or 8 years ago ( I had been ‘into’ photography when I was very young and, in fact, asked my parents for a good camera and basic darkroom equipment for my 8th grade graduation present……but that is another story and was a lifetime ago) I was a ‘sharp from back to front’ sort of shooter.  That clearly has its place, and I enjoy a good ‘stem to stern’ pin sharp landscape image as much as the next guy.  However, it is only over the last year or two that I have come to really appreciate shooting with the lens wide open to markedly limit depth of field.  In the right situation the wide open aperture lends an aura of mystery to an image and can also make the subject really ’pop’.

I made the photo below on one of my deep winter photo forays to Phipps Conservatory, where the weather is warm and the color is green any time of year!

Yucca

Copyright Howard Grill

This image is from a workshop in New Hampshire that I attended a few years ago.  It brought back memories because it was the last workshop I attended as well as the last one I went on that was run by extraordinary photographer and friend Nancy Rotenberg, before her untimely passing.  I can’t recall if I have ever posted this image or not.

I was drawn to the way the white birch trunks contrasted with the surrounding fall foliage:

Copyright Howard Grill

I have always found it interesting that a group of photographers can go to the same location and walk away with vastly different images.  That fact is testament to the old Ansel Adams quote that “There are always two people in every picture, the photographer and the viewer”.  So when I run across photographers who spend time making images at sites that I frequent, I am always interested in seeing their work.

Through comments she made on my blog, I recently ran across the work of photographer Stacy Butera. Stacy lives in the same general area as I do and apparently has taken the opportunity to photograph at some of the same locations that I have.  I spent some time on her website and really enjoyed the work I found there, which tends to exude a quiet stillness, as exemplified in the image below.

“Shawnee Lake Dock”

Copyright Stacy Butera

Check out her other work at her website here.

Interesting, what one can find when going through old files that have never had the opportunity to see the light of day.  I have found a bunch of photos that I will ultimately want to process but simply had not had the time.  It is definitely worth revisiting the old hard drives from time to time! Here is one from 2008, in Zion National Park:

Copyright Howard Grill

I had previously written that I was having trouble starting up a new photographic project or direction after having finished my Carrie Furnace folio.  I had also mentioned in some prior posts that I was pleased with how some of my flower images looked in black and white. 

I decided to take it a bit further and see how the flower photographs would look if I tried a ‘vintage appearance’ with sepia and edges reminisecnt of an emulsion transfer.  And as it turns out, I am liking the look quite a bit. 

Copyright Howard Grill

I now have four images that I had previously printed in color processed this way.  This could be the start of the next project!

A few days ago I attended the opening of another portion of the outpatient facility belonging to the health system where I work.  This phase was even larger than the first and I was honored to again have the system purchase my artwork to decorate the facility.  From an artist’s standpoint, I don’t think there is anything quite like walking into a building and seeing 79 of your prints on the wall that you yourself have printed after hours and hours of work to ensure that they communicate your vision.

Particularly alluring were the four images that were blown up to almost 6 feet and printed (these I did not print myself) by a specialty company on some type of polished aluminum.  This was arranged by the hospital’s art consultants and therefore I don’t really know the details of the process.  Interestingly, the company that produced these only wanted the files at 100 pixels/inch, not the usual 240-360 that I typically print on paper with.  Nonetheless, given the dimensions, it still required some significant ‘uprezzing’ of the image files, which I did using OnOne’s Perfect Resize.  It was with a bit of trepidation that I went to look at these, because there was no specific color profile supplied for softproofing, no clear directions as to how the files should be sharpened and, of course, no proof print to see if the sharpness would hold up on the aluminum at that size and resolution.

Well, I am usually a pretty strong critic of my own work, but I have to say that the aluminum prints really looked great and I was quite pleased with them.

The image below is not one that was printed on aluminum, but is one of the prints that hang in the facility that I don’t recall having posted on my blog before.

Gerbera

Copyright Howard Grill