Playing with Photoshop #1

The wife is gone.  The dog asleep on the upstairs couch.  It is so silent here!  So peaceful and serene, and I am restless.  I need a photoshop fix.

I can spend  several hours messing with photoshop.  I know there are those who are think the less photoshop the better and I used to think that too.  But conditions change.  I've changed and now I firmly believe that the ability to capture photons of light digitally and then to manipulate those photons via one's imagination in combination with the tools of photoshop is, a unique form of art! 

Of late, I've been messing with hue/saturation controls.  Exaggerating them wildly just to see what will hapen - just as I often will take a photograph of something or photograph something in some odd way just to see what it will look like photographed (that way), so too, will I play with the range of tools offered byphotoshop and see what occurs.   Play and see what arises and now and then  just as magic occurs with the camera in hand, so too does magic occur with a mouse in hand!   Digital capture allows one a great deal of range and lattitude of effects to play with before showing your creations to the mass public.  And there are considerable skills and artistic decisions involved in the applications of these tools to our images.

On the left is the way this scene "really was" on the day it was taken with the wims of the Nikon metering system, the play of light and shadow on the soft adobe of this historic catholic church across from the park in Durango.  I go there often.  The trees offer many moods as does the sun as its arc moves further north and warmer.  In general I tend to overexpose the images 1 - 3 stops or more. 




 

In my mind's eye the image on the right is every bit as "real," as "it" "really was" on the day it was taken.  The image on the right is as believable as the one above.  All I did here was play with color and specifically with saturation and a little hue.   I am finding that one can  enhance the feeling of depth through the judacious use of color and how each layer is blended one with the other.  When one plays with light - consciousness is effected.

Ditto the image below and to the left (of center).  Its the exact same scene but instead of it being a tired, sleepy, little tree beside an old church suddenly it can be late August evening with hints of a firey heavenly or Alpine glow...........OR..........An early morning awakening from the ice and a  storm.  Pale purples and pinks falling on the soft, old walls.  The tree clearly showing early signs of coming out of its slumber but not quite there yet.  Almost, but not quite.  Again in my mind's eye this last image is also equally "real" and equally true to the moment and to the heart of my spirit.

Inside / Outside an image

Winter time has never been a time when images please me. Oh!  I love the romantic idea of trudging off into snowy fields and forests, breathing in the sharp clarity of vision, with a camera and enough provisions to keep me alive till I  might manage to slog back to the car.  I love that idea!  I just hate the act of it!.

This winter has been different any than other I recall.   As my friend Branson Reynolds says:   "The colors are there.  The trick is to enhance them in your mind before you snap the shuttter."  www.bransonreynolds.com 

 Snow light can be quite subtle while conditions can simultaneously be quite brutal.   Dense white-out conditions, cold thick fogs hovering over the landscape.  Sparse trees. clusters of scrub oak, sage,  grasses, and rabbit ears sticking through  pristine snow.   And the fences! Gotta love those fences!    Steve Immel  is a Taos, NM based artist who recently had a showing at the Open Shutter.  Steve,  I think, imagines the world as being desolate, lonely space with a hint of quietude.  Thats what I see.   The image of 4 fence posts sticking through the cold endless snow, the fields themselves a multitude of subtle - subtle variations in color in shadow in shape and in the mind's eye.   The ephiphany came after seeing his work as I walked the dog and imagined seeing myself standing in one of his photographs looking both around deeper into that reality and at the same time looking out of the frame at the world of eyes and eye's peering in at me.  

This image above was pre-visualized.  I  I saw this shot in the mind's eye of being compressed by the tele-photo and composed it as though it was.  Then I waited for the right conditions to arise as I knew they would and when they did.  I was there for it.

Technically speaking I over exposed the hell out of it - exposure which I am sure would blow most histogram-displays right off the charts.  But then, I tend to over-expose just about everything as if both eye and my camera need to absorb as much light as possible and still record whats essential.  What can be latter processed for consumption of some sort down the road.

doc rob

When the subject calls

"So what do you mean when you say: the subject selects you! Anyway?"  Some one asked.  "Well ..... I say,"  I simply walk around,  trying to be as mindful of the moment as I can relaxing into the experience of simply being here.  Often simply being aware that i am alive, invites and encourages  gratitude and receptivity.   I walk with purpose but no direction, listening to bird song and wind, feeling warmth of the sun and slight movement of thebreeze, smelling what this old nose still can smell and being mindful of my breath or maybe my feet and the earth beneath until a subject catches my attention.

That subjec† could and can be anything.  When something does catch my attention then from then on my intention is to explore with a beginners mind.  To be in a "what if" mindstate.

On this day I was near the river.  Walking about when the dappled sun shining on this bush caugh† my eye.  Green.  Nothing but green. At the time nothing but green didn't exactly scream-out as a great subject.  But I knelt all the same in the field of green and after saying "hello" I started to dream.   There was a tree behind this particular mass of green and the light was very contrasty.  As you can see, black to the left and muted but luminous green to the right.   Being a "macro-guy"  I like to get in close and personal....being a curious type I like to observe, I like to notice.   Macro photography, concentration practices, mindfulness, and the "construction of reality" or as some perfer to say - the "deconstruction of reality," flow well together.   Personally, I find that the phenomenological descriptions of "reality" offered through Buddhism is a good fit for me.  That said, I was "religiously constructed" in Christianity and realize how deeply those roots extend within.  I play.

Here I played by first becoming aware of the contrast extremes.  That seemed to naturally lead to finding some compostion that could take advantage of the light condition.  Doing that is not well served if done exclusively or even primarily through the lens.  It helps to sit back and observe.  See the whole as well as the part(s).  Taking time.  Noticing the play of light.  How it changes and how perception deepens as the mind quiets and mind energy is concentrated on just experiencing this moment as it unfolds. 

Here I imagined that  I was kneeling in the cool lush greenery of a land forgotten.  Nearby rushing water gurrgled and laughed as it ran by, the call of birds, rustle of spruce in the wind and peering through some secret space while catching a glimpse of something fleeting and magical.  I felt joy and delight.  Laughing as I clicked the shutter.  Giving thanks to green and to the universe.  Imagining being the light? 

I like this simple image.  It seems to be kinda "koan-ish" to me.  A symbol or a simple gesture of some gentle green truth.

Comments are welcome as are your (build it and they will come)images and reflections.

all denominations accepted!

doc Rob