Oct 1, 2009 - Life Imitating Art

A month ago I stumbled across a new magazine, "Color : For Collectors of Fine Art Photography", from the makers of B&W Magazine. The issue of Color I found was the Portfolio Contest Winners issue, and I was amazed and inspired by the range of photography shown. I was also amazed that there was hardly any text in the thick magazine, it was all imagery.

Taking tens of thousands of photos a year, one can find themself both developing a style, as well as perhaps sticking to the same kinds of things. Reflecting on my favourite photography subjects I realized I can sometimes be too literal with my shots. "This is a hawk, that is a bug on a flower". Viewing photos of a more artistic vein has inspired me to change things up.

This past weekend roaming around north of the city, I was attracted to the yellowing crops and how they were complimented by blue skies. I found the lines and vibrance very attractive. A few days later, I realized how similar one of my shots was to a favourite Van Gogh painting "View of Arles". I didn't have blue irises in my photo, but appreciated how well life was imitating art in this simple farm field.

I expect to do more abstract kinds of shooting in the future. This is yet another interesting avenue photography is taking me down. With nature (ie. bird) photography, it's important to render subjects as they were found and to avoid distorting the truth. With less literal, more abstract subjects, one has more latitude with processing and manipulation.

I won't abandon the things I like to shoot, but am eager to experiment with new views of the world around us.


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Sep 30, 2009 - Art for Auction

Recently I shot art work for Autism Ontario. They are hosting an Art Auction and needed some photos of a few pieces to use for marketing purposes.

Photographing art can be tricky, especially when you're dealing with various kinds of media. The pieces photographed included acrylic on canvas, ink on paper, and many of the works are surrounded by gorgeous frames.

To capture both the details of the art while preserving the detail of the frames, a rather simple approach was used. Daylight-temperature lamps were positioned in a way that they would light the art while modeling the fine details of the frames. For the more textured canvas pieces, the main light was moved more to the side to highlight the canvas.

Each art piece was shot using 3-5 exposures with a tripod-mounted camera. These exposures were later merged together using the HDR technique to preserve the widest possible range of tones.

If you're interested in attending the Autism Ontario Auction, it takes place on October 7th 2009. For more information please visit the auction web page, or Autism Ontario's web site.





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Sep 5, 2009 - Of Bugs and Birds

Recently I've been using the extension tubes a lot more to enlarge very small things. Tubes allow for some interesting compositions and lend themselves very well to tiny intricate plants.

Some of these shots were taken indoor with flash. Most were taken outdoors at a marsh.

Usually I look for birds at the marsh, but arriving early in the morning, I noticed the dew made things look very vibrant and exposed many spider webs that become invisible later in the day.



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