by tmoffett | Aug 19, 2010 | Black and White, Landscape, Photo tips, Photographic Philosophy
Early Morning in the Sawtooths
The Sawtooth Mountains are one of my favorite places to visit. The cool, fresh morning air makes waking up a pleasure. The scenery is incredible, especially first thing in the morning. Saturday I had the pleasure of being at Alturas Lake at sunrise. We had a light fog that created a mood and feeling that was calm and relaxing. It was wonderful just to be there and enjoy Gods creations. What made it even better was being able to photograph the experience.
What do I look for when I am out with my camera? How do I find the right subjects to photograph? I am asked these questions on occasion. I have thought about what I do and how I do it so that I can accurately answer. While out photographing I tend to not only look with my eyes, but also with my heart. I try to feel what is happening around me. What mood is surrounding me? When I feel something I get out the camera and try to produce the feeling in an image. Not always an easy task but always a worthwhile endeavor. By searching for feeling an image with deeper meaning is created. It is not just a pretty picture, it becomes a piece of art.
by tmoffett | Aug 8, 2010 | Architecture, Black and White, Composition
Idaho Falls LDS Temple
When photographing architecture, and especially in black and white, I look for interesting skies. Without clouds, the sky becomes just a boring gray tone. I have just one word of caution, though. If the sky is too dramatic, then it can overpower the building, detracting from the original intent of the photo.
Notice the composition in this image. The building is surrounded by, and rising out of the trees. I have included the landscaping as a way to frame the temple and give the image a solid base. With the sky, I positioned the camera so as to place the spire in a darker part of the sky and surround it with clouds, helping to draw attention and frame the building. The evening light was soft enough to allow detail in both highlight and shadow, yet hard enough and at a low enough of an angle to create depth and dimension in the structure. Light quality, whether natural or artificial, is the key to successful photography.
by tmoffett | Aug 5, 2010 | Black and White, Composition, Portraits
Ben
If you only know me through this blog, you may think that my only subject is the landscape. If so, today may be a surprise for you. My interest in photography began with the landscape, but then I turned to portraits for more than 15 years. I have always loved landscape photography and felt like I could express myself better there than with other subject matter, but I had a family to feed and portraiture and wedding photography is what made that possible. I still do a fair amount of portraiture, but my own personal work is almost always landscape.
You will notice, if you study my portrait work that I believe that simple is better. I feel that way about landscapes and portraits. It is my way of seeing the world. By simplifying a portrait, I am able to more readily make the subject known. It is always about the subject and never about the background. Whether in the studio of outdoors on location, the subject and lighting always take precedence over the background. If the first 2 are good, the background will be fine. Many times I see portraits that are really all about the location, the scene or the background, and the subject just happens to be there. This way of thinking and designing a portrait is backwards. It may be a great scenic image, but when the main subject takes a back seat to the background then it has lost its power. I would rather have nothing in the background than something that overpowers what I am trying to show.
by tmoffett | Aug 3, 2010 | Black and White, Landscape, Photographic Philosophy
Haystack Rock and The Needles, Cannon Beach, OR
Of all the days that I have been at Cannon Beach, there has only been one time that there was no haze. It was wonderful. Clear and an approaching storm, I could not have asked for more. Perfect lighting for black and white, which is my favorite medium to work in. I know, with all of the color images that I have been posting, that is hard to believe, but when I conditions are really there for black and white, I feel as though I am in heaven!
I learned black and white in the old days, with film and the Zone System. I still look at it the same. I must be able to get the tonal range correct. There is no faking it. For a quality image it must be captured correctly in camera and then post processing done to perfection. It is not easy but it is always worth the effort. When someone mistakes a digital image for one done with film and a darkroom I know it is perfect.
This is one of my favorite images of Haystack Rock. As the tide was receding it left the saturated sand that reflected the image of the rock very nicely. As I set up and watched the scene unfold, the clouds began rolling in, and with a few minor shifts of the camera position I was able to place this cloud in perfect position. Swooping across the image just above the Needles and Haystack as if trying to get over them without touching. I watched as the waves lapped at the base of the rocks, the storm came and went, it was awesome. The scene was speaking to me. If we decide where we are going, what we want out of life, then dig in solidly and when winds and waves of life attack we will not be moved.
by tmoffett | Jul 23, 2010 | Black and White, Composition, Ramblings
Iced Over
In an effort to wish cooler temperatures here, I am going to the archives and posing a winter picture today. This comes from a long time back when I was in Watertown, New York. One winter day I was out driving and came upon this old pier at a lake that I am not even sure what its name is. Anyway, it was cold. The pier was icy. I remember slipping and nearly falling on its icy surface while setting up this image. I love the angle on the pier as well as the texture, contrasting nicely with the icy snow covered lake.
This brings back memories of the days of film. I shot this with my Pentax 6×7 on Kodak TMAX 100 film. Occasionally I long for those days. The smell of fixer in the darkroom. Watching the image appear in the tray. Those little things that really hooked me on photography. Everything is so different now, yet in some ways it is the same. The tools have changed, but the concepts remain. The computer has become my darkroom. Many of my students today have never shot with film. They only know digital. I sometimes think that they are missing so much by not having played in the darkroom. The darkroom teaches a person to slow down and think about what they are doing. Nothing was instantaneous like it is now. So different.
by tmoffett | Jul 19, 2010 | Black and White, Landscape, Photo tips
Partial Eclipse, City of Rocks
Three weeks ago I was with some friends at City of Rocks. We had a wonderful time photographing and socializing. About an hour before the sun rose over the mountains the moon, in a partial eclipse was about to set over the western horizon. It was a beautiful, quiet morning, and just soaking it all up was worth the drive. Photographing it was even better. I didn’t have much time to scout location, as it was dark out and I had never been here before, so I took what I was given. The foreground was dark, but the sky was turning out to be quite nice. I had the headlights of the truck to skim across the foreground and throw just enough light to brighten up the brush and the nearest rock formations. This helped create the balance that I needed between foreground and sky.
When mixing light sources like this, be careful. The color of the light from the truck lights is so different from the natural pre-dawn light in the rest of the scene that if you want color, it will be very difficult to correct it. That really didn’t matter to me because I knew from the start that this would be black and white. I just needed light, I didn’t care about what color temperature it was.
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