Not the end of this dance

The photography class is nearing it's end and I am fee (6:32am and one kid's now up) ling, I'm feeling, oh I forgot now but I'm definitely not feeling finished. Interruptions are the story of my life. I was telling my friend yesterday that I am amazed by the ideas I come up with in the shower or in the car when there aren't any kids in it. That's nothing new except that these complete quiet moments are much farther and fewer in between than they were when I was in college. However, I do think I played it right. Study mathematics, chemistry, biology as a single undergraduate, environmental science which is less technical as a graduate with babies in my belly (and out), and photography which is even less technical with two toddlers at my feet ("I'm hungry," he says). Photography is just a little easier to grasp. In fact, I think anyone can do it. And I don't mean that anyone who is doing it can do it, but I mean really anyone who takes the time to learn how to do it properly and has some patience can and will take photos as well as or better than those who do it professionally.

I am supposed to find inspiration in online galleries for my class and for a journal entry and let's just say I've had quite some trouble. The fact is that I am not inspired by many of the black and white photos in the Yancey Richardson, Catherine Edelman, Fraenkel, Yossi Milo online galleries. I looked at all of the galleries for plenty of time and without knowing the stories behind the photos I find few I like and that could very well be because I don't have much training in art appreciation. In fact, I have found myself becoming more and more critical of visual arts. Photographers whose work has mesmerized me in the past I now page through uninterested. There is one photographer Hellen Van Meene whose work is now in the Yancey Richardson Gallery who caught my eye . She is one of the more contempory photographers in all of the galleries displaying photos as recent as 2010. The images are colorful portraits that in my opinion develop the soul of the individual subject through their eyes. The light is natural, usually from a window, and it is visible in the scene somewhere but not usually on the subject itself. This is exactly how I like to frame my images. Although I can appreciate photos taken in complete shade or on overcast days or just after the sun has gone down, for they sometimes allow for brilliant color and glistening eyes, this type of photography with less direct light is much easier, I think, and also less dramatic.

My problem this week is that it's almost December; the sunlight outside is so amazing but it is almost invincible. The amount of time each clear day that the rays touch my front yard is about an hour. It doesn't any longer hit the floor of my home, but rather only a couple walls and only for a matter of minutes. I drive into town four afternoons a week for my class and to bring my son to preschool and I can tell in these short daily drives that the sky changes dramatically in a matter of 20 minutes in interior Alaska. It's quite powerful, but it is something I have decided to just sit back and let myself observe rather than try to capture with kids at my side. It's been cold and when it's been 30 degrees warmer at -10, it's been cloudy. There might have been a good day or two in there where it was -10 and clear but if there was I missed it because I was spending time with my ("I really really really want raisins and peanuts, mom") family. I'm thankful that my younger toddler knows the value of sleep as much as I wouldn't trade these sweet interruptions for anything else in the world. It's nice to have time to sit and write like this. My classmates are fighting for studio time, but for my final I am still hoping for some natural light. Unfortunately, a series of chinooks are scheduled to arrive which probably means the skies will be less grand. Stay tuned for my final project ... although this will hardly be the end of my dance with digital photography with all its lovely interruptions that sometimes seem to meet in the middle. I have to remember to keep taking photos and videos of these happy little moments.

Two Triptychs

A triptych is basically a series of three something (photos maybe :) that tell a story. A diptych would be a series of two, etc. We were required to create two triptychs for class in anticipation of a final project that must be a series of 5-10 photos that tell a story but that do not contain redundant subject matter or composition. It turns out that this isn't so easy to follow these basic guidelines, even in series of only three. I mulled over a ton of ideas for my triptychs. Some were not in my heart because they were not as much tied to nature as I like: an arm composed of animal, machine, robot. Some were, but were not achievable at temps hovering around -40F: the moon's reflection on water in solid, liquid, and gas forms or my family in silhouette at sunset as we progressed from a family of two to a family of five (dog included). Some of my classmates had neat ideas that are very simple: an apple progressing from whole form to eaten to the core, tangled wires (like fishline, headphones, necklaces) whose abstract form continued from frame to frame, three different colored dog's heads posed identically. One of my ideas was to bring the bounty of fall into winter's preservation by using high bush cranberries.

We broke 6 low temperature records in 7 days last week but I went out every day if only for 5 or 10 minutes, brought my kids out in their best gear, and even drove 2.5 hours with my kids to try to photograph the mountains in the sunrise. It was refreshing to be out when we otherwise would not have been. Photography is not alone. There are so many other hobbies that have people out there at low temps: running sled dogs, biking, cross country skiing, ice carving. This community is full of energetic outdoors people. I wanted to photograph frosty eyelashes and steamy mouths, but it didn't work out exactly as I'd planned. Working with a subject at -40 is not exactly predictable. My fingers froze and I couldn't think but I still think this is nice and conveys "cold:"

The tie to the weather and the sun is what I love about natural light photography. I have seen things during this class that I would not have seen otherwise: the phases of the moon, ice dogs around the sun, the differences between the colorcast of the sun on the snow between early November and late November. There are such drastic differences between each week of winter in the subarctic and noting these changes makes the cold months pass quickly.

Flash

To complete a flash photography assignment, I borrowed a Vivitar 283 flash from the university. This is a universal manual type flash that can be mounted to the top of many different brands of cameras. The flash can be swiveled so that it can either be bounced off of a reflective surface onto the subject or directed right at the subject. The electronics work like this; you set the flash to the ISO that your camera is at and then you based on your distance from the subject--10, 15, 20, or 40 feet--you set the flash to one of four color coded settings and these settings in turn tell you where to put your camera's aperture. The shutter speed has to stay generally constant, a speed at or below the speed of the flash. My camera's flash synch speed is 1/200 of a second, but to acquire more light I could set it lower than the synch speed.

It's not really as confusing as I make it sound but getting a great pictures was not an easy feat. I took 200 photos inside my home based on a list I made of things to try and these are the ones I chose to submit.

Direct Flash. The area was lit from the chandelier above but flash was needed because it was an indoor situation and with motion to boot. I chose direct flash because since the walls were very close and both visible in the scene, bounce flash off of one of the walls would have created a very bright spot on the wall in part of the scene. This photo is cropped, so only one wall is shown.

Direct Flash. This one turned out well. The shadow created by the direct flash creates depth in the image, and the washed out white feeling created by the harsh direct light enhances the washed diaper scene. In this situation the room was lit from the recessed lights. I chose to use direct flash because the camera's tripod was situated outside of the room's door and because of the way the doorway is built there was not any place to bounce a flash.

Bounce Flash. This was the first photo that I took and I played with it a lot to get it to look this bright. I ended up bouncing the flash off of the vaulted ceiling, which I think is 18 feet from the floor. I was bummed that I couldn't capture the grandness of the window in the background, but that is one problem with a bounce flash; if you turn the camera on it's side to get a vertical image, the flash is also turned, which means you can only use direct flash or flash bounced off of a wall. Bouncing a flash off of a ceiling is out of the question unless the camera is horizontal. This is a 40 foot bounce.

Bounce Flash. This photo turned out more dark than I had planned. This was the last photo that I took and I think the batteries were giving out becuase I was having trouble getting the flash to fully charge. With these flashes, you can set them off before they are fully charged and they'll give a fraction of the light that they would have if you wait the full time. As I backed away from the subject, there was not enough light on him and when I came closer, he had shadows on his eyes. In the end, I'm not sure that the eyes are important ... like the photo above, it is more about symmetry.

Fill Flash. Fill flash requires depth in the background and a slower shutter speed than the synch shutter speed. In this photo I slowed the shutter to 1/20 second from 1/200 to catch some of the light of the chandelier which at 1/200 is non-existent. The flash is pointed directly at the subject, but is slightly diffused by tissue paper that I had taped over the flash. It would have been a bit better if I'd had a taller tripod. In class the students titled this photo for me: Domestic Diva.

Fill Flash. Here the depth is not in the room, but instead outside. At 1/200 you don't really see the light outside, but at 1/20 you can see the colors that the low November sunlight casts outside. The direct flash provides some light on dog. It was very difficult to get the majority of the flash to hit the dog and not the window (glare!). If he had been taller and wider, it would not have been such a challenge.

And one last photo ... the best photo I've gotten Santa Clause. I used a 40 foot bounce off of the ceiling above us and the effect is really quite nice I think. You are used to seeing this scene with the use of direct flash and that way it looks much more flat therefore less intimate.

Film Speed

I never thought I'd have fun with low light and high film speed photography since I'm not much of a sports fanatic , but it is also useful for taking photographs of kids in the wintertime. Inside or even outside on a cloudy day sometimes the largest aperture and the fastest shutter speed for the light available is not enough to catch a moving image or even to put a still image in adequate light. So, you either have to use a flash or you have to increase your film sensitivity or film ISO (Internal Standards Organization). In my case, I'm talking about the digital sensor's reaction to light not film's reaction to light, but same gist without all the dark lab chemicals.

The photos of our boys below are at a fairly large aperture f/2.8, shutter speed 1/100-1/125, and ISO 1600. Normally, I shoot my photos at ISO 100-400 because there is less noise which gives them much more crisp quality. In fact, when I did my first photojournalism assignment of the federal agencies state agencies and city mayor addressing the public on air quality and health, it did not even occur to me to increase the ISO so that I could get brighter photo in a dark room. I was looking over at the local newspaper photographer wondering why her shutter speed was so much faster than mine; I just assumed her monstrous lenses has much larger apertures than my best of f/3.5 at 18mm or f/5.6 at 55mm. After that night when I collected some subpar photos, we discussed film speed in class and when I did my next mock photojournalism shoot of the scientists at the local university museum discussing their work in animal preservation for halloween, I had much better luck. However, that time I brought my 50mm lens because it has a larger maximum aperture of f/1.8, which was good because the rooms were extremely dark, but then of course I was restricted in each frame by the higher mm because the rooms were small and I had to back up all the way, stand on chairs, and then still couldn't get much into each frame. Both experiences were a bit awkward, but not too bad, and I definitely learned some lessons. The third time I try to get some newspaper-worthy shots, I should not have any trouble at all.

The house is caught at aperture f/5, 30 second shutter speed, and ISO 1600. The blue light on the snow in the foreground and in the sky is from the moon. Even though it is nighttime, the high film sensitivity to light and the long shutter speed, together, give the scene a day-time feel. In any of these 3 instances, using flash would not have given the same effect because it either would not have created enough light or it would have created unwanted shadows.

Winter Warmth

I am going to use the onset of winter to talk about a few things for my journal entry on portraits.

I think that less is more. Simple is better. I prefer natural light because there is not much fussing required. By using sunlight, there are not any lights to lug around, not any strange shadows to fix, and not any backdrops to iron. You don't have to worry about things like carpet dating or degrading your image or bringing in props to make things like classy or creative. Every backdrop outdoors is unique and all you have to do is wait for the light and then move around and find the sweetest spots. Even a blade of grass can glisten like diamonds against the blue shadows in snow at the right time of day.

In my opinion winter looks great backlit. Like a drop of water, snowflakes catch the eye best when illuminated from behind. They look more translucent and bright this way and therefore are able to stand out from their background. I like people backlit also, in any season. I realize this is not preferred by all, but the feeling of warmth that is created when there is yellow, orange, or red sunlight streaming into the background is appealing to me. I tried to find portrait inspiration in the local galleries this past month, but it was just not there, perhaps because I have already made up my mind. There is a local contemporary photographer Chelsea Mach who is able to convey this feeling of warmth ... through bokah and through silhouette.

There are two problems though that I see with backlighting. Obviously, a photographer cannot capture as much detail even at large aperture of the subject because it is/they are in the shadow. You get bright spots. This can be helped with the use of a reflector but then of course you lose some of the effect. Also, sometimes, you get solar flare on your lens (red circle in top right above) if you're not using a hood or shade. But, if it is art, sometimes a strong feeling is more important than the quantity of pixels with detail or the absence of scattered light. I think most families want warm photos of themselves on their walls. If backlight can make these three photos at 0 degrees F look warm and appealing, I think it can enhance any human portrait just the same.