Who lives there,
learning such loneliness? —
mountain village
where rains drench down
from an evening sky
~Saigyo O (B Watson, Poems of a Mountain Home)
It is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be found
~Winnicott
Old and Poor: American’s Forgotten
Over the wide sea
As I sail and look around,
It appears to me
That the white waves, far away,
Are the ever shining sky.
~Fujiwara no Tadamichi (1097-1164)
Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Benjamin : Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire: There’s a great future in plastics.
Think about it. Will you think about it? ~The Graduate
Raj (XDrive ) writes that high speed photography allows the photographer to freeze motion as it permits “only a fraction of a second for the sensor to ‘see’ the scene” and the sensor “is going to record things at standstill even though they are moving.”
I set out yesterday with my camera set on autofocus with continuous focusing and the ISO at 800. After coming home and doing a bit of deleting, I still have heaps of images…412. Regrettably, most of them will be tossed into the trash because I assumed that setting my camera on manual and using the highest f-stop that the shutter speed would automatically record at 1/4000 to 1/8000 seconds.
Why did I chose manual…well, before leaving home I initally set my camera on shutter speed priory mode and saw that the camera seemed to prefer lower f-stops. So, my first mistake came with the assumption that there is a correlation between high f-stops and shutter speeds. I also failed to set the camera on center focus and was not able to correct this decision as I left my glasses at home…sigh. Also, I did not pay attention to the shutter speed throughout the walk…and as you can see in the image below there are no frozen water drops…just a bit of blur, bubbles, and tiny pellets as well as a rock (lower right) in focus.
Nikon D750 f/22 1/250s 85mm ISO 800
The rain and snow last night left a bit of ice under a layer of snow…so will have to delay my return to the creek, when it is a bit warmer, to create motion frozen water drops with more attentive intention.
Yet, not all was lost…
Nikon D750 f/22 1/640s 85mm ISO 800
Nikon D750 f/16 1/1000s 85mm ISO 800
Nikon D750 f/16 1/500s 85mm ISO 800
Nikon D750 f/22 1/500s 80mm ISO 800
Thank you Raj…I appreciate these lessons and your feedback.
Though we are parted,
If on Mount Inaba’s peak
I should hear the sound
Of the pine trees growing there,
I’ll come back again to you.
~Ariwara no Yukihira
Nikon D750 f/4.5 1/40 56mm
The National Forest Foundation will plant a tree for every $1 you give to their tree-planting programs. Their website notes a goal of planting 50 million trees by 2023.
Suzanne Simard’s research has given us insight into how trees communicate their needs and send each other nutrients through an elaborate system which she has compared to neural networks in the human brain.
I hope you enjoy this TED Talk, How Trees Talk to Each Other
The fourth week of this journey exploring a particular element of photography invited me to open my eyes to triangles. It is easy for the eye to see triangles and they are often created through the use of three prominent points of interest, particularly if they are similar in content and size.
The first time I was introduced to triangles in photography was through the writings of Eric Kim who noted, “Triangles are one of the best compositional techniques you can use in your street photography to fill your frame, add balance, and add movement in your images.”
Within an image, you may notice three variations of triangular compositions: real triangles (actual triangles, triangles formed by perspective, inverted triangles formed by perspective) and implied triangles through the use of people.
Within street photography, implied triangles are often created by the direction of the subjects’ eyes. Within the first image below, both subjects are looking to the left creating a triangle that extends outside the photograph. In the second, the gaze of the father, daughter, and two geese create an implied triangle.
If you wish to join this learning journey at any time, please do so.
Please enjoy this educational video, Composition in Photography (Ted Forbes, The Art of Photography)
The wild geese yet
Are content to stay —
And must you return
~Otomo Oemaru (F Bowers, The Classic Traditions of Haiku)
Nikon D750 f/5.6 1/320s 300mm
after the geese depart
back to normal…
Sumida River
~Issa (www.haikuguy.com)
Nikon D750 f/5.6 1/230s 300mm
There is a profound moment…just a second or so before the sun’s light peeks above the horizon…when it feels as if a stilled hush has silenced all of nature. And then, a bird’s singsong welcoming a new day and the distant sound of the coffee maker, releases me once again from the imprisonment of a sleepless night.
Nikon D750 f/5.6 1/100 62 mm
Sutcliffe rarely left Whitby [a port and resort community on the Yorkshire coast], where his portrait studio kept him busy, and said that he was ‘tethered for the greater part of each year by a chain, at most only a mile or two long.’ To most modern photographers this would seem a crippling restriction, but Sutcliffe gradually realized that it was an asset to him as a photographer since it forced him to concentrate on the transitory effects that could transform familiar scenes. …photographers should always aim for something more than ‘mere postcard records of facts.’ ‘By waiting and watching for accidental effects of fog, sunshine or cloud,’ he advised, ‘it is generally possible to get an original rendering of any place. If we only get what any one can get at any time, our labour is wasted; a mere record of facts should never satisfy us.’
cited: Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, The History of Photography Series, p 8
Nikon D750 f/1.8 1/800 35 mm
Nikon D750 f/7.1 1/400s 28mm
Sometimes Providence interferes and saves the beginner from all trouble with his stops. It did so with me. I had a dog which took a great interest in my first camera from the very beginning. There is, perhaps, something about morocco leather which reminds a dog of the Elysian fields. It was a lens-cap, morocco bound outside, velvet inside, which Charlie devoured first. A cork out of a pyro bottle fortunately fitted the lens-hood exactly. Then, after eating the cap, while my head was under the focusing cloth, Charlie devoured the leather case, with all the stops in it. This was an insurmountable difficulty. I know I wrote to the maker of the lens to ask what a new set would cost, but as the amount was more than I possessed, I determined to do without. That is why I was saved from under-exposure, with I should surely have been led into with a multitude of stops.
~Frank Meadow Sutcliffe (cited: Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, The History of Photography Series, p.6)
Before its so-called birth, this goats beard already existed in other forms – clouds, sunshine, seeds, soil, and many other elements. Rather than birth and rebirth it is more accurate to say, “manifestation and re-manifestation”. It’s so-called birthday is really a day of its re-manifestation. It has already been here in various forms, and now it has made an effort to re-manifest.
When conditions are no longer sufficient and a plant ceases to manifest, we say it has died, but that is not correct either. Its constituents have merely transformed themselves into other elements.
a meditative journey 
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