color photograph

lens-artists challenge: looking back – autumn

It stirs the soul

of even

the most

indifferent person –

first autumn winds ~Saigyo

Journeys with Johnbo takes us back to Patty’s June 2020 lens-artists photo challenge in which she invited artists “… join us … and share your images of this season.  What does autumn look like in your part of the world?  What does this season mean to you personally?” 

Images of autumn, 2020

autumn 2020
autumn 2020
autumn 2020

how I envy maple leafage

which turns beautiful

then falls ~Kagami Shikoo

autumn 2020
autumn 202
autumn 2020

What is it about autumn that is personal … the joy of a new school year, crunchy sounds of leaves, sights of leaves swirling with autumn winds, memories of burning leaves and jumping into piles of leaves, scents of autumn, promises of snow, desires to fly with geese, and feeling autumn’s unique dryness.

one four challenge…week 4

This is the fourth of four editing challenges for Leanne and Joanne’s invitation to choose one image and then for four weeks share one edited change to that image. “You can do whatever you like with it, just do something different each week.”

Often times there is a stuck-ness that keeps me glued to a problem/challenge until a solution releases me … this fourth of four challenges has freed me from stuck-ness. This liberation has me dancing in the street – this wondrous misty-chilly morning!

A while back I found that Photoshop’s upgrades messaged that my computer had become ancient with a nonverbal suggestion that I either consider a new computer or explore alternative software editing programs. Enter Pixelmator Pro.

This fourth image invited me to explore Pixelmator Pro’s scale shape horizontally and vertically as well as the auto crop. Then I played around with the hue and saturation’s vibrance and then ended this editing challenge with color selection,

Fujifilm X-T4: f/4.5 1/900 s 80 mm 400 ISO

original
1st edit
2nd edit
3rd edit
4th edit

I hope you enjoyed this editing journey.

one four challenge…week 3

This is the third of four editing challenges for Leanne and Joanne’s invitation to choose one image and then for four weeks share one edited change to that image. “You can do whatever you like with it, just do something different each week.”

For awhile I found myself in a puzzle … how to create this image into something different? After a number of false starts I decided to insert a moon into the center with Snapseed’s double exposure and then to edit with their expand option. A unique image, I must say!

Fujifilm X-T4: f/4.5 1/900 s 80 mm 400 ISO

original image
1st edit
2nd edit

one four challenge…week 2

My second image for Leanne and Joanne’s invitation to choose one image and then for four weeks share one edited change to that image. “You can do whatever you like with it, just do something different each week.”

This week the editing began with cropping the image which brought the center of the flower to be the main focus area. I then finished in Silver Efex Pro 2.

My first edit was to crop the image and then explore structure, brightened mid tones, and chose golden bright in color balance. I slightly brought out the shadow within the center. I ended with vignetting.

Initial image
1st edit

Fujifilm X-T4: f/4.5 1/900 s 80 mm 400 ISO

monday morning with pascal mercier

He often complained in his last year that he didn’t understand what it really consisted of, the loneliness we all feared so much.

Fujifilm X-T4: f/4 1/75 s 60.8 mm 400 ISO

What is it that we call loneliness, he said, it can’t simply be the absence of others, you can be alone and not lonely, and you can be among people and yet be lonely. So what is it? … All right, he said, it isn’t only that others are there, that they fill up the space next to us. But even when they celebrate us or give advice in a friendly conversation, clever, sensitive advice: even then we can be lonely. So loneliness is not something simply connected with the presence of others or with what they do. Then what” What on earth? (cited: Night Train to Lisbon, p 319.)

one four challenge…week 1

My first image for Leanne and Joanne’s invitation to choose one image and then for four weeks share one edited changes to that image. “You can do whatever you like with it, just do something different each week.”

The photo below is my initial image that was auto adjusted within Capture One…white balance, exposure, contrast and brightness, high dynamic range, and levels. I cannot recall which of Fujifilm’s film simulations that was used during this photo walk.

Fujifilm X-T4: f/4.5 1/900 s 80 mm 400 ISO

My first edit was to crop the image and then explore structure, brightened mid tones, and chose golden bright in color balance. I slightly brought out the shadow within the center. I ended with vignetting.

I think I was much more creative during the time of Robyn’s challenge. Maybe over time this will change.

If memory serves, there was also a similar challenge that ended in 2016. This discussion brings to mind a quote I once heard, “no matter how much things change, they still remain the same.”

lens-artists: lines, colors and patterns

Photo composition is an essential element of any photographic image. A photograph has only two essential elements, subject, and composition (not camera settings). By composition, we refer to the way we place all the elements of the photograph inside the four sides of our frame. ~George Tatakis

Lines are horizontal, vertical, diagonal, organic, and implied. Ted Forbes  (The Art of Photography) wrote that while lines don’t actually exist in nature they are most likely the most basic element of visual composition. He further noted:

Lines serve many purposes in visual composition. They can divide the composition, they can direct the viewers eye, they can define shapes and they can make a statement to the feel or interpretation of the image by the viewer. Line’s speaking to the feel of a composition is extremely important.

For me going beyond the intellectual understanding of color theory: that is, to feel, see, sense, and be engaged with the multiple interactions of color within an image is a challenge.

It is my understanding that patterns are the repetition of shapes that are pretty basic and similar to each other. We will see them repeating at regular intervals within nature, design, works of art, architecture, and photography.

Thank you John (journeyswithJohnbo) for this invitation to refresh my understanding of these three tools of composition

lens-artist: live and learn

As an autodidact, individuals who choose the subject they will study, their studying material, and the studying rhythm and time, in 2018 I began blogging a 52-week Photo Study that explored topics such as visual composition, creativity, point of view, the photographer, street photography, contemplative photography, landscape photography, and developing a personal style,

YOUR FIRST 10,000 PHOTOGRAPHS ARE YOUR WORST.” ~Henri Cartier-Bresson

After reading Henri Cartier-Bresson’s quote, I realized that one may just mindlessly click away 10,000 times with hope that…maybe, just maybe…accidentally…one image will be an A+ A+ A+ photograph (see the movie, “A Christmas Story”).

Then…a shower thought…maybe that one triple A+ image really only arises after 10,000 intentional shutter releases.  Can you just image being present to,  thinking through, and connected with each transient moment 10,000 times?   In reality this would be like setting out on a  journey of 10,000 steps knowing that one will never reach their destination.

Yet, what is an important part of a 10,000 endeavor?  To create a triple A+ image?  Or to undertake a photo study journey accompanied by fun, education, knowledge, experience, and exploration?  I’ll go with the fun of creating and opening myself to the beauty of Mother Earth so this photo study blog journey is an encouragement to–not create a triple A+ image– but to be more intentionally present with each click of the shutter.

Thank you Tina (travels and trifles) for this week’s photo challenge to explore and share one’s lifetime journey of learning.

thursday morning with pascal mercier

Encounters between people, it often seems to me, are like crossings of racing trains at breakneck speed in the deepest night.

We cast fleeting, rushed looks at the others sitting behind dull glass in dim light, who disappear from our field of vision as soon as we barely have time to perceive them. Was it really a man and a woman who flitted by there like plantoms in an illuminated window frame, who arose out of nothing and seemed to cut into the empty dark, without meaning or purpose? ~ Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon, pg. 94

Fujifilm X-T4: f/4 1/1400 s 78.1 mm 640 ISO