lens-artists

lens-artists: it’s tricky!

Some historians speculate that April Fools’ Day dates back to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as called for by the Council of Trent in 1563. In the Julian Calendar, as in the Hindu calendar, the new year began with the spring equinox around April 1. 

People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes and were called “April fools.” These pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as “poisson d’avril” (April fish), said to symbolize a young, easily caught fish and a gullible person.

Cited: History.com

Double exposure is like a mystery bag, one never really knows what will come out of the camera.

How did this playground slide become Phantom of the Opera?

Yes indeed, patience is a bit tricky.

Hop on over to Wind Kisses to join this week’s photo challenge

lens artists: spring

March winds bring April showers and May flowers

In northeastern Colorado, March and April often bring heavy snow storms. While many across the globe may be tired of snow, I delight watching big snowflakes cover the world outside my window waiting with anticipation for the stilled silence that will embrace the neighborhood.

Waking up to a snow covered streets is a sure sign that soon there will be a call; it’s a snow day! A guiltless day away from the office, yes!

And then after a sleep in, there is a walk through the park and being silently greeted by snow people.

Do you remember playing King of the Mountain on the big piles of snow left by snow plows?

The next best part of these storms is the warning that occurs in a day or two … the sounds of melting snow’s rivulets and the touch of spring’s silken breezes.

spring begins–
sparrows at my gate
with healthy faces ~Issa (haikuguy.com)

Sofia Photographias: spring

lens-artists: Road (most often) taken

Road trips! I love spontaneous road trips with nights in “X-Files” motels that invite with their buzzing neon vacancy sign.

I delight in planned vacations that included staying in city centered-hotels, having breakfast while watching national news, and then roaming (with camera in hand) through art galleries, museums, churches, parks, historical buildings, cemeteries, and shopping districts.

I welcome intentional photo walks that invite an openness to be present to the world as it presents itself and to delight in the richness, complex and wondrous elements of life.

These roads most often taken is Contemplative Photography where I open myself to what is and to see without expectations.

Journeys with Johnbo: The Road (most often) Taken

lens-artists: alone time

A freshly-opened cherry bud … her lips upon the flute. She leans in the corner of the balcony: the night is chill, her silken robes are thin, her fingers cold . . . but music floats through the frosty woods and startled plums fall pattering down. ~Chang Hsien (Ed. various. The Jade Flute, The Project Gutenberg eBook)

The general sense impressions I have of “alone times” are moments of grief and loss as well as feelings similar to forlorn, isolated, lonely.

if there’s a house
standing alone, sure enough…
plum blossoms ~Issa (www.haikuguy.com)

I have often pondered a different sense of “alone” after learning of it’s origins; Middle English, “all one.”

“All one” speaks to me of a time of solitary; a sense of completion, wholeness, self-direction, and freedom.

Leya’s Alone Time

lens-artists: bringing softness

The above autumn image was a raw photograph created in Fujifilm X-T4 with a film simulation recipe, Retro Red.*

Within Capture One 23, I did a bit of light and shadow adjustment, cropped and removed some leaves, and set clarity at 2.

The image on the left was further edited with a Capture One preset, DF-03-Arapaho (bright).

I then hopped over to Color Efex 4 Pro and added a glamour glow layer to create a light softness to the image.

This week Bren invites photographers to explore editing softness into their creative work. I hope you enjoy.

*FujiXWeekly app

lens-artist: perfect patterns

Patterns give us order in an otherwise chaotic world. 

I find myself pondering the concept of perfect…are patterns designed by human design seen as more perfect than the ones that ebb and flow through the dynamics of mother nature?

Is there a pattern within an image that at first glance seems chaotic?

solitude

Does rhythm which involves the same or similar elements repeating at regular intervals create an image that soothes the eye and thus a seemingly “perfect pattern?”  

Join this week’s lens-artists challenge: perfect patterns at Leya to see the world in a grain of sand

lens-artists: exposure

Leica D-Lux 7 … f/2.8 1/80 s 26.3 mm 3200 ISO -1.3 ev

This image was created by using natural light with an exposure value set at -1.3.

FujifilmX-T4 … f/4 1/1000 s 120 mm 640 ISO -2 ev

The highlights (leaves and light on middle figure) were adjusted in black and white post editing

FujifilmX-T4 … f/4 1/1000 s 33 mm 640 ISO 1.3 ev

This image (initial exploration of long exposure with a Fujifilm) was edited for shadow and highlights during post editing

FujifilmX-T4 … f/4 1/1000 s 59 mm 640 ISO -2 ev

This image was created with Fujifilm’s film simulation retro gold with lights and shadow adjusted during post editing.

I work with RAW images, the camera is set at Aperture Mode, and generally edit images in Capture One, Photoshop, Nix Software, and Snapseed.

As my computer isn’t reading my external disks, the RAW files of the last three images were edited in iPad’s Lightroom, Photoshop, and Snapseed.

Thank you Sofia (Photographias) for this week’s lens-artist’s challenge: exposure.

lens-artists: flights of fancy

passing as I play

a swaying dandelion

on an autumn breeze

let’s take flight of fancy to where the fairies live …

Dearest Gwen,

I head a pigeon’s “coo coo” this morning. She was resting on the chimney. Her voice flew down the chimney, out of the fireplace, and up the stairs.

I can hear you say, “Grandma Brenda voices don’t have wings. They cannot fly.”

Yes, voices don’t have wings. But somehow they do travel from one place to another.

Let us imagine voices having tiny tiny butterfly wings.

Wings like the Western Blue Beauty or Monarch Butterfly. Other voices could be flying through the sky with miniature dragonfly wings.

Or maybe we could draw the “chirp chirp chirp” of the Robin’s song with majestic wings of gold that would glitter in the Spring’s morning sun.

I would like to see a voice’s wings knitted from spider silk. A silverly white that would carry the momentous sound of a distance crane in flight.

Oh our imagination opens us up to wonderful possibilities.

I love you.

Grandma Brenda

Thank you John (Journeys with JohnBo) for this invitation to play, to wander where fairies live, and yes imagine voices having wings.

lens-artists: flower favorites

Pale green night and flowers all melting into one 
    in the soft haze–
Everywhere the moon, glimmering in the Spring night. ~ The Sarashina Diary

Color of the flower

 Has already faded away,

While in idle thoughts

My life passes vainly by,

 As I watch the long rains fall. ~ Ono no Komachi

A fallen flower

Flew back to its perch

A butterfly ~Moritake

Since you went away

No flowers are left on earth ~ Sôseki

Within one memory is my mother sharing with me her favorite flower, Sweet Peas. Within another, is watching her caring for a Venus Flytrap.

This week Ann-Christine (Leya To See a World in a Grain of Sand) invites lens-artist to share their favorite flowers and plants and their silent stories.  

After I contemplated this week’s photo challenge, I find that I don’t have a favorite flower. I do though have private memories tuck away into blossoms. I also call upon flowers placed upon memorial stones to message grief that lives within the love that lives beyond time.

May all places be held sacred.
May all beings be cherished.

May all injustices of oppression and devaluation
be fully righted, remedied and healed.
May all wounds to forests, rivers, deserts, oceans,
all wounds to Mother Earth be lovingly restored to bountiful health.

May all beings everywhere delight in whale song, birdsong and blue sky.
May all beings abide in peace and well-being, awaken and be free.