Fourth Friday 6/28/2013

Last month, I started a new series of blog posts that I called Final Friday.  The idea was that I would share a few or several images from the past month as a way of showing you what sorts of things I was working on. I liked the idea but decided it needed a better name.  Final Friday just sounds so, well, final.  But alliteration is so catchy.  Today I realized, though,  that the final Friday of each month is either the  fourth Friday or the fifth Friday.  So, problem solved.  🙂

I’ve chosen five images for this Fourth Friday post that represent the two main subjects that I was photographing this month, Block Island and roses.

Block Island

Block Island is the smaller and  lesser known island of the group that runs from West to East with Long Island, then Block Island , then Martha’s Vineyard, and finally Nantucket.  It’s part of  and directly south of the mainland portion of Rhode Island.  Words utterly fail me when I try to describe the beauty and spirit of this island.

Being surrounded by water, it was the perfect time to try some more long exposure images.   (I’ve talked about long exposure photography in 2 previous posts, Slowing Down and Do what you Cannot Do . )  We hit every beach on the island but this is Clay Head Beach which requires a hike in to.  It’s so very worth the hike!

This scene in on Champlin Road, a long dirt road that we were taking down to yet another beach.  The red and gold grasses on the far side of the water were undulating in the wind and truly appeared as waves.  I tried this scene as a long exposure but it didn’t have the right feel.  This image is actually a panoramic that combines about 6 different images to capture the full scope of this view of one of the old farms on the island.

There are 2 lighthouses on Block Island.  The Southeast Lighthouse was offering tours that weekend so we gladly made our donations for the privilege of climbing these stairs to the top where we were treated with a wonderful bird’s eye view of the island.  I was really struck by the graphic nature of the steps and their shadow against the old brick.

Roses

I’ve  been taking more time to do one of my favorite types of photography, flowers in the studio.  In taking flowers out of their natural environment and isolating them, it seems to bring more attention to their beauty.  They become a series of lines and shapes and colors and we can appreciate them in a new way.  I have some new equipment that makes even more things possible so I’ve been experimenting a great deal.

A fellow artist brought me these roses from her garden.  In this first image the rose is placed on a lightbox and photographed so that the light is coming through. It’s actually a composite of 5 images, each one a different exposure.  The five images are stacked in Photoshop and blended by hand painting in the areas of light and dark.

One of the new pieces of equipment I have is a telephoto macro lens, designed to focus close up.  This is one of my favorites from experimenting with the new lens.  I also painted it a bit with a customized effect in Alien Skin’s  Snap Art.  Snap Art is another thing I have been playing with lately, going beyond the automatic settings to achieve my own effects.

Hope you’ve had a good month.  Let me know how you’ve been creating and experimenting.