Monday, October 18, 2010

Impressionism, with a camera

The current Monet retrospective at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais in Paris inspired me to think about how I might create an impressionistic photograph without resorting to any sort of digital manipulation.  The two photographs below are, as they say, "straight out of the camera."  The first is a perfectly straightforward shot of  water lilies, with the rippled reflections of the trees and shrubs in the background providing the desired impressionistic effect. The second is actually the reflection, turned upside down, of the people standing over the pond (with distracting parts of the image cropped away).   Very simple to do, and lots of fun.


Water Lilies, Japanese Garden, Washington Park Arboretum, Seattle




Overlooking the Pond, Japanese Garden, Washington Park Arboretum, Seattle



Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Once in a while you do get lucky...

On the first day of autumn, my friend Mahesh and I hied ourselves over to Discovery Park in Seattle to catch the sunset at the West Point lighthouse there.  Very fortuitously, a fellow on a board, steadying and propelling himself along with a long pole, came floating into my viewfinder just as I was framing my composition.  His silhouette reminds me of figures I've seen painted on the tomb walls of the Egyptian pharaohs.  Although the size of his image in the photo is very small, the contribution it makes to the overall interest of the scene is large.

West Point Lighthouse, Discovery Park, Seattle, Canon 450D w/Tokina 11-16mm lens @12mm

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