Atmosphere; An McF Studios Series

Groggy and cold is now way to go through life. It's not even a good way to make a living. All the jobs I've had that required me to be present, lucid, and feigning interest at early-o'clock began as someone else's idea. The story about these tree images isn't any different. Sitting at the desk before dawn in January, I got an email from my girlfriend that read, "Get off your ass, it's really beautiful outside." Knowing that she hates the cold, I rushed out with the camera and two lenses, a 50mm and an ultra-wide. Shivering along the drive, my head started comparing places close by that might pair well with the fog. Had to be close, I was six minutes ahead of the sun, but the fog was really thick. I wanted trees and space. No space in town, but there are a few great trees in City Park, so that's where I headed. I started fantasizing about trees hit with god-beams while all around was fog and light. You get what you get. Everything was muddy, mediocre, dull. OK. Walk around shooting a few exposures, check the histo, change a lens, check again. Got it. Shoot the 50mm at f/1.4 min, f/2.8 max which will provide all the separation I need. Composing with the 50 also controls the distortion... ain't none. Just gotta keep picking up the sticks and moving until it's perfect. After that, I'm goin' full HDR baby. I shot 9 stop brackets, but only needed three. Had the intent of doing black and white, but when I saw the first return on the LCD, I wanted the little bit of colour because it increased the separation I was there to capture. Sometimes you just get lucky. Yeah... LUCKY! Today, I got lucky a lot. Lucky that the light was there. Lucky that I found an easy subject. Lucky that the means met the idea. Lucky for the girl who got me goin'. Not a bad day by my standards.
(the rest of this series is available at Flickr, enjoy)

Wolf Moon Prairie

The Wolf Moon rising over the prairie Saturday night, north of New Raymer, CO. After a lackluster sunset on the buttes, and not much glow in the civil twilight, I had completely packed the Jeep ready to go find food, anybody else crave steak after a day out on Pawnee? maybe it's just me. Luckily cought the slight arc of moon light reflecting on a window. Happily, skipping a meal I caught this.  Think the camera saw more stars than I did.  Lots of things I could have done better technically speaking, but that doesn't change how much I absolutely love this photograph.  Single frame shot, Nikon D3 at 30 seconds, f/4, ISO200.

Settler's Gate

Three things that start with the letter "W".

Walking    Wondering    Waiting

Over the last three days, I've unknowingly adhereded to this shceme.  I found it by asking my self a question concerning the state of my art.  Which itself started as a question concerning the value others seem to place on the trueness of a photograph.  I'll start there again.

Sitting in Luck Joe's, showing my small book to a waitress, she asked, "Is this Photoshopped?"

"Yes, everything is.  Photoshop is one of my favourite tools."

She continued flipping through the images and, I think, complimented them before going back to work.

The essence of this question is, perhaps, "Can I believe this as a true photograph?"  Which is the repetition of the SOOC crap, anti-HDR crap, artist vs. reporter crap, and... (this is the exact moment I became bored with the argument).

Both sides of that discussion are ridiculous.  Side A: The river is here every day, it never changes.  Side B: The river is always changing, every day it different.

Explain that yourself.

The action of capturing a percise moment in time as a still image is by design an abstraction of reality.  anything more is an embellishment.  it is the intent behind that embellishment which can offer definition to the image.  arguing against intent, is futile, masteurbatory, and reteric.

From there I asked myself something about my intent as it relates to my means.  I find something while I am walking around.  It will get into my memory and from there a conversation will take place deep in a subconscious realm, while my imagination begins to wonder about that thing.  Then I will wait.

That's the formula.  Let me demonstrate it in a slightly more tangible manner.

The object in the photo above was originally found while hiking on my birthday.  I stopped to consider it twice, each time without a camera.  I thought it would be a great place to take some photos and then went back to stomping into the frozen snow.  Three weeks later, I didn't have much motivation to shoot but for some reason I went out and started racing the sun, because of a suspicion that something really wonderful might be coming.  This spot is close to my apartment and that's where I went.  Technically speaking, the image above has been manipulated from it's original group of negatives.  Lots of tools were used to beat the thing into submission.  All of the tools I use are available to anyone, except two.  Imagination and Awareness.  As an artist, those are the most powerful tools I have.

I walked (actually ran) to this old gate.  I wondered why I was there.  I waited for an answer.