Jun 2, 2015
About Life’s a Blur: A photography series that experiments with long exposures and motion blur. Every photo is a combination of movement mixed with a still subject. I’d like to think of each photo like a meditation: stillness in a sea of chaos.
These photos are also part of my Photo and 100 Words project. Since January 2014, I’ve been creating a new photo and writing about it every week. If you’re interested in finding out what prompted me to begin you can read the introduction over here.
(If you’re new to this photography series you might want to read how it all began in Part 1)
Is There a Plan B?
When I set out to photograph these flowers my initial ideas weren’t anything like the photos you’ll see below. I had visions of waterfalls and soft streams of water in my head, but the execution was not working. I bought a water filter for a fish tank as a way to recycle the water in my sink, but that’s as far as the good ideas got. I needed a way to spread the water out, and after building a strange-looking contraption made of plexi-glass, hot glue, and plastic straws, and then fiddling with it for far too long, I decided the waterfall idea might best be suited to photographing actual waterfalls.
I had two bouquets of flowers, a sink full of water, very little time, a bombed idea, and no inspiration. I wandered around my apartment, opening drawers of knick-knacks, and scanning my surroundings for other ideas. Eventually I ended up back in the kitchen, staring down into the sink. That’s when I realized I was staring natural water movement right in the face. All I had to do was unplug the drain and the water would swirl!
Love Spell
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Making these photos was a bit like Casting a Spell.
The Setup
There were a few challenges I faced while making this batch of photos. The first was the covering up of the puke yellow drain in the center of my clean white sink. The bottom side of a white plate was an obvious choice, but it took a bit of tweaking to level it out so it didn’t wobble. A mix of folded up wads of paper towels, and a silly-putty-like substance I call blue goo, did the trick… eventually.
After all that, there was no way I was draining anything. Not only would it be wasteful, it would be far too time consuming, and I couldn’t risk clogging my sink with flower petals. My solution was a rubber spatula to carefully swirl the water around each flower. Even after all my attempts to steady the plate, the vase with the flower in it might still rock a bit if I mixed the water too hard. I had to be careful or risk getting blurry flowers along with my blurry background!
A behind the scenes look at the basic setup for these photos.
Ariel Rose
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I get a little weird in this post about Desperation, I mean weirder than usual =).
Adding a Bit of Magic
The first photo I shot was lit very simply. Just a single hot light bounced off the white ceiling shown directly onto the sink scene. I love that first rose shot (Love Spell), don’t get me wrong, but it was just a little on the boring side, and it was time to make things interesting!
I pulled the petals out of the sink and threw in a little bling. I have these little styrofoam balls that are covered in sequins, and they’ve become a go-to background element I’ve used in many of my images. In this case, it was the fact that these babies float in water that attracted me to them in the first place, but the bling was certainly a nice bonus.
As usual, though, the images never really start off how I envision they will. I wasn’t getting any sparkle at first. It just looked like a slightly shimmery, white background – super boring. Even after I added a couple of flashes for some extra pop, it wasn’t turning out quite right. I added colored gels to the flashes and that’s when the magic started to happen. There’s just something about pink and purple that makes me happy, what can I say?
The last problem I dealt with was directing the flashes at the water’s surface without getting the funky color all over the flowers. I made a snoot out of aluminum foil to give the direction of my light more control with as little power loss as possible. It was still a continuous challenge to get the positioning of these lights right when I moved on to a new flower or composition. Sometimes I’d get a hot spot or splotchy color that didn’t spread across the entire frame. It took a lot of experimentation to get things just right, but that’s just an expected part of my process by now.
Glitter Rose
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Meditating in a Tornado was the post I wrote when I figured out exactly what this series had to teach me.
Trading Order for Chaos
Once I started getting consistent results it was time to break out of the rut. I threw everything into the sink. Sparkly balls mixed with petals, petals from various flowers got thrown together, and I started to change up the movements too. Instead of swirling, I plunged the spatula from the surface to the bottom of the sink to create a bobbing motion on the surface. I had to move forcefully enough to create a few seconds of movement, but gently enough to avoid rocking the vase. There were quite a few blurry flowers.
It was during this controlled chaos stage that I think many of the best photos came out. I felt like the big bang and these were my galaxies! Magic.
Rose to the Stars
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Sparkling Sea in My Sink… sometimes you gotta think outside the sink.
Rose Galaxy
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How do you see the world? How do you see yourself? It’s All About Perspective.
Red Roses in a Diamond Glaze
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A story about yours truly, the Control Freak, and how I’m trying to let go.
Dew Splattered Rose
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This photo got posted closest to my 1-year Blogiversary, so I did what all nerds do: I totaled up all kinds of nerdy numbers for the whole year of creating I completed. Woot!
Pink Daisy Cyclone
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I get a little cynical in Down the Drain… it slips out of me sometimes, can’t help it.
Pink Pom Twister
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How I Embraced the Chaos, a story about meditation.
Pink Pom on Fire
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I admit it… I’m a whore… a Passion Whore.
Daisy Tie Dye
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Painting with Motion is a story about a moment that gave me a little boost of artistic confidence.
Fire Flower Flow
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What would you think if I told you that photography is a mixed media? That was the point of Unveiling Photography’s Hidden Layers.
What’s next?
If you get my newsletter, you already know that a batch of super close up snowflake photos came next. Just like the windswept leaf photos I showed you in Part 2, the snowflakes are inserted into a real snow scene that I blurred in the camera. I’ll show you the scenes behind the art in Part 4 in a few weeks! If you sign up below I’ll make sure you don’t miss it! (Plus you’ll get the chance to win my art EVERY MONTH and a digital download of my artsy fartsy calendar… how can you say no to an artsy fartsy calendar?)
Update: Part 4 is now available, so now you can learn how to photograph snowflakes and get a glimpse of the snow scenes I used to create abstract, windswept backgrounds.
May 15, 2015 |
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It was only a few years ago that my camera spent more time in the corner of my closet than in my hands… but spring always inspired me to dig it out again.
I’d go out for a walk, always intrigued by the first daffodil of the season. The burst of yellow like a beam of hope, cutting through the chilly air, and warming up my mood in an instant.
The resulting photos are just snapshots, though – beautiful to the sentimental me, but ugly to the critic I’ve turned into. So many snapshots with busy green backgrounds and unflattering midday sunlight.
My photos never stood out back then… back then I took photos, but now I make them. I used to go searching for pre-made scenes, but now I only search for the ingredients to cook up my own.
Spring still inspires me, but I no longer let my level of inspiration determine whether or not I will work. After 68 weeks of photos, and a bit of retrospect, I can see that my inspired work is never as good, nor as satisfying, as the work I have to push myself through. Inspiration is for lazy artists.
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
May 8, 2015
Two siberian squill flowers on a single stalk against an abstract background of surreal pastel rain.
I’ve wandered, awe-struck, through five springs since I began taking flower art seriously, and every year I’m amazed to find flowers I’ve never seen before.
Initially, I’m hip-hopping all the way to my camera with a handful of freshly plucked specimens. I can’t wait to see them up close, make a beautiful photo, and share it with you.
Before posting it, I eagerly flip through my wildflower field guide. Twenty minutes later, groaning, I head to Google. You’d think it’d be a simple search, but it’s more like solving a crime.
First, I have to find an image of the flower I’m trying to identify without having a clue of it’s name. I search combinations of characteristics until I finally find my flower with an accurate name listed. I always do one more Google search with the name to verify it. You’d be surprised how many people just tag photos with whatever flower name they think sounds good, and sometimes I have to start all over again!
Two hours of research makes me proud to present the Wood Squill, AKA Siberian Squill and Scilla Siberica. Mission accomplished!
P.S. Anyone looking for a very part-time job as a wildflower identifier?
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
Mar 18, 2015
About Life’s a Blur: A photography series that experiments with long exposures and motion blur. Every photo is a combination of movement mixed with a still subject. I’d like to think of each photo like a meditation: stillness in a sea of chaos.
These photos are also part of my Photo and 100 Words project. Since January 2014, I’ve been creating a new photo and writing about it every week. If you’re interested in finding out what prompted me to begin you can read the introduction over here.
(If you’re new to this photography series you might want to read how it all began in Part 1)
Hanging Out with the Dead
This set of photos is a bit like a series within a series. Determined to capture the beauty of fall (which I seem to miss most years), I set out to my favorite outdoor photography location: the cemetery. My idea was to pan the camera with the falling leaves and capture the motion in the background, but my lack of patience combined with my Photoshop skills guided me to an easier way to create what I was after.
Although each of these photos is made up of two separate photographs, they both came from the same scene. As I blurred the landscapes in my camera, I also collected leaves from each area to be photographed later on. That makes it real enough for me! =P
Collecting some pretty leaves, freshly fallen, from each scene I captured.
It was a brutal awakening, though, when it came time to silo the leaves. Have you ever gotten a close look at the serrated edges on a maple leaf?! Let’s just say I overestimated the “easy” factor.
The snapshot that follows each one of my final creations is to show you what each scene looked like before I blurred it into oblivion. I also include links to each original blog post in case you want to read the 100 words that go with it. Scroll down to the end if you want the nerdy technical details.
Fall Leaf Flight
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I reminisce about another cemetery shoot and show off my favorite mistake in the post that compliments this photo: In the Graveyard
A snapshot of the background scene before I blurred it in camera for “Fall Leaf Flight.”
Fall Spectrum
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A silly story about how I expected this shoot to go, and how it actually went.
A snapshot of the background scene before I blurred it in camera for “Fall Spectrum.”
Autumn in Orange and Blue
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A Leaf is Like a Pixel is a brief personal essay on the big picture and the small details of fall.
A snapshot of the background scene before I blurred it in camera for “Autumn in Orange and Blue.”
Autumn Leaf Flight
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The Life of a Hermit – an uncensored, and reoccurring, moment in my life.
A snapshot of the background scene before I blurred it in camera for “Autumn Leaf Flight.”
Wind Swept Leaf
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The Perfect Storm: go to the scene of the shoot with me in this post.
A snapshot of the background scene before I blurred it in camera for “Wind Swept Leaf.”
Red Zephyr
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I prove that seeing isn’t always a strong enough case for believing in this story about my dog and me. (Includes super cute photos of my pit bull in a monkey sweater, complete with monkey ears!)
A snapshot of the background scene before I blurred it in camera for “Red Zephyr.”
The Nerdy Photo Details
The background images were created with my 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor lens set at 1 second and f/22. I shot through an adjustable neutral density filter that blocks anywhere from 1 to 4 stops of light, and I only adjusted this filter for the correct exposure in order to keep my shutter speed and aperture settings consistent.
Most of the leaf images were shot indoors with 1 flash in an umbrella up high on camera left. I might have had a white board on the right to bounce back some fill light, but I don’t remember for sure. The first leaf was actually shot outside, but dealing with the wind and cold convinced me to take the rest of the leaves into the studio to give me some more control.
What’s Next?
Well that’s all the juicy detail I thought you might enjoy about this set of photos. The Life’s a Blur series continues on with water motion blur techniques that create some magical looking backgrounds in Part 3.
Questions and comments are always welcome =)
Mar 13, 2015 |
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My body folded into itself to stay warm as I hunched over a waist-high tripod. My back was starting to ache; I mean, my posture is horrible in the first place, but mix the frigid air with a way-too-low camera, and I may as well start answering to the name Quasimodo.
I caught the falling snow with a piece of glass, examined it under a macro lens, found nothing, wiped it clean, and repeat. The snow hardly resembled a flake of any kind. Shards and clumps of ice were all I saw.
Two hours into this I was ready to pack up the gear and head to some warmer ground… like the floor of my apartment. I could almost feel my toes again as I thought of my snuggly Gracie Lou.
I took the last images of the last snow catch and reviewed them on the screen. That’s when I saw it, down at the bottom of the frame: my first fully-formed snowflake!
The universe has a way of taking me right to that line before my breaking point. My excitement pushed me through the pain well past 2 am that night.
Persistence pays off.
Just as I was about to give up, I discovered this little ice gem.
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
Feb 27, 2015 |
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Photography. A term recognized by all, appreciated by some, and oversimplified by too many. To the average observer, it’s a 2D product AND a 2D concept: a camera captures an instant of reality.
When I think of photography, though, I see all the layers in between. In my work, I see photography as a mixed media, not just a capture of what’s already there.
Building the set is a lot like making a sculpture. It might not be very strong or permanent, but I mold it with my two hands.
Then there’s the lighting layer. Light can color a scene, set a mood, and highlight, diminish, or simply alter your subject.
Now comes the camera, and it’s not just a reality replicator, it’s a tool to further mold the image. From lens perspective to settings, there are decisions to make with sliding scales in between: Sharp or soft? Smooth or grainy? Fast or slow?
The digital layer is my favorite part of the process. With my Wacom tablet and digital pen in hand, this is when I really start to feel more like an artist and less like a manual laborer.
All these layers are now flattened onto your screen, but I just thought you’d like to know about all the others in between.
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
Feb 2, 2015 |
About Life’s a Blur: A photography series that experiments with long exposures and motion blur. Every photo is a combination of movement mixed with a still subject. I’d like to think of each photo like a meditation: stillness in a sea of chaos.
These photos are also part of my Photo and 100 Words project. Since January 2014, I’ve been creating a new photo and writing about it every week. If you’re interested in finding out what prompted me to begin you can read the introduction over here.
How it Began
The evolution of this series has been interesting. The title and the technique came to me first. In the beginning, though, I was being too specific. I had this idea to express the chaos I felt surrounding certain concepts, like time and love.
The ideas for the first two photos came to me while I was brainstorming, and I sketched them out on a couple of Post-Its. I was happy with what I made, everything came out almost exactly as I imagined it would, but the thought of creating more photos with cliche symbols didn’t settle with me. It felt too much like I was forcing it.
My Post-It note sketch when I thought of the idea for this series.
This first photo, “The Pocket Watch Between Tick and Tock,” is composed of 7 different shots I merged together. I’m pretty sure this is the number one most time consuming piece of art I made all year. When this piece was first published, I wrote an acrostic poem to go with it. I called it “Desperately Seeking Time.”
The Pocket Watch Between Tick and Tock
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If you think it’s a creative process to come up with ideas, it’s nothing compared to the creative process of making the set work for you.
I used a mixture of books, a 2 1/2 gallon jug of water, and a paper towel holder with a brick on top, to hang the pocket watch at the exact height I wanted. I know there are more professional tools that would have worked, like a C-Stand, but this tog just doesn’t have the room for too much studio equipment at the moment. So I improvise, and it works!
The pocket watch and all the little watch and clock parts came from my dad, who has been obsessed with building steampunk lamps lately, and has an awesome collection of stuff I can borrow.
Behind the scenes of “The Pocket Watch Between Tick and Tock.”
The swirling discs in the background are actually makeup mirrors I found at Michael’s. I hot glued wooden skewers to the backside, and slipped straws over them. These were pushed into holes in my background board so I could spin them smoothly from the backside.
A look at how I made my props movable on the set.
A Sudden Realization
After creating “Steady Heart” I discovered what this series was really about. I have to admit something to you first, though, the background I was going for didn’t appear. I expected chaos; what I got was tranquility. It wasn’t what I wanted, but I fell in love with it. Sometimes you just gotta go with the flow… and the flow of that background swept me away from my original idea.
I was stunned that all the chaotic movements that made this photo appeared so peaceful. (you can read the story behind the photo here) That’s when I realized that this series was about meditation. Each background is like an awareness of the chaotic world and the subject is at peace there.
Steady Heart
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This a-clamp contraption was another creative process, and it wasn’t at all as steady as my title might lead you to believe. The heart is a glass coaster, and its weight made it difficult to balance and prop up. Even looking at this photo as a reference, I don’t think I could do this again, at least not easily!
A look behind the scenes of “Steady Heart.”
I had to put together another hot glue job to make my props work for me. The red glass was transparent, and I didn’t want the background to show through. To make it opaque, I traced it onto a paper plate, and cut out the shape to be used on the back side of the heart. I added some popsicle sticks and stuck the whole contraption together with double stick tape.
A look at another prop hack I came up with.
So that’s all the behind the scenes content I have for you in this post, but there’s more info about how I created the next set of photos in this series in Part 2. If you want to be sure to see my next post, make sure you sign up below. I send out emails only 1x per week; you’ll get my stories and links to other blog posts like this. Don’t miss out!
If you have any questions about what I did here, feel free to ask in the comments below. I’m very open about every aspect of my photography process.
Jan 23, 2015
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It’s my 1-year blogiversary! Woo hoo for a year of constant creation during my Photo and 100 Words Project!!!
Nerdy Numbers for the Year
Raw images captured: 4,672
For every 90 photos captured, I finalized 1 photo on average. Yup… that’s about how OCD I am.
Words written: 7,172
Did you notice that my word limit changed from 100 words to 100 “and something” words? My average is 138 words per post.
Hours worked: 1028
That means I spent about 20 hours working on every photo. This includes shooting, processing, keywording, writing about them, and then doing promotions. I bet you didn’t think a digital photography business was so time intensive… surprise!!
Just for reference, a full time job consumes about 1,888 hours per year if you consider vacation, holidays, and sick time. And, as many of you know, I also work full time doing product photography.
Woah! That’s 2,916 hours of photography work this year; I’m officially a photograholic.
Plans for 2015
I’ve decided to continue with the “Life’s a Blur” series for the next 6 months to a year. The subject is limiting enough to keep me focused, yet broad enough to keep me inspired.
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
Jan 16, 2015 |
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The car in front of me stopped short, and I jammed hard on the brakes. “Sorry,” I glanced over at Nick, trying to gauge his frustration.
“What?” He asked, grinning. “Should I react like you would?” He twisted suddenly, slammed his cheek and hands against the glass, and raised his knees up into his chest. His eyes and mouth opened wide in pretend shock.
“HA-ha-HA-ha,” I knew a good impression of me when I saw one.
No matter how much I make fun of Nick’s “unmanly” avoidance of driving, we both know it’s better for both of us this way. Although I’m not quite as bad as he made me out to be, I am a bit spastic as a passenger. It’s all about control, and among other things on my to-let-go-of list, control is what I cling to most.
This series has definitely been a practice in releasing some control. Often, the hardest challenges bring the best rewards. So when an unexpected gem shows up in the blur, it’s even better than if I’d put it there myself.
I couldn’t repeat this photo if I tried a million times; there’s something special about that.
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
Jan 2, 2015
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With my sink full of flower petals and floating bling, I knew the random abstract backgrounds I could create were endless. At some point during this photoshoot, though, I got tired of all the swirling. I wanted some other kind of movement, but I had to think outside the sink.
The swirling was inspired by the way water drains, so I tried to imagine water in nature. I envisioned streams and rivers, and grew further frustrated. I had already attempted, and failed, to create a flowing waterfall in my sink. Then the ocean overpowered my imagination and I was inspired to make waves.
I thrust my spatula down into the sink, my bling bobbed up and down with a slight sway, and suddenly I had a new way to create.
What are these numbered posts all about? Read the introduction to my Photo & 100 Words project and find out!
