To See What They Look Like

I believe it was Gary Winogrand who said "I photograph things to see what they look like photographed."

Even today, with the near-instant gratification provided by digital cameras, it is often a surprise to discover that the exposure you made winds up capturing something quite different from what your eyes and brain registered on the scene.

We don't look at one thing. Our eyes jump around in a series of saccades, changing focus and aperture on the fly, with our brains helpfully filling in the blanks with interpolated detail so that we won't see a bunch of mush. Cameras and lenses are much less creative, despite tremendous advances in technology.

I thus consider it something of a triumph when a photograph I take "comes out" as I envisioned it would. But I am always open to surprise: every now and then what appears is not what I expected, but something much more interesting.

Steampunk Vines

I'm not sure whether I'll be able to post while I'm away in Albuquerque. Please enjoy the nature-artifice combo of this image in the meantime.

Felicitous Error

I had set my camera to its highest available ISO the other night, thinking I was going to try to photograph in a darkened room. I didn't. But I forget to set the ISO to something more normal.

So when I took the picture above, the 1600 ISO shot in normal daylight resulted in something I hadn't seen in quite a while: grain. Grain looks different from typical pixels. And I actually think THIS grain is beautiful. Have a look at the big version, which I've made bigger-than-usual.

Beautiful Trash

Some of us live among the stars, but I'm looking at the gutter.

Have Mercy

Submitted without comment, because ~ really ~ what is there to say at this point?

I promise I will try to get somewhere and take pictures of something different and more interesting tomorrow.

The Lion in Winter

…giving new meaning to the term "snowy mane."

Built for Speed…

…and going nowhere fast.

Bonus points if you can name the model from the snow outline!

Pan-Child Playing in the Snow

I love that this thoroughly heathen image is placed just outside the former baptistry (now a garden shop) at the National Cathedral.

Quod Severis Metes

Blogger informed me that they are ceasing to support FTP publishing to my webserver in the next month or so. So now I'm scrambling to find an alternative. Looks like it's going to be WordPress.

Y'all don't need to do anything except keep coming back, and maybe update your RSS feed information when the change happens.

Suddenly, A Crowd Had Formed...

...at Everard's in Georgetown.

A Winter Garden

Dumbarton Oaks garden is one of my favorite places in Washington. To be more accurate, it's one of my favorite places anywhere. For awhile, when I first moved to DC, I went there every fair-weather Sunday to sit on a bench and read the paper in beautiful surroundings.

I thought I remembered that the garden was off-limits to visitors from November to April. I either misrecalled or the policy has changed. I went waltzing in this afternoon; not only was it open, but nobody was taking admission fees either.

I intend to renew a more intimate acquaintance with this glorious spot.

Because it's raining again…

…I am driven to find the silver lining in the clouds. Or, as the case may be, the green metallic flake lining.

Rustscape

I can't paint, but if I could, my landscapes would look like this: an arcane map of the world. (Enlarge for full enjoyment.)

Lampposts on the Bridge

I have always been partial to greening bronze, and ~ as shown here ~ it looks especially great in late afternoon light. Again, please view the big version.

Light Waves

The late afternoon light made its mazy way through some curtains in a dazzling display of moiré. Please have a look at the large version to best appreciate the color and pattern.

Hinge

It wasn't until I looked at this image on my computer that I saw the "N" in the center.

Edges

Sometimes the frame is more interesting than the painting. That's true for windows too.

Bright, Bright Sunshiny Day

This image just feels too easy. It's almost embarrassing: simple, graphic, bright. But it makes little pleasure neurons in my head go *ping* so I don't care if it's a cliché.

Thank You DMV

Three words you don't hear together very often!

I had to go down to Georgetown to deal with some car bureaucracy: two hours of my life I'll never get back. The entire experience was redeemed by the dozen or so photos I managed to take between the DMV office and my car. The light, the environment, and my eye all happened to be on the same page for half an hour. It's a great feeling when that happens.

The Raw Deal

My GF-1 makes pretty nice JPEGs. I haven't had any complaints, really. But yesterday's experiment in RAW+JEPG has opened my eyes. Even with my clumsy bumbling in Lightroom, I can see why professional photographers shoot in RAW. Although I'm post-processing these images on a non-color-controlled MacBook Air, I can clearly see why the exquisite tonal and color control afforded by post-processing RAW data is desirable. Here are a few examples (of course all images you see online are now JPEGs, and have gone through an extra level of compression courtesy of Blogger, so some of the differences get lost in the process).

Blue Ice Puddle


Image 1: Camera JPEG, tweaked in iPhoto. Not bad!


Image 2: Camera RAW, processed in Lightroom. More accurate color balance, better tonal range, increased detail sharpness.

Three Guy Wires


Image 1: Camera JEPG, tweaked in iPhoto. Pretty good!


Image 2: Camera RAW, processed in Lightroom. More accurate color balance, better tonal range, increased detail sharpness.

Pink Pipe


Image 1: Camera JPEG, tweaked in iPhoto. Difficult color palette, handled quite well.


Image 2: Camera RAW, processed in Lightroom. Guess what? More accurate color balance, better tonal range, increased detail sharpness.

It's a lot more work, and there's clearly a whole world of technical expertise I've yet to acquire. Fortunately, I have a pretty good technical background in image processing, both from my background as an analog printer (remember the silver print darkroom in days of yore?) and from years of working with digital images in circumstances where image quality was paramount. I can learn what I need to, and my eye is decent. The biggest challenge working from the RAW file is that there are so many instances, so many "interpretations" if you will, of the data that are viable. There is no one correct version. The hard part is to pick a vision for the image and then know when to quit tweaking. Ansel Adams would have loved this technology.

Wall and Pipe

Post-processing madness! I shot this image in both RAW and JPEG. I tinkered with the RAW using my trial version of Lightroom, which of course I really have no informed idea how to use. The difference in color balance between the two versions couldn't have been more striking. And, of course, since I have no good memory of my perception of the color at the time of the exposure, ultimately I just have to go with the more pleasing/plausible version.

Writing on the wall

It's gusting 30 miles an hour and cold as hell this evening. The heat in my apartment building has been unreliable the last couple of days (usually it's positively tropical in here, which I adore despite the patent ungreenness of it), and the chill has seeped into every corner. I dislike windy weather; it makes me restless and irritable, and I always sleep fitfully. The violent rattle of ill-fitting windowscreens, the slamming trashbin lids, and the clanking chain in the neighbor's yard don't help either. It's going to be a miserable night.

...And In With The New!

Think of 2010 as an attractive, colorful, surprising, and still unopened present. What do you want it to be?

Happy New Year, friends!

Another Distressed Surface

I feel a growing affinity for the flaking, rusting things of this world. They have the dignity of perseverance, even as they crumble.

Merry Christmas

I hope you are all enjoying the holiday season with friends and family. Peace on earth, goodwill to all!

Continuing with Gaga

A stroll this afternoon presented a vast array of photographic challenges: high contrast snow and glare, piercing blue skies, and chilly temperatures. Yet I took at least a dozen pictures I'm happy with. Check out the faithful rendition of the irridescent oxidation on the chair back here. New camera: YAY!

'Tis the Season

Surely we can come up with a reason to celebrate...?

Guest Rust

I'm struck by how similar the color palette of this image is to yesterday's, although at the lighter end of values. This photograph was taken at Hoover Dam by Bob who, knowing I am rustophilic, sent it to me. (Used with permission.) The textures are swell too.

Truth in Advertising: Capitol Chemical

They don't name 'em like they used to, do they?

Machines, Rust, Signs, Pattern

Something is signifying everywhere you look.

P.S. No, you are not hallucinating. There was another picture here for five minutes. Not good enough… gone.

Bonus Pictures for a Rainy Day

Rain AND snow, in fact. But still, something beautiful to be found.

Mossline

The lines of a labyrinth are actually a gap. In the gap, a miniature landscape of moss and other plants is thriving. Meditate on that!

Inspiration

I've started to delve into the world of textile design. Needless to say, there's just a ferocious amount to learn. In getting started the main thing I'm doing is just absorbing as many visual ideas as I can cram into my head. I saw this silk at G Street Fabrics and thought it was pretty cool.

Impossible Color

This is another camera FAIL: the impossible iridescent purple-blue of this bicycle frame does not exist in its color gamut. Which is too bad, since the relentless rain and gloom that we've been subjected to here means we can use all the color-relief we can get.

Golden Spider Silk Tapestry

(photo R. Mickens/AMNH)

This is completely nuts and awesome in only the way something utterly extravagant and over-the-top can be awesome. They "silked" a million spiders to make this. (Supposedly it doesn't hurt them.) The color is not a dye, but natural to the fiber. Go learn more at NPR's All Things Considered or at the American Museum of Natural History.

I love this constellation of graphic shapes, and the flourish of the wire.

Every Day For Months

I've looked at these surfaces daily for a long time now. Today, they were lit just so and all of a sudden they were beautiful.

Wires at Sunset

The intersection of two clichés. I don't care: still beautiful.

Shiny & Clean

Shiny kettle. Clean stovetop. Aaaaaaah.

Green 'n' Rusty

Rusty? Check!
Disused? Check!
Being reclaimed by nature? Check!
By now you know: this is my kind of thing.

Haiku

Write your own.