On February 27, I watched the sky turn to gold while listening to a Scarlatti sonata (L33), played by Vladimir Horowitz. A perfect moment.
Category Archives: Inspiration
Mushrooms, Viewed with a Filter
Winter on the West Coast… To say that this is a moist time of the year would be an understatement. Wherever you go, the forest presents evidence of moisture.
After looking up, time to look down at my feet. Here is a very ordinary shot of tiny mushrooms, poking out of the mosses. A typical forest floor moment in the winter, on the BC Gulf Islands.
When I looked at this photo, I decided to play with some filters. See what would result.
It got interesting. I could see the various colourways…
How easy it would be to get fabric printed in contrasting colours, by playing with filters.
Why not go for brutal brightness? Indeed.
Or just go for the black and white classic…
Foggy Sky
It was a very foggy week. Day after day, the ferries were sounding their way across the waters. The bigger cargo ships also signaled their movements with their horns. Fog is quiet, but it is also noisy…
One day, in the late afternoon, I looked out the window and this is what the sky looked like.
I also noticed a lot of activity on the water surface: seals and birds, looking for food, were rippling the water, leaving temporary tracks…
An hour or so later, the sun was still trying to burn through the thick fog blanket. Nearing sunset time, the colour of the sky started to change completely, going from grey to gold… with the golden results that followed…
And finally, the fog thickened, and blocked the sunset over Pender Island…
Around here, it pays to look out the window on a regular basis.
Orchid Poetry
Orchids are so elegant . This is a close up of a wild orchid growing in a bog on the San Juan ridge, on Vancouver Island.
I believe it is a fragrant white rein orchid (Platanthera dilatata …hey, I checked here: E-Flora BC!)
I added some filter play, to give it a painterly look… and to camouflage – almost successfully – the fact that one of the blossoms is out of focus. I have to work on my depth of field adjustments. Learning every day.
Black & White
Taking an ordinary photo and turning it into a black and white version is a great way to start looking at how you compose a shot with value in mind. Value and contrast become the main actors.
So here is a water view of the Unique Brilliance, a cargo ship anchored on Plumper Sound, between Saturna and Pender Islands, for several weeks this summer.
Seen from the water level, a cargo ship is a veritable wall of rusty steel. In the late afternoon, I like the contrast of the anchor chain, and even rows of rivets show up.
I liked this exercise of translating my pics to black and white – to check out whether they remain “interesting” minus the colour – so much that I worked on a few pictures last weekend, and created a new Black and White photo gallery with the ones that “passed the B&W test”. Have a look!