Jackson's "Jack-O-Lantern"

Halloween!...

Jackson's Jack-O-Lantern

What fun doing the carving!

What fun watching the boys eyes light up!

Putting in the Candle and lighting it up!

Free candy (the boys don't realize yet).

Trick or Treat!

Grandsons' Weekend

Another weekend to spend with those two "characters", and they are able to spend every minute busily digging into something. Pillows become Jackson's "medium" and his constructions include everything from restaurants to houses. We have so much fun together! I just think these double exposure photos work well to describe the movement and motion of playing with these guys and with the many ideas they have to keep active.

Fall Workers

Here are a couple of my advisees from last Wednesday with the fall foliage in the background, and I thought they recovered from the "Nick" photobomb pretty well! I always enjoy time with my advisees, and these guys just seemed so happy to be outside and able to enjoy the fall day. It was a beautiful day!

Fall and the Colors Came Quick

Fall color arrived suddenly this year 

as we had a very dry summer 

that many felt would diminish the fall colors.

This did not happen as the colors

were as bright as they ever have been,

but went quickly to shades of brown.

I like this tree in yellow leaves

spreading out in a last gesture towards

the background branches already bare.

Fall, leaves, color, the beauty

of Mother Nature and the miracle

of all of our life cycles.

Early Morning Across Mud Creek

Having the days shorten is a change for me that allows me to actually see some sunrises. During the summer I have to get up early (4) to capture that kind of light. This morning I did it on the way to school!

Double Exposure Portraits

Just a quick couple of things as an expression of the sort of image that can be a result of purposeful work toward trying to capture an unusual or interesting sort of portrait.

These were shot today with the "Hipstamatic" phone app on my iPhone 6s, and the lighting was perfect for this sort of thing as the room lights were low and allowed the two images to "blend" well over one another for each picture. The double exposure button on the app does an excellent job and is pretty consistent and reliable once you get used to the amount of light you need from two exposures on the same image.

It's all About Me!

Still Life

Freshmen Spirit

So here's a group portrait shot of the freshmen class cheering group that took the front row in the recent homecoming rally. While at one point they were rather misspelled, they came through for this picture and showed all the letters they needed for the word "FRESHMEN".

I did have to do some cropping and adjustment for this image, but I thought it told the true story of the joy and spirit that these girls were showing toward their class at MDI HS!

The Park Bench

The bench used for the double exposure here was not actually in a park, but rather a part of the smaller courtyard here at school. The texture of weathered wood is always fascinating to me, and the sunlight striking both the wood and the moss at the end of the bench gave me a vision that anticipated the effect that resulted here. I used the "Hipstamatic" app, which is a constant favorite, and which also has a double exposure button. I am always astonished by the result and I have learned over the years I have used it that it requires a fairly accurate understanding of overlapping light and how one image can "affect" another. Even images shot in reverse order have a very different look from one another.

For this one I like the texture, obviously, and the geometric structure of the plank lines in the composition. I didn't do anything with the color, but the washed out look is very fitting for this image as the planks were sun faded and soft gray in the relatively bright sunlight. The layered look of the piece also gives it a depth that I find interesting as the top layer reveals portions of what rests below it.

The "Daedalus"

Too Close to the Sun

Going out with students to enjoy the sunny atmosphere led me to the small courtyard off the Maine Office here at school today, and after a quick "double exposure" (bench texture)with my "Hipstamatic" app on my phone I became interested in the steel figure sculpture by Clark Fitzgerald in that area. I was almost immediately drawn into the various textures on the aging steel surfaces. While some of these textures are simply natural occurrence from the welding process, many are the result of weathering of the paint on the piece and have no context other than visual interest when viewed closely. I will post three that I enjoy.

Sustinence

Peanuts have become a primary food source for me over the past few years, as they have the protein, fat and carbs that I need to consider in my diet. They are also an interesting photo source, but limited as they are so small. To counteract the small I use a magnifier and shoot close to the subject, giving each nut it's own identity, and perhaps even it's own personality.

The abstract and random patterns that evolve create a pleasant contrast in each shot, with the shapes of the nuts becoming varied and the negative dark space between them pulling everything together in a unified manner.

Popcorn

This is the last kernel (popped of course) from a group of a dozen or more that was given to me by a student in my DigPhoto class the other day. One of the points I was trying to make with the handful of popcorn was that to truly enjoy something one should take some time with it, no matter what it is. Perhaps you might be able to think of a few things to which this philosophy might apply, but in this case it was the art of making a photograph that I was attempting to make an analogy towards.

This is, I think appropriately, a "macro" shot, where the idea of photographing small things requires the photographer to "get in close". In this case close was a matter of less than an inch, and the only thing I really felt I wanted to do to the image in "post" was to crop it to a more square format than the original. The color has not been altered, or have any of the levels of light or contrast. The extremely narrow depth of field is apparent, and certainly a typical characteristic of a shot with a magnifying lens. I really like the way that depth of field draws the eye toward the middle of the kernel where the color seems to be brightest and where the surface textures are most apparent. Rule of thirds (balance), shape, form and texture all play a role in this image.