The Daily Photograph™

Autumn is on its way

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But it’s not here yet. The landscape color is really a bit dull around Casper, as we wait for the cottonwoods to turn. I also have my eye one some choice stands of aspen. All in all, it’ll be another two weeks or so before the colors arrive.

So, the Dragon steps in, in pursuit of the Rose Bowl. The guitar was just there, to observe.

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Technical: 400 ISO, 250mm, f11, 2 sec. Available light. It’s a fact, all of my stuff is shot by available light. I own neither a flash unit for this camera, nor any area lights.

I Did That On Purpose

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To see what I could see. A recent phenomenon in photography has accomplished experts using several thousand dollars worth of equipment to produce blurry photographs. On purpose. On Flickr is a group centered around “deliberate blur” and landscape masters William Neill and Alain Briot have done a lot with the technique.

Me, I’m not so sure. I sort of like what I’ve done here, but it surely seems to me to be a waste of the exquisite machinery of Messrs. Hasselblad and Zeiss.

I can tell you this; like still life, deliberate blur is a lot harder than it looks.

Looking For the Sunset

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And finding not much. At least in this direction. This is facing East, toward Omaha. You can see why I chose this spot: A nicely delineated skyline, comprised of ancient white stones deposited when this was all seabottom, full of quirky trees and a deep but unobtrusive foreground. And the sky is quite nice.

A few minutes afterward, these clouds were dark and thoroughly uninteresting. The culprit was the thunderstorms building behind me, that blocked the sunlight as evening fell. I showed you those the last two days,

I also made a photograph facing West, just to complete the sweep of the four winds, but it is so lacking it will never see the light of day.

Looking the Other Way

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Is something any photographer needs to do. You see a good photograph in front of you, but something even better may wait behind. I made this just a few minutes before the photograph I posted yesterday, by pointing my camera south, toward Casper Mountain. Yesterday’s photograph was made by pointing the camera just about 180 degrees the other way, toward Montana. My tripod never budged.

Funny thing is, I originally went to this spot to point the camera Eastward, toward Omaha. I had planned to get a fine portrait of an August sunset, above a slab of primordial seabottom. That never happened. I’ll show you what did, tomorrow.

The rain is pretty useless

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This time of the year. And there isn’t really that much of it; what the weather service calls ‘a trace’ is about all any one spot sees. And, this is falling mostly on grazing land, and there the grasses and tumbleweeds have already stopped growing, so the water doesn’t have much to nourish.

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For those who want some specs: 50mm, 1/8s, f11 (EV10). They are far off, but just to the left of the hillside are a couple of wind generators. Their slowly turning blades blurred in the slow shutter speed. Three years ago, there were no buildings in this view.

They are an Australian poplar

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And seem to like to keep to their own schedule. We planted these because it is illegal in Casper to plant cottonwoods. Because of the cotton. Makes some noses itch. So, we have to import our hardy trees from elsewhere.

These leaves turned color overnight. Yesterday, Green as green. Today, Autumn yellow.

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You may notice that this photograph is square. That’s because of a framing error. I didn’t want to go reshoot, since I’d already brought the gear inside, so I simply cropped off the offending bright white fence I inadvertently caught in the lower right corner. Cropping is okay, despite what you may have heard.

A photograph each day can be wearing

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Especially when the sunlight has been so fierce it’s useless to even think about going onto the land. Today, I had a sinking feeling that I would have nothing for you. Blue Bear proved me wrong. He sat on my front porch and enjoyed the afternoon while I fussed around with the camera and such.

When I was done, I toasted him with the beer. It was good, and he went on his way.

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All artists should dip into the pool of whimsy, every once in a while, says Blue Bear.

There are no old, bold hunks of wood

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Even in the sunshine, this wood is mellow and sleepy. It’s bit of redwood, perhaps 40 years old, and once was part of the backyard fence. No longer. It is destined to end its days as an occasional prop and general lay-about.

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I have again broken what I am told is a cardinal rule in photography: I put the foreground out of focus.

The foreground, in this instance, should be unfocused, because a human eye would be unfocused in more or less the same way.

Your own eye skipped right over the foreground and landed on the leaf about half-way down the board, didn’t it?

So much for cardinal rules.

The light has turned harsh, again

As the air dries out, the sun is less filtered and we get the deep blue, high sky that hurts the eye. And the shadows are sharp and deep. Not good photography weather. So, I’m indoors, working still on still life.

I’ll get better at it.

This sky made no noise

Even though it looked fierce. And only a few drops of rain fell.