The Daily Photograph™

This is an unlikely event

It would never appear

In real life. I confess, it was I who arranged the leaves, shoots, and stones on an old and mossy board. I did use more or less naturally occurring items, but the arrangement is totally artificial.

Of course, that’s what artists do: Arrange things to their liking. Even the very most celebrated “journalistic” photographers arrange things, either directly, like Ernie Pyle and the Iwo Jima flag-raising, or indirectly by moving and finding a new angle, like Cartier-Bresson. Either way, the artist controls what appears. That’s the artistic way.

It also turns out that this sort of arrangement benefits from tight framing. I tried it from further out, and the results were not at all good.

Awaiting the Marrakesh Express

The Ordinary Things

Become extraordinary by the choice of framing, the slant of the light, the darkness and the bright. This wasn’t quite a full success, in that I wanted to bring out the flow of water in the fountain, but couldn’t make that happen. Next time, I will find a small lamp to use for back-light.

It’s good that the photographs I post here are mere sketches or studies. Each one teaches me something.

The music on the stand, by the way, is “Teach Your Children.” People with grandchildren will probably know the words.

Not bothering anybody

Sunlight In Autumn Has a Different Flavor

Than it did even a week or so ago. It slants a bit more, throws deeper shadows and sits more gently. I miss the smell of leaves burning in the smooth Autumn air.

He thinks the roses might be tasty

Autumn is on its way

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.

He dropped by for iced tea

A photograph each day can be wearing

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 bold hunks of wood, and old hunks of wood

There are no old, bold hunks of wood

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.

No need to mop the floor

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.

Even messes have beauty

It’s a scientific fact that chaos is symmetrical

And a lot of people were surprised when Felix Mandelbrot showed that many forms in nature repeat recursively down to the submicroscopic level.

Here we have the chaos of a small construction project — a picnic shelter in a park — and the beauty of its design. Nobody planned for symmetry and order, but still it shows its face. The fine sunset light was a bonus I didn’t expect. The light has been harsh during the last few days, but tonight, the Western horizon had just enough mist (and maybe dust) to give us the ‘golden hour,’ which lasts perhaps 15-20 minutes most days.

It's an old, upright, music machine

You say it’s a cliché?

Very well, it’s a cliché. It contains multitudes.

This machine can play anything, from Claire dé Lune, to Crocodile Rock. I especially liked to hear my daughter play “Für Elise” on this piano. She was right about the phrasing. I was wrong.

This photograph is an exercise to determine the effective range of focus of a particular lens. As you can see, the range is very narrow, about an inch and a half at eight feet.

The Bear gets the roses

The Bear Is Strong

And a leader, in Southwestern mythology. The Bear is often mentioned as “first helper” in the various creation and emergence stories of the pueblo and desert peoples.

The rose? Everybody needs roses.