“My” Sushi…

"my" sushi

This bald eagle was munching on sockeye salmon that came up the Harrison River, B.C. on a late run, mid-December 2011. It was hissing at a nearby seagull that was getting too close.

I desaturated the surrounding water to allow the eagle and salmon to stand out. Effective? You be the judge.

Until next time,

Jennifer Morgan

Neon Glory

Neon PEACE

Aw…Neon…is it beauty or the beast? All in the eye of the beholder my friend.

I was inspired by an ongoing exhibit at the Vancouver Museum, where there is an exhibit of vintage neon signs from the 20′s-60′s. Did you know Vancouver, Canada, was the neon capital of the world…yeah, the world…in the 20′s-30′s.Here’s the link for info: http://www.kitsilano.ca/2011/11/04/neon-vancouver-ugly-vancouver-on-at-the-museum-of-vancouver/

I wanted to take this old ‘classic’ medium and bring new life to it. I have extracted individual letters from different signs in my region and created a series of photos called ‘neon love’ (cheesy eh? but descriptive, nas pas?).

If you’re in the greater Vancouver areas you can see them displayed at my booth (115) at Circle Craft Christmas Market at the new conventions center, downtown Vancouver, Nov 9-13, 2011. It starts today. Here’s a link for info: http://www.circlecraft.net/Christmas-Market.

Ugly or beautiful?  You be the judge.

Until next time,

Jennifer Morgan

Caught in the Act: the Macro World and How to Capture It

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things – Robert Brault

Macro photography can be striking and impressive. Macro photography is a view into the often unexplored aspects of the everyday. This mode of photography reveals texture, color, and relationship in very distinct ways.  There are no hermeneutics involved in macro photography. You do not need an electron scanning microscope. All you need are a few pieces of hardware and some readily employed techniques to make stunning images.

Patience

The first and foremost thing to accept when attempting macro photography is patience. Nature’s studio is in constant motion; the wind blows, the clouds move across the sun, and — despite what you have heard about in some of the Vaudeville acts at the turn of the century– insects cannot be trained to jump through hoops. Practice both patience and vigilance and you will be handsomely rewarded.

Hardware

You do not need a lot of gear when shooting macros. There is a great deal of hardware on the market that may or may not be useful and each photographer will have to determine what works best for her.  If you are out in the field or in your own garden all you really need are the following items (and even some of these are optional):

Tripod ( optional): if you are unsure about the steadiness of your own hands or if you use a heavy camera like us (we use a Nikon D2X) a tripod or a monopod comes in very handy (unless you are like Jennifer who does push-ups  so she doesn’t have to use a tripod with that monster D2X)

Camera (not optional): ummm, need we say more?

Lens(es): Jennifer and I use a 35-year-old (yes, 35, this is not a typo) Nikkor 55mm macro lens with a 1.5x teleconverter. Of course, there are many newer lenses on the market that include VR (vibration reduction) technology which have great optical qualities. We have found that 55mm or 105mm macro lenses with or without a 1.5x teleconverter produce great images. Using anything higher than a 1.5x teleconverter tends to “muddy” the image.

Flash: a flash or strobe is very useful. We use it to stop or slow the rapid movement of tiny wings. For this application, we use the flash directly over the subject. Consequently, using a flash under a leaf or a flower petal produces an encompassing and ethereal color effect (just as in the ladybug photo above).

So there you have it. Patience, a steady hand, a couple of pieces of hardware, and a love for nature and its varied narratives is all you need to create great macro photographs of your own.  Now, go outside and play and as always,

You be the judge…

Until next time.

–Nikolas Guemos

Photo credits:

Photos 1, 2, 4 – Jennifer Morgan;

Photo 3 – Nikolas Guemos

Sometimes Colour Hides the Magic

Don’t get me wrong, colour is great. Colour is fabulous, but sometimes images “pop” better when you remove the “distraction” of colour.  Sometimes, the story within the photograph becomes clearer when the image is desaturated. It’s like watching anything (TV, movies, people) without the sound; you notice other things that you wouldn’t normally notice.

The two images above are the same, except I desaturated the identical image on the left and turned it into black and white.  You may find, as I did, that the lines within the image are much more apparent. The lines of the staircase, the play of the sunlight, and even the direction of the sun is more vivid. The density, angles, and richness of light and shade are more distinct in the black and white image.  The clouds and cloud edges are more differentiated and there is an added texture to them.

After several friends considered this photo, they commented that they wanted to go to that place, they wanted to climb the stairs, they wanted to see what was on the other side. No one said that about the colour version.

So, try a little black and white treatment on your own images to see how it changes the narrative, and as always,

You be the judge.

Until next time…

 

– Jennifer Morgan