simplicity

I only had a few hours to shoot today, but the weather was agreeable enough… wonderful overcast skies with an intermittent breeze.  The delicate nature of these flowers might fool most people.  They belong to Colocasia esculenta and are attached to giant elephant ear shaped leaves spanning 2-3 feet across.  Even the slightest breeze today made the entire ensemble move.  So I patiently waited and took many frames over the course of about 30 minutes with this one composition.  I took others, but I’m attracted to the simplicity of this cluster hiding the white spadix visible from the other side.

I converted the image to black and white to further accentuate the forms as the flower color transitions from green to white.  But I thought you might like to see the color version for your own comparison.

gently upon a soul

This past weekend, I visited Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.  Many photographers have worked this ruin/museum and produced amazing images, inspiring me to visit a local place I have not seen in the 14 years I’ve lived here.  I’ve also started experimenting more with dramatic light and knew this site would be challenging and offer a good exercise.  I never expected to come away so excited about the images I captured on that day… so excited to photograph stills without anything living in them, so excited that I’m planning to return and to look for additional sites, my awareness now keen to develop a new project.

I have not been able to put into words yet what it is about making these images that captures me so.  But it’s not about gloom and doom as much as it’s about the light, about illumination, opportunity, spirituality, the connection to the good in the world… an odd paradox for a prison.  I suppose I’ll have to think about this.  But the ray of light in this image reminds me of God rays coming through a cloudy sky laying their gentle beams of light upon the earth… here the single beam laying its hand gently upon a soul.

For more images from this day, visit the New Work gallery on my website: Rhoda Maurer Photography at Photoshelter.com

something different

Recently I’ve been looking at the local landscape a little differently…  looking for a new project or focus to spark some new energy and creativity.  It’s so easy for me to find macro images, very intimate landscapes, in the suburbs of Philadelphia.  But it’s harder to find something different: different than a broad garden shot describing the planting scheme or layout of the land, different than a plant combination emphasizing texture or color contrasts, different than the soft play of light I so easily seem to find. Today I found very harsh light and remembered the possibilities of using harsh light in the stark landscapes of Death Valley.  I was fortunate to have learned some of these ways of seeing from some of the best black and white photographers of the west last fall.  And today those teachings came back to me as I was looking at this tree against the strong architecture of a campus building.  Maybe not a project, but definitely a lesson worth remembering and practicing for future possibilities.

time for slow

I was reminded again today to slow down… not by a person, but by nature herself.  An “ice event” they call these storms, causing headaches for commuters who have to drive or walk to work.  I’m one of those walkers most every day with a mile long walk to work and then back home again; a slower mode of transportation that allows me valuable creative time.  I often think of photographic opportunities, or new subject matter during these walks. One of those musings reminded me to visit a site along the Crum Creek I photographed last year in February.  So I ventured out last Sunday into the first sun we’ve had in what seems like a month.  Lots of kids and their families were enjoying some sledding on the hill of the Holly Collection slope.  But I kept my distance taking the less traveled route along the shore of the creek, sharing some footsteps with cross-country skiers from earlier in the day.  Snow covered canes of invasive-exotic weeds that line the creek in the sunnier locations gave me less than sure footing as I plunged hip deep into the snow… the joyous cry of happily airborne sledders in the distance.  But this solitude and slow snowy walk allowed me time to watch, to watch the light, to watch the patterns, and to sense the beauty of the day.  Time didn’t matter and for a moment I was drawn back to the sand dunes of Death Valley.  Yes, sand dunes of one of the hottest places in North America on a snowy January day.  The mounds of snow along the creek and the play of light over them from the forest of beech, maple and hemlock reminded me of lessons learned from watching the light in the desert.

refining your vision

This afternoon I’ve been editing images to a batch limit of 20 of my best to prepare for printing a portfolio that will be reviewed at an upcoming photography workshop.  This is a difficult task, editing your own work.  But it’s something very valuable.  As I was looking through past images to see if anything caught my attention, I found a color version of this image with a little more reflected sky on the top edge.  And Bruce Barnbaum’s words came back to me… review your images over and over again if something tells you that you have something there.  You might not see it today… you might not see it tomorrow.  In this case, I didn’t see it until 2 years later.  But I finally saw what I intended to share.  Not because my digital darkroom skills are much better than 2 years ago, but because my vision, my way of seeing is becoming clearer to me.

So enjoy this abstract arrangement of rocks from the shores of Jenny Lake, WY… even if it took me 2 years to share it with you.

abandoned

I’ve been watching this location for quite some time… the graphics and colors of the light blue striped metal building with a line of dying trees.  But the light has not been right until this past weekend after the late morning clearing of heavy cloud cover.  The sky revealed just enough bright light to add the needed contrast and same hue as the building.  But something also told me this needed to be a black and white image.  A feeling of abandonment was emanating from this place and I think the black and white conversion helps with this translation.

Rubble

I found a wonderful abandoned field the other night that some time ago had been a shopping center.  But it had been long enough that nature was well into reclaiming this land for its own.  There was an assortment of wonderful grasses in bloom, a few early asters, Solidago sp. and clover; but what really caught my attention was what everything was growing in… rubble transformed into life giving soil.

The way I see trees

This morning, William Neil had a great link to Rich Seilling’s blog post “The formula for making great photographs” at  http://craftingphotographs.com/2009/08/21/the-formula-for-making-great-photographs/. In a nutshell I found myself coming full circle to my experience at Bruce Barnbaum’s “Art of Seeing” workshop this summer… The artist is the most important element of a great photograph; their vision and what they bring to the photograph.  So I wonder if I can put into words… what is it about trees that I find so intriguing?  Aesthetically I find their bare forms mesmerizing.  They seem like dancers who are stuck with their feet in the earth, yet they are able to move and express their joy for life through their forms.