What is art, and how do we know it when we see it? Art is a matter of opinion.
We just need to find a subject, “see it“, and point our tripod laden cameras at it. In the end, everybody will have their own opinion. In most cases, no harm no foul.

Photographically, I lived by some rules so I could create usable and sellable pictures, but discarded the most of them so I could capture my vision honestly, and sometimes dramatically.

Dewy blade of grass. Can it get any simpler than this? Just about everything is a subject, as far as I’m concerned.

There are days when everywhere you look brings a new subject. This one feels like summer and autumn are getting acquainted. The character and quality of the light was likely what I was attracted to.

One of my favorite subjects is ice, and its patterns and journeys. When it is a liquid that travels the earth, and then when it freezes it stops to rest, and poses for us, it is at its best.

Of course ice is not always at our feet. The blue sky makes these two images sort of cheery .

Sometimes a little artificial light is needed to capture a real, living and potentially moving subject. It is better than missing it.

Then there are flowers. Use both your instinctual and learned compositional skills to make this subject as beautiful as it really is.

Backlight and extreme sidelight need not be something to run away from. When I taught workshops, teaching how to embrace and love all directions of light, was my favorite thing to do.

Backlight can turn nice but sort of ho hum, into an instructional story of location. In this case the Arizona cactus desert. Mood provoking clouds, add much here.

Treat mood as the friend which it surely is.

Okay, how far are you willing to go to embrace backlight? This is an “as found” scene. I merely exposed for that dramatic rim light and let the cactus needles speak for themselves. This image is extreme and deserves to be called an abstract. It is however, very close to the way I saw it with my eyes.

How we “see” things, will help us share with the world who and what we are.

Fifty percent of all the sunrises/sunsets I ever photographed, were made with backlight. Whether you shoot what the rising/setting sun is illuminating, or whether you use backlight and shoot at the sun and create a silhouette, nice imagery can develop. It can give the branches and leaves of a tree a whole new meaning. A visual meaning.

Sometimes using backlight is not so pretty, but it is still fascinating. This South Dakota rock formation took on a new meaning with backlight. That tiny bit of detail that you see on the rock face, gives the picture just enough dimension to bring a little life to it.

Low, skimming the surface light, from any direction, can be a friend to a photographer of abstracts. I always loved and searched for abstracts, wherever the light was coming from. This scene of water, both liquid and frozen, and low level light that was just skimming the surface, made my day just as good as some powerful more obvious or normal light would have. Maybe more so.

Then again, sometimes there’s nothing better than nice simple light from the front. When the subject is one with which it is important to see as one would expect, front light will work. In this image, the light is just enough off center to provide texture in the feathers of the bird.

Forget about the direction of light for a moment and think about what an image says, and also think about the “whole scene” if you will.

I would not want all my bird images, Cardinals or otherwise, to be showing my subject on a chain link fence. Not often at least, but at least one time, why not?

Photographing birds in all of the locations and habitats they use, it seems to me, is one of the jobs of bird photographers.

I did compose this image. I waited until the subject struck a nice pose, and then I composed that subject just off center. I made sure the extra space was in the direction the bird was looking. I believe, that the chain links do provide some structure and design to the photo.

When I worked birds at feeding stations, I surely did not want every image I made to look like a feeding station. Still, I made it a point to capture some images that did show my subject in the environment it was in. Magazines and other such places, often want images like this male Oriole nibbling on an orange.

We had a backlit butterfly today, why not one in soft non direct light? Be prepared to make anything and everything work. Soft overcast does increase color saturation.

Sometimes critters just pop up in front of you, and you take what you are given, and are thankful for it.

Such was the case with this attractive Raccoon. This fellow was in a somewhat shaded area. The little bit of light on its side, with just enough on its face, made the photo well worth making.

What would a photography post be without a couple of landscapes?

El Capitan, west Texas.

A pretty day with a deep blue sky. The composition is thought out, not happenstance. The plant, the nearby rock, how much sky, and of course the El Capitan rock form.

I suspect I used a polarizing filter to reduce glare, and deepen the blue of the sky. That deep blue sky, and the warm Texas rock, make for a jarring but powerfully beautiful contrast.

I love deep shadows as a dividing line in “some” landscapes. This one was made in Arizona. There are clearly three parts to this image. The sky, the Saguaro cactus covered hill, and the deep shadows. The rule of thirds if you will. Well, sort of. The fact that the shade runs at an angle rather than evenly across the image, is very much a plus. Too much symmetry, can choke the interest out of a scene. Of course, if there is perfect symmetry, you might have something even better.

Almost all photographic “rules”, cry out to be broken when the moment is right.

It is fair to ask me, how well do I remember actually making some of these “far back” photos? Here and there I struggle to remember some, and once and a while my memory is blank on an image, but many of them I remember like I made them ten minutes ago. Sometimes I even have the exposure correct.

Sometimes!

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As a Christian, I admit that at times I grow weary of the evolutionists. Every year of my life, the “theory” of evolution takes another arrow in the heart. Or maybe the head. They are reaching a point where even they admit that this part and that part doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Still they persist. Anything to remove God and faith from our lives.

Still, there is an aspect of evolution that I do believe in. The evolution of mankind, within the boundaries of our physical lives. In other words, we physically grow. As time goes on, we also acquire more information. Our goal is to be or should be, to become wiser and better at every aspect of life. To evolve if you will.

While our bodies evolve for much of our life, at a certain point we seem to devolve. Our minds get a bit slower on the uptake. Our bodies begin to wither and fade away. Often, we even get shorter. A lifetime of wear and tear and gravity, will do that.

A time finally comes when all humans need to capitulate either to those who would replace God with themselves, or to the one and only true God.

As is so often the case, it’s our decision to make.

Mathew 7
15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves

16 You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?

17 Even so, every good tree brings forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.

18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit.

19 Every tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. (Hell?)

20 Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them.

What we do, what we believe, and who, what and where we turn to on this earth, matters.

Titus 3:5 – Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

God Bless,
Wayne