Saturday, July 31, 2010

Saturday Morning Therapy

Mott's Flat Bridge - Livingston Manor, NY
Old Gas Pump Catskill Mountains
Waterfall - Parksville, NY

I find the best therapy after a long week at work is to get up bright and early on a saturday and find something to photograph.... Today I went up into the Catskills. My objective a covered bridge I had seen while traveling up route 17. So I set out with the sunroof open and my Ipod playing a steady collection of folk music.... After all if you are going to be in the Catskills you should take Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Mark Rust along for the ride..... right? It was a perfect morning. There is nothing better than the feel of the Willowemoc Creek rushing around your bare feet and legs while you compose a photo of a 100 year old covered bridge.... Absolutely perfect.

Keep Makin' Art,
Carl

Friday, July 30, 2010

Weekend

Hi all-

No images today.... It has been a busy week. More of the same for the weekend... but I will get out and take some photos Saturday morning. I would really like to push some paint around too. Whatever I get done I will post here for you to see.

Anyone have any big artistic plans for the weekend?

Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Monday, July 26, 2010

Skylands in the early evening

Caught some nice light on the way home. I like the play of yellow with orange dots in the flower versus the blue and purple dots in the background.
Funny thing with IR is the same spot changes so much with the time of day. I loved the reflection of the background trees in amidst the water lillys in this one. on Saturday it was al about the sky. Today I also shot down low to pick up the perspective on the water.

Keep Makin' Art
Carl



Sunday, July 25, 2010

Watkins Glen in Black and White

I chose this image out of the series I shot at Watkins Glen about a month ago to be B&W. This subject just seemed to work in B&W because of all of the wonderful textures in the rocks and water.

This week I will do some more InfraRed B&W photography and I need to get back into the studio and push some paint around again.

What are you workin' on these days?

Keep Makin' Art
Carl

Palace of Fine Arts - San Francisco

Photo taken at sunrise in Jan - '09 but makes a much better antique Black and White image.

Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Saturday Nature Photos





Besides the IR I shot at Skylands Saturday... I also got these shots. The heat has been taking its toll at gardens... but there are still some shots to be gotten.

Keep Makin' Art,
Carl

Saturday Morning at Skylands






Here are some more IR shots from Skylands. I got some really cool photos, but it was too hot even at 6am to stay for long. I did some color work also I will post tomorrow.

Keep Makin' Art
Carl

Friday, July 23, 2010

Another butterfly visits my yard

I plan to head back to skylands in the morning to see what has changed in the last couple of weeks. I'll shooting color and black & white of the flowers. Check back this weekend to see how I did.

Keep Makin' Art
Carl

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Ringwood - Color IR

I had to post one more IR from this weekend. I posted the black and white version of this over the weekend.... but when I saw it in color I decided it looked like a Maxfield Parrish painting.
I have been busy with other stuff this week, but will be back to new photos and some painting this weekend.

Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Sunday afternoon butterflies


After driving around and shooting Black& White photos all weekend it was nice to find a colorful subject to shoot at home Sunday afternoon!

Keep Makin' Art
Carl

Monday, July 19, 2010

More Orange County - Infra Red Black and Whites



Here is bonus post. These are the last couple images from my wanderings Sunday AM.

Keep Makin' Art
Carl

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Orange County in Black and White


Windmill - Pine Island, NY

Feed Store - Johnson, NY
Mountain View farm - Chester, NY

I was going to post these on Monday.... but could not wait to get them up on the blog. So you get two posts today.

These images were taken Sunday morning in Orange County, New York. This is where I grew up and it was pretty rural when I was very young. It is mostly a suburb of NYC now... but every now and again you can find pockets of the regions farming heritage. These subjects lend themselves so well to black and white.

Keep Makin' Art
Carl

More IR at Ringwood.




I can't believe I have been ignoring Ringwood and going to Skylands alone for the last three years. I have been missing out. I will have to correct that!

Have you noticed a theme in these images.... One of my Facebook viewers picked right up on it. They are about a journey... roads and gates etc. I had not seen that until I picked these four images.

Tomorrow A couple of the Ringwood images in color IR.... Cool stuff.

Keep Makin' Art
Carl

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Infra Red at Ringwood Manor State Park




This morning I set out to Ringwood Manor State Park in Ringwood, NJ. It is right across the road from Skylands and has a wonderful manor house, gardens and grounds. There are tons of subjects to photograph and it is really well suited to black and white work. I am thrilled with today's images and will share several more tomorrow so come and check them out there.

I feel like I am really getting eye tuned to B&W again. I had forgotten how much I enjoy B&W as I have been shooting almost exclusively color since I went digital for all of my work in 2006.

How am I getting these images with such great tonal ranges? That is the question I have been asked most this week. First I one of my digital camera bodies converted to Infra Red by Digital Silver Imaging. These guys do all of my digital Black and White printing and I fully recommend them. Eric Luden at DSI also suggested I try Silver Efex Pro. This is a software plug-in for Photoshop and Aperture that was the final piece of the puzzle and gave me great control over my digital B&W images. If you are thinking of having a camera converted to Infrared. Go for it! I have not even begun to explore the wild, weird word of color infra red....... Stay Tuned.

Keep Makin' Art!
Carl

Friday, July 16, 2010

Thursday, July 15, 2010

I Hope You Like Infra Red B&W As Much As I Do...




I hope you guys like B&W InfraRed as much as I do. I have been shooting it on digital for two day and I am hooked. Everywhere I turned today I saw possible photographs. I had another hour to spend afterwork today and this is what I found near Sugar loaf, NY.

Keep Makin' Art

Color Infra Red

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Oh the Wells Fargo Wagon is a Coming Down the Street!



I have patiently..... OK not so patiently been waiting for my old digital SLR to come back from being converted for InfraRed use.

It was the perfect cure for a rough day when I found the box by my back door waiting to be opened. I did not have much light left so I quickly changed into shorts and headed to Skylands to try out my 'new' IR camera. So far I love it! I have not had much chance to use it and have to learn a little more about processing the infra-red images in photoshop, but am very pleased with the first efforts.

Tomorrow I will post some cool color IR shots from Skylands.

Keep Makin Art
Carl

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Butterflies and Cone Flowers





Inspired by the butterflies I photographed at Home I headed to Skylands and found them among the cone flowers.

Keep Makin' Art
Carl