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A New Collection: Refractography, Abstracts by Light
It all started back in January 2014. That winter season kicked off at the end of November 2013 and must have felt long by the time January came. I saw a few refractographs in a magazine and got excited about the gorgeous abstracts presented and about having an indoor project to work on. Since then, I returned to my basement several times with new pieces of glass trying to create new abstract light forms.
I have been sharing those in my blog posts: Discovering Refractographs, Continued Fun with Refractography, Back to Refractography, Imaginary Sailboats, and in my Abstracts & Patterns photo gallery.
Today, I would like to share a new Refractography collection with you! It's not completed by any means. It is really just the beginning! I plan on regularly adding more and sharing them in their own blog posts as they make it to my web site.
I have to go shopping first though. So far, I have found the feet of stemmed glasses to work best for refracting the light in an attractive way. While almost any glass will create a refraction sharply cut glass results in well defined focused patterns of light. With each glass, very subtle movements in front of the camera, and rotation, result in very different patterns. A single glass can thus produce many abstract photographs. I have, however, also found out that each glass only gets me one or two favorite refractographs. To get more, more glasses are needed, thus the need for shopping.
Aside for the outcome that I enjoy a lot another reason foe me to get into refractography was its simplicity, or as economists would say low barrier to entry. No, I do not mean to oversimplify. Some precision is needed, and results can vary wildly based on the light source used. Multiple sources can be used, different ways of coloring the light, and more. The fact remains though that if you have a digital camera with live view, you probably have everything that you need. You don't even need a lens! Add a flash light, tripod, and a few clamps and you're in business. Sure, articulating arms and other fancy equipment will make your creations easier to accomplish but are not needed to get started. Another thing you need? Time and patience. Unless you can dedicate an area to this hobby it takes a while to set up, create, and then clean up. And unless you have some of the fancy equipment, it can be frustrating at times as you try to lock everything down into position to keep it steady during your exposure. Talking about exposure, you lose one of the traditional ways of controlling it. No lens means no aperture! You are left with ISO and shutter speed. No lens also means no focusing. That is controlled by the narrowness of the light beam and the shape of the glass in front of your camera.
Have fun!
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Winter's Magic on Green Lake
Sunset Fire over Frozen Green LakeOrchard Park, NY
This was a gorgeous evening at Green Lake in Yates Park, Orchard Park, NY. The lake was covered with ice and a thick blanket of puffy snow that had a nice glossy crust at the very top. Just a snake of a running water zigzagging through the middle towards the dam in the distance. I had a lot of fun walking around and trying to see and photograph old sights in new light. At first, it did not look like the sunset would bring anything particularly special. I've seen that too many times in the past though to give up too early. I found my composition along the shore, locked the tripod and camera down, and enjoyed the show. The clouds seemed to have come from nowhere. All of a sudden, this formation was floating rather fast diagonally across my selected frame as if it knew where to be. When it floated to the perfect position you can see in the first photo I clicked the shutter a few times. The clouds not only found where to be, but got set on fire at the perfect moment. It is moments like this that make the early mornings, late nights, freezing temperatures, and patience so much worth it! Nothing could be a better encouragement to do it all over next time.
When the show ended and colors started quickly fading I still was not ready to call it a day. I was hungry for a photo that would show that perfect snow cover. I moved further along the shore and spotted a perfect place to highlight it. The stream running through the middle of the lake was almost covered there but the snow was sinking lower showing off its beautiful round forms like a thick duvet cover. I had to move into position on the lake to get as close as possible, and very low with my wide angle lens, to put as much focus on the snow as possible. Above in the distance, I still caught some fading remnants of sunset colors too. What an evening, what a show Mother Nature put on. I stayed until it was pitch black and thoroughly enjoyed every minute. Just goes to show that one does not have to go far to see magic!
Green Lake Frozen OverOrchard Park, NY
Green Lake Frozen Over, Yates Park, Orchard Park, New York
Have fun!
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Windy Abstract
Shoreline Grass in the WindAbstract for Thought
It was the night of the lunar eclipse on October 8, 2014. I should say it was a very early morning. I was at Woodlawn Beach State Park on the shore of Lake Erie, it was rather cold and wind was howling. My attempts to anchor my long lens on a tripod and photograph the lunar eclipse were doomed from the beginning as I could simply not hold the rig steady.
After a short while standing in the open I retreated behind one of the buildings trying to shield myself and also my set up. It was not enough though to eliminate the camera shake and produce any keepers.
When the daylight broke, I started looking around for something that would sum up the morning and my eyes landed on this patch of shoreline grass growing in the sand dunes. The wind was tossing the blades of grass around like they were toys. I spent a few minutes scanning the dune for an area with good amount of motion and also with an interesting interplay among the grass colors. To convey the strong wind in a still photograph I chose to go with a long exposure to allow the grass to blur. I played with various shutter speeds and ended up liking this 5-second exposure the most. It clearly shows the motion and is very abstract, yet, one can still recognize the blades of grass (at least after being told that is what they are).
While I came to shoot the moon and left with grass I was happy to. It really describes what the morning on the lake shore was like better anyway.
Have fun!
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Arctic Sunset over Buffalo's Outer Harbor
Painted SkyBuffalo's Outer Harbor
Can you smell the air? That's one of the things I really like about winter. That fresh smell with a bite, especially when temperatures drop well below freezing. Zero Fahrenheit or even lower works the best. While this Sunday afternoon only featured temperatures just below 20ºF, it still felt great!
The eastern side of Lake Erie was frozen solid way into the lake past the first and second break walls of the Outer Harbor in Buffalo, NY. I came couple hours before sunset and enjoyed walking around and photographing the happy feel on the ice. There were nice ice formation around the shore, lots of ice fishermen either in their shelters or just sitting around their holes in camping chairs. It was possible to take pictures of Doug's Dive from the other side without using a boat. And to the south, the Cargill Pool Grain Elevator posed for a different take in a different season and from a different angle.
I walked pass the first break wall and enjoyed the new views that opened to me. As I headed for the second wall the sun was already very low and I had a blast watching the ice and snow beneath my feet looking for interesting patterns to either focus on as abstract close ups or to use as the foreground for a wide sunset photo. And the lake was generous and my progress was very slow as I zigzagged a foot to the left, two feet to the right, a step forward. Some nice clouds also rolled in from the west partially covering the sun, painting wonderful abstracts in the sky, and helping me balance the exposure in the process. I still had to use a split neutral density filter to further darken the sky and allow for the ice and snow to come through as bright as it looked to my eyes standing there.
I also had an opportunity to chat with a gentleman who had fun hiking to the distant break wall and on top of it to get a nice view of the moon landscape beyond. Its views like that helping explain the purpose for the barrier as the ice between it and the shore was relatively smooth but very choppy beyond on the open lake. His name was John and we talked twice - at the beginning of his trek and on his way back. Thanks John, it was a nice change of pace for my otherwise lonely hobby of landscape photography. Maybe you could also e-mail me the photo you took of me, that was the first for me!
I continued taking pictures well after the sunset but turned around at that point and started slowly inching back towards the shore, still looking for more opportunities in the distance and down in the ice. I could also tell I was not a seasoned ice fisherman as each loud crack of ice had me ready to fall flat down looking to distribute my balance or possibly run for my life. I managed to suppress that urge as there was absolutely no movement in the solid thick ice but was close a few times.
The second photo that I would like to share with you below is very similar to the one above and I could not really decide which one should be my favorite. I like the painted sky in the photo above and I like the head on intensity of the sun in the one below. Both have plenty of ice and snow to show how winter in Buffalo and Western New York should look.
Frozen SunsetBuffalo's Outer Harbor
Frozen Sunset & Lake Erie, Buffalo's Outer Harbor in Winter
Have fun!
References: Great Lakes Surface Analysis (temperature and ice coverage) by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
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Road Trip: The Little Big Moments of Road Tripping
Utah became the 45th state to join the United States on January 4, 1896. The capital city is Salt Lake City. The highest point is Kings Peak at 13,528 feet.
Road Trip 2013 - Day 12 - June 22 - On the Road (Previous 2013 Road Trip posts: Indiana Dunes, De Immigrant, Amana Colonies, Des Moines, Madison County Roads, Bridges of Madison County, White Pole Road, Great Platte River Road Archway Monument, Golden Spike Tower & Union Pacific's Bailey Rail Yard, Loveland Pass, The Resting Day at Powderhorn, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Cimarron, Colorado National Monument, Fruita Rodeo, Arches National Park, Grand Junction, Grand Mesa Creek, Arches National Park Add-On, Canyonlands National Park)
Island in the Sky Road in SummerOn the Road
Yes, still on Day 11 of the 2013 road trip. After completing the exploration of the Island in the Sky of Canyonlands National Park a bit early to have time to get close to Mesa Verde National Park, it was time to prove that this was a road trip after all and drive for a bit. That however provides lots of opportunities. Road trips are not about driving quickly from point A to point B but rather about moving forward while having fun all along the way. There's something to see everywhere, no matter how much you think you're in the middle of nowhere. You can find so many cool things along your planned route! Old-fashioned maps and tour guides can help but there are also more 21st century like Internet resources. One of them is the Roadtrippers.com web site. Enter where you're going from and to, tell it how far from your route are you willing to take a detour, check attractions, and you're in business! The more you get off express ways the better. And quite often, even as you are heading towards your selected attraction, the road itself provides wonderful views, photographic opportunities, and other reasons to appreciate being there.
That was the case in the first photo here. As we left one national park and started heading for another I could not resist and had to stop just minutes after getting behind the wheel. What a change of scenery! A deep curvy canyon full of unbelievable rock formations changed into a flat high desert landscape with open land all around and a road through is as straight as a bullet would go. Add the summer feel with the blue sky and white puffy clouds and driving there was just about perfect.
Moonrise over Somewhere by MonticelloRoad Tripping Utah 191
When I managed to gather and peel myself off the asphalt we managed to pick up a few miles before stopping again, this time for quite a different sight. Driving south on Utah 191, the sun started setting on the right with the moon rising on the left. We arrived at this 'pass' where the sun was hiding behind an edge of a rock formation and the moon appeared over a strange mound that reminded me of an unfinished pyramid. I was not sure which way to point the camera first but as the sun was lower and starting to hide it made the decision for me. After a few sunset photographs I moved to the other side of the road and gave my attention to the full moon while remembering Ansel Adam's Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. As with his white crosses lit by the setting sun my unfinished pyramid benefited from the bath in the warm light. I don't usually take self-portraits but this was a great opportunity. Yes, that dark shadow in bottom right corner is me as the setting sun lit me up from behind and through an enormously long shadow of me forward into the landscape. I was not sure at first but in the end decided to embrace that rather than fight it.,
Have fun on your trips!
References: Utah on 50states.com
Using my links to buy your equipment keeps me going and costs you nothing. You can also use the Amazon search box in bottom left for anything not mentioned here. Thank you very much, I really appreciate it!