I started this blog entry last Thursday, but forgot to finish it. (A friend emailed me asking if I was OK, as I hadn’t written a blog in the last 5 days.) My confession……………I joined FACEBOOK and have been so addicted to it; I neglected my blog (which doesn’t make me, or probably you, happy.)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Since having recently canceled my month long July backpack, I know I made the right decision. Backpacking isn’t doing it for me. Not to mention that backpacking is getter harder and harder for me every year. I have also resented not having enough free time for photography (and now golf that I am playing again.). Now I have the time. I am excited again.

Fortunately I have been gifted with this freedom that I am enough….meaning, I am not defined by the oohs and aws anymore that I’d get when I mentioned that I long distance backpacked. I don’t have to prove my worth to anyone anymore. All I want to do is do what “I” want to do…And, finally I’m learning what I like, what brings me joy, what is fun. Cupcake once wrote in his CDT backpacking trail journal, “Where is the fun in the day?” I really want to slow down to find and enjoy the fun in my days. Only I stop me. I’ve always been graced with a life I could live anyway I wanted. I think I’m finally ready to retire, just like my husband did 3.5 years ago. Yeah, I too deserve to retire from my own self imposed, quilt driven, work ethic (to prove to you all that even if I don’t have a job, I work). Ray used to comment on my life by saying, “Linda, it doesn’t have to be hard to be fun.” I have raced through my life trying to be enough.

Even my photos record visually how I race through life. Below is an email I saved from my photo teacher, written after we’d worked together over a year or more. The email reflects her initial perception of me, before she knew me, after initially having viewed my Gottago’s Adventure website photos before we started our relationship as teacher/student. So here is the email my teacher wrote after she’d had me in a number of her classes.

“You know what’s interesting, Linda, is that when you signed up for

your very first online class and you gave me your website address, I

could tell IMMEDIATELY from your pictures that you needed to slow

down, to take a deep breath and think before clicking the shutter.

Knowing that when I did, so early in the game, I feel I’ve been remiss

in not pointing it out to you often enough throughout the online

classes and in the two in-the-field workshops you’ve taken. Better

late than never, I guess, but yeah, I can remember the “this woman

needs to slow down” flash going through my brain from the very beginning.

This doesn’t just apply to you, however. We ALL need to slow down and

think before we shoot. Why are we taking this shot? What do we like

about the scene? What’s the light doing? Are there weird things in the

background? Are there ugly hot spots that will ruin the picture?

Where’s the movement in this scene? Am I including too much? Not

enough? Would this be better as a vertical? What’s my ISO? Is my

exposure compensation dial accidentally still set to 3 stops

underexposed from the last shot? And much, much, more . . . Sometimes

I’m amazed we ever get around to clicking the shutter!”

I need help in slowing down. It’s NOT easy for me. I just signed up for another online photography class with Carol Leigh. Hopefully this class with keep me accountable with taking time and seeing.

Share/Bookmark

What an incredible message about attitudes, visions, perspectives. I always welcome an attitude adjustment and Dewitt Jones accomplished just for me that in this video he put together depicting what he has learned over the course of his career as a National Geographic photographer. This video is not about photography. The title of this video is what it is about: Celebrate What’s Right With The World. While viewing the video through tears I heard the message I try to practice yet presented in a little different way. Listening to Dewitt it is quite obvious he has had his fair share of psychic changes or spiritual awakenings. What comes from the heart, goes to the heart.

Thanks to you Dewitt Jones for making this very special video.

p.s. To my ladies who read this blog, please watch this video. Make time for this gem and let me know what you think.
p.p.s. Lane sorry you won’t be able to see this video or any other videos until you receive your new computer!

Celebrate What's Right With The World

Share/Bookmark

Our photo teacher, Carol Leigh, puts together a gallery of our work following each class. Here is an email she just sent out:

I created an online gallery of your work at my website and it’s up and ready for you to see. Here’s the link (to view class
#7, with lessons in straight lines, spirals, garage art, fish, motion, and symmetry): http://www.photoexplorations.com/Gallery072009/HTML/index.htm

What I did was select three images from each of you, trying to pick what I thought were your best. (That explains the feeble showing in the “Garage Art” section!)

Thank you for making this yet another successful online class.

Carol Leigh

We did good, didn’t we?

Share/Bookmark

I suspected I wasn’t feeling all too hot on Sunday. Today I know I’m sick with a cold or flu. Never got out of my jammies.

Sunday I shot photos with a 100mm macro lens and all shots were taken on a tripod. I kept shooting away. I knew I wasn’t liking what I was getting. I hiked up the trail and found the little shade there was and set up. The only other time I used this lens I was on the ground with the camera. I could see better whether what I wanted was in focus or not and I was comfortable. Sunday, the rocky terrain had me standing, set up low and I just never got comfortable. Of all the photos I took, there were only a few that were in focus enough to keep just for this post.

What I learned this day:
-Go earlier before the wind picks up. Shooting macro with even the slightest breeze is almost impossible.
-Don’t start shooting until I find something pleasing. Just take the time and keep looking for color, patterns, texture, etc.
-Don’t go to a popular trail area. I had to be concerned about someone walking by and my being in their way or kicking over my tripod.
-I don’t know much about macro photography.
-Setting the aperture to 32 isn’t enough for macro photography unless the flower is on the same plane. Depth of field is only very limited.
-Basically know what I like about what I’m attempting to shoot and shoot for that.

Share/Bookmark

CRITIQUE: Linda Jeffers
Photo assignment: GARAGE ART

1. Aaaaaaaa!
Ha! Why do we think this is funny? Because
we’re so stupid that we need a warning label
that we might fall off a ladder?
I’m quite impressed with your photo. For
starters, our eye immediately goes to the bright
white label on the left. We then follow the
guy’s ladder up to the word “DANGER” and
then (and this is so cool) our eye notices the
three bolts in the upper right. The movement in
your photo goes from the warning label, up to
the bolts, then down, across the aluminum step,
back to the label again. Our “ride” is a big
triangle. Ta da!
The other thing I’m impressed with is your
choice of depth of field. You selected an
aperture that would put the top part of the label
in focus, yet still enable us to read the bottom
of the label. Your depth of field is relatively
shallow, but it is such that the top part of the
label is sharp. The rest of the photo is blurred,
but that’s okay because we know what we’re
looking at.
Most importantly, you created a solid, very obvious focal point — the label.
By throwing everything else out of focus except the top part of the label,
you concentrate all of our attention on the sharp part, just what you wanted.
How have you gotten so clever with photography in such a short time?
You have gone from snapshots to photographs in what, less than a year or
so? Amazing. You’re scary.

2. BENDING BRISTLES
Oh, baby! This is so very cool.
We could almost be looking at a
waterfall here. Once again you’ve
used selective focus/shallow
depth of field to focus our
attention right where you want it
— where the bristles leave the
brush.
The only part of your photo that’s
sharp (at first glance) is that little
triangular bit of space in the
upper left. So naturally, that’s
where our eye goes. Once there,
we follow the gently bending repeating patterns of the bristles. They
take us diagonally through your picture, and then we have a triangular
bit of red bristles in the lower right. And those bristles look relatively
sharp! They therefore echo the triangle you created upper left. Wow.
Okay, so here’s my question. If you’re working with a relatively wideopen
aperture for very little depth of field, very little in focus from front
to back, how did you keep the red bristles sharp? We would expect the
top left part to be sharp. Everything goes soft as we leave that part of the
shot. Until we hit the red triangle lower right. That, too, should be out of
focus. But nope, it’s sharp.
I’m thinking that we could do this by taking two exposures — one where
the top left is sharp, another where the bottom right is sharp. Then we combine them in
Photoshop and blend them so that just the sharp red bristles down below come through.
Enquiring minds want to know, so give it up, Linda! Let us know how you did this!

Carol Leigh http://www.photoexplorations.com/
March 4, 2009

My response to Carol on my critique:

Thank you for my critique Carol, your compliment about moving from taking snapshots to photographs in a year means the world to me. Yeahhhhhh! Ah oh, pressure is on.
The Aaaaaaah photo.
I actually spent lots of time and took about a hundred different shots of each of the two photos I submitted. Nothing looked right, nothing felt right. I didn’t like the ladder and the background. I used late afternoon light, before the sun went down behind the San Jacinto mountains. I was in my front patio. I put on a 100mm macro lens and found I could eliminate the ugly background. I just kept trying to frame the ladder this way and that hoping I could find a way to make the ladder look like some form of art. I knew I wanted only 3 of the 5 bolts in the upper right hand corner and I knew I wanted the white ladder “danger” sign as the main focal point. I selected this photo as it was the best of the many, not knowing whether you would like it or not. What I did know was that I had learned a lot from spending that much time taking and viewing so many photos.
The Bending bristles photo.
Again, I used the 100 mm macro lens. The propped up broom in the front patio looked stupid. So I kept shooting… trying this and that angle and settled on a wide open shutter on a small portion of the broom where the bristles exited. I liked the tight waterfall look and I liked the triangles when I reviewed the photos on the LCD. But trying to get the focus looking ok because the focus was so shallow generated many more clicks of the shutter. You asked if I did anything tricky in Photoshop. Nope. I don’t even know how to take 2 photos and put them together? I still don’t know how to take a good moon shot, cut it and paste it in another photo to replace a blown out moon. I believe the focal plane was the same distance away on the top left and bottom right red bristles and that’s why they are both in focus.
Linda

Share/Bookmark

1
CRITIQUE: Linda Jeffers
STRAIGHT LINES
MISSION CREEK PRESERVE BUILDING

The first thing that hits me is a set of three strong
vertical elements. You’ve got (as did Jill
Margeson, I believe it was, in a previous critique)
three strong stripes running vertically in your
photograph. Tying these stripes together are the
bold horizontal lines. What does this give us?
Vertical movement in the three stripes, and
horizontal movement via the black stripes. Lots of
movement, and I think movement is good.
The bold stripes against a relatively unobtrusive
background really stand out, and as a result you’ve
created a strong repeating pattern up and down and
across your photograph. There’s a thick black
vertical stripe toward the left side of your shot, and
I think you placed it well, pretty much in
accordance with the Rule of Thirds (see Rule of
Thirds grid superimposed on your photo below).
That thick vertical element divides your photo into
one-third left and two-thirds right. It’s where we
begin and end our photo journey around your picture.
What about the rough stucco on the far right? Does it create interest because it’s not smooth, or
is it a distraction because it’s so rough and unlike the rest of the scene? I don’t know. There’s a
part of me that likes it and another part of me that doesn’t. What I do
like, however, is that triangle of blue sky in the upper right of your
photo. That vivid patch of color really livens up your otherwise
monochromatic composition.
As with Tom Kidd’s bridge photo, the bright sunlight that you were
shooting in is what makes your photo. Bright sunlight can create
incredibly bold and strong shadows that become integral parts of a
composition, and it all works beautifully for you here. Good shot!
2
FILTER-ENHANCED WIND
TURBINES

Here’s where it gets tricky (for
me, not for you). Up until the
previous online class, I
specifically said I didn’t want
radical Photoshop-like effects
applied to photos. My reasoning
was that I didn’t know enough
about Photoshop to fairly critique
them and that those who were
NOT using Photoshop were at a
slight disadvantage. My main
reason, however, was that it’s
really tough for me to critique an
image where I can’t tell if something is or isn’t in focus or how depth of field affects the shot, or
if a polarizing filter was perhaps overused, etc.
All that changed in the previous online class. Why? Because I’m now more familiar with
Photoshop and am using it a lot, and because I know people were using it anyway, albeit in a
subtle manner. Am I qualified to teach Photoshop? Heck no. I don’t even know how to “select”
something using it. Photoshop is here to stay and I am very happy about it. I love it! It’s enabled
me to create photomontages that feed my artistic soul.
The main thing I need to keep in my head is a phrase I’ve used forever: “Just because you can,
doesn’t mean you should.” And my usual stupid example is, “Just because you can make a daisy
look like it’s encased in plastic doesn’t mean you should!”
So what do we have with your photograph? Is it a case of “just because you could?”
What I love about your effect is how the colors are so very soft and subdued, almost like a
Chinese ink painting. What you did was break the wind turbines down into sort of an ink sketch
that outlines all the strong elements and thus creates an interesting pattern across your photo.
The hills in the distance are gorgeous, with a grainy, soft “wash” of color going across. And yet
here and there is a touch of brilliant red or a bit of cyan.
When we use various effects in Photoshop or different plug-ins, I think it helps if we know
WHY we’re using them. What is it we want our photo to convey and does this or that special
effect or filter help get our message across, or does the special effect become the subject? It’s
sort of like putting a really fancy triple mat and ornate frame around a photograph. If people
comment, “Great mat! Love the frame!” you know you’ve lost the message in the photo.
In this case, do we lose the message of “wind turbines marching across hillsides” because we’re
entranced with the pen-and-ink-like special effect? Perhaps.
This effect is sublime. It’s soft and delicate and almost Asian in appearance. Is it appropriate to the subject matter? I’m thinking that maybe it isn’t. It
might be more appropriate (especially given where
you live) for an early morning photo of the
mountains in the distance with a large palm tree or
trees in the immediate foreground. That would give
you a wash of serenity in the background with an
outlined bold form in the foreground.
In the case of these wind turbines, I think the
watercolor wash-like effect, especially in the middle
over toward the left, is blocking things up and
creating smudges rather than outlines, almost negating the fact that there are hundreds of these
things spread out in front of us.
What am I trying to say? I love the effect. (And I would really like you to post something after
this critique regarding what this filter or plug-in is and what it does and how can others in the
class obtain it.) I think it’s an effect that has a definite place in our artistic arsenal, but is this the
appropriate photograph in which to apply it? I don’t think so. But oh, I’m loving what it did to
the mountains!
Let me know what you think, Linda. This is cool stuff. Do you feel I’m off regarding using it on
this particular shot? And if so, let me know. I, too, am in a learning mode when it comes to
using/not using various filters and plug-ins and pieces of software. Thanks.
3
BLACK AND WHITE WIND
TURBINETTES

“Turbinettes.” Love it! What’s
really neat about your photo is
how you (I’m guessing) used a
very long telephoto lens and shot
down the row of wind turbines
and, because of the long lens,
created a shot that makes the
turbines look as though they’re
really packed in tightly together.
This is one super use of a long
telephoto lens, and we see the
same effect sometimes, when
people shoot down a busy street,
such as in Chinatown in Los
Angeles or The Strip in Las Vegas. Long lenses tend to compress distance, making it look like
the subjects in our frame are really jammed in there. Your using a long lens here makes a lot of
sense and I like the look.
The other thing I like is how that one wind turbine’s blades are at right angles to everyone else,
spinning to a rhythm heard only by him. That one “rogue turbine” catches my eye and my heart.

The wires running across the bottom of the frame are, to
me, really distracting, however, and take my attention
completely away from the clean line of turbines. Having
lived in Palm Springs, I know the challenges you faced
when photographing these things. It’s hard to get a really
clear shot from the limited vantage points you have.
The hills in the background are great. I like how the
turbines stand out against them, and I like the two
shades of grey you have there.
Does the black and white effect work or not? The “look”
that the picture has is a sort of flat, old-fashioned look.
It’s kind of grainy and kind of muddy. If you wanted an
old-fashioned look to perhaps set off a more modernday
energy solution (well, it’s not a new idea at all, but
I’m not going to go there), then the processing worked.
But I’m not sure that it’s the most effective way of
presenting the turbines.
So what do I suggest? Well, to minimize the power lines
in the immediate foreground, you COULD turn the shot
into a vertical.
That way instead of having a really wide
swath of power lines, it would be a short set of lines.
Going for a vertical, too, would get rid of the black pole
and the lighter-colored pole immediately to the left. It
looks like there’s part of a fence pole down at the bottom
middle of the picture, which (at least for me) would be
hard to clone out. And, personally, I’d like to see a
photograph with more depth and sparkle, more solid
blacks and bright whites, which would catch my eye and
hold it longer.
So, do I think that this photo works? Not really. But I do think that you’re on the right track and
that if you can find a similar set of tubinettes with a better foreground, then please continue
along this same vein.
You’ve jumped into photography and Photoshop with all four feet, Linda, and I know you’re in
a huge learning curve and are trying out all sorts of things — not only becoming more familiar
with your camera, but with all the post-processing possibilities. You don’t do things in a small
way, and I commend you for your intensity and your ambition. Major kudos to you, madam.

Carol Leigh
February 9, 2009

Original
photo up top.
Second photo
has more
contrast.
Third photo
cropped to
make it a
vertical
format.

How do I feel about my critique? I’m still sorting out my thoughts. I really love the Turbinettes photo the way I shot it. But I will respond to my teacher once I have the time to think about the shot more and why I post processed it as I did.

Share/Bookmark

CRITIQUE: Linda Jeffers
SYMMETRY

DIFFICULT RED

Not sure why you named this
“difficult,” Linda. If it was difficult,
you certainly did a good job with it.
Let me tell you everything you did
right . . .
Your primary challenge was depth of
field. I’m not sure how “deep” this
flower goes. It looks like a melaleuca
blossom, and sometimes they’re long
like a bottlebrush or they’re more
rounded but shallower. So your
decision was, how much do you want
in focus? Do you want just the tops of
the buds as they’re opening in focus?
Do you want buds and red flower?
Do you want buds, red flower AND
background in focus?
Photography was much easier when we didn’t know so much. When
I first began, I would have thought, “Oh, pretty flower. Click.” But
no more. Now I (we) agonize over lighting, depth of field, angle of
view — it’s not so simple any more. So in your case, when you were
working this flower (and now that I’ve seen you photograph in
person, both in Santa Fe and in Half Moon Bay), I kind of know
your thought process. So I’m guessing that yeah, you had a
challenging session with this flower.
You selected a lens aperture (f/stop) that would put the buds in
focus as well as the top “tier” of the red flower behind them. Focus
begins falling away as we move down through the flower and to the
leaves. By the time we see the very background, everything’s soft.
What you’ve done is you’ve presented a flower that’s extremely
sharp, where we can see how the new “tendrils”
emerge from the buds; we see the details in the
red tendrils and then all goes soft in the
background, but not so soft that we can’t see a bit
of the leaves. The background is soft enough,
however, not to be distracting, and so it sets off
your flower most dramatically.
What I also like is the terrific complementary
color combination of red and green. Extra drama
as a result.
Your lighting is very soft, very subdued. And as
a result the red really pops, really seems to glow.
We’re also able to see a lot of detail; nothing is
lost or obscured in dark shadows. If you’d had bright, harsh sunlight on this blossom, the look
would have been completely different.
Terrific focus. Very good lighting. Wonderful use of depth of field. Great colors. Beautifully
done.
I’m wondering, however, about the background on the left side. You’ve got lots of leaves on the
right, leaves that are pretty much the same color green as the green buds on top. But then on the
left side, almost splitting the photo in half, we’re seeing purplish non-leafy stuff. If your photo
is all about red/green/texture/symmetry, then “purple lines” doesn’t fit in with your concept and
becomes a distraction. Had you been able to put those same leaves in the left background, I
think your picture would have even more drama than it already has.
So for this “difficult red,” you handled the situation beautifully. You have no idea how
impressed I am with how you’ve jumped into photography with all four feet, and how much
you’ve learned about shooting,
your camera, and (I’m assuming)
Photoshop in just 12 months.
Major kudos to you, madam.

SIERRA LAKE

Holy crap! What a terrific shot! If
this is Convict Lake in the eastern
Sierra, I’m thinking it’s one of the
better photos I’ve seen of fall
color there. If it’s not, then what
do I know? It’s still a good
photo.
It’s often tough in scenes such as
this to expose properly for
everything. Most of the scene is
relatively dark — the
background valley coming down,
the trees, the reflection, etc. And
then there are much lighter areas
such as the hillside slanting
down from the upper right
corner, the patch of whiteness on
the hillside on the left (which is
reflected in the water), and little
bits of light grey granite rock
sticking out here and there.
When we have mostly dark
surroundings such as this, we
naturally meter for them, and as
a result, anything that’s much brighter can easily be overexposed and blown out. And since
those lighter areas are what our eye is drawn to first, they become major distractions. Not good.
In the case of your photograph, you handled the lighter areas well. They’re not so bright that
they’re annoying. The only spot I DO find distracting is the white patch on the left hillside and
its reflection in the water. I think that if this were my photo, I’d clone out both the white spot
and the white reflection.
My only other suggestion would be to straighten the photo a little bit since it looks as though it’s
leaning toward the left. This might be an optical illusion, however. When I line up your horizon
line with a straight line on my monitor, your horizon line seems to be straight. But if it LOOKS
wonky in the picture, even though it’s straight, I’d still rotate the picture a hair to the right to
visually dewonkify it.
Two excellent photos from you. You should be very pleased. Thank you for posting them.
Carol Leigh
January 26, 2009

(I wrote the following back to Carol Leigh.)
Carol,
Thanks for your critique. You know me well. Your critique was so right on I wondered if you were hiding behind a bush watching me attempt this shot. I did have a challenging session with “Difficult Red”. I spent a very frustrating hour and a half on this one photo, racing the setting sun and hoping to get the shot I wanted before I had to leave for an evening engagement.
All camera tries were on a tripod, except the last try with my little fanny pack camera. The sun was just about to set behind Mt. San Jacinto. The sideways light on the flower was perfect. The background sucked. I moved this way and that way for a better background flower angle. When I first used the 100mm macro lens, the background was blurred and not a distraction. The background looked ok. But….the flower had too much depth for the macro lens; I couldn’t, as you mentioned, get all parts of the flower in focus enough as there were too many varying planes. The flower was about 2/3 inch deep.
I noticed I wasn’t getting what I wanted because I kept shooting some shots and then taking my card inside to view the shots on the computer. After the macro lens, I changed to a 50mm lens. Too much in focus – ugly background. I even tried a 70-300 lens and of course I had to back away too far from “Difficult Red” and that lens didn’t work. Then I thought, try my little Sony A640 fanny pack camera. This little camera is the camera I used for this shot. It gave me more depth of field, more of the flower in focus from front to back. Remember I have that rotating LCD on this little camera that I hold out away from me as I focus close up to my subjects when I shoot. So when I got back to the computer I noticed I was holding the camera out and shooting slightly down on “Difficult Red”; I wasn’t on the same shooting plane as the flower. This shooting slightly down on the subject angle changed the distance from the top of the flower to the bottom enough that the bottom of the flower was slightly out of focus.
Once I realized I had another stumbling block to getting everything in good focus, I was mad, the sun was gone and I was late for my evening plans. I sat at my computer with my head in my hands feeling very defeated, UNTIL………..this thought came to me…….Look at all you learned trying to capture this shot Linda. It even dawned on you while your head was in your hands that you weren’t shooting on the same plane as the flower. And then this thought came…..My god, you learned more about what different lens do, you learned more about depth of field, you learned more about level/angle of shooting, you learned to pay more attention to ugly backgrounds so you don’t have to spend so much time trying to make an ugly background not so ugly and you learned more about your camera and your tripod. So…..Linda be happy because whether I you got the shot you wanted or not, you got the point……You LEARNED.
I thank you Carol for these classes that make me pick up the camera when I don’t think I have time, and do what I love, learn to see through the lens of the camera. By Jove, I think I may be learning a little something.
Regarding the Sierra Lake, I had this photo labeled Convict Lake in my photo folder, but I think it was a lake north of June Lakes, named Parker Lake off 395. I noticed the white fleck in the water and started to clone it out when I realized it was a reflection of the remaining snow on the mountain. I decided to leave the snow in. But I did see it! I agree the photo would look better without it. And, I too thought the photo of the Sierra Lake looked like it was listing.
Thank you for your critique.
A happy,
Linda

Share/Bookmark

Our photography teacher, Carol Leigh, posted the 5 best of all of the photos she and all of us students shot.

http://www.photoexplorations.com/Gallery2008/HTML/index.htm

Share/Bookmark

Our online class is over. What’s going to keep me honest in my pursuit of learning photography?

Hopefully this blog.

Here is a portion of an email I just received from our photo teacher:

It’s been a wonderful ride, being with you the past two months. I’ve

created an online gallery of your work which you can see here:

<http://www.photoexplorations.com/Gallery052008/HTML/index.htm>

Your work looks good. And I think you’re going to be amazed at how

professional your photos look in the gallery.

If you visit this gallery, and you click on a photo the student’s name appears in the URL.

Share/Bookmark

1 CRITIQUE: Linda Jeffers

Walk Around the Block

COURSE LAKE VIEW



For a photo in which it appears

you did a lot of things “wrong,”

this looks pretty good!

The lighting is bright and sunny,

which is not surprising for the

desert, but it appears early/late

enough in the day that it’s not

overwhelmingly bright. There are

long shadows that make things

interesting rather than having the

sun straight up, creating a

shadow-free zone.

The horizon line is centered, dividing your picture in half. Normally this isn’t the best choice for

us, since putting the horizon line dead center tends to create a static composition, where our

eyes go right to the center of the frame and aren’t encouraged to go elsewhere. What you did to

create a composition with movement to it (versus a static composition) was put the willow tree

off to the far right, have it close, and have it create a sort of frame through which we look at the

scene. So yes, our eye goes to the middle of the photo (where the light-colored building can be

seen off in the distance), but then the tree moves our eye over toward the right; the overhanging

branches then encourage our eye upward and over toward the left, as does the water in the pond.

What also creates interest and movement in your photo are the reflections of the tall palm trees

in the water. Without those trees, we’d have just a blank expanse of water. The shadows create

up-down movement as well as texture. The only thing that’s definitely not working for you is

that green wooden stick coming up from the bottom of the frame. If you were to make a print of

this photo, I’d definitely clone it (and its reflection) out of the shot.

You created a very good shot despite challenging lighting. Well done.

2. LADY BACKLIT



You come close to greatness with this picture. First of all, let me commend you for spotting it to

begin with. And then let me commend you for exposing it as beautifully as you did. What’s killing it is the land/rock in the lower

right corner. Heavy sigh. The rest of

your photo is fantastic. Here’s why.

Moody, dramatic lighting. The dark

sculpture, the dark trees reflected in the

water, the deep blue of the water, the

golden glow in the upper right corner,

and the way the sculpture is sidelighted

— absolutely wonderful.

The earring. The way you seem to have

metered off the brightly colored earring

is great. As a result, it’s properly

exposed while everything else goes

dark. And that’s the perfect effect for

this picture. The way the earring echoes

the golden tones upper right is superb.

Without the earring, your photo would

still be good. But WITH the earring, it’s

cranked up a notch and becomes quite

mysterious and artistic.

The complementary colors of blue and

orange create a lot of drama.

And finally the angles of the sculpture as it swings into the photo create lots of movement and

encourage our eye to move along with those angles, running on a diagonal from lower left to

upper right. Wonderful.

If only there had been more blue water where that bit of land is on the right. Not only would

your sculpture stand out even more than it does, but it would simplify your photo considerably,

thereby creating more drama and tying everything together. The land blocks up the picture and

interrupts the feeling of movement. Alas.

Still, you handled the shooting challenges incredibly well and composed the photo perhaps as

well as you could given what you had to work with. It’s easy for me to say “lose the land” when

I wasn’t there to see what you had to deal with. In a perfect world there’d be nothing but

glorious water and reflections behind this sculpture. Ah well. You should still be pleased.

3 SPRINKLER RAINBOW (I lost this photo when my computer crashed. It wasn’t great anyway. Imagine a shot from the condo looking at the sprinklers watering the grass of the 15th fairway creating a rainbow in the water from the early morning sun hitting the water. Beyond the fairway is the lake, then far away condos that Carol refers to in her critique, then palm trees and San Jacinto.)

It’s these little miracles of light that, to me, make photography so

rewarding at times. Your rainbow is very pretty and I like the overall

scene. Your greens are good, the water’s a good color blue, and I like

the strong shadows you’ve got in among the trees as well as stretching

across the green in front of us.

What’s not working for you are

the brightly lighted houses and

mountains across the way. When

the picture first comes up, my eye

goes immediately to the lightcolored

houses and then up to the

background mountains. Only then

do I return to the rainbow. But

you took the photo BECAUSE of

the rainbow, and to have it

become the third-strongest

element in the photo means it

doesn’t quite work.

What could you have done

differently? Probably nothing! It

would have been great to maybe have nothing but trees across the way, or an expanse of

something really dark so that the rainbow would stand out very colorfully and strongly. So is

there a way in Photoshop that you could achieve this same look? Is there a way that you could

create a second layer and, on that second layer, darken down the mountains and darken down

the houses? I’m sure there is, but would it really be worth your time? Nah, I don’t think so.

Luckily, there will always be more rainbows in your life.

Thanks, Linda, for posting these shots. Your sculpture photo is by far the best of the bunch. It

might even be worth a re-do sometime to see if you can change your shooting angle somewhat

to get rid of that little piece of land on the right. The lighted earring? Brilliant.

Carol Leigh

November 7, 2008

In an email I wrote back to Carol:

Thanks for being so kind Carol. I was really afraid you were going to rip me a “new one”. I didn’t spend much time on taking these photos and regret that.

I love your around the block photos. Thanks for sharing them. Wish I’d seen them before though. I need help on ideas. I’m not very creative…..YET!

Great online class. You are the best teacher!

Linda

Then Carol wrote back to me:

You know what? I don’t really care if your photos are bad (well, I

sort of do, but bear with me). What I really care about is that YOU

know your photos are bad! Knowing when your pictures are less than

wonderful is a HUGE step in our photographic process. Sure, our

friends, our parents, etc. are going to tell us we’re wonderful, but

WE really need to know, down deep in ourselves, when our stuff’s good

and when it ain’t. And that comes with practice and with comparing our

work with excellent photography.

I could tell that you were rushed with the golf course shots . . .

Maybe you should take up butterfly photography — you seemed to do

really well with that!

Carol Leigh

In order to understand Carol’s reference to my taking up butterfly photography, there was a mixup. Carol thought she was critiquing my Around the Block photos when in fact they were another student’s Around the Block assignment containing a butterfly photo!

Share/Bookmark