I think photographers are lucky when it comes to making art. We can create new art from many things, including other art. This photo is a portion of an art display in Downtown San Diego called the Urban Trees Project. The title of the original sculpture is “Lean On Me” and was created by Robert Verhees.

Having a background as a graphic designer, I tend to gravitate towards very pronounced lines and shapes and am a minimalist at heart. I caught this shot on a holiday and it caught my eye because it was a convergence of geometry and flowers. I’m hoping to do more of this kind of work–the nice clean lines and shapes appeal to me and I think might make an decent collection of B&W images if I manage to do them right.

Quite some time ago, I ordered a sensor cleaning kit from Copperhill and along with it came a little toy multi-coloured slinky. It was the middle of winter and I was in need of a new subject but was loathe to go outdoors as it was very cold at the time. So I decided that perhaps the slinky would suffice. I think its strong geometric lines were the the attraction–that and the lack of anything else close to hand.

I did a number of coloured shots, but this one converted to black and white. It’s a good lesson to remind me that if we cast around around our homes, we can often find interesting subjects for macros right at our finger tips.

I made this image at the Cincinnati Zoo. It was Spring and the flowers were in full bloom – it was truly simply gorgeous. I was using a very long lens to compress the perspective and just fill the frame with color. In my mind’s eye, I saw all the colors sort of blending together – more colors than flowers. Photoshop was used to create the painterly look in the final artwork.

The Illusion

Nikon D80 + Tokina 28mm f/2.8 MF + M Mode

I shoot a lot of floral macros and abstracts in various ways (as I’m guessing most people have noticed by now). But every now and then, one has to depart from flowers and do something else sooooo…..I was walking through Ikea and noticed some intriguing shapes in some inexpensive glass vases, and brought them home, and this photo was the result. I’m a graphic designer by trade so the strong shapes and colors appealed to me.

It was shot with a Canon 20D against a white backdrop using a Canon 60mm macro lens, 5s, f/22. The reason for the long exposure was that it was done in fairly poor light indoors without a flash to avoid any reflections. It would have been better had it been done earlier in the day in better light, but alas, my schedule, like almost everyone else’s, doesn’t always allow me to knock off in the daylight hours.

This one is sort of an abstract image that was created (on film) by shooting straight out a tunnel from the underground walkway at the Los Angeles Union Station. Even on a black & white film, the entire dynamic range couldn’t be captured with a single photo.

I had assumed that this would happen, but I was pleasantly surprised with the results when I first saw them.

A photo from within the Metro rail station at Hollywood Blvd and Highland Ave. Several of the metro stations I’ve been to in Los Angeles have this same type of architecture. This particular outing was part of a photographer’s rights rally as we traveled from Hollywood Blvd to the LA Union Station.

The photo was taken on a Velvia 100 film with an old medium format TLR camera (1956 Minolta Autocord) and the film was cross processed to achieve the red color cast. These stations are fairly dim, so the camera was shot wide open at a shutter speed of approximately 1/30 seconds. The shot turned out underexposed, but I’m happy with how this adds to the overall appearance of the image.

Full digital resolution of the scanned film: ~50MP. Yeah, very large.

I shot this image more than a year ago, shortly before midnight, after dinner with dear friends. It’s been taken with the Sigma 20/1.8 at f1.8. There is not much sharpness here, this is all about night lights. This is one of the two images that I presented to Ted Byrne when we met in Florence.

I brought this calla lily into the house in the late afternoon after it was demolished in a hail storm, and managed to salvage only this one bloom. However, I was totally unsure what to do with it. Calla lilies are beautiful flowers with wonderful form and structure that make for great graphic impact, but alas, next to the rose, they are likely the most photographed of all flowers. So what to do, what to do? I didn’t want it to be trite, or cute, or pretty–I wanted to do something different that I hadn’t already seen a million times.

So I mounted my camera on the tripod with a macro lens, and put the flower on a black background so the sun was hitting it through the window. I moved around the flower, starting off with an attempt to frame the whole of the bloom, but as I moved, I noticed a shape emerge–a common enough shape–that of a female figure. Even better, the light was shining thru the bloom, illuminating all of its beautiful lines and structure, in effect tracing out this shape.

This is why I’m so entranced with macros–you can see things through a macro lens you would not notice in real life. They can make the ordinary extraordinary. For those interested in macros, take your time and move around your subject. You may well be amazed at what you find.