27-DEC-2006
By the old city wall, Marrakesh, Morocco, 2006
The 900 year-old wall that completely encircles the medina (old city) of Marrakesh is broken by a series of ancient gates. I stood near one such gate at sunset and watched people entering and leaving the medina. I noticed that as people came through the gate, they momentarily left their shadow behind on the wall next to it. I adjusted my frame to create a series of four panels moving from left to right – a piece of the outer wall, the brickwork of the gate itself, the heavily shadowed inside wall of the gate, and a continuation of the outer wall. As people walked through the gate and out of the right hand edge of my frame, I photographed their lingering shadows against the outer wall. Abstraction is essentially the art of leaving out. I leave out the appearance of the wall and gate, as well as the presence of the people themselves. I only suggest these elements, leaving the rest to the imagination of the viewer.
27-SEP-2006
Black on black, Hot Lake, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 2006
A huge black raven perched on a mirror on the door of a black truck makes for an abstract and incongruous wildlife adornment. The driver, who quickly rolled up his window when the big bird took this perch, makes no secret of his patriotic inclinations – his vivid American flag decal, along with the blue sky reflected in the mirror, offers the only color in this image. (This raven is looking for handouts, which are prohibited in Yellowstone.) There are some photographers that would have routinely fired flash at this bird to “bring” out its feathers. My own approach is quite different. I never use a flash. I exposed on the white clouds in the mirror with my spot meter in order to make both the truck and bird a lustrous black. The resulting abstraction leaves much more the viewer’s imagination, and makes this image more expressive than a literal description.
27-SEP-2006
Biding his time, Madison Valley, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 2006
We visited Yellowstone at the height of the elk mating season. A female has just rebuffed this male elk. He was quite agitated that his charms had failed him. He slipped into the high grass to watch the female graze only a few feet away. He has abstracted himself, leaving only his huge antlers and slowly flicking ears visible, making this image far more compelling than if he were in full view. In wildlife photography, less can often be more.
23-SEP-2006
Horn in horn, Antelope Island State Park, Utah, 2006
Nearly 700 bison graze on Antelope Island, just north of Salt Lake City in the Great Salt Lake. Two bulls were softly jousting only a few feet from our car window. I only show one eye, two horns, and the rest is grass and shoulders. The thin stalks of grass frame the eye, while the locked horns express the competitive spirit within a bison herd. Instead of showing the bison here, I abstract them to imply their presence and demeanor.
30-SEP-2006
Cowboy, Town Square, Jackson, Wyoming, 2006
I made two photos of this evocative statue in the heart of downtown Jackson. One reveals detail and emphasizes the beauty of the surrounding trees. You can see it in my color gallery by clicking on the small thumbnail below. This version is far more abstract. I’ve backlighted both the statue, which depicts a rodeo cowboy waving his hat from the back of a bucking horse, and the surrounding trees which envelope it. To a vivid imagination it seems almost real, a cowboy triumphantly riding through the trees.
24-SEP-2006
Detail, Assembly Hall, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2006
When we reduce a structure such as this historic 1882 Mormon edifice to a few characteristic architectural details, we are abstracting it – showing less, yet emphasizing the spare elegance of its 19th century design. I am using geometry here to guide the eye and stress the design of structure. Using my zoom lens at around 300mm, I compress four different segments of the building into one – making a dimensional structure into a striking single plane of unembellished religious architecture.
27-SEP-2006
Sunrise, Firehole River, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 2006
The Firehole River seems to live up to its name, as columns of what seems to be smoke rises from its valley. Actually, they are plumes of steam created by the heat of Yellowstone’s hot springs and geysers clashing with the chill of dawn. I stress these plumes by under exposing this image, abstracting the ground into utter blackness. The steamy riverbanks become even more incongruous when seen in such an abstract context. The rising sun may incongruously burn a white-hot hole right through this image, but it’s the smoldering Firehole itself that steals the scene here.
25-SEP-2006
Temple fence, Logan, Utah, 2006
Instead of photographing Logan’s landmark Mormon Temple, I chose instead to abstract a very small portion of its ornate metal fence as the early morning sun imposed its own pattern of light and shadow upon it. The temple, originally opened in 1884, has been remodeled several times, and this fence has a definite Art Deco look to it. This abstraction links the work of man to the work of nature, certainly a fitting motif for a religious institution.
26-SEP-2006
Touch of dawn, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 2006
We often see calendar and post card images of the Grand Teton Range looming over the historic Moulton Barns at their feet. Most photographers prefer to shoot this scene in the early morning, when the rising sun behind them bathes the mountains and sage in golden light. I was but one out of many photographers whose lenses were trained on this subject on a bitterly cold late September morning. I photographed the scene for about a half hour. This is my favorite image, probably far more abstract than the one that most of the other photographers were making that morning. The rising sun just barely grazes the peaks of the mountains. Most of the mountains are still in dark shadow, as is the famous main barn of the 19th century Moulton community. I suggest the presence of the old red barn and its surroundings, but my story here is really the first light of dawn on these mountain peaks, not the battered beauty of the old structure at their feet. (You can see fully illuminated image I made of this same scene in my Vista gallery by clicking on the thumbnail below:
21-OCT-2006
Bird and belfry, Bodie State Historic Park, California, 2006
It was just after sunset when I began photographing this raven perched on top of the bell tower of the long abandoned Methodist church in the Bodie ghost town. Using the spot meter, I exposed on the sky to make the church, bird and adjacent telephone pole into a silhouette. I used a fast shutter speed of 1/400th of a second to abstract the scene, fast enough to catch the bird in flight, just as it was pushing its wings down to gain altitude. I show less of both bird and church, leaving the details to the imagination of the viewer. The silhouette expresses yesterday more than today, an appropriate metaphor for a town that has died.
10-JUN-2006
Sea lion, Newport, Oregon, 2006
I abstracted this relaxing sea lion by waiting for him to flip over on his back and glide beneath the water. I was shooting from a pier in Newport’s harbor, which gave me the high vantage point I needed to make such abstraction possible. I put my camera on its “multiple frame” option, and just kept firing as it swept below me. In this image, only the belly, chin and one flipper are exposed. Everything else is below the rippling water. I tilted the camera so that the axis of the sea lion becomes a diagonal, giving it more thrust as it glides on by. By showing less of the sea lion, I am engaging the imaginations of those who look at this image. I ask the viewer to, in effect, become this sea lion for a moment, and savor the joy of such a relaxing activity.
09-JUN-2006
Fish market, Garibaldi, Oregon, 2006
By altering perspective, color, and exposure, I have changed the appearance of these freshly caught halibut from fish to flesh. To accomplish this, I moved in very close, cropping the subject in the frame, stressing the diagonal flow of the foreground fish. I complement that main diagonal with the smaller repeating rippling ridges that move as cross diagonals through the image. By shooting into the light and using the spot meter, I put the foreground into deep shadow and deepen the pinkish color of the flanks. If I had just stood back and framed and exposed the subject “normally” I would have only described the appearance of two halibut on a market table. Instead, I’ve interpreted them, changing their form and coloration by abstracting through vantage point, frame, and exposure.
