Tag: inspiration

I know who stole the Christmas tree ornaments…

but can you tell me who was the thief of time?

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decorations for his tree

And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Fifty two weeks of blogging. Fifty two weeks to link images and words. Fifty two weeks of growth and direction.

When I started this project I wasn’t sure how it would look or where it would take me. I worried that it would become a self-imposed “assignment” that would loom like a dark cloud over my week-end.

The time has literally flown by though and this has become an enjoyable part of my week. Much to my surprise I have never had to struggle through the writing of the post and as an added bonus, I have a lot more clarity on my own direction.

It brings me great pleasure to see people from around the world taking a few minutes out of their day to see what images and words I have shared. Time is in short supply for most of us and I wanted to take a moment to thank those of you who have signed up to follow my blog, comment, or just drop in from time to time.

For me this has been a valuable lesson in not having expectations but just going forward and letting things unfold. Do it for yourself first! I know that I harp constantly on creativity and how important is it to feed it but for those of you who struggle with it, I swear that if you make a commitment to yourself to feed your art on a daily basis you will have more inspiration and ideas than you will know what to do with!

Merry Christmas, may the season bring you joy and inspiration and time with those you love… two-legged or four!

I find myself wishing that…

I had paid more attention in school instead of daydreaming.

Moonrise
Moonrise

For my part I know nothing with any certainty but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

Vincent Van Gogh

I photograph every day and I think that practice not only keeps my creativity at a good level but it creates opportunities for further exploration of things that I might not have otherwise searched out.

Unless you are a studio based photographer you have to just deal with whatever is thrown your way for light and weather and find a way to make it work. If it is harsh bright sunlight, I might decide to do a long exposure over water with a neutral density filter or I might do a little infrared. Cloudy darker days are good for double exposures. Sometimes you can keep notes and revisit sites when conditions are perfect for the type of shot that you imagine, but that’s not always possible. It’s nice to have options and know how to dial in your settings to shoot under those conditions.

I have dabbled on and off with night photography usually when the day has gotten away from me and the last vestiges of good light have faded. I am finding it to be a whole other world filled with wonderful visual opportunities dependent on moon phases, cloud cover, and light pollution. Knowing how to capture the night sky though has led me into another crash course that I am just now starting to understand. The digital cameras of today, when manually programmed, capture this quite readily and if you’re shooting RAW instead of JPEG you really have quite a bit of freedom when it comes to editing. Like anything else though the key is practice, practice, practice. There is a wealth of information online that provides more specific information on gear, settings, and editing.

I think if I had been inspired more in school I might have paid more attention to learning about math which would have come in awfully handy now! It’s never too late though and I have immersed myself in things like azimuth and elevation calculations…and there are things called intervalometers that are built into cameras or they can be attached to them so that you can capture star trails. Who knew?! There’s one in the Nikon D7000 and I will be using it more!

Today’s shot was one taken in the early morning hours, just seeing what results I could get from different settings. As the moon began to clear the trees I noticed first that aura of light appearing. This was not the shot I was going for but I did in the end like the effect that it created and using that opportunity gave me more information to file away for future shots.

Take an opportunity to shoot under conditions that are unfamiliar to you. You might just get inspired!