IsenhartsPhotos: 2019

This collection of pictures is the result of an assignment for me and my photo companion, Evan; we have to lead the Judson Memorial Baptist Church* “second hour” discussion on Art – Photography – Spirituality. Just briefly talking about what feeds our spirit in our photos. Why we took the picture and what it means to us. Not a bad way to look at any photo, don’t you think?

If you are inclined, please feel free to give feedback on the first few pictures (or on any pictures, any time, I need the feedback).

I have always wanted to find a way to affect others with my work. How do I drive awareness about our social problems through photography?

I hope you enjoy them,

Dick

*A quick word about Judson: Me? Attending a Baptist church? As you know I am a tree hugging liberal. Judson is not Southern Baptist but American Baptist - the more liberal side. Judson even accepts me and my unconventional view of religion. It’s a Welcoming and Affirming Congregation. Check ‘em out.

Double click on any image to see them larger.

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The first photo feeds my sense of humor. Anything that makes me laugh is GOOD! This was taken at Judson during our Christmas Pageant. I was up in the balcony looking down on all the heads with crowns or halos. I wish I could have added my own bald head. Judsonits, can you name the heads?

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On this second photo Sue pointed out this fascinating vine with some kind of fungus on it. I think it is one of the most beautiful pictures I ever took. It is fascinating how the twisting intertwining tendrils embrace each other. The fungus is what makes the picture. My eye goes first to the white fungus and then it wonders around off the top of the picture and then it shoots back down and runs around in circles in and out of the tendrils. I love it!

I have two images, this image is the finished photo and the second image below is the directly out of camera. This was shot in July 2013 on a Canon 50D, Tamron 90mm Macro lens at 1/500 sec, f/5.0, ISO 2500 hand held on a windy day. In hindsight I see all sorts of problems with these settings. The most damaging is the relatively wide open lens. f/5.0 which produced a depth of field that is too shallow. Some of the subject is out of focus (but the background is nicely blurred in the original). The second problem is ISO 2500 is way too high producing a lot of sensor noise in the dark areas. (You have to zoom in to see it on the original, I got rid of it on the final image when I drove the background black.) I didn't need to be at 1/500 sec. It wasn't that windy. I should have cut that in half and stopped down the lens to f/8.5 and dropped the ISO to below 2000.

To make the subject stand out more and hopefully make it more artistic, I darkened to background to black and pushed the saturation up. I see now that I also lost some of the detail in the fungus. If I could I would go back and do it all over again. Oh well, sometimes nature doesn’t give us a second chance. Which image do you like?

Original as shot directly out of camera:

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The picture below is my “Georgia O'Keeffe”. Looking down the throat of an orchid is way too sexy. This picture is vibrant and crisp with excellent depth of field. I love the colors and structure of the Orchid. The Water drops add freshness.

Yellow Lip is the focal point. The lip attracts the insect to the nectar behind. The white Anther cap above the Lip deposits pollen on the back of the insect. This macro view invites me to see the Orchid through the eyes of a pollinator. The Orchid is inviting me in. Way too much symbolism here! Time to move on…

This was shot on a Canon 50D, Tamron 90mm Macro lens at 1.3 sec, f/10, ISO 100, indoor with tripod, the camera was on a sliding rail to adjust focus. At this close (aprox 12 inches) with a 90 mm macro lens at f/10 the depth of field is only 0.12 inch. One shot alone would only have one lonely drop of water in focus. I started with the front of the Orchid in focus and took one shot. I then adjusted the rail a little at a time to move the focus point back into the throat. I took 14 shots to get about 1 inch of total depth. You can see that the back is out of focus but all of the lip is sharp. (Maybe I should have taken more shots?) I opened all the images in Helicon Focus software which combined only the areas in focus into one final sharp image. (This usually goes smoothly but for this shot I spent at least 6 hours tweaking the results. I really wanted this one!) Using a rail to adjust the focus instead of the lens focus ring made for a more constant image size between slices. I brought the image back into Lightroom and made final cropping and Vibrance adjustments.

I took over 600 shots that day in June 2015 and spent over four days processing them. All with the same setup. I have 5 finish photos that qualify as art. The one above is my favorite. The other four follow. Which do you like best?

1.3 sec, f/10, ISO 100

1/10 sec, f/3.5, ISO 100

0.4 sec, f/10, ISO 100

15 sec, f/32, ISO 100

A fifth orchid shot in 2007 follows

The resolution is too low to print but it is a pretty shot. Okay for a post card.

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When I look at the waterfall below I see the technical details that went into it and I am pleased with the results. I like the way my eye is drawn into the scene, how the vibrance makes the image jump off the screen; but then I feel a peacefulness, I want to walk into the Falls and feel the spray (I didn’t risk the climbing down, some people did), I feel a love for the beauty of nature, an appreciation of the beauty of our world, I am at peace.

Christine Falls is an iconic location in Mt Rainer Nt Pk. I wanted to ‘document’ it and try to create art. I used a tripod and long shutter speed to blur the water. I took several shots at different exposures to get the full dynamic range (HDR) , I took three groupings moving down the scene to get it all in (Pano), in post processing (Lightroom, Aurora HDR, and Photoshop) I combined the three exposures (HDR), Stitched the three groupings into the Pano, and added an Orton effect in Photoshop to soften the foliage and deepen the shadows. Canon 80D, 20mm (Canon EF-S 18-135mm), Aperture priority HDR bracketing 0.8 sec to 6.0 sec., f/22, ISO 100. July 7, 2018

Now the person next to me, who just walked down the steps andsnapped a picture with their cell phone, has a great picture too. The water won’t be blurred but who cares.

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This next picture is by far my favorite landscape photo. This is the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (also known as "the Grand Old Ditch" or the "C&O Canal"). Construction began in 1828 and ended in 1850. This is Lock 17 in the National Historical Park MD. I have a 20”x30” Canvas Wrap print that is absolutely beautiful (no modesty here). Printing on canvas gives a softness (no glare) that mellows the scene; it is perfect for most landscapes.

The serenity of the scene invites me to sit down and just look, and look, and look…. I could spend a few hours just looking and feeling. I can feel a breeze, hear the whisper of falls, marvel at the coating of Duckweed (Lemnoideae) just lazily moving around. I think about the 150 year old stone work.

Visually I am drawn up into soft inviting forest. The dark shadows in the forest on the right helps push me back to the brighter center. The lean of the trees and the leading line of the spillway pulls me reluctantly away from the forest, into the locks, and up into the bright sky. I think of the flow of barges coming down this bright path. (It is amazing the amount of bull you can read into something that was just a nice picture when you shot it.)

Sue and I were visiting my daughter in Oct 2015 when I took this shot. I was attracted by the soft light of a slightly overcast day giving uniform lighting to the early autumn glow. (All by accident; I take what I can get.)The original as shot picture is below. To turn this out of camera image into “Art” I used Lightroom. The image looks flat and has no punch. The main adjustments where to crop and add vibrance and clarity. I brightened the center and used a graduated filter to darken the bottom and sides to pull the eye in. I carefully added depth along the canal path by lightening and adding contrast and clarity. I used a brush to selectively sharpen the rocks so the eye can lock onto the main subject. A saw a piece of floating garbage so I cloned it out. This is the art that feed my soul.

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park MD, Lock 17. Canon 50D, 55mm (Canon EF-S 18-135mm), 1/100 sec, f/10, ISO 320

Original RAW file out of camera

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Side note: "All this thinking and typing is not my thing!" How do all you writers do it? Pam, You amaze me. I have spent three days and this is all the further I got! 4 pictures! That's all! I have over a hundred good shots from a catalog of 69865 photos. uffda

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Okay on to the next one:
The St. Louis River rapids from the swayback bridge in Jay Cooke State Park MN.

This is my second choice for ‘best of class’ in the landscape category. I love how the water flows. The rocks are tack sharp and their crisp texture complements the bleakness of the sky. The warmth of the forest promises some shelter from the raging river and the storm.

It is the post processing and presentation that make this picture so striking. In Lightroom I created the HDR and then played all my games in image enhancement: crop; sky enhancements; trees/center brightness, clarity, some contrast; sharpen the rocks and this time the trees too; soften the water and clouds; and clone out imperfections.

This picture borders on the side of too much vividness. It is kind of unreal looking on the screen. But when I printed it out it just jumped off the print at me. I printed this on 16” x 24” metal. The polished aluminum has less ink in the brighter portions. More incident light is reflected off these areas making the image “shine”. As you move around and the light source moves the water dances and flows. You can’t see this on a computer display but you should see it in person. I get tingles when I look at it. (Okay, I hear you, get a life Dick.)

Below is the original out of camera. One of many exposure brackets. The original is flat (it was raining) and dull. Note the little person on rock at left background, the big "gubber" on my lens right center over the rapids, and the dark shadow of my ND filter in the upper right corner. The person wouldn't move in over 30 mins of shooting. I really should have seen the rain drop on my filter; I was ticked when I got home and saw it! All of these had to be fixed in post processing.

Canon 50D, 18mm (Canon EF-S 18-135mm), Aperture priority HDR bracketing 0.4 sec to 1/20 sec., f/16, ISO 100. 2x ND filter used to get slower aperture to add slight blur to water. Tripod used.

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This is another iconic picture of downtown Minneapolis. The streaks of tail and head lights point to the awaking city. Their leading lines pull you into its heart. I like the balance of tonality. The softness is the calm before the morning meetings start. Right now it is peaceful. I can smell the coffee brewing.

Canon 80D, 47mm (Canon EF-S 18-135mm), 25 sec, f/22, ISO 100.

Evan and I got up at 4:00 am on July 18, 2017. We wanted the catch the streaming tail lights of the morning traffic (25 sec exposure) and then we waited around for the sun to cast some light on the buildings to give depth to the image. This “Golden Hour” lighting changes minute by minute; the perfect shot is very fleeting. This was taken from the old 24^th Street Pedestrian Bridge over 35W. The new bridge will be much lower and not as dramatic.

I combined the car trails from 4 or 5 exposure in Photoshop to compensate for the low flow of traffic that morning. I played with the normal enhancements of shadows, highlights, tonality and color in Lightroom. I used Nik software to add selective lens flare to the street lights. I used masking in Photoshop to limit it to just the street lights.

I think of Urban Photography as another type of landscape. Many of the same techniques apply with the addition of frequently shooting in much lower light. A tripod is a must

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This next shot is my favorite Portrait. This lovely lady was in the Qaxaca open market. She looks so peaceful. I can see the wisdom in her face. Her gentle smile is welcoming me to find out who she is. What is her story? How did she get to such a place of profound peacefulness? I want to sit down and have a cup of coffee with her, but I don’t speak her language. Yet we connected.

Feb 22, 2017 Canon 80D, 18mm (Canon EF-S 18-135mm), Aperture priority 1/640 sec., f/5.0, ISO 800

I love the way the light plays on her face. The dark background on the left side and the angled pose makes this picture. SHE makes the picture! I first see her eyes (the eyes should be main focal point of any portrait). Then I look at her smile and her knowledge lines radiating out. I see her traditional apron. I notice her braid over her shoulder. I always come back to her beautiful face.

At the large farmer market in Oaxaca, the garbage is accumulates, and trucks, men with shovels and brooms move it around. The stack was steaming on this hot day. And it had the typical garbage smell. I first saw two dogs sniffing around and digging through it. Then two ladies joined the dogs. (I was told they were pulling out plastic). I wonder what it is like to have this as a way of life…

Feb 22, 2017 Canon 80D, 47mm (Canon EF-S 18-135mm), Aperture priority 1/640 sec., f/10, ISO 125.

I processed this in black and white to drive the starkness. I find B & W the preferred way to show Urban/Street photography.

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We take a lot of mushroom pictures. This is the most pleasing. The poisonous Fly Agaric mushroom has such a lovely yellow orange glow. The bumps on the cap give it character. I like the way the mushroom is slightly off center. The green moss is a complementary color that makes both colors pop off the page. I like the smooth spot on the cap, it draws me to it every time. I like the way the focus grows softer as you move deeper into the background.

This mushroom popped up right next to our camper. I took my time with this set up. I had to drop my tripod down to the ground level. The camera was hanging upside-down. I was laying down with twigs and brush poking me. I composed and recomposed (and maybe decomposed). I carefully focused (I nailed it, the image is tack sharp!). I set up a 30" diffuser to soften the light. I tripped the cable release (several times with minute changes). I got up and opened a beer.