White Orchid. Nikon D200. Micro-Nikkor 180 mm. 1/180 sec f/3.5 @ ISO 250. With ring flash on lens. June 2013. Copyright 2013 Joanne Mason.
Here is an image from some work indoors. The orchid is a phalaenopsis, also known as a “moth orchid.” These are in abundant supply in the shops nowadays. The phalaenopsis is a very large species, native to southeastern and oceanic Asia, and cultivators have now produced many hybrids.
Posted in Flowers, Photography
Tagged closeup, Flowers, moth orchid, orchids, phalaenopsis, Photography, white
Branches. Fuji X100. 23 mm 1/640 sec f/2 @ ISO 400. June 2013. Copyright 2013 Joanne Mason.
I was attracted to these branches and the late afternoon lighting: They looked a bit like wings taking flight. I see the final image as more of a study of pure texture and pattern. But then nature is everywhere imbued with texture and pattern. (Click for larger: Image looks better in larger size.)
Posted in Nature, Photography
Tagged Black and White Photography, evergreen branches, pattern, Photography, texture, tree, X100
Stand on 44th. Fuji X100. 23 mm. 1/125 sec f/16 @ ISO 2000. June 2013. Copyright 2013 Joanne Mason.
Some color … This street vendor’s stand was on East 44th St in New York City. There’s a plethora of these stands, seemingly at every corner in midtown.
Posted in Photography, Urban Scenes
Tagged caps, colors, New York City, pashmina, Photography, street corner stand, street vendor, sunglasses, X100
Eliot Porter. Blue-throated Hummingbird, Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona, May 1959 [Lampornis clemenciae]. 1959. Dye transfer print, 9 5/16 x 7 3/4″ (23.7 x 19.6 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of David H. McAlpin. © 1990 Amon Carter Museum of American Art
These are wonderful images. All of them were captured in the wild. Some of the images look more like fantastic paintings of birds in striking poses, but all are natural. Porter’s technique, shooting to Kodachrome with a large format view camera, is also remarkable, particularly capturing birds in flight in the days before fast digital photography. According to Donnelly, Porter “had to wait for hours for a bird to come to him. ‘He would stare at trees for an impossible amount of human time,’ says Donnelly … He was obsessed with the microscopic and the universal at once, ideas of chaos and infinity.”(*)
MOMA’s website on the Artist’s Choice series is here. A good review with an excellent selection of images was done by NPR and is here. More information on Eliot Porter here.
The exhibit continues to July 28, 2013.
Posted in Nature, Other Photographers, Photo News, Reviews
Tagged birds, Eliot Porter, MOMA, Museum of Modern Art, nature, nature photography, Trisha Donnelly
Henry Moore with Bystander. Fuji X100. 23 mm. 1/1000 sec f/2 @ ISO 400. June 2013. Copyright 2013 Joanne Mason.
This magnificent Henry Moore is at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in the sculpture garden. I suppose technically the “bystander” is a “sitter”. The juxtaposition of poses and scale, along with the empty chair, said something to me. The sculpture is “Family Group” from 1948-1949. (More on Henry Moore at MOMA here. More on Henry Moore here.)
Posted in Photography
Tagged Family Group, Henry Moore, MOMA, Museum of Modern Art, Photography, sculpture
Stairs. Fuji X100. 23 mm. 1/125 sec f/2 @ ISO 500. June 2013. Copyright 2013 Joanne Mason.
Shifting gears somewhat, beginning a new series of images… This was shot at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). We see the actions of others, going down and going up, only through a window at a distance. In a sense, the human forms are an integral and yet minor aspect of the image. I also like this as a pure composition, the interplay of light and shadow, vertical/horizontal and diagonal lines.
Posted in Abstract, Architectural, Photography
Tagged composition, diagonal & vertical, light and shadow, lines, MOMA, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, Photography, stairs, steps
Pastoral. Fuji X100. 23 mm. 1/640 sec f/8 @ ISO 800. June 2013. Copyright 2013 Joanne Mason.
When the surge of spring blooming is over, but before the heat of summer starts the leaves on the plants and trees on their inexorable cycle of wilting and eventually dying, there is a lush and rich fertile green and a fulfilling peacefulness to the land that makes it seem as if this timeless moment will go on forever like it is now.
It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart. ―
who knows if the moon’s
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky–filled with pretty people?
( and if you and I shouldget into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we’d go up higher with all the pretty peoplethan houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody’s ever visited,wherealways
it’s
Spring)and everyone’s
in love and flowers pick themselves
Posted in Landscape, Nature, Photography
Tagged Bruce Park, Cummings, e.e.cummings, green, greenwich connecticut, park, Photography, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke, Spring, trees
