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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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. ―

Rainer Maria Rilke

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 should

get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we’d go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody’s ever visited,where

always
it’s
Spring)and everyone’s
in love and flowers pick themselves

E.E. Cummings, Collected Poems

Lilies. Nikon D200. 70-210 mm f2.8 Nikkor. 200 mm. ISO 320. 1/8 sec at f/2.8. Copyright 2013 Joanne Mason.

I’m doing a lot of work in black and white these days. This is a reprocessed image in black and white with toning. The original color image was posted here on May 10, 2013. Both the color and black and white versions are high key images, the black and white just barely; I had to be careful adding contrast to the black and white. The color image has a certain dreamy and wistful appearance; the black and white retains this dreamy sense but in more of a shadowy style.

Creative Black & White is a great book for all from beginners to experienced enthusiasts, students and semi-pro photographers. The book is divided in three parts. The first part discusses black and white photography and vision in general. Included are such topics as how to look for good black and white images, what makes a subject good for black and white processing, and composition in black and white. It’s in an easy conversational style but packed with information and tips and prolifically illustrated.

Part 2 approaches the techniques of post processing black and white. This is thorough and informative. Although there is substantive material on processing with Lightroom, Nik tools, and ACR (Adobe Camera Raw), the majority of this is best suited to work with Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements). All the techniques are described in an illustrated step-by-step manner. Part 3 is all about approaches and methods to achieve creative effects. The sections on technique are notable: It’s not just technique but also a discussion of when a particular approach is appropriate, and it continually relates back to the first section on vision.

Creative Black and White: Digital Photography Tips and Techniques. Highly recommended. I’m learning a lot from this book.

A prolific author, Harold Davis has published over a dozen books on photography since 2008. I find it very easy to get to like his writing style. Equally adept with both color and black and white, Davis is one of today’s leading photographers. Here is Harold Davis’s website.

Red Barn. Fuji X100. 23 mm. 1/550 sec f/8.0 @ ISO 800. May 2013. Copyright 2013 Joanne Mason.

The contrast of the barn red and the trees and foliage green was striking in this scene. I must go back and shoot more of this red barn. (Post processing on the iPad with Photogene, a new photo editing app I’m trying out – Kind of slow, but lots of power built into it.)