Infrared for Urban photography

This time I tried infrared photos for urban photography, and the result is pretty good, I guess. The day I took was nice sunny day and a lot of lights, so this photo was taken for a handheld. The top photo is taken by the same camera, converted by Lightroom with “B&W orange filter”. The bottom one is infrared.  I adjusted contrast.

B&W orange filter - Vancouver

New years day of Vancouver - Infrered

 

Infrared one has very dramatic sky.  On the other hand, buildings of the regular B&W show more details.

I am not surprised if someone said he or she does not like infrared photography. It is fun to play with. IR photography characteristically achieves high contrast and dramatic images. But it is not magic tool. There are suitable subjects and light conditions for IR photography. Sunny day lights and interesting cloud patterns do not go wrong most of the times.

Related Post:Infrared Photography

The photo stuck in my head – Nature of the photographer

Yesterday, I wrote about photography and paintings, and I mentioned about difficulty to bring up emotions to art form from artists’ own souls.      

I have one photo which gave me extremely strong impact. It is one of Annie Leibovitz’s photos. She is famous for her celebrity photographies. If I am correct, she is the last photographer who had a photo session with John Lennon before only hours of his death. Also she captured the moment John was signing his autography to Mark Chapman.    

The photo was the death of Annie Leibovits’s partner, published in her book “Photographer’s life”. After publishing this photos, she was criticized from points of view of moral, ethics and, at the first place, publishing death photography.

I found this photo while I was killing time in Chapters book store, and since then this photo stuck somewhere in my head. I did not know about Annie Leibovits at that time, though. I was quite shocked by her nature as a photographer. Can you imagine she still pointed a camera to her closest person at the moment of her death?  Further more, she completed the image as an art form. The image is obviously not a snap shot. It must be unbelievablly hard thing to do, mustn’t it?

Yes, photography is reflection of external subjects. But at the same reflaction of the photographers, themselves. Sometimes , it requires a painful journey to unconsciousness part. I believe art is supposed to be. Well …I do not have to worry about this question…because I am so far from this level:-(

Related Post: Consideration of differences b/w paintings and photography – influenced by Katie Selbee’s gallery show

Consideration of differences b/w paintings and photography – influenced by Katie Selbee’s gallery show

This weekend, Calgary area is pretty beautiful and I usually go to mountains or prairie on weekends, but I stayed in Calgary this time because I wanted to go to opening gala for the new show at the Resolution Local Art Gallery in Calgary, Alberta. This time is breath-taking drawings by Katie Selbee.

Her drawings are deep, powerful, but delicate…. I do not know how to describe about her art. They have strongly introvert feeling and you cannot believe they are created by the  early twenties, young lady. They are also intellectual approached works. I’ve got long-lasting impact from her work, and I have been thinking if what I am doing, so-called art, has (will have) such influences to the people.  

We, human being are obtained a privilege to have artistic mind, and people pick up tools for the creative activities. Some people choose pens and canvas, some pick guitar. For other people, video cameras are choices and in my case, it is photography at this point. As a characteristic of the photography, photographers need to borrow  images from external environments, and we make efforts to express some sort of feeling with the images. Hopefully, the image will communicate with audiences and evoke similar emotions. Sometimes audiences can see personality or background of the photographers. That is truly successful image. But cameras are not ideal tools to express pure, naked and honest emotions from inside of artists themselves. I imagine it must be challenging process for painting artists to create painting from a scratch without any blue prints. But its freedom is something photographers can never buy. And the art form communicate with audiences more directly and effectively. Sometimes they make us uncomfortable because they stick deep inside of myself. 

Some of photographer may disagree with my findings…how everybody think? I would like to hear more opinions

Back to Katie’s art, I appreciate that she shares her psychological and philosophical  journey with us. I imagine her creation process must be not only fun but also difficult for some part.

Sports Photography – Mountain bike

I have been posting nature photos but I like portraits as well. This is one of the photos for a client work. We had a photo session at the Calgary Olympic Park, and had a quite good time until sunset. I submitted this photo to the camera club sports competition, and I got the 2nd position.

I was lying down on ground and used flash light with diffuser. To be honest, before I achieved this shot, so many attempts were made and every time it did not go well, this boy climb up the hill again and again. My Ultrawide Heliar 12mm lens gave me not only very sharp but also a dramatic image.