Portraiture

"American Patriot"

I have gotten into watching Ovation TV (channel 274 on the Dish Network). Ovation TV covers art, creative design, and photography.

In particular, the channel has some great pieces on photography. There is one "must see" piece called "The Eloquent Nude" on Edward Weston. I learned so much about Weston's life and loved seeing Weston and Ansel Adams carry around 4x5 cameras with their boxes of sheet film.

While watching one photography series on Ovation, I was struck by a piece on Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and his portraiture. The segment showed photographers behind the scenes and exclusive interviews on how they go about their work. Timothy's portraiture is done with an 8x10 view camera and one light. Timothy learned his lighting techniques from Alfred Hitchcock and Hitchcock's lighting director. Not bad teachers! The set up and Greenfield-Sanders technique is very simple but the finished product is stunning.

You can find Timothy Greenfield-Sanders work at http://www.greenfield-sanders.com/

Today's photograph is called "American Patriot" and is taken of a young man from our church who joined the Marines. I wanted the image to be a simple portrait, simple lighting, but yet dramatic. Like Greenfield-Sanders, the pose, the expression, the lighting is all very simple but yet creates a mood and emotion of the subject. I think the portrait evokes an emotion of toughness, sternness, and hardness of a Marine while being in dress uniform.

This portrait had very special meaning to me personally. Kyle, the Marine in the photograph, is someone I have known for most of the past decade as he grew up. Kyle's parents are very good friends. When I took this portrait, Kyle was about to be deployed to Iraq. I had this fear that this portrait would be one of the last photographs taken of him and he would not return from Iraq alive. Fortunately, our prayers where answered as Kyle has returned home and is finishing up his last days as a Marine.

Portraits and those photographs you take of family and friends have such lasting value. It is as if you capture a person's soul as of a point in time. The person will never go back to being the same person at the point that photograph was taken.

Do you have photographs that have this kind of meaning? Who are they of and what do they represent to you?

Cheers,
Dale

A Generational Affair

As a kid, I wished I paid more attention to my father.

My father was not educated beyond high school but he knew how to fix and build things. My version of fixing things is to tell my wife, Joy, to "call somebody."

My father would try to show me how to do mechanical repairs, electrical or woodworking projects. I never had the time of day for it, thus that intelligence never passed to me. However, while I would never hang around while my father built things for me, I do remember the excitement I felt when it was done. My father made me some really cool stuff. I had the best go-kart in the neighborhood!

Is an older generation making or repairing things for a younger generation universal? Global?

I captured the images above on one of my trips to China in a small village outside of Shanghai. My Chinese driver and friend, Billy, knows I like to go to places off the beaten path to capture photographs of the sites and people of "real" China, not the tourist sites of metropolitan Shanghai (although I have done plenty of that too!).

This little village is called Qibao.

As I walked down the streets of Qibao, I came across this grandpa and father fixing a flat tire on a bike for their two little boys. As grandpa pumped up the tire and father made the final adjustments, the two little boys looked on in anticipation of being able to ride their bike.

I stopped and took many photographs of this generational affair. My presence just heightened the delight and importance for the two boys; a "foreigner" is taking pictures of us! As I took my photographs, a large crowd of locals began to gather around me. This just created even more excitement.

My Chinese is "yi dian", or "very little", so the family or the crowd and I could not communicate verbally but the smiles and energy of my audience said it all. Everyone would erupt with laughter when I would take a few photographs and then show them my digital captures from the back of my camera.

In the end, the boys' bike was fixed by grandpa and father. Now the boys could ride! And ride they did…………to show off for the "foreigner" with the camera!

Do you remember your father, your mother, or one of your grandparents teaching you life skills when you were a child? I hope you didn't blow them off like I did and learned something!

Cheers,
Dale

Oregon Coast

I am going back to my Oregon theme today. I took heat for my previous blog post on Oregon (see "Five Truths About Oregon" posted on March 30th). While my previous post was written with "tongue in cheek" humor, I was poking a little fun at Oregon and Oregonians. However, those Oregonians take Oregon jokes very personally.

Today's blog post is to portray the beauty of Oregon. My photograph is an early evening capture at Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast. The sun was setting (though you can never actually see the sun setting in Oregon behind the clouds…..oppps, there I go again!) and there was a slight mist in the air (like there always is in Oregon……oh, slack my hand, I just can't help myself!). The natural colors were not very inviting or dramatic so I planned to put this into black and white when I took the image.

Most of my post-processing was done in Adobe Lightroom with some finishing touches in Adobe CS3 Photoshop. The key post-processing step I took with this capture was to run the "clarity" slider way down to give the image a very soft look. The softness really emphasized the evening light and ever-present mist in the air. I was really pleased with the final result.

I also printed this image on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Photo Rag Satin paper with my Epson R2400 printer. The final print looks spectacular and am looking forward to mounting, matting, and framing the image with a very professional, exhibition quality look.

A few more images like this one and I will need to find someone interested in sponsoring and providing a location for a photographic exhibition. Any offers?

Go visit Cannon Beach, OR. It is a spectacular place and the community is delightful.

Cheers,
Dale

In Flight

In my day job, I have traveled extensively. At times, I have traveled up to 50% of the time, traveled to many places around the world, and lived in China and India for a brief period. I love to travel to exotic and interesting places. And of course, I bring my camera with me.

Things have changed these days. My career is in transition and I do not travel anywhere to the extent I used to in the past. In fact, I rarely travel now.

However, this past week I had to make a short trip to San Jose, CA. The trip was for business but also allowed me to connect with Kathy Waite, Waite Associates and Adobe, and a high school friend, Cindy Emond Fay, that I hadn't seen in over 33 years. Cindy and I got reconnected on Facebook about a year ago. It was great to see both face-to-face and visit with them for a while.

It is always great to connect with friends and colleagues and my blog post is to share the photographic inspiration I receive from other people.

I met and heard Jay Maisel at NAPP's Photoshop World in Las Vegas in September, 2008. It was the first Photoshop World I have ever attended. It was an awesome event. See my guest blog post regarding Photoshop World at my good friend, Rich Legg's, blog at http://www.leggnet.com/2008/09/photoshop-world-recap-by-dale-welcome.html

Jay's work is inspiring and his words of wisdom are equally so. Read Jay's guest blog post on Scott Kelby's blog http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2009/archives/3814 . Jay's website can be found at http://jaymaisel.com/ . At Photoshop World, Jay left me with several thoughts:
- You cannot take photographs unless you carry your camera with you - take it with you everywhere
- The best photographs are right behind you - turn around
- Give yourself personal photographic assignment challenges

Jay's words have stuck with me to this day.

The second person that inspired me was Julieanne Kost, Adobe's Chief Photoshop Evangelist. Julieanne's images are amazing and she is also a terrific teacher. I can see why Adobe made her their chief Photoshop evangelist.

You can find Julieanne at http://www.jkost.com/ and http://www.jkost.net/ . Check out her work.

Now, here is the connection with traveling, Jay Maisel and Julieanne Kost. Julieanne has done a series of images taken from the seat of the many, many planes she has been on in her extensive travels. Her book of these images, Windows, is worth checking out. Jay Maisel has inspired me to take my camera everywhere, look behind me and challenge myself photographically. Julieanne's idea of taking photographs from her seat on the plane out the window is a view of the world I had never thought of. I love the great ideas other people have and wish I could think of those things.

My photograph above, In Flight, was taken out of the plane window on my recent trip to California. Normally I get on a plane, turn on my iPod and fall asleep. Now, I get on a plane, turn on my iPod and look out the window. I used to always get an aisle seat. Now I always take the window seat. I took this photograph because I had my camera with me and I looked out the window.

Thank you Jay and Julieanne!

Cheers,
Dale