The making of an editorial still-life

As most posts require the accompaniment of images, either for demonstration or simply enhancement to ones words, achieving that photograph can be a work of art in itself. With the recent post to a Cats Golden Years, an image was needed to illustrate several of my notebooks being used for the Family Secrets Revisited project.

It may seem like a straight forward assignment to take a photograph of a notebook, but to make it more interesting, means creating an environment that not only looks real, but also feels natural.

Image shows two fill-cards to bounce light back onto the set

Apart from pulling together the elements and background props with which to compose a mini set, a stage that not only re-creates a personal environment, but also evokes an emotion, a mood in the visiting viewer, thereby bridging the authors words with the reader/visitor.

The following several photographs show a set assembled on a large table near a window with northern light exposure, as this has become my favorite method of photographing, even though I have studio flash lighting equipment.

Whenever I need a still-life type photograph, I approach the project the same way as if I were painting a scene, setting up first the easel to establish a point of view. In photography, I use a tripod with which to set up my point of view. While using the camera’s view finder, I begin placing the elements on the table, adding, removing, putting back into the frame an element, building the set.

During the first phase of building the set, I will also be fine tuning the tripods position, height and angle to achieve the desired composition, while in phase two the main focus is in building the set and how it appears through the viewfinder.

An open case for reading glasses on the lower left side, helps to keep upright the cover

of a book acting as a gobo to block of window light from a portion of the set

Phase three is controlling and adjusting the lighting, using a gobo to block of any light where it is not wanted and using a fill card or a reflector to add more light back into the set, making shadows not only lighter but also more gradual, while giving a little punch of light to other areas.

When you think you have everything in place, we enter phase four. It is now time to take several different exposures, some that are normal and a little over, including varying the ƒ-stop to change the focal point of the photograph.

Since having added the iPhone 4S smartphone’s camera to my arsenal for taking pictures, the Nikon D70 is still my main workhorse, the iPhone 4S allows me to do things with ease, especially experiment with different angles and points of view in tight surroundings, as is evident in these images here. 

          

Alternative I — iPhone camera                          Alternative II — iPhone camera

Phase five is editing the selection of images to a handful and optimizing their appearance in programs like PhotoShop and making our final selection. The final process can be the most difficult, as I finally settled for the Nikon version, though I prefer the iPhone's iPhoneography image. In the end, one needs to approach the selection process from an editor’s editorial point of view.

Editorial version — Nikon camera

My favorite version — iPhone camera

It was a close, gut wrenching call between the two.

Thank you for your visit

and comment . . .

Egmont

As one chapter closes, another one opens

Last Tuesday I gave a presentation on blogging to the East Bay Artists Guild. It was in regards to how artists and photographers can utilize this method of marketing over just having a website with static pages. Especially now that blogs in general are undergoing a transformation from just being journals to being a blend of website pages and journals.

The presentation was to be only ninety minutes, but with a wonderful and engaging audience it ended up being three hours, even then I could have continued for much longer and as you can see by the photographs, I was enjoying myself.

 

August 17, Pleasant Hill Community Center

On another bright note is that the last four months of cardiac rehab has come to an end, as I attended my last class, yet I am still not out of the woods. Though I have my 20-24 hours per week back, there is plenty to catch up around the house, while also maintaining an aerobics program so not to lose what I have gained. In the meantime we are also in the process to see if the insurance will pay for another four weeks of cardiac rehab but that may take a while. Never the less, for the next couple of months I plan to set aside time for visiting blogs and commenting, maybe even writing a post now and then.

Blogging and to follow ones heart

June 10^th I started this blog and though it has not been two months, I see by the statistics that the average visit is about 50 seconds, with the shortest time recorder at less than 5 seconds, and the longest being 14 minutes and 23 seconds. I have also studied from where my traffic is coming, including how a visitor has found Four Seasons in a Life, was through a notice on FaceBook, a referral from Twitter, or did it come from a link at a friends site?

Once all the nerdy statistics are absorbed, the realization begins to sink in that in our busy lives we seem to settle for glancing at images and maybe reading a few lines before moving on to the next blog or Twitter post, at least so it seems.

I am a newbie, so why am I gripping about or am I?

Every evening for more than a month I have spent randomly looking at blogs to see what is out there and to also educate myself, when I realized there are only four kinds of blogs, the business blog that wishes to inform, sell and have a better relationship with the consumer, this includes blogs of private organizations and groups, to the family blog sharing pictures and adventures of their children with grandparents and other families and friends.

The other kind of blog is by individuals how are very passionate about their profession or hobby, sharing their love and expertise with us. The last group belongs to those who think they have something to say but really are just rambling on about anything that comes to their mind.

Which of the four types does my blog belong to? Let me be honest and say that as I stride for category three, the passionate professional, I have a long way to go and so it must be category four.

The problem is that I have too many interests. From painting, photography, collecting ephemeral objects to wanting to write stories and up to now, I have not discovered the right mix to express what lies within my heart. This is further complicated by the statistics collected from both of my blogs, including my own observations that most blogs have short entrees, followed by a couple of images.

So have we settled for snippets of information sprinkled with photographs? I cannot answer that, nor shall I, even if I could, why should I answer this question for you? Everyone who has a blog needs to follow what he or she believes in is right for them, not what appears to be the norm. If we begin to follow what everyone else does, we are settling for less and we might as well just not even bother.