Farming

This is about the farming, versus the hunting style of collecting a menagerie of cherished images 'image-cherie'. Usually I grab my camera and head out with my two pups on lead intent on capturing whatever captivates my eyes and spirit with little forethought, certainly minimal planning. Only on a few occasions did I attempt the farming style of image construction. For the first time ever in 2007 inspired by a flickr assignment I took on in total privacy, out of sheer curiosity. I chose a favorite object of mine found on Fire Island several decades ago, my 'Schneggehuus', which became my talisman and my spirit helper in finding a home of my own, first in New York City and later in the City Different.

I placed the object simply on a black plate on a table and started to aim my camera. The light from the above window proved to be a challenge, so I submerged my snail house inside a clear glass bowl filled with water which I placed outside, on a tiny mirror under a blue sky and this is one of the results:

Yesterday inspired by the attention a reprocessed image got on flickr, it made Explore, I took it on to finally give it another try with that favorite shell of mine. Something I had been meaning to do for years. I dragged my big oval mirror out in the yard on the table and placed my shell on the mirror under a blue sky. This is an Ortonized, intensified, or sugar coated version:

It was a challenge to keep out all that did not belong in the image, such as yard stuff, walls, overhanging branches, white tracks of airplanes on a mostly blue sky reflected in the mirror, all in a small confined space with not too much room to move.

By late afternoon the sky had turned gray and I thought I should give it another try, now with the light coming from the other direction. No longer intent on capturing the white shell against a blue sky I felt free to move in very close and this is the macro got: