in visible light» Blog

And the bush burned unconsumed

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 17:02:36 +0000

Moments before dawn in the French countryside. The ground still frozen, not yet touched by the ball of fire that will soon ascend over the horizon. In this frozen moment, the fire itself seems to emanate from a leafless tree, conjuring primal memories of another tree in a desert, and an encounter with a force beyond what is knowable.

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Post tags: dawn, France, sunrise, tree

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Tide flats

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 29 May 2012 15:44:21 +0000

Tide flats – where earth, sky, and water meet. The ocean echoes the color of the sky as it paints lines across the sand.

This series comprises four variations of the same image. I’m working on the first one as a stand-alone. (It will definitely require several test prints to get the tones just right.) A slight overadjustment in Lightroom led to some interesting, if unintended, effects. So I decided to run with that and see where it would lead. The sequence still needs some fine-tuning, but I think I’m on to something…

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Post tags: France, Mont Saint-Michel, ocean, sky, tide flats, water

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Cutting room floor

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:47:10 +0000

Here are the remaining images that didn’t make it into the May abstract show. Which turns out well in the long run – since they won’t be on the walls at Avanti, they can be anchor tenants at my booth at the Madrona street fair.

I decided to give all these images a more informal treatment, as opposed to matting and framing them. Instead, I varnished them with a matte coating to protect against UV and other damage, mounted them to gallery board that’s 1-1/2″ deep, and put a hanging wire on the back. A teeny bit labor intensive but fun to put together, and I think they look pretty swell.(...)
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Color and shape

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:01:50 +0000

I wound up preparing 16 images for the May abstract show, only to discover there would be room for at most ten of them. There was no question in my mind that the two sets of images I’d posted previously (fresnels and piano) would be part of the show. So much for my conscious effort to create bodies of work as opposed to one-off images… But there were two photos that kinda sorta could stand on their own and still work with the rest.(...)
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Tickled by the ivories

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:27:07 +0000

Here’s the next set of images that will be on display at Avanti Art & Design during the month of May. (In case you missed the first set, you can find them here.)

This was a perfect example of being in the right place at the right time and picking up the closest ~~phone~~ camera at hand. The clouds had cleared at just the right time and crystal clear sunlight flooded through the window and danced on the piano keys. An hour earlier or later and the angle of light would have been useless (from the piano’s point of view). I used my new macro toy for the close-ups.(...)
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Post tags: abstract, black and white, piano

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To the lighthouse

Shelly F Cohen — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:03:06 +0000

I’m getting ready for an abstract show that’s opening in a couple weeks, deciding which images to include and getting them ready to hang.

I was ~~appalled~~ pleasantly surprised to realize that every single one of the dozen or so images under consideration was taken with that other camera – the one with the ringtone.

For this first set of images, the reason was simply that I wasn’t carrying that big, bulky DSLR (which, don’t get me wrong, I love dearly). I wish I’d had a chance to go back and re-shoot these, but I’m not sure I could have done much better really.(...)
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Post tags: abstract, fresnel, lighthouse

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Animal, vegetable, or …?

Shelly F Cohen — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 04:04:50 +0000

I’ve been experimenting with a new toy: a macro lens that fits on my smartphone. High-tech meets low-tech for some spectacular results!

I’m in the midst of processing images for an upcoming show (details to follow) and couldn’t resist posting this one just for fun. Anyone wanna guess what planet this poodle came from?(...)
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Le chanson des vieilles amantes

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:33:23 +0000

There’s something magical about these two trees, off by themselves in a field in the French countryside. It was late February, and the ground was frosty in the early morning. The pale light washed out most of the color that would be apparent later in the day, so I ran with that and took this image to black and white. (It looks great printed on my new favorite paper, Moab Slickrock.)

I took many photos of that field morning, noon, and evening – and still need to work on most of them. Watching these trees from the clear dawn until the end of day, it was obvious what the title of the image should be.(...)
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Post tags: field, France, tree, winter

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More fun with light

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:00:02 +0000

I spent a couple days near the mouth of the Columbia River learning about the travels of Lewis and Clark. Luckily, our expedition was blessed with bright sunshine, not the “rain as usual” that plagued those weary travelers two centuries ago.

The interpretive center at Cape Disappointment has, in addition to an extensive exhibit on the Lewis and Clark expedition, an old fresnel lens from the lighthouse there. (You can even see cracks and chips in the glass from all the years it stood exposed to the elements.)

For someone like me who likes to play with light, a fresnel lens is a veritable playground.(...)
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Post tags: Cape Disappointment, fresnel, lighthouse

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Starting the new year bright

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:19:42 +0000

New Year’s Day in Seattle was unseasonably sunny and warm – a good omen for 2012?

In any event, I did my best to start the year off right by taking a few photos.

There may be moss growing on the backyard fence, but there’s none growing on the camera at the moment.(...)
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Post tags: moss, plant, Seattle

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Whispers of the seasons

Shelly F Cohen — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 22:58:10 +0000

A fall day with no rain, over Thanksgiving weekend – perfect time for a walk around the neighborhood with the camera. (The real one, not the one with the ringtone.)(...)
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Baby, it’s cold outside

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 02:41:33 +0000

Once again, the camera I have with me (the one with the ringtone) displays numerous advantages over the SLR in its case at home. Aside from proximity, the shorter focal length on the smartphone camera has the advantage of a wider angle than the 18-200mm zoom lens on the SLR.(...)
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Post tags: autumn, fall, leaf, tree

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Can you hear me now?

Shelly F Cohen — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 00:15:46 +0000

What’s the best camera for a specific shot? Odds are it’s the one you have with you. By which I mean that a state-of-the-art 24 megapixel DSLR with bells, whistles, and an impossibly sharp 18-500mm f1.4 lens (if such a creature existed) does you no good if it’s sitting in its case at home.(...)
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Post tags: echinacea, flower, smartphone

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A long dry spell

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 23:31:49 +0000

Whew – it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything, hasn’t it? I’ve been way too busy too shoot, but even so there’s a huge backlog of raw files crying out for processing.

This image has been sitting around almost exactly a year, since my trip to Israel last November. It was taken in the ancient town of Safed, perched on a hill in the Galilee,(...)
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Post tags: abandoned, bed, Israel, Safed

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You’re getting warmer

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:49:47 +0000

I’m increasingly drawn to creating abstract images. Not only are they interesting in their own right, but moving away from representational work allows me to be a little freer with artistic interpretation as well.

The image below is a reflection of a retaining wall on the surface of Lake Washington.(...)
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Post tags: abstract, reflection, water, white balance

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Evolution of flight

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 01:52:04 +0000

At the Museum of Flight a couple months ago I was primarily looking for images I could use for the an upcoming show, but that didn’t stop me from photographing anything and everything else that caught my eye.

The base image here is part of the wing of a turn-of-the-last-century glider.(...)
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Post tags: evolution, flight, hand, wing

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More from the garden tour

Shelly F Cohen — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 01:46:54 +0000

I’ve got a couple other projects in the works but nothing ready to show yet, so I thought I’d post a couple more photos from the garden tour.

I like working with shallow depth of field when I shoot flowers. The risk is that I don’t actually get the right part of the flower in focus. I’m quite pleased with the way these two turned out.(...)
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Post tags: bokeh, flower, plant

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Trumpet flower

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 02:15:34 +0000

A garden tour and a sunny day are a perfect combination for doing some warm-up exercises. Oooh, the flowers are so pretty! The challenge is to find something different, something more interesting than, say, the picture on the front of a seed packet.

This trumpet flower was showy and glowing in the sunlight and almost big enough to climb into.(...)
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Split-level house

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 23:57:30 +0000

Sometimes I feel like a magpie – I just can’t resist shiny things. Rather than take them back to my nest, though, I’ll circle round and look for interesting reflections.

In the universe of shiny things, brand new clean cars (in dark colors) are among the best. The curved surfaces provide endless distortions; glass and metal and fiberglass each add different tones and qualities to the image.(...)
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Post tags: architecture, reflection

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Let there be…

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:53:56 +0000

(...)
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Post tags: light, Museum of Flight, Seattle

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Compact duck

Shelly F Cohen — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 01:58:08 +0000

There’s a duck pond not far from my house, close enough to a bus stop that the denizens are quite used to human companionship. (Each spring the new crop of ducklings ensures there will be plenty of visitors from throughout the neighborhood.)

It was nap time when I wandered by. This little guy was keeping an eye on me, but that still wasn’t going to keep him from his nap.(...)
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Moon jellies

Shelly F Cohen — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 03:58:09 +0000

I finally had a chance to do something I’ve wanted to do for the longest time: go to the Seattle Aquarium and take pictures of the moon jelly exhibit.

For those who haven’t seen it, this is a giant plexiglass donut, stood on end, big enough to walk through the hole in the center.(...)
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Post tags: aquarium, jellyfish, Seattle

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Round and round

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:35:16 +0000

I’ve been having fun getting ready for the 30/30 Show opening June 10. It was a challenge to create 30 new works in 30 days (give or take), even if they’re each only 4 inches square.

Of course, coming up with 30 worthwhile images was only the first hurdle.(...)
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Post tags: aviation, flower, round, starburst

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Winter into spring

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 31 May 2011 16:00:48 +0000

I’ve been making a more concerted effort to take my camera out closer to home. Now I have to process all those pix! Oh, such problems…

Anyway, the other day I was out wandering and realized I had taken another photo from the same spot at the opposite time of year.(...)
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Post tags: Lake Washington, reflection, Seattle, tree

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Morning dew

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 23 May 2011 16:23:45 +0000

After some overnight rain, today’s weather turned out much better than I’d expected. So this morning I got the camera out and headed over to the Union Bay Natural Area, a lovely little wildlife preserve in the heart of the city.

The dew was still heavy on the foliage. The sun played hide and seek through the clouds, making the droplets sparkle – and almost immediately evaporating them. Fortunately, I was able to capture a few of those evanescent gems.(...)
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Post tags: clouds, dew, grasses, Seattle

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Gone – but not forgotten

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 11 May 2011 16:47:10 +0000

A found object can carry with it an air of mystery. Where did it come from? Did its former owner mean to dispose of it – and if so, why? – or was she so preoccupied she didn’t notice its absence until too late?

This particular found object was definitely strung up on a utility wire intentionally. The mystery remains. There’s a story here… I can only imagine what it is, but I’m sure it’s not a happy one.(...)
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You go, girl!

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:24:11 +0000

I’m trying to make a concerted effort to take my camera out and about even when I’m not traveling. (If for no other reason than I’ve committed to produce 30 images in 30 days for a show in June at Avanti Art & Design, which means I have a lot of work to do this month!)

So I wandered down to the Pike Place Market over the weekend, thinking there’s always plenty of visual interest there.(...)
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Sunday stroll

Shelly F Cohen — Fri, 06 May 2011 04:00:48 +0000

In honor of Mother’s Day, here’s a happy little family unit out for a Sunday stroll.

It didn’t take long for our feathered friends to discover the new Lake Union Park. The goslings are little balls of yellow-green fluff – or at least they were a few days ago; they grow pretty fast.(...)
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Post tags: bird, geese, goslings, Mother's Day, Seattle

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Just for fun

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:03:38 +0000

No matter how serious I get about photography, there’s always room to have a little fun with it. I walk past this sign almost every day, and it always makes me smile.

Seems like it’s good fodder for a New Yorker-style caption contest.(...)
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Post tags: dog, fence, fun, invisible

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Garden tour

Shelly F Cohen — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 23:25:39 +0000

Cape Cod is, like many places I suppose, a study in contrasts. Locals and summer people; beach shacks and trophy homes; and then there are the gardens.

Every year there’s a fundraiser for the Provincetown art museum that is a tour of the hidden gardens of P-town. They are spectacular, even the little pocket gardens just barely big enough to turn around in. Lovely, tasteful, well-loved and -tended spaces of joy and contentment.(...)
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Post tags: Cape Cod, contrasts, garden, Provincetown, Truro

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To see a world in a grain of sand

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:18:04 +0000

Scale provides visual cues that help make sense of an image. Remove those cues and the image becomes ambiguous. Fractals fool the eye because they appear almost the same at different levels of magnification. The structure of a fern frond repeats the structure of the whole plant.

Or sometimes little things look like entirely different bigger things. Examining a driftwood log, I found miniature landscapes that bore no resemblance at all to the log itself: a sloping plain ending in a wind-eroded cliff; a dry riverbed meandering through a scoured desert.(...)
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Post tags: driftwood, landscape

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Japanese woodblock print

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 01:09:03 +0000

One more from the conservatory. I guess the proximity to the Seattle Asian Art Museum put me in mind of Japanese woodblock prints, and this spray of begonia blossoms posed obligingly.

Shallow depth of field and flat light from the frosted window behind give this image an ethereal feel.(...)
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Orchidaceae

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 05:04:39 +0000

As much as I want to take my photography to the next level – whatever that is! – I also can’t help getting distracted by a showy flower, especially when it’s backlit. And so it was at the conservatory the other day, during a welcome sun-break.

In the middle of a Seattle winter, the sun is pretty low even in the early afternoon – so it was at the perfect angle to shine right through the exuberant orchids; you could see every vein in every petal.(...)
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Post tags: backlighting, flower, orchid, Seattle, Volunteer Park Conservatory

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Local color

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 01:35:19 +0000

I started working on this one for a juried art show called “Local Color” here in the Seattle area. When I looked at the prospectus again, though, I realized the image wasn’t local enough – the theme was actually Kirkland, a suburb across the lake. (Perhaps they should have called it “Hyperlocal Color”?) Still, I had a lot of fun working on this image and I like the way it turned out. Update: they expanded the criteria for the show to “a local theme or motif,” so I was able to submit this image after all.(...)
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Post tags: flower, greenhouse, illusion, passionflower, Seattle, Volunteer Park Conservatory

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Simple abstraction

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 04:03:56 +0000

I’ve read and heard it a thousand times: Don’t go for the obvious. A unique viewpoint will give you a better image.

This one’s anything but obvious. In fact, you’re probably wondering what the heck it is.(...)
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Post tags: abstract, water

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Hoodoo/Poipu – take 2

Shelly F Cohen — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 22:23:57 +0000

A year ago I was tinkering with an image that juxtaposed rock formations from Bryce Canyon in Utah and the lithified cliffs on Kauai. It was an interesting concept but needed some work, to put it mildly.

Well, after having had a year to ponder what would improve the image, I was back on Kauai and ready to try again.(...)
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Post tags: Bryce Canyon, Hawaii, Kauai, travel, water

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Behind the mehitza

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 05:16:57 +0000

I was on a whirlwind tour of Israel last month. It was an amazing trip, but so jam-packed there was little time for thoughtful photography. Most of the photos I brought back were snapshots.

There is an idea I’ve been mulling about, though, since I visited the old Orthodox synagogue in Pitigliano, Italy, this summer.(...)
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Post tags: Israel, Italy, Jerusalem, Kotel, mehitza, Pitigliano, synagogue

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One final preview…

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 03:38:17 +0000

As I’ve mentioned before, I can get a little obsessive taking pictures of crashing surf. Thousands of frames and bazillions of electrons later, it all starts to look mind-numbingly the same. Except this one.(...)
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Post tags: Avanti, beach, Cape Cod, Corn Hill, Truro, water, wave

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Something fishy

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 02:50:56 +0000

Looking at the collection of photos I’ve pulled together for my upcoming show, I was struck by the prevalence of water as a recurring theme in my work. Half of the 14 images in the show include water, as does the header image for this blog. [Update: I've since changed the header image; it's not water anymore, but it is reminiscent of waves.](...)
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Post tags: Cape Cod, fish, pond, water

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Morning mist

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:52:49 +0000

I can’t believe I hadn’t posted this image much earlier, so here I am making up for lost time.

This was taken on one of those impossibly beautiful mornings on Cape Cod, when the light is rosy-gold and the air is as clear — and almost as tangible — as fine crystal. On those days it’s worth crawling out of bed not long after sunrise to savor how wonderful it is to be alive.(...)
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Post tags: Avanti, Cape Cod, Great Pond, mist, pond, Truro, water

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Looking into the pond

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:27:04 +0000

There’s a pond at one end of the Beech Forest trail in the Province Lands on Cape Cod. On a short bridge beneath some overhanging trees you can stand and look out past the lily pads at a serene, almost glassy pool.

That’s actually as far as I got along the trail, because it was really, really buggy. So I hung out on the bridge a while, observing.(...)
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Post tags: Avanti, Cape Cod, pond, Provincetown, reflection, water

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Dune

Shelly F Cohen — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 04:12:33 +0000

I’ve spent the past few weeks neglecting cyberspace and making actual prints of photos for my upcoming show in Seattle. Now that that’s done, it’s time to post about the images that will be part of the show. (To see the ones I’ve already blogged about, click on “Avanti” in the tag cloud.)

This photo was taken on a walk to High Head Beach in Truro. (I was on my way to check out a huge colony of seals that had taken up residence on the sand bar, but that’s a story – and a photo – for another time.)(...)
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Post tags: Avanti, Cape Cod, High Head Beach, sand dune, Truro

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Weeds

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:38:25 +0000

From the orderliness of a manicured garden to the breathtaking beauty of unkempt places.

Driving along a country road in Tuscany this past summer, we pulled off to see if we could get into what appeared to be an old abandoned abbey. It turned out to be private property, but at least the driveway offered one of the few opportunities to get out and survey the scenery without too much risk to life and limb, what with cars whizzing past at crazy speeds.(...)
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Post tags: Avanti, Italy, travel, wildflowers

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Sharper than a serpent’s tooth

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 03:02:16 +0000

Sometimes the best way to learn how to use a new technique is to deliberately abuse it, push it just a little too far so you can see what’s really going on. Even though subtlety may be the end goal, by its very nature subtlety conceals the effect, making it a less than optimal learning tool.

I’ve noticed that a lot of landscape and nature photography looks really really sharp, even when it’s blown up to a wall-sized print. There are several factors that contribute to this: starting out with a large-format bazillion-megapixel camera is one; printing on glossy paper is another.(...)
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Post tags: Art, Cape Cod, depth of field, garden, Photoshop, Provincetown, selective focus, sharpening, Techniques and Styles, Visual Arts

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Color and design

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:04:13 +0000

It appears I hit the jackpot with last year’s trip to Las Vegas. I’ve already had one photo from there accepted into a juried show, and now I’m pleased to announce a second image has been similarly recognized.

I’m especially excited about this because the juror is an assistant curator at SFMOMA! An Exploration in Color & Design opens October 7 at the LH Horton Jr. Gallery in Stockton, CA.(...)
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Post tags: architecture, Avanti, City Center, contemporary art, Las Vegas

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Time to howl

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 06:03:01 +0000

The moon was full last night and I wanted to try some shots of the moonrise. As often happens, my initial plans were thwarted — and the result was something perhaps more interesting.

While clouds on the horizon obscured the moment of moonrise, they created a gorgeous display later on.(...)
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Post tags: Avanti, Italy, Moon

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Ice fishing

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:13:38 +0000

The more I learn about Photoshop, and the more time I spend going back to fix things I didn’t know how to do before, the more I fear I’ll never catch up with all the images I have to edit. This one is more than three years old, from the opening of the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park.

Among the festivities that lovely, warm(!) January day was a demonstration of ice carving, resulting in an ephemeral tableau of salmon swimming up a frozen stream.(...)
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Post tags: ice sculpture, Olympic Sculpture Park, salmon, Seattle, Seattle Art Museum

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Meta-painting

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 23:23:12 +0000

As I’ve mentioned before, I can’t draw (or for that matter, paint) worth a damn, which makes photography a great artistic outlet for me.

Still, there are times when I’d really like to capture the feeling of a painting. And there are times when I just want to have some fun with Photoshop. When those two things coincide, anything can happen.(...)
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Post tags: Cape Cod, painting, plein-aire

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Here’s looking at you…

Shelly F Cohen — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 02:56:00 +0000

I took this photo a year ago at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and I’ve been working on it, on and off, since then.

There’s a lovely little pond near the beginning of the trails — you can usually spot green frogs or turtles among the lily pads that line the near edge.

The pond is sheltered from the trails by a thick growth of bushes and trees. Off to the right, some of the trees have given up the usual vertical orientation and taken on a more relaxed attitude.(...)
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Post tags: Cape Cod, reflection, water, Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary

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Starburst

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:49:06 +0000

I know I’ve been whining about the weather. To be fair, we did have some scattered sunny days a while back, enough to get things blooming.

This is an allium, a relative of the onion. From a distance they look like big purple puffballs at the top of a tall stalk. Get close up, though, and you realize there’s a whole lot more going on there…(...)
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Rock and roll

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:58:34 +0000

Since I’ve dipped back into the photos from last year’s trip to the southwest, I might as well stay with that for a bit (even though the sun has finally come out in Seattle – yay!)

This picture was taken on the road between Zion and Bryce national parks. As gorgeous as Zion is, the drive there from Las Vegas is mostly uninteresting interstate highway. So we were unprepared for the winding, narrow, breathtaking road that leads up out of Zion. Erosion by wind and weather have exposed the layers of sediment laid down over millions of years, forming patterns of contrasting color and line.(...)
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Post tags: Bryce Canyon, travel, Zion National Park

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Still winter?

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:28:14 +0000

By this time of year, I would have expected to have a whole raft of new sundrenched photos. Instead it feels more like Groundhog Day here, with temperatures hovering at a balmy 55 degrees. It’s June, people, the summer solstice — what’s going on here?

So I’ve gone back to the well for something that at least makes today’s weather feel a little warmer in comparison.(...)
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Post tags: Grand Canyon, travel

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Life’s a beach

Shelly F Cohen — Fri, 14 May 2010 00:58:49 +0000

Stop me if you’ve heard this: Photoshop isn’t going to make a bad photo better. It can make a good one sing, though, and there are quite a few techniques I have yet to master. So from time to time I go back to an old image and use it as a practice tool. And every occasionally something really works.

The current bee in my bonnet is layer masks. Maybe there is more than one “right” way to do something in Photoshop, but masking is a technique I should know more about. So I went back to this photo I took a couple years ago.(...)
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Post tags: Avanti, Ballston Beach, Cape Cod, Truro

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Wave forms

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 06 May 2010 23:23:35 +0000

I went to see Hokusai’s Great Wave today at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. It’s part of a stunning exhibit of Japanese wood block prints; if you’re in the area I highly recommend you go see it.

Even though there are about a zillion reproductions of Great Wave, I was anxious to see the original. I had been thinking about it a lot in December, when I was on Kauai watching some pretty great waves blow in. The surf was high, thanks to storms in the Pacific, and the wind blew spray from the crests.(...)
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Post tags: Hawaii, Kauai, water, wave

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Assignment

Shelly F Cohen — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 00:30:42 +0000

I spent some time experimenting with the previous image, building a grid with four versions of the image and applying different effects to each quadrant. It was coming along OK but not great, so I asked my sensei for some advice. (If you’re curious, you can see the experiment here.)

She suggested exploring a similar treatment with several other images, to get a better feel for the transformation, and perhaps to focus on just one type of transformation.(...)
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Post tags: Avanti, dragonfly

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Performance Art

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:34:28 +0000

The Museum of Glass in Tacoma has an amphitheater in its hot shop. Or maybe that’s a hot shop in its amphitheater. Either way, it makes for some mesmerizing performance art, as half a dozen folks twirl, carry, blow, shape, and try to stay out of the way of molten glass on the end of a long pipe. It’s finely tuned choreography and great teamwork set to whatever raucous music the hot shop team is listening to that day.(...)
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Post tags: glass, glassblowing, Museum of Glass

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Then and Now

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:27:09 +0000

Yes, I know — I’ve been neglecting the blog, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. In fact, I’ve had two more photos accepted into juried exhibits that will be shown during the month of April. I would love to hear feedback from anyone who’s able to see them in person!(...)
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Post tags: nostalgia

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Ghost rider

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:29:27 +0000

One of the reasons I enjoy photography is that it makes me really look at what’s around me. Especially with the things we see every day, it’s easy to miss out on the details of texture or form.

On the other hand, I occasionally get so focused on one aspect of a thing that I miss other pieces of it entirely. To be fair, sometimes processing brings out parts of an image that were hard to see in “real life.” Both of those were the case with this picture.(...)
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Post tags: Avanti, Ballston Beach, Cape Cod, shingles, toy horse, Truro, window

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Spring is coming…

Shelly F Cohen — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:19:36 +0000

There’s a Japanese maple outside our front door, and it’s just waiting to burst forth with new leaves. The branches have turned bright red, and when the sun shines on the tree it glows. When there are raindrops clinging to those branches and the sun is at just the right angle, it’s positively dazzling.

The trick has been getting sunlight and raindrops and the right angle…(...)
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Post tags: raindrops, Seattle, tree

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Hoodoo/Poipu

Shelly F Cohen — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:59:49 +0000

Along the southern coast of Kauai, just east of Poipu, are the lithified cliffs, an amazing formation of sandstone that is gradually (and in some places, not so gradually) being worn away by wind and waves.

There was one part of the cliffs that reminded me of the hoodoos we saw in Bryce Canyon last spring. So I thought I’d see what would happen if I put photos of each back to back, as it were.(...)
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Post tags: Bryce Canyon, Hawaii, hoodoo, Kauai

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Treeflection

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 02:27:35 +0000

The sun came out this afternoon and it seemed like a good time to prowl around the neighborhood looking for something to shoot.

This puddle couldn’t have been more than a couple inches deep, but it felt like you could dive right into the reflection.(...)
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Post tags: reflection, Seattle, sidewalk, tree, water

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Somewhere over the …

Shelly F Cohen — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:36:33 +0000

But instead of Judy Garland, think Iz Kamakawiwo’ole.

This is another shot taken on our last day on Kauai, the last day of 2009. The day started out sunny and warm: at lunchtime, it was 86 degrees at Hanalei Bay. (oh, yeah.) The waves were big (12-18 ft.) and the surfers were out in force.

Two hours later, at Ke’e Beach in Ha’ena, a storm blew in from the west and we were drenched and cold.(...)
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Post tags: Hawaii, Kauai, rainbow, travel, water

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Bye bye, Kauai

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:16:05 +0000

After spending the last two weeks of 2009 on Kauai, we flew home New Year’s Eve. As in, wheels up at 11:30pm. Which left us the whole day to enjoy the island, topped off with a scrumptious dinner at Scotty’s Beachside Grill in Kapa’a.

And beachside it really is: the back wall (all windows) rolls up like a garage door for an unobstructed view of the beach and the water.

And — on this particular once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity — a full moon shining down through the palm trees.(...)
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Post tags: Hawaii, Kauai, moonrise, palm trees, travel

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Fiddling while the wind blows

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:00:26 +0000

From the vast to the tiny… Yesterday’s photo was a panorama of the Na Pali coast from the top of Waimea Canyon. Today’s is just a teensy bit of detail from the same spot.

One of the things that always surprises me about Kauai is that it’s not all palm trees, hibiscus, and bougainvillea. Yes, there are some near the coast, but the plant life is much more varied than I expect on a tropical island. There are giant fir trees, especially as you go to higher elevations. And lots of ferns.(...)
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Post tags: fern, Hawaii, Kauai, plant, travel, Waimea Canyon

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Na Pali coast

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:19:55 +0000

Waimea Canyon, on Kauai, is breathtaking. From the end of the road, there are immense vistas of the canyon on one side and the Na Pali cliffs on the other. And at 4,000 feet high, the colors seem brighter than they do at sea level. Kauai’s famous red dirt glows in the sunlight, and the ocean is a shade somewhere between indigo and lapis lazuli.(...)
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Post tags: Hawaii, Kauai, Na Pali coast, Pacific Ocean, travel, water

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Hold it right there…

Shelly F Cohen — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 03:48:08 +0000

Having lots of light is a luxury, especially this time of year. With enough light, you don’t have to make trade-offs between shutter speed and depth of field — to put it simply, you can get just about anything in focus, no matter how fast it’s moving or how far away it is.

Consequently you can catch birds in mid-air, stop them cold even when they’re swooping and diving.(...)
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Post tags: bird, Hawaii, Kauai, Poipu, tropicbird

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More doors

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:26:40 +0000

Sometimes it really is just about color. The juxtaposition of the pink roses and the pink garage doors struck me as whimsical, especially on a foggy grey day.(...)
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Post tags: Cape Cod, doors, Truro

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Something New – A Contemporary Art Show!

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:28:47 +0000

So here’s something new for me: contemporary art. Most of the photos here are anything but.

And yet — I’ve had two photos selected for a juried show of contemporary art, which will run through the month of January at the Parklane Gallery in Kirkland, Wash.(...)
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Corrugations

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:29:02 +0000

Las Vegas’ long-awaited City Center complex opens tomorrow. It’s a massive development in the heart of the strip, home to several hotels, casinos, and condos with some of the most dramatic architecture around — although when we were there last spring, most of the drama was centered around the financing.

It’s hard to describe the sheer scale of the place, except to say that it’s big even by Las Vegas standards. And, even in a city of architectural excess, it presents a stunning array of angles and lines, curves and planes.(...)
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Post tags: architecture, Avanti, black and white, City Center, contemporary art, Las Vegas

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Is it spring yet?

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:29:08 +0000

Oof — these dark days of not-even-winter-yet are making me wish it were spring. Sadly, we have a ways to go.

On the plus side, though, I’ve got plenty of photos of spring to help tide me (and you) over.(...)
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Post tags: branch, mountain, Sedona, sky, spring, tree

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Light up that tree…

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:53:39 +0000

No, not with electric lights — this is one more from last week’s sunrise series.

It’s hard to describe the quality of the light on this scene. The sky was almost indigo, a shade I usually associate with an evening sky. The trees were glowing. It looked like someone had cranked up the color saturation, only in real life. A hard copy print on watercolor fine art paper does it more justice than this lo-res version.

Like the Mt. Rainier panorama, this is actually a composite of two separate frames. In this case, both were portrait (vertical) orientation and stuck together side-to-side instead of end-to-end. The result is the square aspect that’s more typical of a medium-format camera than an SLR. Of course you could always crop a rectangular image down to a square, but then you’ve got a pretty small image to work with. This one is actually about 11″ square, and could probably be printed even a little bigger than that.

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Post tags: Lake Washington, Seattle, tree, water

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Glide path

Shelly F Cohen — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 23:57:45 +0000

I know the best time to row is right around sunrise, but hoo boy, was it cold out there the other morning! Didn’t seem to slow these folks down, though; they were moving right along. And I suppose if you’re rowing that hard you’ll get warm eventually. More power to ‘em!

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Post tags: Lake Washington, rowing, Seattle, sunrise, water

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Early morning

Shelly F Cohen — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 06:35:34 +0000

I did manage to get out early this morning — OK, not all that early, as sunrise wasn’t ’til about 7:45 or so. Got down to Lake Washington just as the sun was topping the Cascades and just before it got caught behind the low layer of clouds. The light was incredible, for about 10 minutes.

There were several more intrepid folks who not only were up and about well before I was, they were already out on the water. Brrr!

This is a panoramic view (actually two photos merged together), so it’s quite wide. The small version that fits in this column is OK, but if you want to get a better sense of what the light was like, click on the image to see a larger size.

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Post tags: crew, kayak, Lake Washington, Mt. Rainier, paddling, rowing, Seattle, water

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Wall hanging

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:09:04 +0000

I know, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. I’m hard at work on some updates to the site — stay tuned.

In the meantime, I took advantage of the wan winter sunlight this morning to go out and get some new shots. (That’s the other problem: although you all have seen only a handful of my photos on this blog, I’ve been staring at the same several hundreds/thousands that are on my computer, and I’m getting a little bored with them.)

So here’s a spot of color from a mostly bleak and somewhat frosty landscape. Note the angle of the sun; it would barely get much higher than that today.

Having done a little reconnaissance this morning to see where the sun hits and when, I hope to get out again tomorrow and have more new things to show you.

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Post tags: flowers, plant, succulent

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Movement and stillness

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:00:35 +0000

Here’s another photo from the Japanese Garden, also the location of yesterday’s post.

There’s a little stream that trickles through the northeast corner of the garden, where it’s shady. I wanted to slow down the exposure enough to get the sense of movement in the water (1/20th of a second at f8, in case you’re interested). What surprised me was the little spray of delicate flowers at the top edge, which doesn’t appear to be moving at all.

Update: this photo was accepted in the juried show “Nature, Undisturbed,” on view from April 16-25, 2010, at the Dogwood Gallery in Tyrone, GA.

(Click on the photo above to see a larger version.)

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Post tags: Avanti, Japanese garden, Seattle, Washington Park Arboretum, water

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On second thought…

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:28:16 +0000

I realize I haven’t posted anything in a while; I’ve been busy printing tons of photos to get ready for the Temple Beth Am Chanukah Arts & Crafts Fair that was held earlier today. Thanks to everyone who came (and bought), it was a great success!

In the process of doing all that printing, I found myself tweaking images I’d thought were done. (“Done?” Where’d that concept come from?) Case in point is this one right here.

This is an image I’d actually posted earlier on this blog. Initially it looked kind of like an impressionist painting of trees and sky. After I’d lightened it up for printing, it recaptured the quality of reflection on the surface of the water. So, back now to its original state with the trees at the top and the sky at the bottom.

I’m interested to hear what y’all think of this — is it better? Does it work for you as a reflection, or should I flip it over one more time?

And then I promise, new photos…

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Post tags: Japanese garden, reflection, Seattle, Washington Park Arboretum, water

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Feathered friends

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:25:32 +0000

I have a fondness for pelicans. They are, not to put too fine a point on it, ridiculous-looking creatures and yet they seem always to be wearing a smile.

We saw brown pelicans throughout the Caribbean, lots of them, whenever we approached a port. They are huge birds — good flyers, but oh so ungainly on take-off and landing.

Near Malmok Beach on Aruba I spotted several pelicans standing on the shore, along with some smaller companions. (I really should try to identify the species…) They were really quite unperturbed about having people around. I probably could have gotten even closer to them, but since I had a long lens I didn’t need to.

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Post tags: Aruba, bird, Caribbean, pelican, travel, water

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Aruba

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:46:00 +0000

As art goes, this ain’t it — but I figure when it’s raining cats and dogs outside, there’s some benefit to having a pic like this to look at. There is a reason they sell all those postcards, after all.

This was taken last December (when it was really really snowy in Seattle) on the island of Aruba, near Malmok Beach toward the north end of the island. The color of the water in the Caribbean always amazes me. It really is that impossible shade of turquoise. It’s so intense that when the light is just right and the birds are swooping low, they look turquoise too from the reflection.

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Post tags: Aruba, beach, Caribbean, travel

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Here comes the sun…

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:41:06 +0000

OK, I promised some pictures from the Caribbean, so here goes. This one is really just a warm-up (pun intended).

The island of Curacao, just off the coast of Venezuela, is part of the Netherlands Antilles (at least for the next year). Like most of the Caribbean, Curacao’s major industry is tourism, so of course the whole island has a logo, where the final “o” is turned into a sunburst.

That motif shows up in various places. Here, it was decorating a plaster pillar in an outdoor plaza. It was still fairly early in the morning when I shot this, so the angle of the sun was low. The shadows highlighted both the sunburst design and also the texture of the paintl

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Post tags: Caribbean, Curacao, sunburst, travel

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Little helicopters

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:26:49 +0000

OK, one more photo from last Sunday, and then I promise I’ll get back to working on pics from the Caribbean…

The fall colors have really been lovely this year, and so far there hasn’t been quite enough rain to turn everything to mush yet.

Usually by the time I see these little helicopter-y maple seed pods spiraling their way to the ground, they’ve already lost their color and have turned a nondescript shade of light brown. I guess when they’re red like this it’s easy to hide among the leaves. I really had never noticed them while they’re still in the trees before. Or maybe it was a particularly good year for maple seeds?

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Post tags: autumn, maple, Seattle

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Homeward bound

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:21:43 +0000

Another image from Sunday afternoon’s walk… I could have used a little more of that sunshine today. This is still a work in progress. I’m not sure if I’m good enough yet with Photoshop to eliminate the recycle container that’s partly visible (even after I moved it as far as I could out of the way).

The view is so clearly fall — not just the color of the leaves on the trees and on the ground, but also the angle of the light, with the shadows cutting across the sidewalk. The overhanging branches form a tunnel that draws you in.

This was my walk home, and so looks familiar and welcoming to me. I wonder how many others see it that way as well?

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Post tags: autumn, fall, leaves, Seattle, sidewalk

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A cure for arachnophobia

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:57:07 +0000

When the sun came out this afternoon, after a couple of insanely rainy days, it was time to get out and take advantage of the light.

A couple of giant spider webs right outside our door presented a challenge. This web was built on a large rosebush growing in front of the porch. Due to the topography, the “best” (i.e., least bad) angle to photograph it was shooting through the rosebush and into the sun. Not optimal at all.

The other problem is that spider webs are, of course, not that easy to see. They are best visible in the early morning when they’re covered with dew. By two in the afternoon, that’s no longer a possibility. So I cheated a bit and used a spray bottle to add some droplets to the web. I wasn’t sure how the spider would react to that, but it did probably the same thing it’s been doing for the past couple days: hunker down and wait for the “rain” to stop. So, I still managed to get the picture.

Ordinarily you wouldn’t find me getting this close to something with eight legs. But how can you pass up the way the light sets off those orange and white stripes?

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Post tags: spider, spider web

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Another good day on the blog

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:44:42 +0000

I couldn’t resist. WordPress.com (which hosts this blog) is having a contest to see who can come up with the most creative use of their logo.

This photo (sans logo, of course) was taken on the last evening of a cruise to the Caribbean this past winter. Which reminds me, I really need to post a few more shots from there. The very first picture on this blog is from that trip. Time to revisit those warmer climes.

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Post tags: Caribbean, travel, Wordpress

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Color calibration

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:02:07 +0000

For those of you who care about such things, I found a new bit of software that can be used for calibrating the color on your monitor. I installed it last night and I could see a HUGE difference immediately (and now I understand why some of my photos that were great on screen had a funny tinge when I printed them).

The software is apparently similar to the Adobe Gamma utility that may or may not still be shipping with Photoshop CS3 and above. (Oddly enough, even though Adobe says it’s not included, some people say they have found it.) It’s free through a Creative Commons license, and if Norton Internet Security is to be trusted, it appears to be safe.

Here’s the link: www.calibrize.com. Enjoy!

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Taking wing

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:49:21 +0000

Another shot from Wellfleet Bay… eventually I do get past the fiddler crabs to look at all the other wildlife around there. On this particular day there was a snowy egret wading and fishing in one of the shallow pools near the bay. When it took off and circled around, I was able to get this lovely display of white wings contrasting with the colors of the water and marsh grasses.

And the colors… having just gotten a new photo printer, I am quickly learning that what looks good on the screen does not necessarily look good on photo paper. Or perhaps, it is that the eye gets tricked by highly saturated colors on the screen, only to find they look unnatural when printed. So I’ve toned the saturation down on this considerably in order to get a decent print. The subdued colors are much better than the original version.

My sensei is at this point nodding her head and saying “I told you not to oversaturate the colors.” Yes, Jenn…

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Post tags: bird, Cape Cod, egret, Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary

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Brother from another planet

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:25:49 +0000

Every time I go to the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary on Cape Cod, I always take the same walk through the marsh, over the boardwalk, and out to the bay. There are half a dozen other trails there and I’m sure they’re quite lovely. I just always head for the bay.

It’s best at low tide, when you can walk way out on the tide flats. But I always get stuck just past the end of the marsh, just at the beginning of the tide flats, where thousands of small holes in the sand reveal the presence of fiddler crabs.

Communing with the crabs requires some patience. They’re quite shy, and as a result it’s possible to walk through their territory without realizing all the activity that goes on there — they’ll just stay in their holes until the threat passes. Not only do you have to wait them out, you have to be incredibly still in the process. They can sense the slightest movement, even if you just shift your weight a bit. Sometimes moving only enough to focus the lens sends them scurrying for cover.

But eventually they do emerge. If they’re excavating, they’ll bring up a tiny ball of sand in their smaller front claw (usually the left, but a few of these crabs are southpaws). With a longer lens this year, I was able to get a more detailed picture from farther away. I’m sure the last time I saw a creature like this it was in one of those classic 1950s sci-fi extravaganzas.

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Post tags: Cape Cod, fiddler crab, sand, Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary

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Outstanding in its field

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:28:52 +0000

On Salt Spring Island this summer, I went out one evening to chase the sunset. We were staying near the east side of the island, so I had to make my way to Vesuvius on the west side. I wound up taking the long way around, which left me a little bit worried that by the time I got there not only would I have missed the sunset but it would be pitch dark. (This is not a place with a lot of streetlights…)

On the way, I passed this hillside field with a lone red tree standing out sharply against the green background and the sere yellow grass. Lovely!

This actually turned out better than the sunset photos at Vesuvius. When will I learn that shooting directly into the sun is a bad idea?

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Post tags: Salt Spring Island, sunset, tree

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Georgia on my mind

Shelly F Cohen — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:21:52 +0000

“Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. We haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”

That quote is attributed to Georgia O’Keeffe, although I can’t find the original source. If she didn’t actually say it, she should have. Her paintings of flowers — some as large as 30″x36″ — make you stop and look and see things about form and color you never knew were there.

This big showy Oriental poppy, with its multiple layers of delicate petals, looked like it had caught fire in the sunlight. And the pollen — I always thought it was black, didn’t you?

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On the waterfront

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:08:44 +0000

I took a walk yesterday at Smith Cove Park, which snugs up against the Magnolia Bridge. It’s a bit of an odd place for a park, near a marina on one side, a cruise ship terminal on another, and a stone’s throw from a light industrial area. Seattle is full of parks in surprising locations.

It was a crisp fall day, with warm sunlight bouncing off the water and big puffy grey and white clouds making their way across a bright blue sky. Oranges and reds are starting to give the green leaves a run for their money.

Sure, I could have taken a panorama shot that would have captured all those colors. Certainly thousands of other people have. Instead, what caught my eye were the piles of old ropes, fishing nets, cables, and who knows what else behind a locked chain-link fence. Who knew fishing gear came in this many colors?

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Post tags: fishing nets, ropes, Seattle

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Sunset silhouette

Shelly F Cohen — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:45:00 +0000

I thought I might as well stick with a theme (since the weather seems to be holding on, too). Here’s another shot from my Lake Washington cruise the other night. It’s a side of the Seattle skyline you see less often; not as expansive as the view you get from the west coming in on the ferry, but lovely in this light nonetheless.

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Post tags: Lake Washington, Seattle, skyline, sunset

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Sweet summer evening

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:24:32 +0000

Some days, you just get lucky. Yesterday was one. (OK, technically, it’s autumn already, but it still feels like the waning days of summer.) And not just because I was a guest on an incredibly beautiful yacht for a two-hour sunset cruise around Lake Washington. Although I have to admit: that part was pretty swell. It was a lovely mild evening. A little bit of haze in the air created a canvas for the setting sun to paint in rose and gold.

The real luck was this picture. When I first noticed the way the light played on the sails of this boat, the backdrop was the I-90 floating bridge. Not terribly scenic. We moved, it moved, and pretty soon the bridge was gone from view (or at least the viewfinder). Honestly, it wasn’t until I got home and downloaded the photos that I realized the ghost of Mt. Rainier had taken its place.

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Post tags: Lake Washington, Mt. Rainier, sailboat, Seattle

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Fractals

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:42:17 +0000

I spent Labor Day weekend on Vashon Island. I was hoping for the chance to spend a little more time with my camera, but the weather didn’t cooperate for long. Most of the weekend was cloudy, punctuated by occasional downpours. But I did get a few shots before the weather closed in.

The stretch of beach where we were staying is rather narrow, especially when the tide is in. The high bank is collapsing in places, so trees that were once vertical are now canted at crazy angles across the beach. The result is that it even though it looks like there’s plenty of time to walk a ways down the beach and back dry-shod, it’s easy to get caught behind a tree limb doubling as a limbo stick.

Many of the trees are host to these beautiful lichens with their intricate shapes and subtle colors. It’s too easy to walk right past and not notice them. The detail in this photo invites further study.

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ooh — that's gotta hurt

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 05:31:24 +0000

One summer morning a couple years ago I got up early to chase the fabled “Cape light” at nearby Ballston Beach. I was expecting most of the action to be in the marsh around the headwaters of the mighty Pamet River, or on the beach itself where you can watch the rising sun play on the water and the dunes.

So I was surprised to get sidetracked by this intrepid snail before I even got out of the parking lot. It must have been traveling at a furious pace to churn up all that sand behind it. The juxtaposition of that sinuous trail with the straight lines from the tire tracks is what makes this composition work.

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Post tags: Cape Cod, snail, spiral, Truro

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As the crow flies

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:23:23 +0000

I admit it: I toyed with the idea of calling this “Poultry in motion.”

Depicting motion in a still photograph is neither easy nor intuitive. If all you want is a still shot of a bird hovering in the sky, no problem: all you need is a fast shutter speed, the right exposure, and a little bit of luck (required whenever your subject has a mind and itinerary of its own).

For this shot, though, I wanted to play with the concept of motion. To do that, I had to use a slow enough shutter speed that the background would be blurred out just a bit — but not so much that it was entirely featureless. Then the trick was to move the camera at the same speed the crow was flying. If I had been a bit slower or faster, the whole thing would have been a blurry mess. And of course, the crow had no plans to make repeated passes across the beach for my benefit, in case the first shot didn’t turn out.

Last year I took a photography class at Castle Hill in Truro from my friend and mentor, Jennifer Moller. (You can also find a link to Jenn’s blog, “Unbidden,” in the links to the right.) One of my classmates was a gentleman in his 60s who grew up in Texas, where bird-hunting was what you did for sport. These days, Robert shoots birds with a 400mm lens on his 21-megapixel digital camera, and gets some of the most amazing shots you’ll ever see. To Robert, thanks for your insights on how to follow a bird in flight. And to Jenn, thanks as always for your ongoing encouragement and instruction.

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Post tags: bird, Cape Cod, crow, motion, Truro

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Me and my shadow

Shelly F Cohen — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:56:35 +0000

I’m sure the reason we acquired a cormorant on the pond this summer is because Great Pond is home to plenty of fish. The bigger ones — mostly large mouth bass — hang out at the deep end of the pond, hiding among the reeds and water lilies. The little ones come to the shallow end (where there are still plenty of reeds and water lilies to hide among when the big scary people start being too disruptive).

There was so much rain on the Cape this year that the pond was both very high and very clear. What’s usually dry beach was a very long stretch of sand covered by shallow warm water — a perfect place to watch the little fishies dart around. On a bright sunny day the shadows were quite distinct, and with the water so clear you could almost imagine this little guy is flying…

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Post tags: Cape Cod, fish, Great Pond, Truro, water

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When do we eat?

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:55:02 +0000

There are probably some things worth eating that aren’t inherently photogenic, but a savvy purveyor will figure out how to make them so. Case in point: the bounteous displays at the Granville Island Public Market.

As a Seattleite, I am of course loyal to the Pike Place Market, but when I’m in Vancouver I won’t miss a chance to visit Granville Island. Fresh fruit, meat, pasta, cheese — as far as the eye can see and more than one stomach could accommodate in a lifetime. Like great public markets everywhere, it’s an exercise in sensory overload.

Unfortunately, hotel rooms in Vancouver rarely come with decent kitchens, so there was no point taking these cool little crustaceans home other than in a photograph…

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Post tags: food, Granville Island, shrimp, Vancouver

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Just below the surface

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:54:03 +0000

I spent the last 10 days in Canada, most of that on Salt Spring Island, the largest of the Canadian Gulf Islands. According to the guide books, there are about 225 islands in the group — some are so teeny they are little more than navigation hazards. Salt Spring boasts a year-round population of about 10,000 and supplements its natural beauty with an amazing array of resident artisans working in wood, clay, and textiles. (Not to mention the artisanal bakers, cheesemakers, and organic farmers!)

The waters of the Strait of Georgia are teeming with marine life. It’s not unusual to see orcas frolicking in the distance while you’re on the ferry, or seals joining the hubbub in the harbors. When the tide goes out, you can see the sand dollar beds, watch the itty-bitty crabs scurry around, or — if you’re really lucky — marvel at the weirdness of a moon snail. (Just be careful where you stand, or you’ll get squirted by the clams that haven’t yet fallen prey to the moon snails.) There are numerous starfish, in contrasting coral and purple, and then there are the jellyfish — purply-brown and the size of a dinner plate.

I was wandering around Fulford Harbor at the south end of the island, and saw a couple of these jellyfish swimming just at the surface. They’re fascinating to watch, changing from perfectly round to an eight-pointed star and back again as they propel themselves from place to place.

I didn’t have my polarizing filter with me when I took this shot, but the jelly was so close to the surface you can actually make out a great deal of detail, and the reflected light creates an abstract effect that’s quite striking.

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Reflection and reversal

Shelly F Cohen — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:30:06 +0000

Well, if I had some vague idea what I was looking for when I took the pictures I’m using for the header, the one below came as a total surprise. I was in the Japanese Garden at the arboretum in Seattle. It was late afternoon — generally a good time for taking pictures, except that it turns out much of the garden is in shadow at that time of day. There were some high clouds that periodically dimmed things even more, pushed along by a gentle breeze.

The reflection of trees and clouds on the surface of the pond caught my eye, so I took a shot or two but didn’t really expect much. When I looked at this one, I was intrigued by the texture caused by the slight ripples in the pond, so I decided to spend a bit of time working on it. It almost looks like brush strokes — and while it’s certainly possible to add that texture using Photoshop, I assure you I did not do that this time. (I’ll probably get around to posting an image where I did.)

As I worked, I was pleased with where the image was going, but it still wasn’t singing. I should mention that because I was working with a reflection, the clouds were at the bottom and the trees at the top. On a whim I rotated the canvas 180 degrees and got the image you see below. It was so different it literally took my breath away.

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Post tags: Japanese garden, reflection, Seattle, Washington Park Arboretum, water

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The magic of light

Shelly F Cohen — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:30:25 +0000

Have you had a chance to notice the header image? If not, take a minute right now and look at it; I’ll wait.

I took those two photos just seconds apart, standing on the tide flats in Provincetown watching the tide come in around my ankles. So why is one light and one dark? A polarizing filter — the same thing they use in sunglasses to help cut down on glare when you’re driving. The filter on my camera lens rotates to cut out light that’s scattering in one direction or another. A quarter turn, more or less, is all that makes the difference between those two images. You can see the same effect by tilting your head while wearing polarized sunglasses.

(Here’s a great explanation of how polarization works. Go ahead, click that link — science doesn’t have to be scary.)

I can’t say that when I pressed the shutter release I knew exactly what the two photos would look like. I knew I wanted to find out. Sometimes the results are even better than you hoped…

And if not — well, there’s worse things in life than standing on the tide flats in Provincetown watching the tide roll in.

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Post tags: Cape Cod, polarized, Provincetown, water

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A slightly different angle

Shelly F Cohen — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:30:54 +0000

This summer we acquired a raft in the pond in Truro. Not long thereafter, a young cormorant took up residence.

I figured I could get close enough to get some good pics, even without a super-long lens. Little did I know how close: this bird is not exactly shy. I circled the raft in a kayak, and quickly discovered that even a slight breeze is enough to make the kayak drift, which meant I had to continually adjust focus and framing. I finally got right over to the raft, reached out with one hand to hold the kayak steady, and clicked away. The cormorant clearly was not perturbed.

Yeah, I did get pictures of the other end of the bird, but check out those feet! Slightly reptilian, slightly prehistoric…

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Post tags: bird, Cape Cod, cormorant, Great Pond, Truro

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