Mood – Part 3

Friday Night Photography Quote:

…through this photographic eye you will be able to look out on a new light-world, a world for the most part uncharted and unexplored, a world that lies waiting to be discovered and revealed.
— Edward Weston

What is Mood?
I’ve been discussing mood for the past 2 weeks.
Do we influence a scene to make the Mood stand out?
Do we try to make the Mood of the scene stand out more than it already does?
Is there a Mood at all? Would it look better some how if we try to make a Mood stand tall and let us know what is going on?

That my Friends is What “Art” is all about!
The definition of “Art” going way back to my Aesthetics Class in College states:
The emotional response from the viewer of something that was created by a Human. Any emotional Response!
So according to this. Something that we make that can make the Viewer go “Whoa” or “WOW” is good.
But what about something that might disgust a viewer?
That is also an emotional response.

But if we search on the Net (I Googled it) for the Definition of Art. We get this bland answer:

Art, in its broadest sense, is a form of communication. It means whatever the artist intends it to mean, and this meaning is shaped by the materials, techniques, and forms it makes use of, as well as the ideas and feelings it creates in its viewers . Artis an act of expressing feelings, thoughts, and observations.

Off the Top of Your Heads, how many Moods can be expressed by observing a piece of “Art”?
Now think about this list and now start to think about how many different ways we can express these Moods by using different techniques?
Most if Not All of these techniques can be used by both painters and photographers. This is also what the “Rules of Composition” help us with. Besides helping us with making the Viewer get what we are trying to say. “The Rules of Composition” also helps us in leading the viewers eyes into and out of the image. We make them go in and exit the way we control. Not a haphazard thing. It is intentional by “Our” design.

So make a list of different Moods! Go on! How many moods can you come up with? Sad? Funny? Dark and Dramatic? Cute?
Sounds more like emotions to me than Mood? Hmm OK then let’s look at a picture of a flower. A Color Image of a flower. Two different versions of a Mood then. Men will say and I know I’m guilty as well. OK colorful flower that is nice. Big deal! No emotional response but just a statement of a Lack of Emotion. Is this a different Mood? Maybe! See, this does get complicated now…

Second Response is from the Ladies? What is your immediate response from looking at this image? How do we define this as?
Pretty? Nah that is Not full enough for me. Reminiscent of past Memories? Making you trigger or remember something from your past? A place? A Love maybe? A different time perhaps as a small child running through the trees. See where I’m going with this?
It makes the Viewer Think!!
Everyone’s emotional response is going to be different depending on their “Own” personal history.

Now we start thinking about techniques of what we can do to try to create a certain mood. Yeah we might be limited but at least we can understand what they are and how to apply them. As a photographer we develop a “Third Eye” thinking of creativity and not the way it is portrayed on the Game of Thrones. We see something but it doesn’t show exactly the way it looked when we saw it out in the field. This happens a “Lot”. The camera is not capable of handling a lot of things without our help. So when we go to our “Digital Darkroom” we remember what it looked like when we depressed the shutter and what we felt or saw.

I’m going to share with you one image that I had taken and the way it looked when I first pulled it up on my Laptop. I knew that it needed to go darker and to add more contrast.

Original Version
“SOOC”

I was extremely disappointed with this. It had a lot more mood. Drama and ominous feeling about it. That storm cloud looked a lot worse than it shows here. Once I started to add contrast and made it darker it really started to show the drama I felt upon clicking the shutter.
Then I thought that looks good. Now what about a B&W Conversion?
Here is my more dramatic version first:

Added Drama

Sometimes an image doesn’t work in B&W. But I felt that it might so I gave it a shot. What do you think?

Ireland
B&W

Have a Great Weekend Everyone!
Mark

#photographicmood, #moodinphotography, #understandingmoodinphotography, #travelireland, #capturingwhatwesee, #b&wphotography, #expressivephotography, #fineartphotography, #understandingcomposition, #photographyrulesofcomposition

Mood – Continuation

Friday Night Photography Quote:

It is not what I see outside that makes my images, it is what I feel on the inside that comes out.
— Carolyn M D’Alessandro

I take photographs with love, so I try to make them art objects. But I make them for myself first and foremost–that is important. If they are art objects at the same time, that’s fine with me.
— Jacques-Henri Lartigue

The events of this past week of the Burning of Notre Dame has really gotten to me. My wife and I have traveled to France several times throughout the past few years. We are students of history and architecture amateurs only, but still enjoy learning and experiencing other cultures and what their life has to offer.
We have had the chance to visit Paris on several occasions and have enjoyed being a part of what makes it so very special.

From the outdoor cafés to the wonderful food. The Arts and Museums are world renowned. Paris gets under your skin and you/we simply fall in Love with the “City of Lights”! The heart of this wonderful city is of course:
“Notre Dame“!

From what I’ve been a witness to. Only a “Fran·co·phile” will understand. Someone whom has never studied or has visited France will definitely not understand the emotional ties we get.
Definition here: Fran·co·phile

There has been several posts on social media lately requesting those whom are thinking of giving to not give. They say that we here in America have to give to the needy here! Well I say yes! The needy here should get your money! Places like Flint with the bad water. Puerto Rico from the Storms and other places need our governments money. They have been in need for years and all of a sudden those who think about these places all of a sudden care! They say the Church has a lot of money. Yes they do but this building. Notre Dame is Not Owned by the church. It is owned by France and the People of France. Whether you know it or not. The People of France are our brothers and sisters. They have helped the American Colonies against oppression. They even sent a young General to help our General George Washington in time of need. The history parallels ours. The French Revolution was because of the American Revolution. They saw what was done and were inspired by us!
Here is a link: Lafayette

Here are a few of my images of Notre Dame.
To those who Celebrate I wish a Happy Easter!
To those who observe I wish a Zissen Pesach

Notre Dame
view from the Seine

Patron Saint of France
Joan of Arc

Interior
Notre Dame

The Glowing Cross

Rose Window

Second Interior View
Glowing Cross

Exterior Details
and
Gargoyles

Have a Great Weekend Everyone!
Mark

#travelparis, #travelphotography, #notredameparis, #interiornotredame, #frenchamericanhistory, #travelphotographyparis, #notredamephotography, #photographynotredame, #theworldthrumylens

Mood…

Friday Night Photography Quote:

I thought I made a mistake once but it turned out it was a creative moment.
— Scott Fleming

It is our Gift as Artists to have the ability to Freeze a Moment in time to give the voyeurs/viewers the capacity to see what was happening in the past!

It is said that we as Photographers leave a bit of ourselves onto the image. I can’t remember where or who that comes from. It escapes me at this moment. But we try to not influence the mood of the scene whether it is a landscape or street photography. We make an effort to try to capture what we see as we see it. Using the tools we have available using the camera as a paintbrush. The creative process that quickly goes through our mind to change the exposure. To move and change our perspective to give that image a different perspective. This is our perspective from the creative “Eye” that will leave an imprint on the image.

What is going through our heads at that particular moment in time?
Do we actually show our Mood on our work? Trying to capture the Mood of a scene without influencing it and leaving our mindset out of it?

The average person is obsessed with photo-manipulation. Because of a few bad examples of someone exchanging a head on a person. Or making a person look thinner in an Ad. All photo-manipulation is bad!
That could be so far from the truth it’s actually scary.
Many years ago I had decided that I had the ability to draw. I ended up using Charcoal and Pencil and eventually graduated to Pen and Ink.
The tools for Charcoal and Pencil were actually pretty cool.
Creating thin lines close together in a light stroke made it look like shadows. Closer or farther apart also changed the mood and effect depending on what are intentions were. We also had what is called a Kneaded Eraser (1). This tool was invaluable in helping us lighten areas that both the Charcoal and/or Pencil stroke did that were not capable of creating by themselves. AKA helped us for creating “Mood”!

Oil Painting! Granted I’ve never been into painting or actually have done any studying. But I am aware of the some of the concepts from watching friends paint. Or that Television Show with the Happy Trees and Clouds. You all must know and have watched Bob Ross (I’ll share a Link below)? Brush Strokes! Using the small knives to apply the Oils to the canvas and creates Depth..

Back to Photography. In the Old Days when I first started using my very Own Darkroom. Yeah the Wet Film and Chemical Days. We had different techniques to help us do different things. Changing the temperatures in the chemicals created different effects. Even so much as changing the development times with these chemicals. There were standard temperatures and times for each step along the way depending on the Company Manufacturer and chemicals used. If we changed one or a little bit of all along the way during the process. This gave us different effects in developing the “Film”. Now I’m speaking purely of B&W Film. If you sent a roll away to be developed. The Lab would use the “Standard” times and temperatures for Book Developing. To get the results of a perfect Negative under perfect conditions. We had to stick very closely to those given to us as a standard. But like all art forms. We did change them to get different results on purpose. But the Labs never did that. We were forced to learn and do it on our own.
Again like everything else. If we wanted something different. We had to do it ourselves.

So right at the start we are going on our own controlling every aspect of the process in the “Darkroom”. This is where the concept comes from. The moment we click the shutter in a camera. We need to take this Media whether it be film or digital to the Darkroom to be processed. Some of you are saying I prefer it “SOOC“. Meaning Straight Out of the Camera without any manipulation. Really now? So let’s take a closer look at what your digital camera does.

You have your camera set to one of the many picture taking modes right? Maybe even those scene modes on the dial or menu’s. Mountains for landscapes. Flower for closeups. Another icon of a Sun for those bright days. Well guess what people? Those settings are letting the camera make the decisions of what and how to influence your image.
Let’s take this one step farther. There are several other things that you can also do to influence the image. Do you have the picture settings for “Sharper”? Or maybe more or less “Saturation”? What do these actually do to the image? Guess what? It is creating a situation that a very limited Digital Darkroom is processing your image!! So, your Image is no longer as pure or “SOOC” “Straight Out of Camera” as you originally thought.

Some of us actually make this decision to do this on our own. To take full control of this process. Just like above where we decided to do the darkroom work in developing our negatives ourselves instead of sending it away to the Processing Labs.

Now let’s take this discussion to creating an image from that B&W Film discussed above. In the Old Wet Days we called this “Printing”. Printing an image by way of shining a light through that negative and projecting this light onto Light Sensitive paper by using a tool called an “Enlarger”. Then this paper is placed into a tray of chemicals to bring out the image. There are several trays of different chemicals but I wont go into the full process and bore you more than I already am. LOL

Now we look at this first test image. We see that some parts of the image are too dark. Other parts are too light. So we need to do this again. But now we have an idea of what parts need to made lighter by “Dodging” or holding the light back a little bit on those areas that need it. Then the areas of the image that are a bit too light. They now need a little bit more of the Light to help them be more visible. This technique is called “Burning In”.

Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m speaking about a perfectly exposed Negative for the correct moment. Even though Film has a wider range of being able to capture the Light in an image than a Digital Sensor. Sometimes this range of Lightness to Darkness needs our help. It is still a man made tool and isn’t perfect. Neither Film nor Digital Cameras can capture the light in a scene with a range like our Human Eyes. This is the bottom line of why said image now needs our Help to make it better.

These Tools and I just gave the basic ideas of the tools available. Need to be used to help us in reproducing the thing we saw at the moment of capture. It doesn’t happen by itself or on it’s own.
It Is Like you telling an Oil Painter that they can’t use different Brush Strokes in a painting for different areas.

Why did I bring up all these techniques and reasons for what we do?
Because All of the above methods help us as Artists in Creating “Mood”!
It doesn’t happen by itself. The Cameras of modern day computer marvels can Not communicate with our Minds to find out what our Intentions are for a specific moment in time. Leaving the Cameras many settings in any of the “Automatic Modes” lets the on board computer compare the scene it is looking at to many of the choices already in it’s database and then it makes a choice for the settings and presents it to you. Is it Correct? Maybe. Is it exactly what you intended? Maybe again! But we as artists must take control of the Paint Brush if we want to be able to produce an image that creates the “Mood” of the moment of Capture!

Blue Hour
Grand Canal
Venice, Italy

Next week I’ll continue the discuss on the many different ideas or aspects of “Mood”.
Have a great weekend everyone.
Mark

Here’s a link to Bob Ross

Here’s a link describing the Kneaded Eraser

#photographymood, #artphotography, #photographydarkroom, #photographydarkroombasics, #venice,italy, #grandcanalvenice, #darkroombasics, #wetfilm, #wetfilmphotography, #digitaldarkroom,
#photographylatitude, #photographysooc, #straightoutofcamera, #capturingthemood

The Path We Take!

Friday Night Photography Quote:

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry-

Isn’t it funny how life takes us on a path and brings us full circle?
I read an article posted yesterday about a song that was shared on Social Media for Throw Back Thursday. I actually remembered the song from my childhood that I liked. So I immediately thought back to my beginnings in Photography. Then how I put my camera down after frustration and those around me who were limiting my abilities. I Officially put my camera down in the late 1980’s. Probably around 1988 or so.

I changed careers and had gotten myself into construction.
My wife and I were about to embark on a trip of a lifetime.
We were going to Alaska for our first ever major Adventure.
Preparing everything. Packing and making sure we were good to go.
All of a sudden a thought had crossed my mind. How can I go to Alaska and not have a camera with me. What am I going to do?
So I ran to a store and picked up a small little Point and Shoot pocket camera. Knowing absolutely nothing about Digital Cameras or what is entailed on using it. Is it the same? If not what are the differences and can I figure it out before we get there?

So yesterday Thursday I had shared an image on my Facebook Page making a fast off comment about TBT and Shared an image I had taken of the Cruise Ship from that fateful trip. Not exactly sure what or how I came across? But several friends and I’m talking about real world friends that I’ve known personally a very long time left comments that puzzled me. You see I did state that the Alaska Adventure we had taken was back in 2006. Like above what was I going to do about a camera? Someone stated that I should take a film camera. Another stated that yeah I should take a camera with me? But they are speaking about the present like the trip will be in the very near future?? LOL Or is at least how I read the comments.

So last night I had brought over those low level 6 Megapixel Images to my version of Photoshop with the attempt to try and clean them up for sharing here. Man!! They were noisy big time. I had to do a Noise Filter about 4 times on each before I was able to make the noise slightly disappear to the eye….
But in reality the images aren’t bad. My thoughts are that a camera is just a tool. It’s inside your head what makes it work.
But then again. It needs to be at least on a certain level of competency to actually do what I want it to do.

So fate made me pick up a camera again. It actually pretty much had to hit me over the head with a frying pan for me to realize that having a camera in my hand was what I was meant for. That I was empty without it. That I also needed a real camera. A Digital SLR and that the one P&S in my hand was still limiting my abilities.

Mendenhall Glacier

Glass Domed Train
Thru the Mountain Passes and Gorges

Glass Domed Train 2
Mountain Passes and Gorges

Denali
Or Formally called
Mt McKinley

#travelalaska, #travelphotography, #photographygear, #gearacquisitionsyndrome, #cameraisapaintbrush, #whatinspiresus,
#thepathwetake