Light and Lighting Outdoors and "The Moment"

         I am posting these links for my Aunt Marie who is a talented artist. I know she is a Rembrandt fan and might enjoy this special about him. It's in 4 parts and offers an insight to the artist and his work. I wasn't a big fan of his work until I saw this well done documentary about him. I don't know if she is a fan of the Impressionists but the mini series linked in the next paragraph is also well done. You have to wonder where art would be now had it not been for the perseverance of artists like them and Van Gogh.
         In this great mini series about the French Impressionists, it is obvious that Claude Monet was obsessed with light. Some years back I was at the National Gallery in London and saw Water Lillies there and thought to myself I saw this in New York at The Metropolitan Museum of Art too. I later learned he painted that 30 some odd times. Each time it appeared different to him. In this series at one point in time he was painting on 4 canvasses at one time shifting from one to the other as the light would change. I am learning this lesson with my photography the hard way.
         After leaving for work the other day with my camera and tripod in hand I drove east around dawn and saw the sky lit up in spectacular pink and blue ribbons glimmering in the sunlight which was still below the horizon. So I did what any other kook would do. I pulled of the road at a nearby farm field and jumped out with the camera. Without sacrificing image quality I went with an ISO setting of 400. I didn't want a grainy image but the shutter speed was only 1/8 of a second. Too slow for a hand held shot but I took it anyway as I have seen great lighting slip away in the blink of an eye too many times before. This is what I got.

Then this

I was afraid the images would be blurred (and they are) from being hand held at such a slow shutter speed. I reached in the truck and set up the tripod which was no more than 2 minutes of elapsed time and this is what I saw when I looked up.

Not quite the same, is it? My fiery sunrise, "the moment" was gone almost in the blink of an eye. It goes that fast and not just with sunrises. That bird on a branch that you hope will turn for a better view and flies away instead or the cloud that moves in front of the sun and kills your nice warm golden sunlight in the setting or rising sun. All in all though, I am glad I captured what I did. Words could never do it justice.

Photoshop and photography

I have been playing with a 30 day trial of Photoshop from Adobe. It has come a long way from when I last used it which was more than 10 years ago. 10 years in the computer world is like in eon in real time. They offer this 30 day trial in the hopes that you will buy the software of course but what the did which in my opinion is brilliant, they now offer a monthly subscription which makes this affordable to the casual user. It allows the saving of what would otherwise have been a disappointing photo. The first 2 photos are untouched but I liked parts of each so I darkened the sky a bit which is shown in the 3rd.
       Back in the prehistoric days of film photography you got whatever the person running the developer thought it should look like. I remember getting several rolls with a green, red or blue bias to the entire roll. It was very frustrating. I tried to develop a relationship with developers who did the processing on site so they would understand what I was looking for especially with the astro photography I had done. Sadly these places are mostly all gone now. Here are the results.

Underexposed

Overexposed

Somewhere in between which I like

It also allows you to make changes from this

To this

And from this

To this



I am having fun with this program and will probably become a subscriber which allows you to get the latest updates as the are released. It is so easy to use now as compared to the past it's a pleasure to use. Bravo Adobe



Some odds and ends

These are some odds and ends photos I took out in Water Mill and Bridgehampton. This first one is of a Downy Woodpecker. This one is a male as distinguished by the red on the back of his head. It is very similar to the hairy woodpecker but is smaller and has more white on the wing. I stopped at the Sagg Swamp Nature Preserve this day and when I got out of the truck, I heard what I thought was the tree above me creaking. It sounded similar to two trees when the make contact. I looked up and didn't see any trees making contact with the one hanging over me and then I saw him move from one limb to another not more than 20 feet away. I snapped several shots of him and liked this one the best. He wasn't hammering away but rather like he was testing the wood. Looking for soft spots and listening for insects within. I did have to lighten him in photoshop just a bit.

This first one was an Osprey perched over its nest in Bridgehampton. I also lightened him a little to show more detail. Check out those talons. Several years ago I was fishing with my brother on a local lake and we heard a tremendous splash behind us. As we turned around, we saw one of these magnificent birds taking off from the water with a fairly good size Large Mouth Bass in its talons. It was an awesome sight. The second shot is one in flight over the pond at The Old Mill in Water Mill. He was actually hunting and watching the water below. I also had to lighten it as the sun was above it and wanted to show the color pattern on the underside of its wings.

This one is of a Great Egret just taking off from the water. It has been cropped and lightened just a smidge. A smidge is just less than a bit in case you were wondering.

And this is the scene looking south over Mecox Bay in Water Mill as seen from the main road just accross the road from where the above photo was taken. I might photoshop the sky from the fist shot and put on the seond shot as I like the railing in the view but the sky is better in the first one. Judge for yourself.

After seeing the two side by side I would lean towards the first shot being slightly underexposed. I was playing around with it and can darken the shy a little to make the clouds pop a little more. Will post when I do it.
        It's such a serene setting and full of wildlife but with the beauty of the place comes people, and lots of them. With them, they bring ignorance and lazyness. I know it sounds condescending but how else can you explain this 

and this

and this

Need I say or show more? Is it any wonder the Heron I called to have resued got trapped by garbage on this very lake? This makes me sick. We only have one planet. It sustains our existence. Once it's destroyed, so are we. It's that simple. Please respect our planet and don't be a slob. Think about what kind of world you want to leave for your future generations to inherit. The "precious" vehicles that were so important to keep clean will have been long gone to the shredder before these plastic bottles decompose.

"My bird" made facebook

Call me crazy. I really don't care and it wouldn't be the first time, but I have gone to visit the bird I helped get rescued and have been in contact with the rescue center about it's progress. It is doing well and I hope it gets released soon. The rescue center put up a great picture of it on their facebook page. You can see it here. It may be a bit deceiving as to its size. It actually stands about a foot tall. I knew he was in good hands. This center is outstanding in it's response and care of these injured animals.

Angels of Mercy

That is the only way I can describe them. I am talking about the people at the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center. Yesterday  I decided to stop again at the pond by The Old Mill at Watermill in the Hamptons hoping to spot more Ospreys or an Egret or Blue Heron. I almost didn't go but at the last minute I decided what the heck, it's a nice morning. To my surprise there were 4 Egrets which I will post pictures of in a later post. I also spotted what I thought was a Blue Heron further away. After taking some shots of the Egrets I noticed that something didn't look right with the Heron. Then as if to point out the bird was in trouble one of the Egrets flew over to where he was and perched.

I kept watching through the zoom lens and realized the bird had a tangled wing and was caught in the branches above the water and away from the shoreline. Sadly, my eyes are not what they used to be and to the unaided eye, this bird could have easily been mistaken for a plastic bag caught on the branch. I started observing him through the zoom lens to get a better perspective.

When he tried to free himself however there was no doubt that this was a bird in distress. I put down the camera and picked up my smart phone and did a search for wildlife rescue and it brought me to the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center which had a 24 hour hotline. I made the call and was called back literally within 2 minutes. That was at 7:10 am. When I broke for lunch at 12:45 I called to check on the status of the bird. It turns out it was a Black Crowned Night Heron. A nocturnal bird that I had never seen before or heard of. I thought it may have been an Osprey as it was too small to be a Blue Heron. It was not only rescued but treated and being cared for by these angels of mercy. It turns out the bird got tangled in some fishing line which got it snared on the branches. He had to be suchered and was thin. He was listed as stable but in critical condition. I hope this little guy makes a full recovery.

WHY? Why do people act like slobs in public places? I did some metal detecting at local beaches last year and could not believe the garbage left on our beaches. It absolutely disgusted me and reminded me why I stopped going to the beach. There is a load of garbage on the opposite side of this lake by the roadway. Is it really that important to keep your car clean that you think it's okay to trash a pristine and beautiful ecosystem like this? PEOPLE, THINK ABOUT YOUR ACTIONS!!! If you want to be an irresponsible slob, do it at home. I don't enjoy looking at your refuse and I really don't enjoy seeing birds and other wildlife pay the price for your laziness. Oh yeah, I fish too (catch and release only) but don't leave garbage and tangles of fishing line behind.

I can't praise the people at this wildlife center enough. It was not an easy resue to execute. GREAT JOB!!!!

Update 4/5/13 I stopped by center to see the bird and got an impromptu tour of the small yet impressive facility. The bird was not eating and seamed angry about his temporary captivity. That was in the afternoon on 4/3/13. I called today (4/5/13) and the bird was eating and gaining weight and doing well. They are doing some great work at this center. I can't praise them enough.

Another trip to Bridgehampton

Decided to go back to Bridgehampton again and try 1 more time lapse. This will do it for a while now until it gets warmer and some humidity and clouds to make it more interesting. Here is the result.

I left the beach and spied an Egret in the marsh stalking it's breakfast. By the time I stopped the truck and got out with the camera it was gone. Bummer! So I decided to head back to the Sagg Swamp Preserve again and on the way what do I see but a Red Fox. You don't see many of these on Long Island I snapped these from inside the truck at a stop sign. I'm sure there was a little heat distortion going on from the open window.

He was real skeptical of me and kept watching me as he made his way closer to the woods. I made it to the preserve hoping to see the Great Blue Heron I saw there during the week.

It wasn't there, but I did manage to scare off some ducks and miss a pic (again) of deer crossing the road. I walked the preserve and checked again for some ducks or whatever may be there and snuck up on this guy.

From what I can gather this is a Red Breasted Merganser.

I really love the beauty of the Hampton's and the diversity of its wildlife. I hope these people that are flocking out there don't destroy the charm and quaintness of the area with over development and overpopulation. I watched it happen in western Suffolk County and hope that doesn't happen here.

And now, a moment of Zen.

Bridgehampton and Sagg Swamp Nature Preserve

I decided to skip the time lapse work and take a trip to the  Sagg Swamp Nature Preserve. I heard about it on a local radio show and wanted to check it out. On the way I saw this gnarly old tree on Ocean Ave. I think it's an Elm. It's huge in diameter and probably predates the town of Bridgehampton itself. Compare it to the sidewalk to the left in the photo.

I continued on to the preserve and as I was pulling up, 3 deer ran across the road into the preserve. I saw 2 more in the woods waiting to come across and were checking me out. I had the camera in hand but wanted the zoom lense. As I was fumbling with the lens they scampered across the road. I could swear one of them flipped me the bird. I tried to track them only for a picture but they were too sharp for me and the brush was extremely thick off the trail which I would not venture from. I did get some interesting shots though and want to return when it's a little warmer.

This is outside the preserve where it empties out into a bay.

This is the other side inside the preserve. I didn't even see the duck until I blew up the picture to full size on the monitor.

This is part of a greenbelt that extends all the way to Sag Harbor. According to the radio broadcast, it's one of several swamps formed by the glaciers in the ice age when they receded. It's a beautiful place, I cant wait to see it in the spring when there are leaves on the trees and the birds are back to nest.
       This next shot is of a huge Rodedendrun hedge that is at least 15 feet high. I was lucky enough to see this in the height of it's bloom last summer. I want to capture it with the camera this year.

Latest time lapse

I kept waiting for a clear day and finally I got one but to be honest, it was a little boring. This is what I got. It would have been longer if the workers repairing the storm damage to the beach didn't decide to pull riight in front of the camera and park. Nimrod. 

More time lapse

I went back to the same beach two days in a row and shot some more time lapse. This time I set the interval to 6 seconds and compiled at 24 frames per second. It came out a little smoother. I think my next one will be 5 seconds at 30 frames a second but it will take more photos to get the same amount of video length. Each of these time lapse compress about 50 minutes into 17 seconds. It was cold as, well, it was cold. This one has some cool effects with layers of clouds moving in different directions. I didn't see it when I was shooting it but looks cool in time lapse.

Sunrise and optomism

In my younger days I was a milkman. Yes, glass bottles delivered before dawn. I saw many, many, sunrises and feel there is something special about them more so than a sunset. First off, everyone usually sees the sunsets but few see the sunrises. Instead of light fading to dark, darkness gives way to light which, to me, brings an optomism with the start of the new day that just isn't there with sunsets. Having just gotten my camera the day before I was treated to one of mother natures fireworks shows the very next morning. I of course, had my camera with me. I just wish I had a better understanding of the controls. I was driving into the east and decided to jump off the highway before I completely lost the lightshow going on as I drove. If you can believe it, 10 minutes before this it was 10 times more spectacular with more vivid pinks and blues. It looked like alternating ribbons of illuminated cotton candy accross the sky. I was lucky enough to snap this.

I started travelling to work with my point and shoot cheapo camera over a year ago, but whenever I saw a sky like this, it would automatically adjust the exposure and bleach out any kind of meaningful effect. I just gave up trying to capture the image. Given my fascination with clouds and art I hope to capture more like this and eventually try to paint it on a canvas. I doubt I could ever duplicate this kind of shear beauty, but it will be fun to try. 

I've been a little busy

It never seems to fail. I went from having too much time on my hands from an unexpected layoff to working full time with many hours of overtime for the past 9 months. Believe me, I am not complaining. It doesn't however, provide time for the things I like to do to feed the creative person inside of me who is feeling a little neglected lately. Given that I work in the paradise that is the south fork of Long Island and am surrounded by nature all day, I figured I would treat myself to a new fangled digital SLR camera. I have wanted one for years and thought it would help with my artwork. I also used to dabble in photography and astrophotography back in the 80's. What I didn't realize was you can do time lapse photography with these cameras very easily. I wanted to catch the sunrise this morning given it was the end of the moons cycle and there was just a slither of moon before sunrise. So at O dark thirty in the morning, off to the beach I went. This image is what it looked like when I got there.

You can see a slither of the moon in the right side of the sky. I then set up the intervalometer to take an image every 12 seconds. I got 434 usable images in succession and at 30 frames a second it yielded 16 seconds of video. Unfortunately, as the sun rose so did the cloud cover but it was still pretty cool. Here is my first attempt. I'm sure there will be more.

It all started with the want of a Mahl stick

 I have been using a shaky old table top easel. As if that wasn't bad enough it wasn't too stable and prone to tip over if you weren't careful. I eventually clamped it to the old shop table I was using. In place of a Mahl stick I would stand a can of spray paint in front of the canvas and rest my arm on that. I figured what was the point of getting a Mahl stick of the easel couldn't support it. I looked at easels online and didn't like what I saw for the money. I decided to build my own. It had to be collapsible, mobile, fit through a standard 28 inch interior doorway, fully adjustable and provide support the full way across the top canvass holder. Most easels just give you a short cross bar and it provides little support on the outer upper corners. I also wanted some kind of Mahl capability and it had to be built to last and solid as a rock. This is what I came up with. 2-5/16" carriage bolts clamp the lower support. For the top, I countersunk a tee nut also 5/16" and made a plug out of teak (also gotten for free) to prevent marring the face of the center support. This applies pressure to a double French cleat similar to what is used to hang wall cabinets. The supports that hold the assembly upright are 1/4" carriage bolts. It will hold a canvass about 65 inches tall. I figure If I have to, I could always make swing out outriggers for more stability if the need arises. My concern was that I wanted it to hold smaller canvases securely.

The best part is this was all made with "rescued" and recycled mahogany and sapelle wood that was all free. If you look close at the feet, you can see it was a mahogany stair tread rejected by the millwork company. The majority of the rest of it was recycled mahogany flooring I got from a friend renovating his house. I even had the wheels from a showroom renovation where I worked a couple of years ago. Total cost was about $35.00 for hardware and glue.

This wood is getting harder and harder to come by and more expensive. It takes such a long time to grow one of these trees it would be a crime to let it go to waste. Just a little wood factoid, it takes about 300 years to grow an ebony tree 1 foot in diameter. Only God can make a tree but it takes the ignorance of man to chop it up and put it in a dumpster.

 

The eyes have it

This is about the closest I can get it for now. I know the eye on the viewers left needs to come up a little and the one on the right needs to get rounded out just a tad. I am not going to make any more changes until I fix the eyebrows. The one on the left is too high to the inside and making it look too pouty. I have yet to fix the nose and mouth. The nose is too long, wide and needs to shift left as does the mouth. Then I can fix the shadowing, color and blending. For my first portrait attempt I am just glad it doesn't have that "just zapped with a cattle prod" look. Hopefully the 2nd face will go faster. Like my my first Karate instructor used to say "the first thousand are the hardest".

My new invention

I call it "stick and rubber band" LOL. Here's a good shot of my "studio" too. It's a table in the garage with a light over it, but there's room for a cup of coffee.

 I have been going somewhat crazy trying to get the eyes just right. I fixed the right eye (viewers left) and am happy with it but the other one was so far off I just took it off with a cotton swab down to the stained canvas.

Horizontal placement is easy with the proportional divider but the vertical placement is a different story. I first used the SWAG method (scientific wild ass guess) of placing the height of the eye pupil with a wash of burnt umber thinned with odorless mineral spirits. I was holding the paint brush and comparing the angle but I just wasn't sure. I felt like I kept losing the proper angle. This is what I did. I took a grease pencil and marked the plane of the eyes on the laminated reference photo. Then I took my camera tripod and secured a stiff straight stick to the pad with a rubber band. Placed the photo and canvas next to each other and set the angle to the line on the reference photo and compared it to the canvas by changing my eye level, not the tripod. I was very close but not perfect. All in all it worked good and it was cheap enough.

Thinking back, I wasn't sure why but the nose always looked too short even though according to the grid it was in the right spot. I know it's too wide but that's another issue (I have plenty of those). The answer was the eyes were just a little too low. It also resulted in a slightly bigger forehead below the hair line. I thought the hair was off but I was wrong. This marks a first for me. I thought I was wrong once before, but I was mistaken! When I was a mechanic I used to say "there's no substitute for experience". This holds true for most things. It's mistakes like this that you (hopefully) learn from and learn to avoid in the future. Some days you learn more than others if you know what I mean. These last two days I learned a boatload. The biggest problems were my grid and reference photo. The grid wasn't even. As the grease pencil point dulled it threw off the spacing. Not much, just enough to give me grief. I switched reference photos for detail around the eyes. The one I have been using is better for color but too dark to see the detail needed to shape the upper lids. After redoing the eyes (yes both, again) here is where I'm at.

Here is a transparent overlay on the painting. The reference is the transparency. The hats are a little off, but the eyes are almost perfect. To me, it's the eyes that make or break a portrait. If the eyes are wrong you'll never completely capture the expression of the subject.

 Now I just have to fix the nose , the lips and retouch the color here and there. Then I can start on the other face. I may take a break from it though and let what I have done dry to avoid an accidental disaster.
Happy painting!

You're way off!

That's what Rodney Dangerfield said he would hear when he asked for directions. It bears true with my painting. Got a lot done but unfortunately it's in the wrong spot. I couldn't figure out what was wrong so I did a side by side with a grid overlay. I knew the eyes were off but I didn't realize how much, but it's fixable. The lips and the nose need work too. Have a look.

I did this in GIMP. It's a free photo editing software downloadable off the web. if you click on the image and then right click and hit view image it will be clear how bad I was off. Oh well, live and learn.

That wasn't easy

For a minute or two I thought I might have a promising career in Gorilla and Pig portraits. Painting a nose is not the easiest thing I've ever tried. In fact I'm finding it very tricky. I wiped it off twice and partially a third time and I'm still not happy with it but I think it is workable from here. I'm used to the Bob Ross method where you could drop in a happy tree anywhere you want. Let me tell you, it doesn't work that way with nostrils! Or anything else in portrait painting. But I still enjoy the challenge. Here's where I'm at.

Free Portrait Video Learning Series

I just watched a great video series by realism artist  Duffy Sheridan. His portrait work is superb. The videos are free and definitely worth a watch. Enjoy!

My latest endeavor and first portrait attempt

This is a portrait from a black and white photo that was resurrected by my niece in photoshop. It was slightly colorized and that's the way I want it to look. This is where I am at with this. I am blending as I go as I tend to paint in spurts when time allows and do not want anything to dry before I get to blend it.
This is my reference photo

This is what I've accomplished so far

It's coming along okay. I may have to go in and darken some around the eyes but I will wait until I have the whole thing painted before I start changing anything. If it comes out balanced I may just leave it alone.

Return of the Ballerina

I really butchered this attempt at a painting and wanted to come back to it (for a year now). Whenever I looked at it I kept envisioning an impressionistic touch. I had some leftover paint on my pallet and figured what the heck. I have never attempted anything of an impressionistic style so here goes my experiment. It also marks a first for a painting with a human figure in it.
This is where I left off.

This is where I'm at now.

 I will let it dry for now before attempting to color in the ballerina. That I will try to keep of a realism style. Should be interesting as well as a challenge to say the least.