Newsletter #129: April, 2016
© Chris Harris. All rights reserved.
Contents:
- Visual Discovery through Narrative Photography: It’s fun, creative, and expressive
- Another Road Trip: another commitment to photograph
- Polar Bears and Northern Lights: Churchill, Manitoba
- 4. Developing your Creative Vision: it often takes courage
- Workshops: The Creative Process & Developing your Creative Vision
Hi everyone,
This month started with an unexpected, but wonderful trip to visit my sister in Ireland. Rather than a travelling around Ireland trip, it’s a stay at home with Jane experience and a chance to re-acquaint with friends I have made over the years.
Most of my time now is spent working on my new book. With the layout more-or-less complete, editing text and photographs is the job at hand. It’s a huge and lengthy process and I find it difficult to spend so many hours on the computer inside when new green foliage, blue skies, and warm temperatures are just outside the door. I keep reminding myself, it will be worth it!
Here is the 129th consecutive monthly Newsletter. Enjoy.
Our goal at the Chris Harris Gallery is to share photographic adventures and inspire others in the creative process. Please share this Newsletter with friends. We appreciate your interest and continued support for my work.
Chris
- Visual Discovery through Narrative Photography: It’s fun, creative, and expressive
Two weeks ago, Rita arrived home from Vancouver with a bouquet of daffodils. She bought them on Bradner Road, in Aldergrove, a place where she picked daffodils as a child growing up in the Fraser Valley. Within minutes of showing me them, she excitedly snipped the stems, chose the right vase, and put them out on display on the kitchen counter. “Beautiful”, I said, “can I photograph them”?
One of 1 trillion snap shots made each year
I started with a ‘snap’ shot to get a basic exposure reading. I would normally have deleted this image during the editing process but I am glad I didn’t. As bad as it is compositionally, it now allows me to share a few words about narrative photography. Because the image is so documentary in style, there is no need to question what it is or where it is. There is no sense of mystery. To me there is nothing stimulating, evocative or expressive in this image.
What I really wanted to do was express how Rita felt about these flowers, for it was obvious how significant they were to her. They were so beautiful, and Rita’s story about her childhood memories added emotional depth to the bouquet. I needed to express that narrative in a meaningful way. Rita gifted me a childhood story; in return, I wanted to gift Rita with an expressive interpretation.
Visual discovery through narrative photography is a very important part of “my approach to photography” which I discuss and illustrate in my photographic workshops. Telling stories through photography makes photography meaningful and rewarding for me.
My gift to Rita: daffodils happy to find a home
To take the above narrative a step further, that night while reading in bed a new idea about how to photograph Ria’s daffodils came to mind, a new approach to personal expression. When morning came, I took the vase outside and placed it on a small table. My idea was to make a multiple exposure of the flowers against a light cloud covered sky to give the “white on white’ look which I always enjoy.
Having lucked out with the cloudy sky, I lay down on the ground and looked up at the flowers through my viewfinder. My idea was to make 9 exposures of the flowers while circling around the vase. Moving my camera around the vase while lying on the ground, however, became an impossibility, so I came up with a simpler method to get a similar result. After each exposure I slightly rotated the vase rather than the camera. The result provided an ethereal feeling. By seeking to express the narrative provided by Rita with her flowers and childhood memories, I made a visual discovery.
In the end, I felt I made an image that expressed how a bouquet of flowers can brighten our day.
Daffodils; abstract and ethereal
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Polar Bears and Northern Lights: Churchill, Manitoba
On October 18-23, 2016, I will be the resource photographer on a ‘Polar Bear Photo Safari’ tour in a wildly remote and rugged area near Churchill, Manitoba. This 6-day adventure is based out of the fly-in only Seal River Heritage Lodge, located 60km north of Churchill in the heart of polar bear country. The lodge is one of the prestigious National Geographic Unique Lodges of the World.
The possibility of photographing cariboo, arctic fox, and northern lights within a stunning sea and landscape adds to the delight of this photo tour.
Check out the tour itinerary and accommodation details on the above two websites. This could be an opportunity to fulfill a lifetime dream of seeing and photographing polar bears in an arctic landscape.
I hope you can join me.
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Another Road Trip: another commitment to photograph.
Earlier this spring I made another trip to Vancouver and once again I made a personal commitment to make photographs enroute. Here are three images I made while driving home through the South Thompson River canyon.
North of the town of Lytton, there is a spot in the river known as ‘the frog’, named after a huge rock which is just downstream of the picture below. Tourists often stop here to watch rafts pass by and kayakers who surf in the white water.
In February, the water is extremely low and there are no tourists. It was the perfect time to stop and make a photograph.
South Thompson River
Thoughts, feelings & information: To create the softening effect of the rapids, I used a 6-stop neutral density filter which enabled me to make an exposure of 30 seconds in broad daylight.
I made the image with my 24-105mm lens, at f-16, ISO 100; for 30sec; on a tripod. |
A little further north along the highway had me looking across the river at the Via/CPR railway tracks. I was attracted to the textures and colours of the cliff juxtaposed with the stark black lines of the telegraph poles and rail line. I stopped, crossed the highway, and then jumped across another rail line to set up my tripod.
Railway line
Thoughts, feelings & information: This was a straight on photograph requiring little more thought than the arrangement of compositional elements. Note the amount of space given to the two main shapes above the tracks; one with coloured rock and the other with coloured trees. The other consideration was the spacing between telegraph poles, especially the outside spaces which I made the same. A sense of overall balance was an important ingredient in making this image.
I made the image with my 24-105mm lens, at f-8, ISO 100; for 1/13sec; on a tripod. |
I was hoping for a train, but no such luck. I packed up and headed home. Ten minutes up the highway I saw a freight train heading south. I couldn’t resist! I did a ‘Ueeee’ and raced back to my chosen spot. While driving, I planned how I would make the image by visualizing the effect I wanted to create. I would use a slow shutter speed to capture the contrast between solid immoveable rock and a speeding train. I was excited, and knowing I would not have much time to set-up, I knew exactly how I was going to make my image when I got there.
Railway line and freight train
Thoughts, feelings & information: When editing my images, I found that the colour balance of this one particular image was totally out of whack. So much so I couldn’t seem to correct it. That is when I decided to take all the colour out of the image making it a black & white…except the train, of course.
I made the image with my 24-105mm lens, at f-13, ISO 100; for 5 sec; on a tripod. |
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Developing your Creative Vision: it often takes courage
Photographers, as with artists in other media, need to know about composition and how to use the tools that we have as photographers, creatively. But that is just the beginning. We should also think about our creative vision; where do we want to go with our photography as we become proficient with composition and creative techniques?
Art illuminates our lives; it is who we are. Art is also part of our language; it is how we express ourselves personally and collectively. It is often how we remember civilizations.
So as photographers, what about our personal creative vision? How do we wish to reveal ourselves to our audience? It’s a difficult question, and it often takes courage.
Recently, I visited my sister in Ireland. She is a painter, and her house is filled with art and books on art. As I poured through books and looked at paintings in her studio, I could not help but think about my own creative vision. What path(s) do I wish to follow. In what tradition do I wish to photograph? It’s a lifelong pursuit; a dynamic journey.
I’d like to share 4 images I made one day on a single walk, on a single path, through Jane’s garden. It was a creative journey involving experimentation and learning. It took courage. I was in the process of developing my creative vision.
The path I took through Jane’s garden
Thoughts, feelings & information: I try to start every creative journey with a documentary image to give context to the space I am working in. I love the documentary tradition. I love the act of making the best composition possible.
I made the image with my 24-105mm lens, at f-18, ISO 100; 1/3 sec; on a tripod. |
Dancing daffodils
Thoughts, feelings & information: To photograph is to give meaning to my life. There weren’t this many daffodils at the dance, so I invited more by making a multiple exposure with camera movement.
I made the image with my 24-105mm lens, at f-16, ISO 400; 1/4 sec; handheld. |
Daffodils seeking the heavens
Thoughts, feelings & information: My search for personal expression continued. Multiple exposure with camera movement.
I made the image with my 24-105mm lens, at f-4.5, ISO 400; 1/500 sec; handheld. |
Daffodils seeking to be noticed
Thoughts, feelings & information: My search for personal expression continued further. Multiple exposure with camera movement.
I made the image with my 24-105mm lens, at f-4.5, ISO 400; 1/500 sec; handheld. |
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Workshops: The Creative Process & Developing your Creative Vision