Archive for the ‘Art’ Category
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
A bald eagle headshot, silhouetted against a glowing sunset, Kachemak Bay, Homer, Alaska. Click the image to view a larger version of the photo.
Hey Folks,
I read a great blog on art yesterday, by Paul Grecian. The subject was a play on the aural equivalent of the old adage, ‘if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it does it make a sound’. Paul takes the viewpoint that art is a human pursuit, and exists only when it has a human audience. “If there is no human to perceive it and translate the experience into an emotion, then there is no art” - I’m not so sure I subscribe to that idea, for a number of reasons.
I think art is a verb; art is something we do. The results of that process might be nice to look at, or not, or nice to listen to, but the essence of art is creating. The act of creating is where art lies, not the products of that process. And we are not at all the sole creators. An American Tree Sparrow calling the tune of the alpine country is as artful as Joshua Bell playing a Beethoven concerto. The dance of the Japanese Red Crowned Crane is glorious. A Bower bird’s building her nest? The song of the wolf pack over the frozen night air is as spell-binding as Aretha or Stevie on a good day, no? What distinguishes human art from the performances of our fellow creatures, other than our own ability (and endeavours) to relate to it?
Art is essentially play. (more…)
Tags: Alaska, Art, bald eagle, Birds, Carl Donohue, humans, nature, silhouette, Skolai Images, Wildlife
Posted in Abstracts, Alaska, Art, Birds, Musings, Photography, Sunsets | 13 Comments »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Colorful duplex and garden, Orsono, Chile. Please click the image to view a larger version of the photo.
Hey Folks,
I’m depressed. I just watched “Manufactured Landscapes”, (2006) and if you haven’t seen it, I recommend you do. It’s a pretty intense documentary, featuring amazing photography by Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky creates some powerful imagery of some of the most unlikely subjects – largely industrial wasteland. Coal mines, dams, factories (the opening shot shows the inside of a factory over three quarters of a kilometer long), parking lots, construction sites, destruction sites, you name it. It’s compelling stuff – the beauty in his photos is moving, yet discomforting. The reality he brings to the viewer is a bit overwhelming; this stuff IS our world, today.
The film is set in China, largely, though the narration points out that this industrial development is global; almost all of the products being pieced together in factories throughout China consist of raw materials shipped in from around the globe, then shipped back off to meet demand overseas. The stark reality here is that China’s environmental problem is our problem; insatiable demand from the “developed” world is altering not just the landscape, but the land itself. (more…)
Tags: Art, Edward Burtynsky, films, Manufactured Landscapes
Posted in Art, Chile, Environmental Issues, Musings, Reviews, Travel | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
Quaking aspen, Populus tremuloides, Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Hey Folks,
I was looking through some older images tonight, and found this one from last fall. This is from a little stand of Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) that I’ve photographed a few times. I’d actually been looking for some wildlife to photograph, but was thwarted yet again in my quest, so, as the light faded, I headed for this stand of aspen. I had photographed them a number of times, but never really played with the camera panning technique here before. This was a situation where digital photography was a real help; I could take an image, review the frame on the LCD on the back of the camera, and see what I liked, or disliked, and figure out what I needed to do in order to create the kind of image I was looking for.
Now, generally I don’t post the ‘photo techs’ on images, because I think to do is largely useless information. (more…)
Tags: Abstracts, Alaska, Art, boles, Carl Donohue, creative process, Forests, images, photos, Populus tremuloides, Quaking aspens, Trees, trunks, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Wrangell St. Elias
Posted in Abstracts, Alaska, Art, Fall, Forests, Photography, Tech Stuff, Trees, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 6 Comments »
Friday, October 30th, 2009
Hey Folks,
One of the photos I wanted this year was some slower shutter speed blurs of grizzly bears chasing spawning Sockeye Salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) up the river. This kind of image is difficult to do with grizzly bears; well, not difficult to do, but difficult to manage a photo that works. More so, I think, than with most other animals. The result of this is that it seems to take about 5 times as many attempts to get a decent ‘panblur’ of a grizzly bear than it might, for example, of a caribou or wolf. What I’m calling a ‘panblur’, for those of you who aren’t certain, is a technique of slowing down the shutter speed when shooting movement, so that the subject becomes blurred, rather than crisp and sharp. You can see in the image above the spashing water and the legs of the bear are not to sharp at all. By panning the camera along with the bear as it races through the water, (more…)
Tags: action, AK, Alaska, animals, bears, Brooks River, Carl Donohue, dramatic, fishing, Grizzly Bears, images, Katmai, Katmai National Park, Katmai National Park and Preserve, mammals, photos, running, Ursus arctos, Wildlife
Posted in Abstracts, Alaska, Art, Grizzly Bears, Katmai National Park, Musings, Photography, Tech Stuff, Wildlife | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Hey Folks,
Winter’s right ’round the corner, so I thought I’d post a shot from last winter. High on a mountainside in the Wrangell Mountains the wind had swept the snow into some really cool patterns of ridges and valleys. I loved the curves in this scene, and with some nice dramatic side-lighting right before sunset (around 2:30pm), this scene was cooler than cool. Cooler than being cold, in fact. For scale, you can see a lone spruce tree in the background, shaded by the rising ridge beyond it.
Funnily enough, the temperature up on the hillside was markedly warmer than down at the Shack. Everytime I ventured up on to the mountains, the temperature was noticeably warmer. Folks tell me the inversion is simply because warm air rises and cold air drops, so down into the Kennicott River basin it goes. T (more…)
Tags: Abstracts, AK, Alaska, black and white, Carl Donohue, cold, dramatic, images, patterns, photos, snow, Winter, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, Wrangell St. Elias
Posted in Abstracts, Adventures, Alaska, Art, Landscape features, Mountains, Skiing, Winter, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 6 Comments »
Monday, November 10th, 2008
Hey Folks,
I can’t overstate the import of what the world saw this past week. For the first time ever the people of the US elected an African American president, Barack Obama, and the value that such a moment carries is immeasurable. A bare 40 years have past since Bill Russell became the first African American head coach in the NBA. 10 years ago the world saw the first black CEO of a Fortune 500 company (how ironic is it that Franklin Raines became CEO of — wait for it — Fannie Mae!!!!) There are innumerable examples of things like this all highlighting the magnitude of this moment. But perhaps none more than this one; (more…)
Tags: Alaska, Art, aurora, aurora borealis, National Park, Northern Lights, Winter, Wrangell St. Elias
Posted in Alaska, Art, Cool stories, News, Northern Lights, Rants, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 7 Comments »
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
Hey Folks,
Here’s an image from my most recent venture into the park. I’ve never really tried this kind of technique with photography too much, but I kind of enjoyed the results. Some of them, anyway. It was interesting to me to edit this series of photos – abstract images emote so differently, and I’ve not a lot of practice in that field, so I felt I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to be looking for. The technical aspect of photos is so dominant in more orthodox imagery, so editing become somewhat rote; check sharpness, exposure, etc. But abstract imagery requires a different process, and I find it hard to edit (more…)
Tags: Abstract photos, Alaska, Aspen, black and white, black and white photos, Carl Donohue, photos, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, Wrangell St. Elias
Posted in Abstracts, Alaska, Art, Landscape features, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 4 Comments »
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
Hey Folks,
I know, I know .. I promised yesterday’s post would be the last of this series, but I changed my mind. This is another image of some ice forms on the Kennicott Glacier. I really was hoping to get some nice abstracts of the deep blue glacial ice so common in this kind of landscape, and so totally missing from my files. It took me quite a bit of clambering around (before my injury, of course), and fiddling with my tripod so that I could get this particular composition, but I was glad I did. There was this huge chunk of hanging ice right above me (more…)
Posted in Abstracts, Alaska, Art, Glaciers, Landscape features, Photography, Winter, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 6 Comments »
Sunday, November 25th, 2007
Hey Folks,
Here’s another photo from my recent trip to the Wrangells. This is a photo of a couple of chunks of ice. I spent quite a bit of time right around this little area, watching the light – it’s amazing how much it changes in a very short time in the winter here. I found some great pieces of ice and chunks and walls and all kinds of cool stuff. If it had been summer, I wouldn’t have been able to cross the river and lake to get to this part of the glacier. (more…)
Posted in Abstracts, Adventures, Alaska, Art, Backpacking and Hiking, Glaciers, Landscape features, Winter, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007
Hey Folks,
I just got home a little while ago from an incredible concert here in Anchorage. I saw Bill Frisell, an AMAZING musician, with Greg Leisz on pedal steel guitar (among other instruments) and Jenny Scheinman on violin. Absolutely amazing. They performed a number of pieces composed and/or arranged to accompany a slide show of photos by Mike Disfarmer. The images themselves are compelling. The music, in Bill’s typical style, is quirky, yet flowing. Together, the performance is beautiful. (more…)
Posted in Alaska, Art, Landscape features, Mountains, Music, People, Photography, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 5 Comments »
