Bicycle Peace

An old bicylce I found tucked in a corner in the Hindu temple complex at Tanah Lot in Bali. DiMAGE Z10 9mm at f/3.2 1/60 ISO 80

The old man tottered out of the house and found his bicycle leaning against the wall.  He mounted the ancient conveyance and slowly pushed off into the traffic.  His knees creaked as his feet found their way around the pedals for the first few times but slowly he picked up speed and soon he began to feel a cool breeze on his face that pushed away the heavy air he had been breathin.  He knew that one day he would have to stop, that one day his body would no longer let him continue.  But this was not that day.

My family and I were wandering around the temple complex at Tanah Lot and the crowd of tourists was and couvenir sellers was pretty formidable.  There was a man with a really large python charging for photos with it and it was all quite antithetical to the idea of a quiet place of worship.  I poked my head around a corner and found this wonderful bicycle propped into the corner and it was beautiful and quiet.  It was all by itself and no one was paying it the least bit of attention.  I loved it.  I loved the texture of the metal frame and torn worn seat.  I loved the piece of bamboo tied to the rack.  I loved the large car mirror urused* on to the handle bars. I loved the partially inflated tire and the battered pedals.  I loved this bike for all that it was and for all that it was not in this noisy busy place.

-Russell Berg

*urus: to cobble something together, to come up with a non-traditional solution, to find a way to fix something.  It is one of my favourite Indonesian words

When Light Curves

Playing with light on a beautiful white vase. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 17-85 at 30mm f/8 1/250 ISO 100

The curve and line of the thing pulls my hand to it.  Every time I see it I want to touch it.  I is light and cool with a milky form that invites inspection and exploration.  Even all on it's own, just sitting there on the table it seems to absorb the light in the way that a white thing should not.  It is a beautifully made thing.

One afternoon during Christmas vacation I decided to pull out my lights and photography this vase.  My wife buys vases, alot of vases but this one in particular I really like.  The shape and texture of the thing where made to have light playing against it.  I set up on a tripod in front of the kitchen table and draped some black fabric over a chair that I had put on top of the table.  This was my very "high tech" studio.  I started by setting an exposure that would completely kill the ambient light, (my first frames where completely black), then I started layering in light.  For this image I used 2 flashes that where mounted off camera and triggered by Cactus V4 strobes, (very inexpensive and very reliable with fresh batteries).  The camera left flash was set at 1/32 power and mounted on a light stand and had a small, 6"x4", light box velcroed to it.  I wanted the light to be softer coming from the left but I didn't want the full wrap around that an umbrella would provide.  I really wanted the camera right side of the vase to be brightly lit and yet to maintain an area of shadow to emphasize the three- dimensionality and shape of the vase.  I put a homemade cardboard snoot ala David Hobby on my second flash and held it at extreme camera right with very low power, 1/64 or 1/128.  It turned out that I needed a pretty extreme angle to get the effect I was looking for.  The snooted flash is behind the vase pointing back at the camera at a slight angle so that the flash head is visible in the uncropped frame.  I knew I wanted a square composition so the flash was going to get cropped out anyway.  It was very cool to be able to paint the light the way I wanted it to look.

-Russell Berg

Below is another shot that I took without the snooted flash at camera right.  I like this one too especially the way that the left edge of the vase is well defined and the right edge falls away into shadow.

Steel Orca

The curves of a steel sculpture of an orca in Swy-a-Lana Park in Nanaimo. Canon EOS 7D EF 50mm f/1.4 at f/2.2 1/640 ISO 100

The animal leaps forward with a surge of power that ripples down its muscular boday and pushes through the waves.  It's nose broaches the surface and the water pours off of it as it reaches for the sky.  It is all grace and power, and in that stolen moment where we see it join our world we know what true potential is.  We stop for a moment and realize we need to breathe again.

In one of the main downtown parks in Nanaimo our city displays the work of local sculptures.  One day as I was walking through Swy-a-Lana I noticed an sculpture of an orca.  As I got closer I saw that the piece was put together out of the old steel car parts.  Right away I realized that the prime photographic opportunities were going to be in the details as the background was not attractive no matter which angle I took.  I got in close and stopped down my fast 50 to f/2.2.  The lines and curves of the steel take on a life all their own at this scale and I love the way the cogs of the gear are visible through the blurred out piece of steel in the foreground.

-Russell Berg

Below is the whole sculpture.

Background Noise

I found this old ship's engine sitting outside a small maritime museum in Cowichan Bay Canon EOS XSi 17-85mm f4.5-5.6 at f/5.6 1/60 55mm ISO 320

The old man's patience was wearing like a the corners of a ragged edge of paper wrapped around a package for too long.  He had been on the water 2 weeks and the young deck hand who he had hired was an idiot.  He could no longer put up with the inane stream of chatter that poured from the between boy's fleshy lips.  The boy didn't talk about anything in particular, the words had become background noise of the kind that runs up and down your spine with all the comfort of a bag of nails wrapped in sandpaper.  This was going to end.  The old man stepped toward the boy and was about to speak when he heard the engine cough, and sputter... and die.

My family and I went to a restaurant in Cowichan Bay one afternoon and we saw a small maritime museum next door.  We went to wander through it and as we left I noticed this very large ship's engine mounted on block outside the entrance.  I know nothing about ship's engines but I loved the heavy industrial look of the machinery and as I moved around it taking more pictures I was looking for just the right angle to eliminate the background and to find dynamic shapes that spoke of movement and power.  I knew right away that this was going to be a black and white image and after I imported it into Nik Silver Efex Pro I processed it, increasing the structure to give it the grainy appearance.

-Russell Berg

A Wooden Heart

A small part of a large log that I found on the beach of the Juan de Fuca Trail. Canon EOS XSi EF 50mm f/1.4 at f/1.4 1/2000 ISO 200My hand runs along the softly weathered cracks, this giant of the forest has somehow come to rest on the rocky shore of the Juan de Fuca Strait.  There is a silver light that seems to glow from deep within.  It is as though somewhere deep deep inside is a wooden heart that still beats and gives the log a vitality that makes it shine in the dying light of a summer sunset.  Years of rocks and waves have pounded the surface so smooth that my hand wants to run along the surface, to find the secret of all those years, to discover a thing through which the wine of life pumped so strongly that it reached towards the very heavens and yet... it fell.

My daughter and I walked the Juan de Fuca Trail a few years ago and we had an absolutely wonderful time together.  One night on Chin Beach, after we had set up camp I discovered a very large log with a huge weathered stump attached.  The sun was going down and it was lit beautifully.  I pulled out my fast 50 because I knew that I wanted to play with depth of field on this amazing piece of wood.  I kep my aperture wide open and the light was low enough to manage all that light giving me some wonderfully flowing, almost water-like backgrounds.

-Rusell Berg