Soaring Stone

Interesting stone work on a bank in Portland, Oregon. Canon EOS XSi EF 17-85mm at 17mm f/11 1/90 ISO 200

There is architecture that inspires and lifts, there are buildings that oppress and bear down.  The ability of a physical space to open our minds and set our thoughts free is something that we often overlook in our cookie-cutter office spaces and unimaginative classrooms.  There are places that I walk into and I just want to sit down and write something beautiful and there are places where I just want to leave, where I feel creativity leaking out of me.

Getting a good black and white image is all about processing.  Just clicking “convert to black and white” will not get it done.  The silver of the stone in this image are really only achieved with a very good image processor like Nik Silver Efex Pro.  While I have not used many other dedicated B&W image processors this one delivers so far above and beyond what I have ever gotten from iPhoto, Aperture, or Lightroom.  It’s flexibility, quality and ease of use are really remarkable.  At first I was disappointed that I had lost detail in the shadows under the cornice at the top of the building but I think it provides a nice contrast and a place for your eye to stop before it jumps off in the sky.

-Russell Berg

Harbour

Nanaimo's boats lie in harbour under a dramatic sky. Canon EOS XSi EF-S 17-85mm at 17mm f/22 1/125 ISO 200

A Hum Under My Feet

I found the contrast between the lines of the building in the background and curves in the foreground to be very interesting. Canon EOS XSi EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 at 35mm f/19 1/350 ISO 1600

Their is a hum under my feet. I can feel it, just barely, emerging from the pavements and steel pipes that run under the surface. There is a life to the city that just doesn't exist anywhere else. All of those people living and working and dreaming together in one place brings an energy and a focus that is difficult to replicate. You feel was though more of your future is possible.

I was walking around Seattle and I looked up. I saw this very interesting drain pipe/flower container, not sure what it is, hanging on the wall. I was looking straight up at it and trying to see how it would become an interesting image. It wasn't coming to me until I shifted around to the side and the building in the background came into view. That building was such an interesting combination of angles and lines and the contrast with the curves of the pipes brought everything together. The camera removes the third dimension and as photographers we sometimes bemoan that fact but it can be used to your advantage. Here the compression of the image into one plane makes the contrast of the shapes much stronger.

The City Tells a Story

Broken bricks in a wall in Victoria make an interesting composition. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 10-22mm f/3.4-4 at 15mm f/6.3 1/20 ISO 400

The man in the hat was not at all concerned with how late he was, he didn't care if the caretaker's daughter had to wait for him.  He moved with the kind of unstudied grace that came naturally to a man of certain years and with a certain confidence that came with having made one's way in the world.  She would be there and she would be ready.  As he rounded the corner into the alley the caretaker's daughter stood with her hands on her hips looking angrily at her boot as it shuffled in the dirt.  On top of the wagon loaded with barrels crouched her workman.  She moved towards the man in the hat quickly, anger flashing in her eyes and started to berate him in a quiet voice seething with rage.  The man in the hat reached out and pushed her back slamming her into the other wall of the alley.  As he did this the workman jumped to the ground, his coat catching on the wedge that held the barrels in place.  For just a moment he hung there inches above the ground, the wedge holding his weight, and then it all came down.  The wedge pulled out, the workman fell and the barrels began to fall and roll, crashing and bouncing against the walls of the alley.  The woman was lucky, she had been pushed out of the way.  The two men...

The stories of the city that are rubbed into the bricks has, in places, worn away the sharp edges and left a softened rounded edge.  In other places history has broken and torn at the walls leaving gouges and cavities.  The bricks tell the story of the city, not in words but with an unspoken feeling, a hint and a whisper.

I was walking through downtown Victoria and I saw this corner where a couple of bricks had been broken out.  I felt as though there was an image there with a wonderful story behind it.  Victoria's old downtown has a lot of brick buildings that were built in the late 1800's and I kept wondering to myself what could have caused these two bricks to be broken out.  I took a few photos angled straight on to the corner and shifted just a little when I saw that down the alley was a very interesting repeating pattern to draw your eye into the background.  It gave the image depth and context.  I am using a very wide angle lens here that plays with the perspective enough to really emphasize the broken bricks and yet it almost pulls your eye around the corner and into the background.  One of the great things about wide angles lenses is that they can really emphasize the item in the foreground but also include a lot of background information.  I also wanted to make sure that I included the shadow on the left side of the frame as it provides a nice visual boundary.  

-Russell Berg

The Words Flow

I discovered this person writing in an alley in Victoria. Fuji X10 28mm f/2.8 1/125 ISO 500

An author sits alone.  Sometimes the words flow, they trip over themselves before the ink can form them on the page. The stories tell themselves to the author and he simply writes them down.  Sometimes the blank page mocks, the empty whiteness is scornfull and contemptuous and all of the author's attempts are rebuffed. Sometimes he needs to take a break, sometimes he needs to experience something new, sometimes all he needs is the write space.

I was following my camera around Victoria last weekend and I was taken in by some of the narrow alleys in the older areas of downtown.  I took quite a few photos but I was walking quickly down the street to meet my wife and I happened to glance down this one to my left.  I saw this person sitting in a kind of an alcove in the brick wall with their legs out in the alley as they wrote in a notebook.  I immediately knew that I had a great image if he or she would stay their long enough.  I only had a 10-22mm on my 7D and I snapped off a few but she appeared so far away that I pulled out my X10 and moved in a little closer.  The little Fuji is a perfect street camera, it is small, light, and quiet and most importantly it has that fast f/2.0-2.8 lens.  In post I cropped out the top of the photo as the end of the alley was a filled with very bright, distracting sunlight.  I was very, very pleased with the result.

-Russell Berg