Hope

There is nothing like the warm comforting lightness of a newborn baby as she nestles against your body.  She lays there in the crook of your arm and all of the possibility of humanity is present in that soft warm bundle.  She is the embodiment of hope, the expectation of a life yet to be lived, she holds all of the aspirations of a sunrise.  She is all of these things and yet she is so fragile, so in need of our love, our care, our protection.  It is this tension that draws us to her, that pulls us in, that makes us want to do everything we can for her.

A few months ago a friend of mine and her husband had their first child.  I went over to their house shortly after to congratulate them, to hear the story, but most of all to hold the baby.  I got to hold her for quite some time but then the grandfather showed up and if there is anything that I know well, it is the fact that grandparents trump friends.  The little girl’s grandfather is a giant man who held his granddaughter with the kind of fluid, protective grace that only a grandfather can.  His hands have been worn by a lifetime of hard work and as his granddaughter was sleeping she instinctively grabbed his finger.  I had had my camera out and was waiting for this kind of moment, a moment that would illustrate so clearly the contrast and the connection between these two people.  The contrast is illustrated in the textures of their skin and the size of their hands; the connection in the trusting grasp of the sleeping baby.  When I got the image back to my computer I wanted to emphasize the difference in the textures of the skin on their hands so I increased the contrast and the structure of his hand and left hers smooth.  I am very happy with the result.  I wish that I had been able to wait until her eyes were open but, when photographing babies, sometimes you take what you can get.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

Laundry Art

Good images happen when you walk around with your camera.  I was walking with friends around downton Seattle and as we wandered past an alley I happened to look up and this is what I saw.  I believe, although I am not sure, that it was an urban art installation.  They way that the wires crossed back and forth from all different levels, the fact that every piece of laundry was white, it all spoke to and intentional piece of art.  I thought it was beautiful and your experience of it changed as you walked underneath and the lines and placement of the pieces changed as my perspective changed.  I knew that I wanted a photograph of it but it presented a challenging exposure situation.  I was standing in deep shadow with dark shadows falling on parts of both walls and a bright blue sky right behind the main subject.  I didn’t want the walls to go black because the sense of context that they give is really important so I took my initial reading using spot metering off of one of the shirts and then underexposed by one stop.  I wasn’t concerned about preserving detail in the sky because there was none, but I didn’t want the shirts to blow out the highlights.  Luckily the shirts were all in shadow so they weren’t too hot, exposure wise.  By going -1 on the exposure the walls were very dark in my original image but there was enough dynamic range in the file to pull the detail out in post processing.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

Support

It’s been a long time since I have been posting regularly and that is largely because all of my gear was stolen and I was waiting for it to be replaced by my insurance company.  I’d like to thank Steve Julien who was a big help.  He’s a fantastic photographer check him out here.  On my first shoot I went out to a local marina and I came across this image underneath one of the piers.  The texture and tone of the wooden posts was very compelling against the glassy smooth ripples of the water and I wanted a treatment that would emphasize this.  I pulled the image into Nik Silver Efex Pro and pulled up the contrast and the structure while maintaining the silver tones in the wood.  Without really intending to this gave the water a glassy smooth texture that contrasted beautifully with rough wood.  The pier on left provided enough visual weight to anchor all of the visual activity on the right side of the frame but I didn’t want it to be distracting so I darkened it substantially.  I think this gives the eye an entry point in the left side of the frame but allows the eye to move into the more complicated structures on the right side.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

Reflections

The window as it looked before I converted it to black and white.

Another, very dramatica, black and white treatment.

Normally I hate black and white images with a splash of colour in them but this one really seemed to cry out for that kind of treatment.  The day was very gray when I took this picture and the image reflected in the window was almost monochromatic.  Almost, but not quite and the remaining colour was just distracting.  When I converted the image to black and white in Nik Silver Efex Pro the reflection of the Nanaimo area shipyards in the background really became more clear.  After that part of the image was the way that I wanted it I pulled the blue of the building back into the image.  I wish that I had been able to get up a little higher so that the camera was not looking up at the window; this makes the lines converge towards the top and I would like the image better if it had been square.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

Beluga

A year and a half ago I went to the Vancouver Aquarium.  At places like this, you line up along the railing and just about every pair of hands is holding on to a camera.  In those circumstances, with a very restricted level of access and lacking the  ability to move around all of the photos tend to come out looking the same.  Using these restricted circumstances as a challenge to come up with a different way of expressing myself photographically I decided to focus on shape and form rather than just getting caught up with getting exactly the same photo that hundreds of other people where getting of these magnificent creatures.  The beautiful curves of the Beluga whale’s back and the contrast of it’s pearlescent white skin with the dark water produces a wonderful flowing form that echoes the liquid curve that the whale pushes around itself.  Much more interesting than a picture of the Beluga pushing it’s nose up to eat a fish out of the trainer’s hand.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com