Photo of the week 2015-08-03

"Shore Songs" 

- a series of images depicting rock and water scenes that sing of northern beauty -

This series of images became a personal favourite instantly as I began making them one fall evening back in 2012. My satisfaction with the entire set (now 14 images) has not waned, actually, I like the set more and more as time goes on.

A print of one image sold a few years back to a local client for display in her home. I personally delivered the finished framed print and will never forget how please she was to see it hung. I love to create my images and prints but it is a special feeling to have someone appreciate them enough to purchase and display them for their own enjoyment. I cannot express how grateful I am to those who appreciate my work enough to have acquired a print for themselves. The creative fire burns and it burns a little longer and a little hotter when stoked.

Prints of images in the series can be seen and are available in the "Shore Songs" gallery on my Fine Art America page or as Signed, Artisan Crafted Giclée Archival Prints by contacting me directly.

DJE
 

Photo of the Week 2013-08-05

At it's core, this blog is about photography. It was started it as a result of my enthusiastic return to the creative pursuit of photography after years of using a camera sporadically, only to take "snapshots". My photographic journey has pushed me to open my mind, encouraging me to explore and experience the subjects of my photographs and their environment.

Overall, I now find myself making less images on my photo outings. It is not something that I try to do intentionally. It is something that has developed with my maturation as a photographer. No longer do I suffer the uncontrollable urge to begin shooting away indiscriminately when first presented with a subject. This doesn't mean that I'm not excited at the prospect of a new location or scene, just that I find my approach more refined and contemplative.

This weekend's outing took us to the Cheltenham Badlands. Arriving just after sunrise in the brisk morning air, I began by moving around the location, exploring different vantage points. The sun was moving too, cresting the horizon, selectively waking the landscape as it slowly rose higher in the sky. Contemplating the development of an image, when the time was just  right, I made my way to a spot where I could isolate a lone tree against shadowed background as sunlight called on it to start a new day.

daylight cometh to the badlands

Not only has this journey providing opportunity to be creative through photography, it has lead me to explore creativity in other ways. After working this location for a while and making most of the images I would capture on this day, I broke from photography to sit and sketch. Yes SKETCH. Now, carrying a sketchbook and pen will be the norm when I'm out photographing. The act of sketching makes me take notice of the subject in different ways. There is a calming, meditative quality about sitting with sketchbook and pen. I hope this will ultimately improve my photography.

I have Patrick to thank for encouraging me after recent discussions around our photography led to the subject of drawing and sketching. It had always interested me but I lacked the confidence to start, thinking I had no talent for drawing. It may still be that I don't ...  but I now know it doesn't matter. It's all part of the journey and at this stage, one to new and vulnerable to share openly yet.

Doug at work - by Patrick Boerlin 2013

Oh, and here's an image of me while I was working the location, taken by Patrick just before I looked up and caught him photographing me :-)  






DJE

Photo of the Week 2012-10-15

colourful voice

This past weekend I was very busy with a Photography Show and Sale along with colleagues from the Guelph Photographer's Guild. For the 2nd year we ran the show and sale concurrent with the Guelph Studio Tour.

It was a frenetic couple of weeks leading up to the show, trying to get all my work ready for display in addition to being the organizer of our event. This year I decided to showcase a recent body of work with images made in the Killarney / La Cloche area of Northern Ontario. The images are part of a new series entitled "voices of the land". I blogged about the experience that has spawned this new work in a post last week.

This Photo of the Week is the one of mine that attracted the most attention during the show and much to my pleasure, was purchased by a local Guelph resident to decorate her home.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2012-04-30

Every now and then there is an image that really resonates with me, one that I keep coming back to in my mind, one that I know I want to craft into a fine art piece that I'll proudly display on my own walls. Forest Mist is such an image. Taken just about two months ago it's an image that I have envisioned for a long time. The vision was there, I just needed to place myself in the right condtions at the right time to be able to capture the scene.

I was pleased with the colour version that I had processed it with a slight vignette and a fair amount of dodging and burning reminiscent of work previously done in the "wet" darkroom. Several sizes and itterations of the work had been printed to scrutinize before committing to frame and hang the result. Still, it wasn't until I was studying images from another photographer with a series of warmtoned B&W landscapes that I considered processing this one in B&W.

I had been doing some some research on "intimate landscapes" as introduced by photographer Eliot Porter and came across the work of Guy Tal. Some time spent reviewing Guy's images and a few other references on warm toned B&W images and I knew what I needed to do to complete my work on forest mist.

forest light - monochrome

... it's already printed for my office, larger version for home to come.


 DJE