Story Tellers

     Photographing Feet is an old, fallback photo theme of mine. When bored in public places I sometimes focus on feet.  With my Midwestern background, it feels just perverted enough to be fun. The fun fetish includes both knowing and non-suspecting Feet. 

The object of entertainment with Feet is to simply observe and react with my little Kodak M853. Assignment Spec's: Quickly compose a scene which includes feet, but never faces, and make a snapshot that could provoke a story ... or move a plot along. 

1. Feet     2. No Faces     3. Story line

Some of stories may be more intimate. 

Other stories reveal visual tensions.

Some feet demand attention.

Where are they going?

Airports and train stations make great hunting grounds for Feet.

~ ~ ~

A Murder of Crows

Crows ~
     Bright, Social, and Noisy. They live all over the world; in Florida as well as, the Punjab of Northern India. Crows, I've heard, are attracted to shiny objects and will steal your silver ear rings, if given half a chance.

A Murder of Crows

A great gathering (murdering) of crows occurs daily in my neighborhood; in fact, they migrate en masse, moving from one large tree top to another several residential blocks away. Noisy, luminescent creatures, crows spar for highest position in the tree, jumping on each other, exchanging places. Then, after everyone seems to settle down for awhile, they suddenly break camp, make room for straggling newbies, and fly to the distant gathering spot.

My FB friend, Bina Gupta, tells me that in the Punjab countryside of Northern India crows announced visitors with their cawing. Crows are so social they also gather before storms to find common shelter, I would presume. However, Folk lore says gathering crows bring bad news, or good news, depending on the direction from which the gathering came. American Indian lore reveres crows and ravens. Some people believe crows are the Go-Betweens of Two Realms

Crows told me something about myself. They informed me of my prejudice regarding them. I've seen their Raven cousins, at the Tower of London; they are scary-big, and raucous creatures who made me cover my eyes, sympatico with historical victims.

Now, I can't watch crows without an initial shudder.

~ ~ ~

Flying Lessons

These days Marty's Hawk is involved in a continuing education. Twice a day, in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon, we hear the young female's mother encouraging her on to make flights between the tallest neighborhood trees.

During the first few days after the young female appeared, I would grab my camera when the piercing calls of Mama hawk beckoned. Outside with camera, I hear a swoosh and the hawk flies directly over my head landing in a tree on the other side of the house. Near, yet so very far away.

These birds are not exhibitionists; rarely do they pause for photo opportunities. What's more, the flying lessons range throughout the neighborhood; my guess is they are working within a two-mile radius of my own perch. A rapid bicycle ride to this distant oak tree yielded a little viewing for this bird watcher. The next tree-to-tree flight produces an exhausted bicyclist-voyeur with a dangling camera. I need wings to follow.

However, these beautiful girls don't care much about followers. I take the hint, turn off my camera, and bask in the good fortune of having gotten a few photos.

~ ~ ~

Marty's Hawk

Sunday morning. Standing at the kitchen sink, absorbed in the mindfulness of washing dishes, I glanced out the window and knew immediately what it was.

Click to enlarge

How utterly unexpected and delightful to be presented with such a curious vision! A sign, an omen, perhaps? Good fortune? Something that Marty, our first winter guest, brought with her? Who can explain such things? 

Did this Harrier Hawk come to pray with us? for us?

There is something in the brain of modern, urban man that demands a logical, cause-and-effect answer to every curiosity. We shuffled through Google seeking the reasonable answer for this creature's prayerful posture on the electric power line.

A half-hour passed for the inverted hawk with very little movement, a slight relaxing of wings, a few wind-rustled tail feathers. 

Petersons Field Guide identified this creature as a female Harrier (marsh) Hawk. Google told us, furthermore, that sometimes young birds attempting to grasp a branch (or electric power line) will over- or under-compensate, lose balance, and fall like the hanged man of the Tarot clinging onto their perch. 

This beautiful creature finally uprighted herself and, unseen, flew away. Marty and her Jim left this morning for their home in the frozen tundra of Ohio. It's Monday. Another marvelous weekend is behind us, leaving only an expectation of more beautiful moments during the week to come.

~ ~ ~

Composition Two

This multiple-exposure image might have been titled Dancing Potatoes, but it became Composition Two so I could find it again.

Composition Two

These potato exposures were made closer to the subjects than in Composition One, and accomplished primarily by introducing a bit of "pitch and yaw" to the focal axis of the camera lens. The magenta in the potatoes begged for more color saturation. What else could a Zen photographer do but yield to the little beggars?

So, what does this image prove? 
1. Dancing potatoes may induce dizziness or sea sickness, 
2. Dancing potatoes might seem to advertize Dramamine TM, and 
3. Visual tensions between potatoes suggest faux 3-D. 
4. This, two, was fun and They were delicious after their portraits were made.
5. When I am alone in the kitchen I am easy to amuse and capable of entertaining myself.

~ ~ ~ 

Composition One

I usually grab the little Kodak hanging on my belt whenever I see something that stirs my aesthetic sensitivities. As a student of Zen photography I strive to articulate what attracts my senses through pictures. Most of the time this tendency leads to composition exercises and a closely related series of digital photos.

The subject matter is viewed at numerous points of view. I ask myself questions about the pictorial forms and light. I seek to gather picture elements that strike an emotional chord of recognition when I view the print.

Composition One, below, is a different exercise for me. While cutting onions I decided it might prove interesting to test my range of aesthetic convergence.

Composition One

After making the initial composition and exposure, I walked a great circle arc around the kitchen through the living room and back into the kitchen. I made return trips for compositions and exposures 2, 3, and 4. The full-frame photos were combined in Photoshop Layers and their opacity was adjusted to demonstrate the compositional variance between shots.

What does the image prove? 1. There is a relatively small range of my preferable framings for this composition, 2. Time-motion studies are a breeze while practicing Zen photography, and 3. the visual tensions between framings almost bring this multiple exposure scene into faux 3-D.  And 4. It was fun.

~ ~ ~

Sarasota Stereo Triptychs

A local self-promotion project from the early 90's that

 examined downtown Sarasota, Florida architecture.

This project evolved from a simple consideration of an old stereo camera I had just bought. The camera features two lenses. Each half frame lens of the stereo camera is separated by an interpupilary distance that renders three dimensionality in a stereo viewer.

click to enlarge.

The first and the third half frame pictures are exposed during the same instant that the shutter release is tripped. It's a wide angle view.

The simple photo objective: present architecture in interesting combinations of light and form. And make in-camera compositions into triptychs of continuous film (no cut and paste).

~ ~ ~