Organic Light Pan

It amazes me how fast time progresses. Another month has gone by since my last post. In that time I tried to catch up on what has been going on photographically on some forums and other websites. I found myself reading some articles written by Joseph Holmes on high end digital and the ins and outs of putting together a medium format digital camera system and dealing with quality control issues as well as the importance of critical focus with such high end imaging equipment. Afterwards I felt like my endeavors in photography were not up to par, lacking, or somehow inferior.

In the past month I also made one trip in search of spring wildflower blooms. I only made two 4×5 photos, and neither was of flowers. I felt like I had missed spring. Then after reading up on high-end medium format digital, I felt like my meager attempts were just that.

And yet in the past month I sold several photos, all of which were made with the 4×5 except for one, which was made using a 10 MP DSLR camera. Each was exceptional in composition: Emerald Pool, Redwood Glow, Rippled Reflection, Autumn Meadow, Before The Heat, and The Test Of Time. Each photo is moving and each moved the patron who purchased them emotionally.

Then this evening, I went out moon sighting, as I do each month, with a 12 MP Nikon D2x digital camera in hand and a prime 400mm f/5.6 manual focus Nikon lens from the late 1980’s era. No thoughts of inadequacy entered my mind once them imagery began to excite my eyes.

Watching the sun go down across the San Francisco Bay among the haze and clouds and sea birds passing by whipped through the sky by a brisk frigid wind, I recalled reading an article years ago written by Galen Rowell who said (I paraphrase), no matter how often you see the same setting sun, something clicks inside and gets one into the business of making photos and nothing else matters. It was not the most exceptional sunset I had ever witnessed, but one that certainly set the mood for what I was to find.

Once the sun did set, the search in the western sky for that thin crescent moon began. After a while, I wondered if I would see it at all this night as the moon was only 23 hours old past conjunction and would only be 1.5% illuminated – a difficult moon to see at best. After about 20 minutes of not seeing it, my attention was diverted downwards to the exposed mud of the Hayward shoreline estuary on the east side of the San Francisco bay.

Visually very exciting with the various textures and cracks, the mud became an interesting subject. What made it even more exciting was that the unusual lighting provided by the remaining blue skylight reflected off the drier more bleached areas of the mud giving a surreal feel to the photograph.

Finally, about half an hour after the sun vanished I looked up and saw a small sliver of light appearing in the sky among the clouds. And again, the subtleties of that light came through and with a camera that pales in comparison to what the highest quality digital equipment can produce. Another moving image of the new moon was made.

This moon was incredibly fine. I lost it in the sky several times after seeing it. I was very happy to have seen it and record its appearance. But I think what impressed me more was that the camera was able to capture subtleties that my eye could not see as I looked on. In this photo, one can just barely make out the entire outline of the moon. The difference in the luminosity of the sky and the disk of the moon is so small that even in Photoshop the luminosity channel of the L*a*b color space only sees a 1% change, and in some spots not even that, as the cursor is moved across the outline of the moon.

Is this a perfect photo technically? No. It suffers from digital noise. It is not as sharp as it could be, although more than acceptable given that the large telephoto lens I was using was shaking quite a bit in that brisk wind. But it leads me to the question of inadequacy. What makes a camera system inadequate? Again, thinking about how I felt after reading those articles on high-end medium format digital camera systems, I began to think that the equipment I had and used was not up to snuff in producing great photos. But no more than 1 year ago, the Nikon D2x was the Nikon flagship camera, and it is a fine camera. Just a little bit over three years ago, nothing in the digital world could even touch the quality of 4×5 film. And according to Joseph Holmes, assembling a top of the line digital medium format camera system is non-trivial. Along with the high resolutions capable of such large sensors and computer designed digital lenses comes what appears to be real issue of quality control. And as outlined in his articles, in some cases, the results are quite poor given what they are capable of. In addition, ones technique behind such cameras becomes ultra-critcal as Micheal Reichmann wrote about on the Luminous-Lanscape article on the Phase One P65+.

This is all fine as it shows that digital equipment is reaching a pinnacle in capturing true to life images. But I have to ask myself, to what end? Do we need all that resolution? Do we need to concern ourselves, as photographers, about focus being one micron (0.000001 meters or 1/1000th of a millimeter) off? Does it matter for the web where unfortunately most of the digital photos end up? I suppose it comes with the advances in technology that we put this technology to the test, but in the end I think it does not amount to a hill of beans when the final photograph produced has little or no emotional value to the patron.

I am not privy to the sales information of other working fine art photographers, but I do wonder how many prints they sell of any given photograph made with such high-end expensive equipment. I know the argument of price vs. value is what gets thrown around when the price tag of such high end systems are brought up, but can they ever recoup the cost of the equipment?

Six years ago during the spring wildflower bloom in Gorman California, I was fortunate enough to have witnessed and photographed that epic bloom. At that time I toted two 35mm cameras, a Nikon F3 and a Nikon F4s, and a barrage of manual focus prime focal length lenses. Digital photography was just making its in-roads and the quality was just about to surpass that of 35mm film. On Easter Sunday morning of 2003 I found myself astounded at that bloom that covered the Gorman Hills. The number of people, photographers and wildflower enthusiasts alike, that had ignored the No Trespassing signs and climbed all over those hills was astounding. I did not however and was very frustrated at not being able to make a photo of just the flowers without having one or more people in the frame. Frustrated, I packed up my gear and proceeded to leave. At the freeway exit there at Gorman, I discovered a dirt road that paralleled Hwy 5 on the west side of the freeway and proceeded down that road. I was now quite a bit away from the hills themselves and had a much wider view. I attached the 400mm telephoto lens to my F4s and started to take intimate photos of the hills. The photo below was one that I came home with.

After The Rain

It has been my number one best selling image from the very first time I showed it. It was not unusual for a large 20×30 inch print to be sold each and every week, and sometimes two per week. Now take a look at a 100% crop of the detail found in a 20×30 enlargement.

It is absolutely nothing to brag about, in fact it is down right ugly. But it has not stopped patrons from marveling at the bloom depicted, amazed by all the color, and moved to unexplainable tears in some cases. But I can’t count the number of times that patrons have compared the 20×30 print to that of the work of Monet. And while I cannot make a claim that even pales next to Monet’s exceptional work, this photograph has been purchased by nearly 250 different patrons over the past six years. This one photo has literally paid off nearly every piece of photographic equipment that I own.

Now if this was not enough, my second best selling photograph, Another Time, again made using 35mm equipment, is poorly focused in the foreground, not by much, but in a 16×24 enlargement it is noticeable to photographers. And yet a framed 16×24 enlargement of that very photograph hangs in the office of the Archbishop William J. Levada in the Vatican in Italy! It was purchased and given to him as a going away gift in 2005 when he moved from San Francisco to the Vatican. He remarked at the time, with tears in his eyes, that it was the most moving photo of Yosemite that he had seen and being a native Californian, Yosemite was his most favorite place and visited there often and that he would be hanging this in his new office. This photo has sold over 120 times since it was made in November of 2001.

Now I am not recounting all of these stories and remarking on the quality of a D2x and old lenses to boast or make anyone believe that my work is anyway exceptional compared to others, in fact I am humbled by the work of many landscape photographers. On the contrary I am trying to point out that photographic equipment will only take a photographer so far. I am not saying that a lowly point and shoot camera can ever take the place of any high-end camera, nor am I saying that a good photo can be made using any camera. But what I want to point out is that as photographers we would not be lost without all of this new cutting edge technology. Yes the technology is remarkable. Yes incredible photos are being made with it. Yes it is stretching the envelope of what is capable. But it has to be in the hands of a capable artist for anything moving to come out of it that will be of any real worth to those who view it. And before you go out and take a second mortgage on your house to finance a top of the line digital medium or large format system, think about the last photo you made and what moved you to make it. Think about the resulting photograph and where it ended up. Was it on paper or did it end up on some web page? Did it move you as an image later the way it moved you when you first saw the scene? Did it move others in the way that it moved you?

Galen Rowell once said “I like to feel that all my best photographs had strong personal visions and that a photograph that doesn’t have a personal vision or doesn’t communicate emotion fails“. That is how I feel about photography as well and it is where I concentrate my energy now, and not on producing lifeless technically perfect images. A camera, no matter how advanced, cannot translate my vision and emotions alone without my artistic ability. And with out that then I would be lost.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
~ Albert Einstein

Sometimes the heart is moved by the simplest things. Because in those simple, unobtrusive elements of creation the soul finds deep solace and recognition of the creative powers of God.

I can’t think of a way to put it any simpler than that.

The new crescent moon of the 4th month of the Islamic year – Rabi’ Ath-Thani 1430. The new spring moon of 2009, it is as simple as it gets.

New Crescent of Rabi' Ath-Thani, 1430

Peace – Youssef.

On Wednesday afternoon I decided to take a hike on the very last day of winter. The buzz is that the wildflower bloom this year is early with flowers blooming up and down the state, maybe not as extensive as in years past but definitely blooming. On a good year, Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve, the place where photography first took hold in my heart, is THE wildflower location on the San Francisco Peninsula and I wanted to see if anything had started there.

It was a day where you did not know where you ended and the sky began. The air was so soothing that you could not tell that you were actually outdoors. It was perfect. As I hiked along I realized the flowers were nowhere to be found. But nonetheless, the hike was great and the scenery, as always, was comforting.

At about one mile into my hike I detoured and headed to the ancient oak grove that resides on Russian Ridge. As I approached the grove, the sun was getting close to the horizon and I realized that this was the very last day of winter – March 19th, 2009. It was as perfect a sunset as one could hope for.

Winter's Last Sunset

I then noticed this live oak basking in the last rays of the winter’s sun. It was backlit and was poised against a distant hill that was in the shadows. It immediately caught my eye and I dropped my pack and pulled out the Large Format camera and began to work. Once I finished I also captured this image digitally as this oak was still waiting to leave. Still in its winter slumber, the early warm temperatures and life giving rains were not enough to coax the leaves to come out – but I am sure they will be out to play in the sun very soon.

Waiting To Leave

I then turned to the sun, that golden warm torch in our sky as it sank lower in the western sky I waited until it was just moments away before it bid us, and winter, a farewell and tripped the shutter once more.

Last Moments of Winter

Then I just stood there and watched the sun slowly vanish beneath the horizon – silently and without any fanfare. And suddenly, the last of winter was gone.

The air, laden with moisture, began to chill as the cold wind off the Pacific raced up the canyons and ravines filling it with a delicate mist that began to enshroud the mountains below me in mystery. Mixed with the final rays of the sun, the mountains blushed as Spring began knocking on the door asking to be let in.

Blushing In Pink

Light has always amazed me. It is everywhere in our world as it surrounds us, but at the same time it is invisible until it interacts with the objects in front of us. Then those objects reveal their many shades, tainted if you will, by the light that showers them. Sometimes they glow while other times they come on harshly and force us to look away as if they are trying to tell us to leave them alone. No matter what however, without light they could not manifest themselves for us to see. Without light we would be in perpetual darkness, lost without direction or the courage to step forward. Blinded and bereft of the beauty that appears due to light’s countenance. As spring is now upon us, the days will soon be vibrant with new life basking in the warm light and calling us to come out and play. Let us join the beams of light as they mingle with the Earth and be happy, we all need that.

Peace – Youssef

We are about 10 days away from the vernal equinox.  It is a refreshing time – a time for new beginnings and great hope.  And for about the past 10 days in the midst of rain and turbulent weather, the signs of spring have been present.  We don’t have to go far to find it and enjoy all that it has to offer.  Just a few steps from my studio door, the first signs of this wonderful season in my neighborhood can be seen and enjoyed.

First Signs

These wonderfully vibrant yellow clover blossoms are almost everywhere I look these days.  In front yards, around trees, along the curb line and in garden flower beds, these near fluorescent flowers just glow with new life.  They love the warm sun.  Without the warmth of the sunlight or in the absence of the sun altogether they just close up and hang down.  I decided to get up close and personal with these lovely little flowers yesterday afternoon and was amazed at what I saw.

Getting Close

They glow so brightly that they just bring on a smile.  The slightest breeze can move them and this tried my patience greatly for the time I spent with them.  But looking closer yet, the detail that they hold starts to really astonish the eye.

Closer Still

The closer I looked the more amazed I became.  From fine ridges on their delicate yellow petals to the green spirals that lead into the center to the fine stamen and pistils and the ever important pollen dust lingering in wait for the wind or an insect to come and preserve future generations to come.

In The Center

Just as I started to ponder on that, I heard a buzz.  I looked up from the camera’s viewfinder to see a lone honeybee had decided to visit the very patch that I had been photographing.  Now you would think that with the great technology of today’s digital cameras that capturing this bee in a photo would be easy.  However, I was using an older manual focus lens – yeah I know call me crazy, but how often does a tree or rock just get up and start running away in a landscape that I would need a fast auto focus lens?  Anyway after burning many pixels I was able to capture this little guest of the clover coming in for a landing and the subsequent meal and pollination that took place.

Landing Approach

The Sip of Nectar

All Through

It was a very awe inspiring interaction to witness.  This little bee flying in from who knows how far away to visit these little flowers and to feed on the minute amount of nectar that they produce.  And in the process it secures the existence of future clover plants to come in the coming spring of NEXT year!  These flowers exist, not for the pleasure of the onlooker, or for the sake of the bee, but only for the survival of itself.  It is astonishing to see the contrast between how a plant selfishly secures its future compared to how we greedily attempt to secure ours.

While we rake each other over the coals and throw one another under the bus to accumulate more wealth and leave the rest for dead, the flowers give much more than they receive and sacrifice only themselves once pollination is complete.  From the vibrant colors to the sweet perfumes that lure the bee and us to them, to the honey that results from the bee’s hive which feeds thousands of immature bees to sweetening our foods and drinks, the simple little clover – the unsung hero of the spring flower world – goes nearly unnoticed and regarded as a weed – how sad. 

Would that we could be so giving as the clover.  How many great things could we achieve?  In this wonderfully hopeful season when life renews and Mother Earth is glowing with this new life, I think it would be well worth our time in our human realm to foster growth and prosperity by helping each other get through this difficult time in our lives.

Peace – Youssef Ismail

It’s been another month. Yesterday I went out to look for the new crescent moon of Rabi’ Al-Awwal, the third month of the Islamic year, the month in which the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of God Upon him) was born. It is a good time. Unfortunately however, the moon was not seen yesterday. The clouds in the sky were thick and only a small window through the clouds was visible for us to look into. Nonetheless, the month has come to an end and today with clearer skies the new crescent moon was easily visible and I had the good fortune to spend about an hour with it as it slowly sank into the western sky.

Rabi Al-Awwal Crescent

When I photograph the moon I always think to myself, these photos will not be very interesting. The sky looks plain, the moon too thin and I think to myself how great it would be if the sky suddenly erupted in a blush of color. But after I return home and start working with the images, I am utterly amazed at how beautiful the moon is with all its subtleties.

Subtleties of the Moon

And then when the color does appear, it makes the moon stand out even more. One of the beautiful aspects of the moon is that it cycles. It always returns to this moment, like clockwork every month. It’s dependable, even if we can’t see it due to clouds or weather or some other reason, it always returns. It’s a promise that you can bank on. At the same time, it, just like everything else in creation is in a state of evanescence. It will vanish just like everything else. Here today and gone tomorrow.

Crescent in a blush of pink

Just like the light that lights the sky vanishes, so to will the moon and everything else for that matter, everything.

However, its only in the absence of something do we realize how important that thing was to us and what a blessing it was. And just when you think that you can’t do with out that blessing, you find that in its absence you can see things that you were never able to see when its brilliance was blinding you. You realize that even though all you can see is a small sliver of its light, its true nature is hidden by the make-up that covers it and in the shadows its true nature is revealed.

The Moon Revealed in Earth Shine

As the day came to a close and the final photo taken, I realized that no one is an island. Even though the moon tonight was the most brilliant object in the sky, it was not alone and could never be our moon if it was alone. For sharing the sky with the moon was Venus, our closest neighboring planet. Everything in nature has its counterpart – night and day, sun and moon, husband and wife, right and wrong.

The Moon and Venus

One cannot exist without the other. Everything in creation exhibits this quality. And it is only with this very quality can anything be perpetuated. If one side of the balance is upset it will upset the other side as well and send everything into an out of control chaotic spiral downward into destruction – May God protect us from that.

I was sorting through some of my digital images on my hard drive and came across this photo of my son and I during the 2008 spring wildflower season in the Antelope Valley of Southern California. It was the middle of the day and we had been out since sunrise. The wind was howling and with sustained speeds of 20 to 25 mph! Finding it difficult to work under the darkcloth without my son’s help, I took his digital camera and placed it on a tripod. Pointed it back at us and we started to pose.

Camera Man and Lens Boy .

So here Camera Man and his faithful sidekick, Lens Boy, are out catching rogue light rays among the fleeting moments of time.

We had so much fun that day goofing around together, bonding, and falling in love again. Its hard at times to be a kid, to play as a kid or to even bring our persective back to that of a child. But it is what keeps the heart young, seeing the world through the eyes of a child. And what makes moments like this so magical and important is that it brings a parent and child very close to one another, so close in fact that very deep inner thoughts are shared. And through that sharing we discover so much about each other.

On the last night of this specific trip, after dinner as we snuggled up in our sleeping bags amidst the absolutely silent darkness, my son said something to me that will stay with me forever. He said, “I don’t want to go back home tomorrow, and I wish this did not have to end”. I asked why and he replied, “out here we don’t have anything to worry about”.

He, at only 11 years old, figured out what most people will never figure out in their entier lives – that in the wilderness a soul can find peace, while back in the material world all we do, day in day out, is toil and worry. Building that foundation of love for the natural world starts young. And I hope that someday, when he has to explain his life philosophy, that he will look back on this trip and make it a pivotal point in his life.

Time passes by so fast.  This evening marked the beginning of the New Islamic Year, Year 1430.  Tonight being the first evening of the month of Muharram and tomorrow the first full day.  The Islamic calendar is one based on the lunar cycle.  Each of the 12 lunar months is marked by sighting the new crescent moon.  Three times out of the year it is a big deal throughout the Muslim world with the start and end of Ramadan, the month of fasting, and with the start of the 12th month in the year which is the month of Pilgrimage.  For the rest of the year, the moons go pretty much un-noticed except for a handful of dedicated die-hard moon-sighters.

Muharram Moon in Pink

I however have made a point to go out and search for the new moon every month since 1990.   Some months I see the moon and other months I don’t.  And I don’t always get a photo, even though it was photographing the moon that got me interested in and steeped in photography to begin with.  I had marked this day, the 28th of December in my calendar from one month ago at the last moon sighting trip and ingrained that date in my head.  It came upon me quicker than I thought.  Then a few days ago, with the 28th a brainworm in my head, I forgot why the 28th was important and for some reason I thought 28th was a Monday.  Then about a half an hour before sunset TODAY it suddenly occured to me that this evening was the night for seeking out the moon.

Muharram Crescent and Mercury

As I scrambled to gather myself and my gear I realized that there would not be enough time to make out to my usual location for sighting the moon.  As I raced down the street to the gas station to fill up before my ascent to Skyline Hwy along the main ridgeline of the Santa Cruz Mountains, I decided to take my chances and stay right there in town and hope that I would be able to see it above the mountains’ skyline.  So I gassed up the truck and then drove a whopping 150 yards and pulled into the neighborhood shopping center, parked and pulled out my camera gear and prepared for the show.  Twenty minutes later, faintly appearing in the sky the crescent emerged, and even though I have seen countless new moons, it was just as spectacular as any that I have ever witnessed.  As the evening progressed and the moon slowly sank closer and closer to the skyline one of its neighbors in the sky, Mercury, appeared to join the moon and usher in the new year. 

I then thought how amazing it is that the new Islamic year begins with such a heavenly event.  It saddened me to think that most of world in a few short days would be celebrating the new Gregorian year at loud heedless parties in a semi-drunken stupor.  No heavenly event would take place marking the new year, only the click of the mechanized hands of the clock, an invention of our own making, and then we would continue to party making more and more noise until we either pass out drunk or finally give up to fatigue.  In contrast, even though I was standing in the middle of a bustling city, all was silent as that moon made its way to the horizon.  In all the grandure of the universe, I again remembered that a simple event like the appearance of the moon and witnessing it come into existence links me with all of it.  Its both humbling and enriching at the same time.  I never tire of feeling like I am a part of something greater than myself, and grateful to the One who made it all, that I could be there and to share it with everyone else.

Muharram 1, 1430 - December 28, 2008 5:34 pm PST.

Happy New Year and Peace to All!

As a photographer I feel a certain amount of responsibility to record the world as it is. I always looked at what I thought were manipulated photos as somewhat of a desecration. That it was untruthful to portray the world in a way that it was not. I think my first foray with this line of thinking was against those photos that were heavily saturated in color produced by the use of a polarizing filter to make a scene look more enticing than it really was. I have always enjoyed the outdoors and I never saw that dripping off the page color in “real life”. I was satisfied, and in some respects arrogant, in producing the dull and lifeless photos that I knew came out of a camera.

Then as I became more serious about portraying the natural world as it “really” is, I railed against the heavy-handed use of the now popular and almost indispensable Graduated Neutral Density (GND) filter. Used improperly and you could tell that it was a lame attempt to try to make film capture something that it could not. However, when used properly one could hardly tell a GND was used, and the photograph showed a scene that faithfully captured what one’s eye would see. For at this point I had learned that film was limited, it was a poor medium in trying to portray the world as we really experienced it. What I did next shocked my closest confidants; I whole-heartedly accepted and started using the GND. Although now I was branded as a hypocrite, a liar, a fake. I was shocked. Had I created such an environment around me that I had galvanized people into thinking that what the camera and film produced were truth? Had I built around me a glass bubble so fragile that if I tried to grow as a photographer and break through that bubble I would send shards of broken glass at myself as to render me dead? What had I done?

The more I photographed the more I learned that the camera cannot see what my EYES see. The camera cannot feel what my heart feels. The camera cannot smell, hear or touch what my nose, ears and fingers can. As I wandered this beautiful world with my camera photographing I became aware that I was actually being unfaithful to the beauty that I loved so much in my photos.

Even though I was recording the light faithfully, I was not conveying the euphoria that I felt in the presence of that beauty. And thus I embarked on a path of trying to convey the multi-dimensional experience of being out in nature onto the two-dimensional plane of a photograph. What resulted was sometimes very different from the straight record of light that was present. For now, the images transcended into the realm of my feelings. All photographers, as they photograph, are steeped in emotions at the time the shutter is tripped. Recalling those emotions when looking at the resulting photos at times leaves the photographer somewhat let down as the photos appear lifeless. I had to learn to not judge an image until I brought it into my photo editing software environment and apply the standard adjustments – tonal dialation, adjusting contrast and setting color balance – first. Then if it was still lifeless, a number of other adjustments from applying a softening blur or artistic use of dodges and burns to eliminating color entirely and going balck and white. If, after all that, I can’t reproduce a pale shadow of the euphoria I felt at the time I tripped the shutter, then and only then is the image a flop and destined for the trash can, otherwise known as the ‘Round File’.

And thus, you have the photograph that graces this post. A rendition of the euphoric state of my heart as I stood there under these delicate trees as thier leaves shivered in the light breeze and danced among the sunbeams that filtered through them. Maybe I am not a true photographer anymore depicting the world as seen through the lens of a camera, but now, at least now, I feel that I am finally writing with light.

I have been silent for some time. Not to sure why. I have been busy conducting two workshops, one in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Northern California and the second in famous Yosemite Valley. Both were in search of the lovely autumn color. However, earlier I spent several days on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in search of autumn color there as well. I was there during the inital shock of the financial melt down and I guess I had internalized the fear that was rampant and it was reflected in my images. For the images that were appearing to me were somewhat foreboding in nature. Like “Strangled” from my previous post and this image below titled “Death’s Hand”, both have a deeply foreboding qaulity to them.

Yet on my return from the Eastern Sierra, I found that my heart had eased as I found the mountains still there. They had not shaken, they were still as firm as they have always been and still served to hold the Earth together. And so even though my heart was seeing what it felt which led me to these images, in reality there was nothing to worry about at all.

Sometimes an image just happens to come to you. It appears as if by magic at your feet, and in this case it literally did. Even more amazing is when an image just captivates your imagination and conveys to you exactly what you are feeling.

Such was the case with this photo of twisted sage brush in the Eastern Sierra. Continue Reading »