October 21, 2014

Water Play

I love the interplay of light and water. I've made "classic" long exposure film images like Velvet Reflections and, more recently, digital-based abstractions like Reflections #17. And I'll continue to make those types of images as the inspiration arises. But, on this trip, I'm exploring water across different lighting situations, camera angles, and shutter/aperture settings.

In the image here I'm playing with my 100mm Zeiss Planar at f5.6 and exposures in the 1/250th range. I'm trying to isolate wind spun ripples in a certain type of light with limited depth-of-field. The image is handheld (and not sharp throughout) as I'm exploring rather quick subtle changes in position relative to the water and available light.

I don't love this image. It's fair and not quite what I'm after. But it's teaching me things. And that's the point. There's a cycle to this stuff. Experiment, try, fail, learn, try again, succeed. You might have to cycle it a few times before you get to the success part. But make no mistake, it's the way things work. It's a proven methodology both your great grandfather and the latest psychology self-help book will agree on.