One month and two days ago, Gina and I welcomed our first child into the world, and ever since, life has been pretty upside down. I was finally able to get out and photograph for the first time this morning.
Cottonwoods by State Road 142, Amalga, Utah 2016
Dead Deer at Bear River Bottoms WMA, Utah, 2016
Phragmites
Flooded and Frozen Field, Amalga, Utah 2016
Eighteen Minutes in Amalga
Gina and I recently got to go to Long Beach, California, for a conference that she attended for work. While she was in the conference I got to play around a bit. I took advantage of my free time and went to the beach and walked around close to the hotel and photographed. I also went to the Long Beach Museum of Art, and saw the exhibit they have up right now, titled Vitality and Verve in the Third Dimension. It was an interesting exhibit, with murals, installations, a few of which were interactive, mixed media pieces, ceramics and other types of sculpture. My favorite piece was by Ernest Zacharevic, a Lithuanian graffiti artist who recreated photographs of kids in, I think, Brooklynn as murals.
I'd never been to Long Beach, and it was a fun last trip for Gina and I before our baby comes in mid-November.
Belmont Pier, Long Beach, California 2016
Island White, Long Beach, California 2016
Storm Drain, Long Beach, California 2016
Island White
God ♥ U, Long Beach, California 2016
Bluff Park, Long Beach, California 2016
Untitled
Untitled
Galaxy Towers
Untitled
Convention Center Walkway, Long Beach, California 2016
E. Shoreline Drive, Long Beach, California 2016
Bench, Telescope, Long Beach, California 2016
Queensway Bay, Long Beach, California 2016
Last week I had the opportunity to go to Plymouth, Wisconsin on business for a training for a machine we have where I work. If you don't know where Plymouth is, it is about an hour north of Milwaukee, and about thirty minutes away from Sheboygan, which is on Lake Wisconsin. After the training sessions, I drove around Plymouth, Sheboygan Falls, and Sheboygan to see the landscape and the towns. I'd never seen any of the Great Lakes, so seeing Lake Michigan was a must. I ended up going to North Side Municipal Beach both evenings I had free. The first evening wasn't really planned, I just ended up there. The second evening, however, was planned: I saw on the weather forecast there would be bad winds out on the lake, causing large waves closer to shore, and sure enough, they were about 6 feet high, which drew out some surfers and jet skiers.
Wave Breaker, Lake Michigan, Sheboygan, Wisconsin 2016
Lake Michigan, Sheboygan, Wisconsin 2016
Lake Michigan, Sheboygan, Wisconsin 2016
Breaking Waves on Lake Michigan
A few months ago, I was out photographing and the wind was blowing too hard to make the photographs I wanted to make; the photographs were blurry from camera shake. So, I decided to really exaggerate the camera movement and panned the camera from right to left, and left to right, and up and down and came away with some very pleasing results. Ever since then, I've made more of these "motion studies" whenever I've gone out to photograph. I'm thinking there are some real possibilities for a strong portfolio in this process.
Washington Lake
Walking Path, Chism Park
Dock, Lake Washington
Alki Point
Snoqualmie River
Near Kennewick, Washington
Guardrail Along I-82 Near Kennewick, Washington
Approaching the Washington-Oregon Border on I-82
Approaching the Washington-Oregon Border on I-82
Approaching Pendleton, Oregon
Sunset Over Bear Lake at Rendezvous Beach
Sunset Over Bear Lake at Rendezvous Beach
Sunrise Over Bear Lake at Rendezvous Beach
Rendezvous Beach Campground
These next few images were made by rotating the camera during exposure, rather than panning, and the last two were made while panning and rotating the camera.
Rendezvous Beach
Sunrise Over Bear Lake
Sunrise Over Bear Lake
Sunrise Over Bear Lake
I love how serendipitous this process is. Serendipity is the main reason why I'm so passionate about the lumen process. I discovered that particular process towards the end of my education at BYU Idaho, and it was a nice and needed change from the exactness of working with the Zone System.
I'm really drawn to the way these photographs in motion erase the details of the landscape and reduce it down to its most basic elements. Deep shadows are erased and colors become more pastel in some cases, and even more saturated in others. Shapes emerge that are only revealed, or that are plainly created by the camera's movement.
This is a process that I'll surely be pursuing.
Four images of a wheat field while the sun sets with the camera panning in motion with a long exposure.
Wheat Field During Sunset #1
Wheat Field During Sunset #2
Wheat Field During Sunset #3
Wheat Field During Sunset #4