I tried out my new camera along one of the beaches at Sleeping Bear Dunes. Cotton wood trees survive here in the migrating sand because they can grow new root systems higher up on their stems as needed.
On Memorial day, a loop on the Sleeping Bear Plateau is a popular family trail.
Sometimes, I think of Georgia O’Keefe, when I look at the shapes such as the elevation shown here, dubbed ‘silicon’ by Masaaki Vada , a friend of Troels.
The dunes, of course, abut on water, as here, where Otter Creeks spouts into the Big Lake. Like David , I am interested in aerial views. A Google map excerpt to the right shows the area photographed here with Otter Creek at the bottom and Empire bluff at the top, 2 miles away. I am fascinated by my necklace on the slope of the Empire Bluff. The naked half ring, reddish with clay, has been slowly moving down over the 10 years that I have been watching it – dynamic dunes.
We are happy for overcast days. The light reflecting off the lake can be very strong.
Here, poplars but not the Big Lake are touched by wind.
What is my Sense of the Place? I enjoy exploring its many faces – wandering dunes, scrubby junipers, lush maple and beech forest. While Troels is planting berry bushes and trees, I am on my artistic quest. I cannot import Karl here to paint the dunes.
There may be a niche for art combining humans with dunes such as the above children and my sister, dreaming on a ‘perching’ dune. While Sunil is fascinated by faces, I am intrigued by whole body expression.
I am now playing with different materials to find the one for which I have the most affinity.
These look like normal rather than “art” photos. I wonder if simply putting them into black and white would make them seem “arty”?
I am telling you where my heart is.
good for you and thanks for sharing you heart and passion. I support you in learning with your new camera and following your heart.
This pictures illustrate the same misconception of photography that I once had and that I suspect many novices have: that the camera sees the way you see or I see. The first picture is a perfect example, I think. This scene with the moon behind the trees was probably striking in real life, but the photo doesn’t capture the feeling that I imagine was there when looking at the real scene. The camera just doesn’t “get it.” The camera does not have selective attention and perceptual scoping to render the moon more salient. It is rather a crude device after all.
The key to photography, I think, is to real that it is what the camera sees that is essential. The trick is to learn to see the real world from the camera’s viewpoint. Digital photography provides a huge advantage here because of the option to view the photo right after it is taken.
Here is a comment by Paul Butzi that I found helpful when I was first playing with my digital camera taking photos of an old building :
You want to tell what is in your heart, but photography is a compromise between the photographer and the camera. That’s why I don’t enjoy photography as much as other art forms: even when I make a picture that I like, I feel it has much more to do with the camera than with me. This might help me to understand what a real artist photographer is able to do, to express him or herself with the camera, not simply to say what a camera can say well. But understanding the camera, what it likes to say, is obviously the first step.
Birgit, I must be pretty predictable, because the image I like best by far is the one w/ the Google map in it.
Karl,
Thank you for your thoughtful comments.
The first picture is about 3 groups of trees, not the moon.
Converting this picture to B&W does accentuate the trees, making them more ‘arty’.
But my objective was to image Light on Green. Green, as am finding out, is difficult for me to capture well And convert to web colors.
David,
I also find that image the most interesting. Troels disliked it and wanted me to leave it out. He only thought is reasonably o.k. after I cropped it as shown here. Lesson 1 in art: follow one’s own instincts.
Your images are very inspirational to me. Perhaps, it will become clearer as I go on.
I like the Google Map one, too. If you take another photo from the top of that hill in the background, you can add it on the left and call yourself a Photocubist.
Whatever art photography is, it’s not the only kind of photography, nor even the kind that most people care most about. Just keep taking pictures and thinking about them, what you like and don’t like, and you’ll end up doing Birgit photography at least, which will (hopefully!) be the kind you care most about.
Steve,
Photocubism! I did not know that such a thing existed.
I found some interesting outdoor photos of that genre on the web.
Photocubism! I did not know that such a thing existed.
If anyone exemplifies this, it’s Hockney.
Walter Bartman already told me to learn about Hockney:
Now I will!
I think the thing to pay attention to here is delight. You should not be judged on whether you achieved some definitive formal statement because of either an uninhibited naive vision or because of years of attention to craft. These photos are neat because they’re your glimpses of a place that you know and love.
Many of my photos are done in passing, quickly, like sketches. It’s about keeping the unconscious mind actively engaged with the process, and not being attached to any final anything. These photos exemplify that attitude of notations made while you’re busy being there.
Thank you, Doug and Ginger.
Each of these photos do have meanings for me.
Some touch my heart – as also felt by DL
others are interesting to me because to refer to the geometry of the dunes that I will learn to capture.
Birgit:
If I understand Karl’s Paul Butzi quote, there’s a period of assimilation involved – you, the camera and the subject in a dynamic relationship. After “five hundred” shots there may be a few good ones. What is not mentioned in the quote is who chooses. Best if you can make those choices for yourself.
Hey, had to say it. Another stroll down memory lane: we were at those or similar dunes as the sun was setting. The sand was alternately on fire or resting in pools of darkness. Long shadows of dune crests and trees draped themselves across the undulations. There was a visual drama wherever one looked. Went back out the next day under a flat blue sky and the magic was gone.
I asked Steve earlier if he picks likely spots and keeps an eye out, awaiting the right conditions. It appears that you have identified some good prospects. It would be interesting to see what a multiplicity of shots, taken under a number of conditions would bring.
Jay,
Shadows!
Shadows may help me to better capture the 3-dimensionality of the ‘bowls’ in the dunes. Not shown here because so much more difficult to capture. I will try early morning light as well.
Birgit:
How are the dunes in winter? Out at the Headlands late winter or early spring, one can sometimes find all kinds of convolutions where snow and ice have become intertwined with blowing sand. Often the ice will have melted somewhat and gone through a re-freezing process, creating miniature versions of what appears in Antarctica. It’s mostly flat out there, but if something similar happens among the dunes…
Jay,
There are fabulous shapes in the winter.I have some on negatives. Also, the light can be great.
A few years ago, I captured an image in mind of the frozen Glen Lakes. I was upset when the lush green spring erased the pastel colors from my mind.
Birgit:
Right now lush green sounds great.
Birgit:
BY the way, do the dunes move perceptibly from one year to the next?
Jay,
One of the dunes may move perceptively from year to year. I am planning to monitor it over the next few years.
The winter storms bring about lots of other changes. For example, since the water line receded, the otter creek ‘tributary’ has been assuming a new shape every spring.
I too like lush green this year, all that fertility!
Would you please give me the link to your website?
Birgit:
My website is getting a new skin as soon as my son can get around to it. I will be happy to share pending this auspicious event.
Birgit:
Still isn’t exactly right, but Google “The Mouth Of Jay”. There’s a story behind the name.
Jay
Birgit,
I’m way behind in commenting, having lost a week or so, but I wanted to say that I enjoyed your photos and your comments. The children were charming — I wished the photograph had been able to get closer to them and still capture their spontaneious joy. That’s a challenge, though, that I never have succeeded in managing. And like D, I like the Google map, particularly as it is laid against the other image (which won’t come up properly this evening.
Thanks for sharing these.