The Old North Bridge – National Historic Site

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Figure 1 - The Concord River, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – The Concord River, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

For me the National Historic Site at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts is a place that ever rewards photographically.  There is always something different, some difference in light or color.  I just keep coming back and have been coming back since my first visit, dare I say it, fifty years ago with my parents.

This past Sunday I went hoping that the wild irises that I spotted in the woods along the river bank beside the Old Manse would be in bloom.  They were not, but I was rewarded instead by vivid, cloud filled azure skies and cold dark water reflecting the trees.  I am offering up Figures 1 and 2.  The first is a look at the reflections of the trees on the opposite bank of the river.  The second is a tribute to the fact that more things than pumpkins and the color’s namesake can be vivid orange.

Figure 2 - Kayaks along the Concord River, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 2 – Kayaks along the Concord River, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Foreground out of focus

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Figure 1 - Wonder of Childhood, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – Wonder of Childhood, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

When you are doing a portrait there is a tendency to put the foreground in focus and to let the background be out of focus.  The opposite, where the foreground is out of focus but the background in focus can also be expressive and sometimes it actually works best.  Today I decided to experiment with that option.  I was on the Old North Bridge in Concord Massachusetts when my eye caught this little boy in a straw hat with a blue band excitedly watching the kayakers below.  He knelt down to watch the boats approach, and I grabbed the moment.  Using spot metering I had the boat in focus but the boy, back to the camera, just out of focus.  The picture remains about the boy.  I entitle the image “Wonder of Childhood,” because I can remember way back when…

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 75 mm, ISO 400, Aperture Priority AE, 1/800 sec at F/8.0.

Bob Collins – Observing the crowd

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Street Photography holds a special magic for us.  It transports us to times and places that we might otherwise never see, or it forces us to pause and see the details that we might otherwise fail to notice.  And when time paints a patina of nostalgia and history on street images, they bring back to life people and emotions that would otherwise be lost to us.

A current exhibition at the Museum of London celebrates the life and opus of London street photographer Bob Collins (1924-2002).   His work spans important moments in British history, the post war years and the emergence of a new Britain.  Collins turned professional in 1956 and he covered the streets of London for nearly fifty years.  He was seeking people and the emotions of the moment.  We have for instance, a photographer covering the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.    Collins’ camera is trained on the other photographer, not on the events themselves.  The key point is the intensity of the moments, that is lived in a thousand lives.  A truly amazing photograph is Collins’ picture of the morning rush hour at Victoria Station.  Technically, this is a beautiful example of blurred motion, here accentuated by the seeming motionless ticket taker and a few of the riders.  I love this picture on a technical level, for sure.  I ponder as to how exactly it was taken.  For once, I want to know the lens and the f-setting and the exposure time.  But then I realize that there is something much more profound going on, something that truly defines street photography.  The world is abuzz with motion.  Time doesn’t stop for us, it rushes on like the riders in this picture.  Despite their hurry, they are mostly gone to us now, having rushed hell-bent into oblivion.  The camera, the street photographer, captures and freezes in time the visages of a few individuals.  The rest is a blur.

For those of you lucky enough to be in London this spring and early summer, “Observing the Crowd: Photographs by Bob Collins” can be seen at the Museum of London, 16 May to 13 July 2014.

Dusty rose

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Figure 1 - "Dusty Rose," IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – “Dusty Rose,” IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 is the latest addition to my collection of IPhone images of folded fabrics.  This one I entitle “Dusty Rose.”  I just cannot resist, especially when the light is right. Isn’t that always the case.  We live for the light.  I just love the variety of form and the intensity and purity of color.  In these images I hope that form and color are equal elements. Too often in photographs color is so dominant as to create the illusion that you’ve accomplished something.  Form is always required as well, at least in good photographs.

I have commented before how, when I use the IPhone as a camera, I imagine that I am using a large format camera.  Actually, what I am imagining is that I am using my father’s Ciroflex, twin lens reflex.  This was 2 1/4′ by 2 1/4″ and I always marveled how, in contrast to 35 mm photography, it slowed down the picture taking process and forced you to concentrate deeply on composition.  So the use of the IPhone really brings back fond childhood memories.

And as for composition, there was a tendency to center the V here, to make the image perfectly symmetric.  But that would have created to strong a sense of static equilibrium.  I chose instead to make the image just a bit asymmetric, just as the distribution of light and shadow is asymmetric in the image.  This makes the composition more dynamic and alive.

Camille Lepage

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BBC News reports the murder of French photojournalist Camille Lepage in the Central African Republic. According to the French presidential government, Ms Lepage’s body was found when a French patrol stopped a car driven by Christian anti-balaka militia in the Bouar region.  She was 26, but already a talented and successful photojournalist, whose work was widely published by news agencies including the BBC.  She had been traveling along the border between the Central African Republic and Cameroon, and apparently gotten caught up in the violence.

The murder of a journalist is ultimately an attack on us all – on our right to know and to see.  Of course, that is the very point.  There are always people who don’t want us to know and to see, and it is only through the bravery of these reporters and photographers that the truth becomes revealed.

Ms. Lepage’s heroic images teach us about life, dignity, and death in today’s Africa. The sensitivity of her work is typified by a 2012 photograph of a seven year old boy named Deng that  she met at the the Rehabilitation Centre of Juba in South Sudan. He had lost his leg at age four after a mine that he was playing with blew up in his house and killed his mother.

Brown v. Board of Education – the 60th Anniversay

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Figure 1 - The Warren Court (SCOUS) in 1953. Photograph by Palumbo for the World Telegram. From the Wikimedia Commons and the US Library of Congress, in the public domain.

Figure 1 – The Warren Court (SCOUS) in 1953. Photograph by Palumbo for the World Telegram. From the Wikimedia Commons and the US Library of Congress, in the public domain.

Today, May 17, 2014, marks the 60th anniversary of the unanimous decision of the United States Supreme Court banning segregated schools in the United States.  I thought that I would commemorate this occasion with a historic photograph by Ed Palumbo of the Warren Court.  This particular photograph, as described in the header of the image, was used to accompany the UPI story by Louis Cassels in the New York World Telegram & Sun about the decision. The members of the Warren Court, taken in 1953. Back row (left to right): Tom Clark, Robert H. Jackson, Harold Burton, and Sherman Minton. Front row (left to right): Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Stanley Reed, and William O. Douglas.

The rose peddler

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This afternoon I was perusing a National Geographic set of images entitled “Wide World of Color,” and I came across this beautiful photograph by Joshi Daniel of a rose peddler in Mumbai.  What is striking about the image is the contrast between the vivid color of the rose and the essential monochrome of the rest of the image as well as the contrast between the fragile youthful beauty of the rose and the gnarled hands of the peddler – and I will add that the hands too possess a natural beauty.

How is one to feel on viewing this image?  There are the contrasts that I have mentioned.  And then there is the beautiful simplicity of the image and the simple life that it portrays.  But it is also reminiscent of John Thompson’s “Street Life in (nineteenth century) London” and in particular the image of the “Flower Girls in Front of Convent Garden, 1877.”  We have spoken of Thompson’s work before.  The lives of the unseen bear little resemblance to that of George Bernard Shaw’s fictionalized “Eliza Doolittle.”   It is from this ambiguity that the power of the image of the Mumbai Flower Peddler emerges.

Impressionism or turning failure into success

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Figure 1 - Impressionism, (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – Impressionism, (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Today’s image, Figure 1, is entitled “Impressionism” and done just for fun.  I was struck by the reflections of this magnolia in the pond and it reminded of oh so many impressionist paintings.  But I really didn’t get the focus quite right.  Sloppy, Wolf!  But when I went to work it up, I found that I still like the light and liked the colors and liked the reflections. So I thought of impressionist art, which isn’t always sharp.  I thought in particular about pointillism, which in its world view is quite similar to quantum mechanics.  Sometimes the blur just creates a sense of wonderful and dynamic light.  I even tried blurring the image but felt that was overwrought.  So in the end, I almost like what I see – or is it what I don’t see?  Hmm.  I’ll leave it to my readers to decide whether I turned failure into success.

More images with my Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM Lens

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Figure 1 - Re-enactor at the Old North Bridge in British uniform, Concord, MA (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – Re-enactor at the Old North Bridge in British uniform, Concord, MA (c) DE Wolf 2014.

The other image that I wanted to show you from my first day out with my Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM Lens is that of Figure 1. Again this is very close in and taken at 100 mm focal length.  In many respects it isn’t ideal.  Indeed, I’m sorry to say that I find it just a little boring!  It shows one of the character re-enactors at the Old North Bridge in Concord, MA, the beautiful site where the American Revolution began. The actor is in 18th century British uniform and standing guard at the grave and monument to the fallen English dead.

The emphasis should clearly be the red feather, which is way too cropped.  I couldn’r get further back.  Also I should have taken this at more of an angle.  Having the subject stare at attention is, well as I said, boring.  OK how about a synonym – soporific then.  Probably at 3/4 face would have been a great improvement.  But the interesting point is that I started thinking that the image wasn’t as sharp as my 70 to 200 mm would give.  Then I zoomed in digitally and saw that I could make out all the whiskers on his face and hair on his neck.  This is very acceptable. And before you ask ISO 400, Aperture Priority – AE, 1/200 s at F/8.0.  I’m pretty happy with the lens’ performance, at least at short focal lengths!