Photographer's Journal

                                       
                                            
Silhouettes & Shadows

                                                
                                        
ULM's Charles Allen Biological Station contains a small cat tail pond. As I pproached from the east, the declining sun reflecting off the surface looked for all the world like a covering of ice!

Of course, it wasn't. When I got closer, I saw that the pond surface was mostly covered with a major algae bloom. Looking straight down, I could see two distinct kinds of algae, one green in color and the other reddish in color.

I walked past the pond, then back to it from another angle as the sun continued to decline, and was treated to a kaleidoscope of light and color patterns depending on the changing perspectives of me and the sun. I'll post more of those images over the next few days.

Photographer's Journal

                    
                             
The Way Is through Light & Shadow (Always)

                               
What could be more fun for a photographer than playing with light? Playing with it in a wonderful new place!

I'm currently enrolled in an online photography mentoring program, and this week's assignment is to "play with light." 

Near the end of the fall semester, I was contacted by a graduate student in ULM's biology department about helping map and document their field biology lab. This “lab” is approximately 90 acres of natural beauty along the Ouachita River, right next to the Copenhagen Hills Nature Conservancy land. It includes low lands, ridges, bluffs overlooking the river, and a great diversity of plant and animal life.

So I made my first trek to my new playground yesterday. I spent almost 5 hours exploring, but truly have only scratched the surface of what it has to offer. And having this delicious assignment to “play with light,” I focused on photographing how light plays with nature in a place like this. 

               

Photographer's Journal

                                          
The Color of Light                                           

              
I am part of a group of photographers who know each other only through Google+ and who participate in "Photography+ Project." The founder of the project, Christina Lawrie, picks a theme each month and each of us makes two photographs that interpret the theme. We then gather in online discussion groups called "hangouts" and critique each others' work. It is fun, educational and inspiring.

I took this photo for the September theme, Shadow. It is a view of the vineyard at Landry Vineyards out in west Ouachita parish. I was standing on the edge of the patio in front of the tasting room, and the sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows over most of the vineyard on the opposite hill.

I was struck by how different shades of green in the vines interacted differently with the indirect light of shadows and the direct light of the late afternoon sun coming through a break in the trees behind me. Clearly, the shadow light brings out the blues in the greens and the direct sunlight brings out the yellows in the greens.

I presented this photo to my hangout group in a much wider form, such that the entire image was dominated by shadows. They made several small technical suggestions, but the most important one came from Tamara Pruessner, who said I had included too much shadow. She urged me to crop the image almost square to emphasize the slash of direct light angling across the image. I did and it is much improved!