Two Cultures #1

This is the second in the XXX series, as I said, pretty traditional, but still pleasing to my eye. It was interesting and a bit rough fighting the extra light and finding the location where the shadow fell like I wanted them to, but I am satisfied.

This is more my traditional use of large dark spaces, most people will/would prefer that most of the black be cropped out, and I can see why, this use of large dark spaces is traditionally considered a waist of space, but to me, it adds something, something I cannot quite define, but it adds to the image for me. I would be using a lot of black ink in printing, but hey, it's just ink.

I will be interested in the comments on this one, this is NOT a traditional Portrait, so let me know if you do feel there is too much black, but please tell me your reason.

James Longster, © 2014

Here's looking at you

Two Cultures #2

Well, I though I would post some traditional Portraiture, it is not something I regularly do, but since I now have all the lights to do it correctly, I thought I would get some opinions/critiques.

This is XXX, she lived in the same building as we did/do, and I asked her one day if she had any traditional Chinese clothing with her here, and if so would she be willing to sit for me and let me try my lights out on her. She did not have any Chinese clothing but she had a Korean friend who had a nice dress that would fit her and she would see if she could get that dress.

I was blown away, it was beautiful: deep colors, delicate embroidery, and looked so good on her. So I set up one light with a black backdrop on my front porch with the sun behind her and only reflected light as fill. I was pleased with the outcome, and I hope you enjoy these two images.

James Longster, © 2014

At Ease

Dark room with no curtains

Over several days and about 30 layers I took many shots of this beautiful reading room at the Wellspring house in the Berkshire Mts in Western Mass, and turned it into this dark, foreboding room. Nothing is as it was in this image.

This was a bright sunny day, the tree was not there, nor were: the Ravin, the Taoist the babies, well one of them was, and the room color was different. This image is a nod to Edgar allen Poe's: "The Raven". At the same time it was an attempt to show, in the early days of Digital Photography, what could be done with an image, that film just could not do. The tree in the window was in bright fall colors and came from an image taken at Purdue University the previous fall, all else came from someplace in the house.

Sadly, the owner of this lovely bright room, did not like what I had done to her room, and her favorite childhood doll. I apologized, than she did too, because it was an artist retreat, and art is personal, and not always comfortable to the viewer.

I worked many hours on this image and like I said it has at minimum 30 layers in its composition, and sadly it was taken with my E-10 so it was only 4 MP, so I had to bump the resolution up in PS; I was surprised at how well it took the enlarging. I was also very pleased with the overall effect the image had on most people.

Hope you enjoy it. Jim

James Longster, © 2014

Somewhere on a Blue Night

In Darkness Bloom

I like Lilies, well my lovely wife and I both like them, a lot. They are unique in so many ways: tall and strong, colorful, vibrant even, and relatively long lasting, and with choices of cultivars you can have flowers from early summer to early fall.

So they are the subject of this weeks post, the first in November. I treated them like I do, darker and more mysterious, than most flowers are, or at least are perceived.

I apologize for several of the softer spots in the image, this is due to this being about 6-7 combined images, to get them all in sharp focus would have been very daunting. I would have done it but I was generally content with how the image turned out. So, I left well enough alone. Jim

James Longster, © 2014

In Darkness Bloom