Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Cherry

Back in the late 80s a movie came out called “Cherry 2000,” an early Post Apocalyptic story about a Boy and his anatomically correct android lover. She, “Cherry,” was broken, and needed spare parts. so he hired a real girl, who owned a Hopped up Mustang in order to adventure into what was left of the area near Las Vegas to get what he needed. This mannequin reminds me of that movie.

I have a bit of a fascination for how we “artists” choose to see and then reproduce our vision of the human form. Sometimes it is intended to just be beautiful to look at, sometimes it is not. This is the combined vision of three peoples, the maker of the mannequin, the dresser, and then me the Photographer. So in a respect it is a three layer affaire, spread out over time. with each of us bringing our own interpretation, of what this image is. But beyond the point where we all agree that it is a mannequin, the rest is up to the individual. You, the observer.

Jim

James Longster, © 2014

Cherry Baby

Thursday, November 27, 2014

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

Sunday, November 9, 2014

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

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

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

Monday, October 27, 2014

The Watcher/ Agent Provocateur

The watcher, was a big surprise to me. I was photographing down in the Big Pine creek floodplane on a early fall day looking for interesting bugs, it turned into a very good day. This shot is of the end of a log that was once probably a 200 year old Red Oak, and with the amount of fungus growing on it in various places it was cut down a long time ago. Red Oak of that size takes a long time to return from whence it came, so there is plenty of time for many of the local Flora and Fauna to find and make a home of it.

I saw all these wonderful colors of various fungi adorning the cut, that still had the marks of the chain saw that had ended its grandure, and the mushroom/Toadstools that were busy trying to return it to the soil, so I set my tripod up and determined to get the best image I could.

When finally I got home to process the days images, I looked at this image and saw that while I was shooting I was being sized up, by the local predator. I was delightedly surprised, this spider was about 2-1/2 inches leg to leg. A formidable hunter. And did not appear to be retreating from me, quit the contrary,Whatcher he looked . . . interested.

I would like to add that there is a lighter, well not lighter version but one that clears up some of the darker areas in this image, I thought about putting that image on the blog instead, but decided to go which what I like better, mystery. I think this image is just a bit more mysterious , and so in my mind more "interesting", if less clear, and clean. Oh well, we sacrifice, for what we love.

James Longster, © 2014

The Watcher

Saturday, October 25, 2014

I was here: remember me.

On the same day that I took “Ice Cave: light is everything” I took this image of a red clay hand print on an old sandstone boulder that had fallen out of the cliff face centuries, or eons ago. This was a very cold (for Indiana) day and the handprint flashed me back to the Paleolithic art in the Lascaux Caves of SouthWestern France.

It was like this century just evaporated, and I was left waiting for a mammoth or a Cave Bear to come trundling around the canyon bend. Though the hand print was new, at most a month or so old, being slightly protected from the rain by the cliff faces, It was my transport to a different age, where men were men, and cave bears cleaned their teeth with our bones.

It is the traditional ageless calling card, the handprint saying I was here, I was/am alive. I love it, it calls me. Jim

James Longster, © 2014

HAND

Cubist's House

This image, on the face of it, is an Architectural shot, but to me is is more about shapes and contrasts. It almost feels “Cubistic” to me, with the juxtaposed angles, and shapes that seem to have no relationship to each other. But to see that you have to separate yourself from the idea that this is a room in a house, and just see the shapes.

I spent almost 2 years photographing Homes for Caldwell Banker, a very large high end reality company, and every once in a while I saw something in a room that said: “Look at me, I am art, waiting to be made.” So, I would then shoot and see what happened to it. The colors are mine except for the blue sky in the arched window, the rest is Desaturated and color changed, till I got what I wanted.

James Longster, © 2014

And He Built a Crooked House

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Three Tones of Winter

“Horizon,” is still one of my favorite images from the past. It is a stark image, a lonely image, but so beautiful in its simplicity.

This is one of those images that you have to look at for a while to appreciate it, at lest that is the response I have gotten in the past. It absolutely does not follow the rules of Photography, but it works (for me) as it is.

I don’t expect much in the way of comments on this image, I guess because it is a very personal, and very stark image. Besides, what are you going to say? Nice tonality, it is just a 3 tone grey image. with little or no detail except in the center. I like it though.

James Longster, © 2014

Horizon2

Monday, October 20, 2014

Basement in the Dark

Well, I thought that the background image to my blog header should be shown to you at some time, and I suppose that now is as good a time as any, and it is the "poster child" for the darker image concept, more or less, so here it is.

This image is a moderately manipulated image, well moderately is a total lie, it is heavily modified, with many combined and modified layers. It was no where near as dark an image in the original CR2, but it turned into this DarkerImage, after some time.

When I took this image I almost threw it away, but for some reason I kept it, and it languished on my hard drive until I rediscovered it and started playing with it.

It seems to me that most Photographers do not spend a lot of time in manipulation. They may clean the colors up, sharpen the image, but that seems to be as far as most of them go. I do not sit down and whip out an image I am satisfied with at one shot, as the image intent may change in the middle as I see some other concept, emotional potential, in it. In this case, I don't remember how many sessions it took to get what I wanted, but get it I did, at least to my satisfaction.

James Longster, © 2014

Shadows Hide things

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Ice Cave: Light is Everything.

This is something that most people do not know about Indiana, winter can be beautiful . . . if you know where to look; I do and Roger and I went to look for one of those places, and Turkey Run State Park is where we found it on this occasion.

We drove down on the first day, got to the location, after dragging our tripods, cameras, and lenses up inside the canyons of Turkey Run. It was beautiful all through the walk to the site, we got set up and started shooting, and then the light just went away, just gone. we had had to walk over some iffy ice (shallow water underneath) to get to our spot so it was not an easy location to get to, so the loss of the light was pretty disappointing. We decided then and there that we would be more careful about our timing and come back the next day, hoping that nature would be nicer to us.

We arrived an hour, or maybe a little earlier the next day, and found COLOR, color everywhere, we went mad, and the shutters echoed down the canyons. Even when the sun is in the right location shooting in a canyon is tricky business, with trees up to the edge on top that could block the light at any moment. With the sun moving slowly, going away for a few seconds to a few minutes, and with only a narrow angle down inside the canyon that would work for us, we shot like the mad men we were, but this day Everything was right. We got image, after image of unbelievable color, and light.

So with fat, full CF cards, we came home to see what we had gotten; Ice Cave, is but one of many we got that day.

NOTE: There is very little that was done to this image, other than some sharpening, and the stiching needed to combine two images, these colors were there just as you see them. The colors are caused by minerals leaching through the soil over the millennia. We were just witnesses to one of the many places, that nature seems to have made for Photographers . . . we were just there at the right time.

James Longster, © 2014

Ice Cave: Light is Everything.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

The American family farm: death of.

Well, as the title says, this image is about one of my own I guess you could call it a photographic Documentary.  I have been documenting (photographically the end of the single family farm (in Indiana) for about the last 10 years. It hurts me to see what used to be so many vibrant small farms bought by the big corporations, and then the homes bulldozed to make room for one more hectare of Corn, or Soybeans. This house, has been gone now for about 10 years, just before Roger G. and I could go and tandem shoot, we do that so well I think. I wish we could have gone to this Home too.

James Longster, © 2014

TITLE

Monday, October 13, 2014

Curl

This time I have two images treated in two different ways, Both have been "Tonemapped," but with different post processing and different "Mapping" Techniques. I would love any opinions, and also would like to know your preferred image.

This was taken several years ago in "Union Pier MI," at the town Jetty/Harbor. there had been a storm out on Lake Michigan the night before and the wind was still quit up.


Sunday, October 12, 2014

I am going to be adding the ability to look at my images at a much larger resolution in the very near future. but the larger images will carry a larger watermark. But I am not fully decided on doing this yet, the water mark that is, so I would like opinions on this from other Photographers/artists. The question is: do I watermark heavily, or just look for abuses of, copyright infringement and then contact the offender? Opinions open.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Colors of the stream on a summer day.

This image was taken in 2009, in the back yard of my friend Roger Gauthier, just love how the sky is so broken up in the reflection, took just a bit of work. The colors, ah the colors!


The Dark Sword of Justice

This was taken several years ago at the chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago, while visiting a friend at his book signing. He was a very gentle man, and a Gentleman of historic Virginia's Southern Aristocracy. A kind man and a poet, I may post the "Signing" at a later date, though image is nothing special, except to me. This image, however, cried out to me, the bright colors needed the blacks of the shadows of the history of this period of Christianity, so I put them there.

I and Catholicism, don't really see eye to eye, being the longest lived Corporation, with no laws, except their own, governing them, they have done and gathered the wealth of a world. They will tell no one what they have, how much of it they have, but we all know how they got it, for most of the 1,400 or so years of its existence. Sorry to any of you who may see this who are of that sect, it is nothing personal against the current "Mother Church" but this image cried out for darkness.


Wednesday, October 8, 2014

The Oncoming Storm

This image was taken in 2004, with my Olympus E-10, on my first visit to Tancook Island, Nova Scotia. Tancook is a six mile ferry ride out into the Mahone Bay off the eastern coast of NS past most of the other 100 islands in that bay. This is taken looking towards Chester, on a very stormy day, before our Digital cameras were very water worthy, so I was taking chances with a very expensive camera, but you can't get the shot if you aren't out there to take it.

I generally do not follow the "rules" of photography, as far as framing and the like, because the "rules" are intended to give a comfortable feel to an image, and some of us don't always intend on a image being comfortable. So, you can make an image more "edgy" just by how you frame the elements that make up your image. I consider this to be one of those.

It is called: "Oncoming Storm."

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Lillies, of the field.

Well, as an introductory image, I decided to use a recent image, taken with my friend Roger Gauthier <http://artphotokebek.blogspot.com>, this past summer at Jasper Pulaski Nature Preserve in Northern Indiana. We did not know it at the time, but I was becoming pretty ill, and not at the top of my game so to speak. I did get this image to play with however, and this HAS been played with, a lot.

I have waffled over whether or not to give all the processes I go through on the different images I  post, to let you see into my processes, I decided that it would be boring to most people, so unless someone specifically asks, I will withhold this information other than to mention specifics about a particular image.

So in keeping with this plan, the simple statement "( LIGHT IS EVERYTHING)", is just that. We had a strong thunderstorm to the North of us going at the time of this shot, that added some interesting light to these shots, even though the sun was behind us, I had picked this place carefully, so as to have the light (hopefully) in the correct orientation at the time we were planning to be there, this planning for light works sometimes, sometimes it does not, nature determines this for us. So in short, we got lucky.

Another note: I am new to Blogger, so the layout and image size will change as I learn how to link to a larger image.

P.S. All these images are the property of myself under the guise of iSightDigitalStudios.com, and may be used for personal use only, unless a specific request is made to me via this blog. If you want you may make a personal wall paper, or even use it in a piece of you own work, as long as I am fully credited.

Thank you, enjoy.