These are not recently photographed wrapped trees but they are different from the ones I have posted before. It seemed an appropriate day to let these swathed creatures out for some fresh air.
[More wrapped trees can be found here.]
© Karen McRae, 2013
The cold is seeping into the fragile bones of the garden, things can get strange out there.
[Layered photographs, and strange ideas]
© Karen McRae, 2013
© Karen McRae, 2013
In ‘Technicolo(u)r’.
The colour is actually true to the photograph. There was that lovely warm light of late afternoon and I was using a polarizing filter which brings out those autumn colours and intensifies the blue of the sky. I find it all a bit frenzied but these are the flitting colours of the season and here they are hastening by.
[An image made from two photographs, both of which were made from a moving car.]
© Karen McRae, 2013
An almost etching. I keep coming back to this photograph; adding layers, shifting colours. It intrigues me for some reason, and it bothers me too. I can’t quite put my finger on it. If an image wants your attention what are you to do?
This is what we’ve agreed upon, this photograph and I. For now. Maybe it will leave me alone for a while but I feel like it’s trying to show me something…
[An image made from two photographs, both of which were made from a moving car.]
© Karen McRae, 2013
Or, autumn by the roadside.
Photographs made from a moving car (I wasn’t driving, obviously). I found the intense colour a bit bothersome in these particular compositions so I converted them to sepia and adjusted the levels of some of the tones to bring out contrast.
These are made using a slow shutter speed and by panning the camera (following the subject) as the car moves along. I like employing this technique as it can result in some unusual photographs with some parts of the frame relatively in focus and other parts quite blurred, sometimes resulting in what appears to be opposing movement.
I like, too, not knowing what to expect when I look at the image. It’s always a bit of a surprise, with many failures and a few frames having a bit of interest. Well, and it is an alternative for those times when you see potential photographs speeding past your window but you are just unable to stop.
© Karen McRae, 2013
All my words, too, have taken flight.
© Karen McRae, 2013
The weather has been amazing here. A lingering of summer sun and warmth, but with cool nights and the start of crunching leaves underfoot. I had to go see what’s happening at the creek.
The most interesting things I find are the reflections. I have photographed them in every way, it seems. Still, there is always something new. The surface is a wavering mirror of the seasons. A reminder that everything is in constant flux. The shifts of light and cloud, the variable movements of the water in and out of small eddys, the colours and compositions from the graceful trees. And then there is the debris that lies under the surface and how the light reaches it. Every moment is different. There is something meditative, too, about watching the lazy movement of the creek – as you shift focus through the lens you might wonder if you are watching nature’s own lava lamp.
I came to a place where the tiny water walkers were continually drawing and redrawing the surface. They agreed to allow me to photograph their brief sketches as long as due credit was given. : )
This is the art of walking on water:
I have to say it looked a bit like a game of bumper cars with the zippy water striders all continuously knocking into each other. A beautiful day to play.
[These images are part of an ongoing series exploring surface reflections of water, moving and still: Surface, Submerge: Reflections in Water]
© Karen McRae, 2013
The stemmed kind…
[It’s actually Virginia Creeper
growing on a fence,
trembling in the wind (long exposure),
and a second layer of the same thing with camera movement.
Anyway, it made me think of yellow butterflies.]
© Karen McRae, 2013
draw and shoot 