Surface reflections and a slippery fish …
© Karen McRae, 2013
Autumn
Dances in Light
These little insects caught my eye while they were out playing in the shafts of afternoon light. There can’t be too many more days that will be warm enough for them to venture out but today was beautiful.
It’s not easy to focus on their flitting movements – which appear much like trampolining without touching the ground – but I like the tiny sunlit shapes, and their delicate presence signals a small reprieve from the cold.
© Karen McRae, 2013
Wintery
Passing glimpses of yesterday’s snowfall – the first of the autumn. This morning the temperature has been creeping up and the short-lived snow has been replaced by rain.
[These images were taken from a moving car – lazy, I know…]
© Karen McRae, 2013
(Previously) Unreleased
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
Inside, Outside
© Karen McRae, 2013
Fall by the Wayside 2
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
Fall, by the Wayside
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
Walking on Water: A Collaboration
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
Autumn Butterflies
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 