Organic Light Pan

The following link to The Empire That Was Russia website was sent to me by a friend earlier today.  It is pretty amazing to see real color photographs of Russia and its people from 110 years ago!  Check out the link on the home page on Making Color Images in particlular.  It describes the process of how the photographer Prokudin-Gorskii used to make them.  That process gave birth many years later to the Kodak Dye Transfer Process that is described by one of my mentors, Charles Cramer, on his website.  These old techniques were revolutionary in the imaging world. 

The color separation method of course is still used in the offset CMKY printing press industry that I described in the 2009 Calendar Goes to Press article.  Each of the four plates that go into the press are color separations like in the dye transfer process - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK - CMYK.  When people today balk about a photograph being “photoshopped” I think they really need to look at the history of image making in general to understand that what the camera captures, and what gets printed to paper and what our eye originally saw are very different. 

As photographic artists we know that what the camera gives us is such a pale comparison to what we actually saw that it is at times disheartening.  Sometimes we can compensate for the shortcomings of the camera in the field.  Sometimes it is in the wet darkroom or in the digital darkroom using software like Photoshop.  And then sometimes there is nothing we can do to salvage an image to represent what we saw.  There are manipulations every step of the way.  In the end however, if we can convey to our audience even a sliver of the experience we had at the time we photographed the scene then we have been sucessful.  So go out and bring back some experiences.

These old processes make me feel like experimenting.  Now where is my old black and white filter set….

A new special workshop is being offered on how to find and photograph the Moon, and in particular, the new crescent moon.  To find out more information and to reigister check the Workshop Page on the Website and Register Today!  Only 19 days left before the next new moon!

The 2009 - 1430/1431 Rahima Foundation Calendar will be featuring the Organic Light Photograpy photo Calm Tarn shown below.

This will be the 10th consecutive year that Rahima Foundation has chosen one of Organic Light’s photos exclusively for its calendar. Rahima Foundation is a local non-profit food bank in Santa Clara County that partners with Second Harvest Food Bank in San Jose, CA. It has been serving the the poor and needy since 1993 with food and financial aid for medical and basic utilities and other need-in-kind services. It also provides education scholarships to needy graduating high school students to help them realize their dream of going to college. It is a top rate organization and one that I am proud to be a supporter of. Visit their website and consider making a donation. They really need the help in helping the poor - now more than ever.

Peace - Youssef

Photography is an amazing medium to work in.  It takes planning.  Choosing a location is always a gamble.  Conditions change every moment.  The light, the very thing that is worked with, is a living thing that interacts with everything it touches, and yet you can’t touch it, hear it, smell it or taste it and for that matter you can’t see it either until it interacts with something.  I enjoy the light.  I chase after it as often as I can.  Using a big camera, like the 4×5, takes a considerable amount of work.  It’s fairly heavy and schlepping it around can be a job.  It is a slow camera to use.  It takes time to set it up, compose with it, focus it and even photographing with it as shutter times are usually on the slow end requiring a tripod.  Once it is setup, you have an investment in time involved that you want to capitalize on so you sit there and wait for the event you came to capture and hope it was all worth it.  It is very different than a digital camera or even a smaller format film camera.

 

With that big camera, you wait for the light to come to you rather than you trying to capture the light as it elusively slips by.  Smaller cameras on the other hand allow mobility and spontaneity.  They allow one to capture that decisive moment before it slips away.  And I think that is what has made small camera photography so popular and special, it allows us to capture that “Kodak Moment”.  Even though some of the best photographs made by some of the best photographers in the world were done with a 4×5, there is no denying the versatility and popularity of the small camera.

As I waited that evening for the new crescent moon to appear, I was glad to have a digital camera with me as well.  It not only allowed me to capture and share the new moon in the previous post the same night, but also allowed me to capture the subtleties of light that played in the fog mixing into the coastal mountains.

Yes large format photography is wonderful and becoming more unique.  It still allows the most stunning prints to be made.  It slows the photographer down in the whole process and, by necessity, forces the photographer to become part of the scene before it is captured.  But with both formats on hand, while waiting for the moment to trip the 4×5 shutter, the smaller format allows me to capture everything that is going on around me.  Do the smaller images compare in quality delivered from the 4×5?  No.  But none the less, words spoken softly can still have more impact than saying nothing at all.  And when what you say is said with light, you’d better have a way to say it.

The new crescent moon (or Hilal in Arabic) of the 7th month of the Islamic Calendar, known as Rajab, was sighted this evening at 8:40 pm PDT from Russsian Ridge Open Space Preserve in the San Francisco Bay Area.  It was a perfect afternoon with subtle but stunning colors and atmospherics.  For moons, it just does not get better than this one.  More on the afternoon preceeding this photo in a later post.  Enjoy!

These days I make my living as an Artist and Teacher, which is strange given that all my training has been in science culminating in a doctorate degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University.  It was during that time as a doctoral student that I became enamored with photography.  I have always loved the outdoors, and quickly discovered the natural and wild areas of the San Francisco Bay Area when I arrived.  My jaunts into the Santa Cruz Mountains were very threraputic in combating the stress associated with graduate study and work.  One day though I picked up a camera out of the necessity to defend my good word against claims that I could not have possibly seen the new crescent moon when it first becomes visible.  The camera was at first a scientific tool that I used to record natural phenomena, much like any other scientific instrument used in an experiment.  However what happened after that was pivotal in my life.

The light was transforming.  It was alive and changed its mood constantly and it brought me along for the ride with it.

I don’t have many photos from those early days any more but the above sunset was one that was hard to just toss away.  It had a quality of light that was just mesmerizing.  Light became my drug and I needed to chase after it often and capture it for my own edification.  For six years as a graduate student I pursued the light.  Capturing it as often as I could, wherever I happened to be.  I was an observer, I was a learner, I was a scientist with a tool in my hand that captured light.  Nearing the end of graduate school I met my future wife, who was an Artist and taught art at a local private elementary school.  It was exciting being around her when she worked.  She put her soul into her paintings and it came through in her work, it was her.  In six years of trying to share the excitement I found while out photographing the landscape, no one I knew shared my excitement until I met her.  She actually pushed me to achieve better results and was genuinely interested in the light I was capturing.

Fast forward to a time after graduate shcool, we are married now and things are different.  My photos were now obstacles that my wife needed out of the way.  Thousands of them, stored in boxes, were in her way as she moved through the house.  She brought an ultimatum - “toss out all these boxes collecting dust or do some thing with them”!  And that was the pivot that changed me from being a scientist concerned with observation into a artist concerned with expression.  For nearly eight years I had been in observation mode internalizing the natural world.  Capturing moments in time that caused my heart to flutter or that stole my breath away.  For eight years Mother Earth was the balm of my aching soul.  Now it was time to express to others what was arguably overflowing in my heart.

I have read many definitions of art.  None seem to hit the very core of what art is or what an artist does.  To me an artist is someone who expresses to others what is contained in his or her heart and art is that expression.  It can be beautiful or ugly, joyous or sad, and constantly changing.  By default the artist is a scientist because simply put a scientist is some one very skilled at observation.  The scientist internalizes observations and formulates theories based on those observations.  For the most part the scientist’s job stops there.  The artist on the other hand is also a skilled observer and internalizes experiences as well.  However the artist is also a skilled communicator and expresses what he or she has internalized through some medium, be it visual or otherwise.  And while formal science is fairly young in the scope of time, the skills of observation and expression used by an artist is as old as humanity itself.

Humans have been expressing their experiences through some moving means for a very long time.  Whether it is through pictures on a wall, or through the words of a story teller or author, or through rhythm and tones, the artist relates what is in his or her heart to others in moving ways.  In some respects art is what completes us as human beings.  It brings us together peacefully.  It lightens our circumstances and allows us to escape, even if for only a short while, the rigors of life itself.  It allows us to relate with our feelings and emotions - it makes us human.

In the world of today, where terror, oppression, tyranny, injustice, and greed dominate the public sphere it is even more important that we double, or even triple our efforts to include art in our lives.  I am afraid for the generations that follow me that are devoid of art.  How cold and lacking of compassion will they be?  Disconnected from their emotions like soulless robots running on automatic or worse yet with the intent on set to kill!  Art is not taught in schools anymore due to budget cuts.  It is seen as extracurricular and placed on the wayside.  If a young student has a special talent for expression it is not fostered in a meaningful way such that he or she might make an honest living at it.  It is truly a sad state of affairs.

In times of financial turmoil it is art that gets amputated and left to rot first - it being seen as not necessary in life.  However it is through art that we find respite from the worries and anxiety that comes from tribulations in life.  Is it any wonder that hospitals and medical clinics are chock full of art on the walls?  Illness brings our mortality center stage and nothing is more stressful and un-nerving than that.  And yet through the art on those walls, a climate of peace and serenity can pervade the heart.  Look at any piece of art you have in your own home, and observe how it makes you feel.  No, art is not only crucial now more than ever before - it is Necessary.

Strange that it has taken me nearly all spring to bring out a photo of the last sunset of winter.  Although not entirely true, as I posted a version of this sunset in The Last of Winter.  It is amazing to me how different a few minutes can make in a photograph not to mention the few months that have transpired since I made this photo. 

Time has a way of sneaking past you very quickly.  From week to week as I moved from show to show, filling orders made for photos of moments long since past, I had little time to work on new material.  When I do get the chance and inspiration to sit down and seriously work on new material, It is like I am looking at the scene for the first time all over again.  And although I can remember all the feeleings of elation and joy that coursed through me at the time I made the photo, seeing it again and now intimately working with it for hours to bring out those feelings I once had makes me realize how important photography is.  Not only is it a record of time, but for the photographer it is also a record of the experience.  So here it is, a recount of my thoughts as they come back to me as I look at this last sunset of the winter of 2009.

Wow, everything is really green this year.  The hills are looking good, wildflowers might be aboundant here this year - its to early now, maybe in a month or so.  I’ll need to come back.  Let me go over to my butterfly hill and see if the wild cucumber is blooming.  Nothing yet, but the hills sure are green.  What about down in the hollow down there, I can check if I see any poppy plants waiting to bloom.  None yet, Hmm.  Lets go back up and around to the trillium patch, wow I need to hike more, I’m getting winded to easily.  Hey what’s that - that tree is just glowing.  That back lighting is unbelieveable!  I only have a few minutes.  I don’t know if I can pull this one off.  Ok quick unload.  Let’s see.  Maybe the 300, yeah the 300 will do fine.  Let me check quickly with the digital, yeah about 100 mm I think the 300 will do fine.  I’ll need the ND - work fast.  Take care, don’t drop anything, but got to work fast.  Ok spin it around, get the dark cloth, Ooh that is nice.  I need the loupe, focus, tilting won’t help so check how much depth will I need, where’s that card….. f32 should do.  Wait let me get this sunset on the digital and zoom in on the sun.  OK got it.  Meter quick, the light is going fast, aaah… the lower right for the foreground, now the the sky, wait hit memory, now the sky - keep it plus one, there, its five stops brighter, no six - five and half, ok one stop up I need 4 stops of ND, good.  That 2 stop filter is bad all scratched up I need to get a new one - like I have $100 right now anyway.  Get the 3 in there, the 1 stop, adjust, oh this is going to be hard to see and adjust that tree is too high in the frame - ….let me see.  To dark, open the apeture, its still hard to see, hurry up the light is going ok there, that is good I hope, I wish it was as easy as it was with 35mm argh.  Ok f32 on foreground gives 1 sec.  Set it, close shutter, test it - good.  Uh! film, hurry…. holder, put film in, load in camera, wait, make sure everything is tight, back, tripod head, swings, good, put film in, pull the slide, cock the shutter, ok go.  Got it! quick, one more, get the film in - careful don’t move the camera, pull slide, shutter, and go.  Got it.  What a day.  That sunset is just awesome.  Let me get this tree on digital.  Get this big guy off, Ok, meter darn the light is gone, its totally different now.  Get it any way.  wow look at those hills , this is really going to be a great photo, that mist is pinking up real nice, zoom in and get that.  Wow its so nice out here.  Amazing tomorrow is the equinox, this was the last sunset of winter.  Its so quiet, so calm.  I hope the 4×5’s come out.  Well keep one behind in case exposeure was off.  It nice out here, alright lets load up.

It all comes screaming back.  Photography - memories & life on a piece of celluloid - amazing.

Enjoy Summer!  Peace.

It was that time of the month again - searching for the new moon.  The conjunction took place on Sunday May 24th and on that evening, even though it was cloudy and overcast in my area, the moon was too small to be seen with the naked eyes.  With Sunday being the 29th day since the last time the moon was seen, the descision of when the next new month, Jamad Ath-Thaani, would start was by default on Tuesday, completing the previous month as a 30 day month.  This made searching for it on Monday not as critical.  But that never stopped me.

This time around I was very excited to try and photograph the new moon using the large format 4×5 camera.  Two weeks ago I found a Nikon 500mm f/11 Telephoto lens.  A lens that I have been trying to find for almost three years.  Nikon of course discontinued making that lens years ago and it rarely turns up on the used market, but two weeks ago chance would have it that I was searching for it and found one in near mint condition, for nearly 50% of what it goes for new!  So I had always wanted this lens to allow me to include the moon, especially the new moon, in my landscape photos.  So this new moon was going to be that lens’ maiden voyage in moon photography.

I decided I would spend the day out with my four kids, aka photo assistants, bumping around the coast giving their mother the day off.  Destination - Point Lobos State Reserve on the Big Sur Coast.  The day was clear and sunny until we reached Monterey and then the skies became overcast and gloomy.  Upon our arrival, I realized that I had forgotten to bring along my photo vest.  No big deal right?  Wrong.  For in it was my light meter, color meter, ND filters, and focusing loupe.  Oops - No large format photography today.  How was I to photograph the moon later?  So I took a deep breath and decided that today was a day off, no serious photography.  Yeah right.

With a small DSLR in hand the kids and I explored Point Lobos.  It is a very intricate piece of the coast.  The rocks are contorted in places, stratified in others, and conglomerate everywhere else.  It is a very difficult place to capture in a photo.  The light needs to be just right, and I still have not been there when it was just right.  To add insult to injury the reserve is in full bloom right now.  California Poppies, Coast Paintbrush, Dudleas, and Seaside Daisies to name just a few.

 It takes time to get a feel for Point Lobos.  It is a slow moving place.  The sea does not churn with great waves rather slow moving turbulent waters sloshing in and out of the rocky cliffs.  Capturing this water action is another matter altogether.  Timing is everything with these conditions.  Clearly a digital camera makes this endeavor less painful to the pocket and much more enjoyable knowing you got the action at its peak. 

At the same time however, when working with the big camera and film, there is a certain connection that is made between you and the ocean.  You spend more time studying the water.  You watch the waves, not one or two, but tens of waves until you start seeing the attributes in the wave that are needed to create the perfect water action.  Such was the case when Controlled Chaos, Rush Hour and Mist-erious Seas were made.  But this time, it was kind of nice having the digital camera to see the results right away.  It allowed me to capture something nice and still keep my attention on my four intrepid explorers.

Theodore Roosevelt, known as the “Rough Rider”, was once quoted as saying “Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat“.  Well I think my kids are taking that to heart in a very serious way.  Its as if they don’t know that there are limits to how daring one can be.  Put a camera in their hands and they stop at almost nothing to capture what they see.

 And if I had let her, my three year old would have have followed them out onto that rock.  In time.  Her ambition preceeds her sure footedness for now, and even though she is gung-ho to follow her siblings, she readily accepts a fatherly hand or a ride on the shoulders to get to where she wants.  But once there, she gets into the thick of it in a serious way.  I think that is what makes the magic of childhood so grand.  They don’t know their own limits and so they are willing to try everything.  Sometimes however, it is to their own demise and detrement, especially if the wisdom of the parents is not there to keep their foolhardiness in check, inspite of the dissenting voices insisting that they can do it.  But caution aside, and they find the most amazing places.

We arrive at Hidden Beach.  A small secluded cove beach on the south end of the more popular Weston Beach.  Its a small beach no more than about 50 feet at its widest point and with a narrow opening to the sea.  The beach itself is made up entirely of small rocks and pebbles in a rainbow of colors and hues.  The kids quickly find the most dangerous place on the beach to explore, a small indentation in the rocks on the north side of the beach, a small cave of sorts that they quicky dub “The Cave of Terror”.

With each large wave a rush of water comes in and encircles the large rock on the north side of the beach and rushes around to fill in the “cave”.  The only refuge from the rushing water is a small rise of rocks in the cave directly up against the wall.  But once trapped in there, the sight of onrushing water is enough to elicit the squeals of doom from children who think the end is upon them!  Then in a sudden rush of panic they dart out of the cave as the water subsides, proud in themselves thinking that they had just escaped a catastrophe of monumental proportions.  Once they gleened all the thrill they could from the cave of terror, the fascination of minutia found on the beach quickly overtook them.  For the next two hours, they combed that small beach for anything that did not resemble a rock or a pebble.  And in some cases what they found was indeed fascinating.  Suddenly a thought occured to me.  I remembered a series of photographs made by Georg Popp and his family during their outings at the seashore.  So I looked around the pebbles for some likely Found object to be the base of an image.  I then called my kids and explained what we were to do.  Bring everything you find, everything.  We’ll pick the best and put them together to make a photogrpah of our day at Point Lobos.  So here over the course of two hours is a succession of photos resulting in “Lost and Found”.

The base context of the final image was this piece of kelp that had started to dry out.  I positioned the camera directly over it and made this base photo.  Then the first wave of interesting items started to appear.  I widened the view a bit and started to arrange the items.

At this point, I decided to start in the hunt of things as well.  I brought in more than just the shells my kids found as there was more to be found on the beach than just that.  I found blades of sea grass, other bits of kelp, pieces of coral, crab shells and other colorful pebbles and stones.  Pieces of irridescient mother-of-pearl on the insides of broken scraps of abolone shells and animal’s teeth as well.  We would probably still be there now finding stuff had it not been that high tide was threatening our “canvas”.

With a few more items, like a blade of sea grass, an old sea-bleached crab pincer, a headless crab with legs still attached, a few more shells, and voila.  Lost and Found.

All these items were once alive.  They lost their lives at sea and tossed and turned in the waves, carried for who knows how long and for how far, they managed to be washed ashore on Hidden Beach.  Lost for countless time, unseen by untold numbers of visitors to this beach.  A veritable cornicopia of visual delights found by four children and their child-hearted father and arranged together to give a picture of what diverse life exists under the sea.  It is one of the most enjoyable photographs I have ever made during one of the most memorable days I have ever had.  You can be sure that Lost and Found will be hanging on one of our walls very shortly.

Oh…and whatever happened with sighting the new moon.  The skies in Big Sur stayed overcast the whole time.  With just over one hour before sunset, we set out on the road in search of a place where the skies were clear.  We dashed north along Highway 1 hoping to see some clear skies.  The skies that were clear just a few short hours ago, were now gray and enshrouding.  I began to think that we might not see it at all.  Even as far north as Santa Cruz, the skies were still overcast.  I figured I would need to be above the marine layer to even have a chance, but time was not on our side.  As we neared the Highway 17 interchange that would lead us up into and over the Santa Cruz mountains, I spotted some color on the horizon just north of Santa Cruz.  So we continued north until we reached Wilder Ranch State Park, and we made our stand there.  There we were able to see clear sky and it remained so for about 20 minutes.  Then no more than ten minutes after sunset, fairly high up in the sky, the fine feathery whisp of a crescent appeared.

And so what started out as a day of photography gone bad, turned out to be a day of interesting dichotomies.  Abandon and Wisdom, Life and Death, Lost and Found, and Ending with a Beginning.  But why should that surprise us?  For has not this world been created with everything in it as pairs? From things to events to feelings, everything has its opposite and together they create a balance and harmony that keeps this world and everything in it going. 

Peace to All.

Well it is finally over. The 2009 Open Studio exhibit and sale is closed - for now anyway. It was an exciting couple of months getting ready for this year’s show. I had a somewhat of a slow start, but really ramped up the preparations in the last month.

First I needed to advertise the exhibit beyond what the Silicon Valley Open Studios organization does. I printed 2500 4×6 inch post cards and mailed one to every person who ever bought a photo from me in the past or ever placed their name on my mailing list. This amounted to about 1/5th of the total number of cards printed. The rest were distributed throughout my neighborhood - about 1500 cards. That was a monumental feat - oops I mean feet, that is my feet were hating me for this. In fact every foot in my household hated me for it.

Each card had printed on back the details of the show dates and times as well as a special promotion I was running. Each card also had a unique code number that was randomly generated and randomly assigned a dollar value of $10, $25, $50 or $100! To find out what dollar amount was on that card, the holder of that card would need to come to the show. Then what ever amount came up from the database could be deducted from the purchase price of any photo, note card or calendar the patron wanted. I thought it was a pretty novel idea. In fact it worked very well. More on this below.

This year I dedcided to open my studio two of the three weekends in May when the Silicon Valley Open Studios organization sponsors and advertises this great event. On the first weekend the weather forecast was calling for rain on both days. On Friday evening it did start to rain and so instead of setting my exhibit street-fair style under canopy tents, I did an emergency house re-arrangement and moved everything inside. My living room and dining room were trasformed in to a temporary art gallery.

It worked out well but all was not good. Saturday morning as I was putting the final touches to the gallery, I see a City of San Jose car drive by my house. Ten minutes later its parked in front of my house and the driver is questioning me about my signs and if I want them back! He tells me that it is illegal to post any signs on city property, even on trees! And that if he sees my signs again, I will be fined! Well I had placed 15 signs out and around my neighborhood to help direct people to the exhibit, kind of like a bread trail of sorts. He pulls 6 signs from his back seat of his car, gives them to me, and leaves. Well that left 9 signs out and about and fearing getting in trouble I went out and collected the rest. I then placed two signs on my truck and left it at one end of my block and two more signs on my wifes car and placed it on the other end of my block, it was better than nothing and at least now the signs were not on city prpoerty. However, I felt like this year’s exhibit was going to be a bust - rain and NO SIGNS.

Well it turned out that every sale I made that first weekend came from patrons and neighborhood folks that had one of my promotion cards!

Come the second weekend, I borrowed some cars and parked them in various locations throughout the neighbor hood with those great big yellow signs directing people to the exhibit. Now this time instead of rain, we had temperatures from 94 degrees on Saturday to 102 degrees on Sunday and very little wind! Ouch! And of course this time I did set up the exhibit street-fair style in my driveway. You just can never win sometimes. But again except for one sale, all those who made a purchase did so because they had a promotion card.

All in all, over the two weekends, this year’s Open Studio turned out to be one of my all time highest grossing exhibits. So a BIG Thank You to all those who came by. You truly made this year’s effort worthwhile, and you are definitely appreciated and this will not go un-rewarded in the future. Just wait and see.

This weekend, May 2-3 and two weeks later, May 16-17 I will be opening my studio to visitors and past patrons as part of the Silicon Valley Open Studios. This event takes place every year on the first three weekends in May. This will be the second time my studio is participating.

I am also holding a promotion this year that could earn my visitors upto $100 towards a photograph. I have sent out postcards to all my patrons and anyone who has had an interest in Organic Light. Each postcard has a unique ‘Value Code’ printed on it that was randomly generated. Each random uniqe code has a dollar value assigned to it which could worth $10, $25, $50 or $100!

Now I know it is a bit late for tomorrow, but if you contact me in the coming week via email with your name and mailing address, then I can send you a card for the upcoming Studio show on May 16-17th.

For more information visit the Silicon Valley Open Studios website and check out My Page on the site.