#masonimage

Window Light

An open door to any old building can be an invitation to a photographer and I'm no exception today as I walk by. I have been inside this place before, several times actually, but the open door still calls me for one more visit - my last day here in Saigon. This old Provincial Palace with its 25-foot ceilings and colonial architecture usually brings me here in the middle of the day when the heat makes it impossible to be out in the sun. Today I decided to come early in the morning, the air is cooler and the light is low streaming inside the open shutters of the windows.

The first floor is a museum, but much of the rest of the building is open space, former ballrooms and massive bedrooms mostly empty. A historical treasure that receives surprisingly little foot traffic.

I spend a lot of time walking around. Never in a real hurry to shoot. It’s enjoyable to really feel the grandeur of the rooms. Taking in the size and scale they create. Walking from corner to corner seeing how the light strikes each wall from the different angles. Imagining the people who have been here before and the history contained within. An adjacent hallway I have never shot before has a row of windows that highlight the patterned floor tiles below. The space is pretty much empty of color so it’s not much of stretch to visualize it in black and white.

God Light on Green Lake

There is a reason landscape photography is such a popular genre. It’s because people are so hard to shoot.

Portrait photography is down right challenging. The portrait photographer seldom finds all the components to a good picture laid out before them like a breathtaking landscape at sunrise.

Photographing people is a layered process that by definition starts with two people. The photographer and the subject. Each giving up something of themselves in collaboration to create a picture. A dance of sorts where the end goal is capturing the essence and personality of the subject. Often, that give and take can be all consuming. Never really finding, photographically, who that person is.

As daunting as it all can be, the easiest path often times is the simplest. By placing them in the activity they love the photographer is almost guaranteed an authentic reaction that captures the subject perfectly.

It was supposed to be a sunrise shot. At least that was what I had in my mind as I loaded myself into a taxi at 4:15 AM this morning. I was up early anyway since I’m a world away from my normal sleep/wake cycle.

My destination this morning was the longest and oldest teakwood bridge in the world. The U Bein bridge spans Lake Taungthaman outside Mandalay, Myanmar. With its 1,086 teak pillars the visual potential was appealing since I love repetitive structures and the lines they can create across landscapes. Maybe a little human interest thrown in to create a juxtaposition against that graphic would be fine with me. But it had to be just the right human.

The weather this time of year here in Myanmar is not always the best, but traveling in low season has other advantages. My hope was to go early to avoid any chance for crowds as this place has grown in popularity over the years. What I found, not excluding the clouds, was a pleasant morning breeze and hardly a tourist in sight. Only the locals moving quietly across the span to work.

It is always the dilemma with sunrise photography when you arrive before the sun comes up. Fish or cut bait. Just start shooting or spend time looking for the best place to shoot the sunrise. The cloud bank looming over the horizon provided the answer. Thick black clouds moving my direction.

This gave me time to explore instead of searching for the best place to shoot. I always thought shots off the bridge would be good, but never expected the drama created by this structure. It was truly stunning in its simplicity. And my human elements. They arrived with a little patience.

What I like about this picture is the texture of the teak pillars and how it contrasts against the dark flowing robes of the monks. I know their robes have texture and detail, but like the monks themselves these are unknown elements I can only wonder about.

Hanging for a clock and barometer set we have had on the boat since we bought her in 2002, the monkey fist and the bosun’s whistle swing beautifully to the rhythm of the boat as she moves at the dock or underway. A visual reference to the motion we feel every day as life on a boat is seldom ever free of movement.A monkey fist is a knot tied into the end of a long line to create a weighted end…

Flight in Crystal Mountain

It feels like flying low in a small plane over a vast uncharted mountain range. The peaks angular shape punching up from the ground -pushing back the distant horizon. I’m in command of my point of view. Venturing deep into the valleys below then sweeping high overhead to see the scope and depth of the rocky terrain below.

For a moment or two, I’m caught up in my own little fantasy world of flight. The valleys below hidden in the shadows of unnamed peaks  Not a worry about time or agenda.  

Sadly, I’m not piloting my own aircraft, but instead, my eye is glued to a camera's viewfinder.  A macro lens attached as I sweep over an amethyst quartz crystal I have just purchased from a store here in San Clemente, CA.  Far from the mountains in my momentary fantasy world.  A stone's throw away from world famous surf breaks.

The Greeks name for crystals is derived from the words ice and rock. And not surprisingly the very elements these beauties resemble - especially when viewed in great detail provide by my lens choice today. I wanted to get close to these translucent polycrystals. See if the perspective of magnification would yield the shape and texture I was looking for.

With my naked eye, I was not sure what adventure I would find. Pulling up the frame of a viewfinder with a close-up lens and the whole world takes on a new point of view.