Blogodocious ramblings of a landscape photographer living in Maine.
My Best Shot is the One I'll Make Tomorrow
I'm pretty sure Imogen Cunningham said that line- 
Imogen Cunningham -photographer unknown.
but I've heard a bunch of other photographers say that line- and who knows where those colloquialisms come from. Like the one "making out", which used to be American teen talk for kissing and groping, I can't imagine what they would say now- but who came up with that one? Probably someone who never knew what they created in the end. Whatever. Getting back to that phrase tho "the best shot I'll make, I'll make tomorrow"- is a funny one but one that's been starting to bug me because sometimes I worry that "the good shots" are starting to get harder and harder to find. It's either that or the winter's getting me down and the wind-chills are making it harder to want to go out and find them.
So last Friday of January 4'th I went out to try to address that problem and took 4 hours to try and make imagery that I was at least satisfied with, or if anything else just to practice making pictures which does take enough of a technical skill that it's entirely possible to get rusty or fall out of practice enough to the point where you screw it up royally. Six days later I'm only now starting to like the results better. At the time making them nothing really popped out at me screaming that "here's a winner!" and that was something of a let-down, but 6 days after the fact, where now they are seeming a little better, I wonder if I'm just diluted or if that maybe there is some subtle worth to some of these that was better then I had initially thought. Because certainly that is the biggest challenge to a photograph- a photograph that has good replay value, one where you can look at it and find something new to like about it day after day, and one that doesn't become boring to see a month after hanging it on your wall.
It's definitely really important to always try to push yourself as a creator to make better and better work, but I think that sometimes the pursuit of better may become dangerous if it threatens productivity- like if I were to refrain from photography too much due to waiting for crazy dynamic skies then undoubtably there would be missed opportunities, and more dangerously maybe I could become too selective of the windows of productivity- because when you get right down to it there really is only so much time to do the work that we need to. The old carpe the diem thing that we get so nonchalant about hearing really applies here- and I definitely want to be more productive! And there's another problem- where comparing is dangerous- where if I were to think that I should be making more work because I used to make more work, then that could threaten my ego as well. What a complicated existence. And where does worrying get you anyway!? It's definitely important to check and recheck where we are in the world right now, but if your stress becomes painful then that wouldn't seem to be healthy motivation.
Right then. So with that in mind, on to the pictures! I know- what a bummer of a lead in. Ha! Anyways- 
"Maine Beach Frozen In TIme"
"Snow Beach"
"Quietside Seascape III"
edit: I wrote this a couple days ago and forgot to hit the publish button, since then it's gotten a touch warmer and I've gotten a bit of my mojo back- part of that had to do with seeing fog in the weather forecast. Had a great morning making photography today and I could have really spent the whole day at it if I hadn't had some family responsibilities to tend to this afternoon- it occurred to me while I was out there that sometimes the hardest thing to get over is just getting out there- once you're out there: 'the world is your oyster!' if you like oysters that is- they're really yummy with cocktail sauce. Until next time- save a place for me- Nate! Have a nice day.
Snow Shadow Abstracts in the Dooryard
Wow it has been wintery around here like it used to be way back! We've had a few nice snow's and the last was a real sweet "dumpah" that brought us around a foot of super powdery dry fluffy snow that with the winds blowing 20-30 knots for a few days on, made for some interesting snow shapes and deep drifts. My little Volkswagen was almost disappeared in one of them. The snow has also brought plenty of photographic inspiration, if only I could get over the fact that the wind-chill has been regularly down into the -10's F. You can dress for the cold and you can deal with the wind but photography can be difficult when those wet clingy bits want to keep sneaking around onto your lenses front elements. I don't really mind getting my gear a little moist, my 5D2 can take it apparently pretty well and it sure has, (remember they call it weather resistance not weather proof!), but I don't like being in the kind of weather where I'm forced to constantly wipe the front of the lens with the microfiber because it's so soaked. Here's an aside referencing those last two points: reference #1-- so I was down at the lighthouse a few weeks ago before the snow had fallen and this particular day was thick with a misty fog- I wanted to go visit the most popular lighthouse around which is right down the street from us and because of that I never go there- because I've shot it so much already, I had my 17-40 on due to the weather (versus 24 tilt-shift), and I wanted to make long exposures of the lighthouse but the blowing mist was soaking the front of my lens. I would microfiber it dry and open the shutter but in 10 seconds the front of the lens would be deep with beads of moisture- but: because I was shooting a fairly wide aperture and focused to infinity the moisture did not resolve and the scene was just as it appeared to the eye, misty and foggy and mysterious. Reference #2 as to the weather sealing of the kit: right then, so I've grown up on the Atlantic Ocean and I'm descendent of a line long of seafaring captains and pirates and Coasties, so in that regard one of my top priorities when I'm down by the water shooting is to never have to be rescued or end up in a situation that would not only imperil myself but the lives of others trying to save my sorry ass- so far so good. Not to say that I haven't taken some waves or that I haven't had my fight or flight reflexes kick in at some point or other when trying to make a picture! So on this misty day down by the lighthouse I had been photographing some granite cliff features for a while before making the actual lighthouse shot and the waves were pretty large but I was feeling confident about the pattern and frequencies of them and I set up to make the lighthouse shots and got two in the can before, with my Back To The Ocean, I took a wave over my back that poured easily a gallon of seawater down my sweatshirt and came over my head and thoroughly soaked my kit like a football-game-sized-Gatorade-bucket-dumped-by-the-team-on-the-coach, that had me gasping and sputtering and clamoring for my emergency wipe off towel. (Wipe off the gear, who cares about me!) To add insult to injury I retreated to drier footing and unshouldered my camera backpack which was soaked but fairly resistant in itself and drop it down to get my e-rags out and when I bend over to unzip a pouch a huge gout of ocean pours out of my hood onto my stuff, easily a pitcher of beer's worth, and I was like "What!- come on already!"- and, but, everything was not in the end destroyed! Great success! But not one that I would confidently repeat more than absolutely necessary. That was my version of the "polar bear swim" that some of my fellow "Maineiacs" pretend to enjoy.
On to the pictures- so on New Years day I went out into the yard with something of a numb head from the evening before and what popped right out at me at the time were some beautiful sculpted snow drifts that were forming patterns of shadows from the sidelight sun and right away I was thinking abstracts. The first response was to put on the 24 tilt-shift and do the deception-of-perception trick of making the drifts look like snowy mountains from an airplane but I for some reason chucked that right away and put on my 100mm 2.8 L IS USM, which is my least used but most beautiful lens (in image quality), and focused on extracts of little segments of the lines and shadows. Because it was clean snow in direct sun I needed to overexpose, but not by much, to get the quality of white that I was feeling: 2/3'rds a stop if I remember. Then it was all about playing with different depths of field and playing with the frame by rotating the scene "dutch-tilt-like", or changing perspective view points high to low and all. I was channelling classic b+w photographers while doing this- I was guessing at the time that maybe I had seen something by Man Ray like these that I was making but in the end after refreshing myself with his images and thinking on it more I think I may have been feeling more along the lines of Harry Callahan's nudes more then anything else: 
On to the pictures for real this time:: 
"Dooryard Snowy Abstract Diptych" -slightly different comps, slightly different developments, flipped for diptych.
"Dooryard Snowy Abstract IV"
"Dooryard Snowy Abstract V"
"Dooryard Snowy Abstract VI"
"Dooryard Snowy Abstract Asymetric Diptych II" I know they're different sizes and that's weird but I saw these in the Lightroom grid view like this and it just felt right.
one more- "Dooryard Snowy Abstract Stems"
One more thing before I leave you for today, I don't think it's a bad thing to be inspired by the ideas of images or work that you've seen before, or photographers or artists whose work you admire if it leads to good creation. I wasn't directly stealing any particular idea when I was making these- as far as I was concerned photographs like these have been made before, although when I went to look for them I couldn't find them on the interwebs, but that just goes to show my skills as a researcher- and as far as I can imagine nearly every kind of photograph has been made well already so then the reasons we would go to make any particular picture would be more of trying to put our own particular spin on them or to do the style in our own part of the world or to have "that kind of thing" in our own portfolios, or maybe just to hear the mirror slap and the shutter click- there really doesn't need to be more motivation than just that "because we like to make pictures". Personally I really love to work on and develop pictures but that's all after the fact, but if I didn't make anything new then I wouldn't have anything new to work on- and I don't really like to work on the same picture twice so then I look to make new photography of new places and new ideas. Hopefully lots more of that to come!
Here's your homework, if you should choose to accept it- get tanked on some high test coffee and go faffing around your own dooryard making something interesting- you have as much time as it takes, then report back here when you're done-, this message will self-destruct in our lifetime, have a nice day- Nate from Maine, Usa.
My 11 Best Images of 2012 and Why
ya, there's 12- I know.
Happy year everybody- I hope you all can look back at this past year and put a big check in the box next to what says you at least are looking forward to the next one and will approach it with as much enthusiasm as 4 cups of strong coffee/ and or tea daily will allow. ? In my worst years (and I've performed pretty badly for a few of them at least!) I never was of the opinion that it was all a great failure- call me an optimist or call me lucky but a whole years worth of time is big old chunk of time and there are always moments that make the whole thing worth it! The toughest thing for me is going to be making next year even better then the last because I had a good one. I sincerely hope you did too, interloping reader, because its always better for our community as a whole when everyone is happy! I'm not imagining a fantasy dreamlike utopia here where the unicorns are driving on rainbow highways or whatever- I'm just hoping you all can find the simple pleasures of life that make it all worth coming back for more. Do your best next year and I'll promise to at least sometimes try to do the same.
Right then- with all that ridiculously "bright side of life" Python-skit stuff out of the way- I mean I'm not trying to tell you guys how to live your life here- do whatever you want!- wallow in your own misery if that's what you want!- if that's what makes you happy then just know that all I want is for you to be happy! Maybe happiness is overrated? maybe the real art lies in sloth and pride and lust and greed and wrath and envy and gluttony? Bah- who's to say?
Anyways- this year is the first year that I've gone about making a critical selection of my 10 best shots (images/photographs) of the year (reads 11 in this case because simply I like the number 11 better). This is always a tough call because the whole point is to pick favorites, it would be easy to pick the top 100 or even the top 20 probably but the best eleven (11) is pretty discriminatory, and the idea of "picking your favorite children" certainly applies here. So the ultimate motivation therein is to select images that either are aesthetically nice, or more significantly, images that are important to me for deeper reasons like for instance a picture that challenged my vision and led to a moment of "breakthrough", or transcendence: (per example using my tilt shift lens to exaggerate perspective and scale and enable an abstract way of visual thinking where I actually felt like I was falling through the camera- I just love that lens!) or just simply making a picture that seemed somehow original-! Good luck with that! You know what I mean. But it's also a great exercise- picking the ten best- so here we go: in an particular order that has the most to do with chronology::
#1. Hancock 2 
John Hancock Building Boston Ma, March 8 2012- I live 296 miles from this building but it was a certain destination when back in the spring I was so inspired by my European friends ala Joel Tjintjellar's and Julia Anna Gosporadoux's amazing architectural work, among others, and correspondingly fascinating post production approach that I wanted to try it for myself- and since my family lives in the Boston area, the Hancock Building was the go-to destination. The complications of that 50+ mph winds shoot I detail here: http://nateparkerphotography.com/blog/2012/3/boston-is-my-home -the crazy fast moving clouds of that day made for some great atmospheric wispies over the building and that combined with a really sweet commercial sale of this print a month later made this a real standout image for me. I was pretty much laying on the sidewalk for this one in the middle of a regular business day afternoon about 15 feet from the corner of the building. Zounds!
#2. Overture (ICM) -(ICM means Intentional Camera Movement) ((where you shake the camera during the exposure and jump and and down and stuff like that to blur the details)). 
I went on something of an ICM bender from the end of March through April when I was needing something new to do with my camera- ICM imagery is pure painting with light and you never know what you're gonna get until you see the exposure- so it always takes dozens of tries and erratic motions wherein you must look like such the freak waving the camera all around like a fool! But the results are great, when you're in the mood for it= that is to say when there is nothing left to shoot because the skies have been cloudless and dull for weeks and there is no snow and everything else is just dormant and waiting for spring to come but you're just dying to hear the click of the shutter and the flap of the mirror. So this one was one of the first of a set that really worked for me and was just the thing I needed round about that time.
3. Tree Motion Study #6 
If I had to pick just one then it would be this one- To make this picture I had to hold and swing the camera at about a 40 degree angle because the tree was leaning and almost fallen over- I just really dug the character of the dessicated branches- so to make this shot I held the camera still for about 1 second then slowly panned it up to the left following up the trunk of the tree for one second or so- the result shows definition of the branches and sweeping streaks of the background forest. One exposure of about 30 to get it right. Film would not be good here.
4. Immersion 
April 17- we had a great period of fog around here for about 2 months this spring on and off- whenever the fog sets in everything becomes totally magical- the gas station develops cinematic appeal, the most mundane things are enveloped in serendipitous surreality. And the great thing is that you often have lots of time to exploit the effect- as long as the fog lasts that is- which for many days this spring was hours and hours at end. Good times! This railroad-tracks-into-the-sea bit is a boat launch at a boatyard only about 1000 yards from us.
5. Eagle Lake Acadia Lichen Rocks 
Usually a big motivator in my photography is trying to avoid the cliches or the easy shots- so I try to stay away from the lighthouses and some of the other overshot places around my home of Acadia. But then I realized that I don't really have enough of these or really any good ones to sell as prints to the tourists. This was the beginning of a series of "iconic Acadia" scenes where I shot the more popular carriage trail bridges and ponds and lakes around the park from or near vantage points riddled with tripod holes or padded flat from the loafers of all the point and shooters. The fun part was trying to apply my sense of "style" to the scenes. This was a nasty windy and darkly overcast morning on May 1st that was as cold as February and my intention that morning was initially to make photo's of the moose skull that I found in Baxter laying in the waters of Eagle Lake, but the waves were too big to cooperate so I went to find something else and these lichen covered rocks stood out to me- I like how the scale and weight of them feel to balance the scene and there are tons of nice details in the rocks to get lost in. And this is the blog that I walk around filming myself with the Iphone looking to make this shot- http://nateparkerphotography.com/blog/2012/5/meet-nate-a-video-blog
6. Great Meadow Lily Pads 
June 16th- day after my birthday, decided to celebrate that fact by getting up early which is that time of year about 03:00am- which is ridiculous, but summer mornings are always beautiful for photography. So I had this scene on my list of the "iconic Acadia" locations to shoot next and I knew the lily pads would be blooming so I came to this location without even my Muck boots because I knew I wanted to be wading to get this. The tricky part is to not go too deep and you want to check your pockets for all those cellphones and stuff but I would walk aways then probe ahead with the tripod to try and make sure that I wouldn't submerge too far. I just went to check the files to make sure this isn't a 3 shot pan done with my tilt shift- and it isn't: just cropped to 4x5. I do remember that I shot it with the 24 Ts-e and I swear I can feel the sharpness from that lens. As far as realizing this development I applied a green filter in Nik Silver Efex and then dodged up the lilly pad leaves in Lightroom 4 because I wanted them to pop out of the shadows nicely- otherwise I applied a generous medium contrasty curve, pulled back the highlights and applied a grad to the sky and sharpened the details and warm toned the final copy by just a couple points. I hardly ever want any pure paper white in my prints and where the lily pad blossom in the lower right and part of the sky between the mountains is bright- without checking I'm betting that they are more mostly zone 9.
7. Silver Ferns 
Another "if I had to pick just one"- this time because of the silvery, silvery!, midtones, and also because it's not a wide-angle landscape! Something almost completely different for me- actually just something that I don't do enough of- looking down. So this particular afternoon of July 21 it was misting rain lightly and perfectly overcast to go looking in the forest for this intimate ferns kind of image that I was looking for at the time. There are a couple fern groves that are favorites and close to home and I went there and shot all normal and horizontally trying to compose clumps of ferns against the vertical background of woods- which I've done before and it rarely worked out then either- just so much chaos and too many distracting elements. So when I realized that I was parched and didn't bring any water and was all bummed and started to up and leave all disgusted in myself, I came across this little patch of hayscented ferns and was immediately attracted to the delicate foliage and radiating lines. I went with the tilt-shift to affect the sense of proportion and scale to draw attention to that particular frond, and it's since become one of my favorite prints. If I recall correctly the blue filter in Silver Efex created this particular subtle contrast on the green leaves of this fern- sweet! Go blue filter- go!
8. Off The Shelf 
August 5, 2012- 05:24:35 am. More soupy yummy fog- along the Schooner Head Road in Acadia National Park. Not too much to say about this one- it is a 3 image stitch made with the 24 f/3.5 Ts-e: in landscape orientation I shifted the lens from center to the top then to the bottom to make this and blended them in photoshop. One thing that stands out in my memory about this one was that shortly after this shot I was composing something facing out to sea when suddenly the forward tripod leg slipped in its leg lock and the whole kitten caboodle almost went into the drink if I hadn't caught it with the shutter release cable that was still in my hand! Sheesh! Ever since then I hover like an attack hawk over my tripod during the exposures. Yowzas- And then some!
9. Summer Fog Fields 
Aug 12. On the way to meet my Ma and Dad for lunch, again the fog was thick like stew!- I took the wrong turn and ended up in the sweetest farm country that I had been through before but years ago, and never would have ended up there otherwise. I saw this scene from the road and pulled off to hop out with my tripod and kit and got my feet soaked in the deep grass by the foggy dew and it became one of my favorite shots of the year. What makes this for me is the fall off of the tilted plane of focus and the highlights in the grass under the hay, which in Maine is pronounced Hi-eee The reason I'm including this in the critical wrap-up I think is the balance that it provides my portfolio in a way that I've got tons of ocean stuff and some tree's and stuff but not much farm- which is a big part of Maine and all, and it's gorgeous, so- more of this. To come. MOTTC.
10. Cadillac Mountain Autumn Brook Extract II 
Sept 30. A totally simple scene but one that works for me where I like the idea where if you try: you can imagine this as a tree on a high cliff bluff shaking in the wind with clouds moving by. But it's just a sapling by a running brook. Some of my more successful images this year (in my mind), have been those that have more then one level of interpretation- something that you can look at one way one day and another the next. Replay value and all. Ya.
11. Mood Swings 
Because it's out of a dream- another reason that I love fog: makes the most mundane thing completely surreal.
12. Rialto Beach Sea Stacks: bonus pick cause that's the way I roll- 
Nov. 7, 2012. The trip to the west coast was definitely the most inspiring photographic thing for me all year, it became obvious what the value of traveling is, I really must do more of that in the future. All I wanted to shoot out there (the PNW) were the sea stacks, which were completely awesome, and everyone was unique and had tons of personality and I could shoot them for years without getting bored. Loved it- gotta go back there some day! And it's completely different from my part of the world- which in my opinion is the whole point of traveling :-).
So that's it for that- a year down and hopefully more than a year to go- honestly these picks were mostly arbitrary: one of my favorite words for this year!- I could have picked a completely different set of twelve dependent on time and space, but in my place right now these are these. With that in mind it would be totally interesting to me to revisit these picks a dozen years from now, to see that maybe my choice of contrast was too much or that my sense of sharpening was off. Or something like that.
I wish you well in your endeavors- whatever they may be, so long as they are heartfelt and real. In the end I hope your passions are more real and retroactive and rewarding then ever before and that you find your place in the world sooner then you should have to suffer- Whatever it may be, do a good job in it and embrace the new year as a chance again to make things right with the world and find your place in it properly- your's with great respect -Nate.
Fire Gathering 2012 Meet The Artists
Here we go! Every year for the last 4 years or so Linda and Ken Perrin of Atlantic Art Glass in Ellsworth Maine have hosted just the best winter solstice party you could hope to attend that Linda has dubbed "The Fire Gathering". There are glass blowing demos and you can try it yourself if you ask nice, blacksmithing demos, this year there was raku pottery demos and a live band and tons of people came out to warm up around the furnace. It's a wicked great time and the bean dip is out of this world awesome! So this year I played the role of "Television Presenter Guy Nate Parker" and went about meeting the artists and finding out other peoples favorite holiday traditions. Music provided by the house band of A.J. Emmett and Dave Lavalle (can't remember the other two guys names), Phoenix "1901", and Medeski Martin and Wood "End Of The World Party".
Good times! Happy holidays everybody!
http://www.atlanticartglass.com/
Shoot like an Astronaut, how to photograph the apocalypse, and that New York Post image.
Hey there there, I'm taking something of a break. My back's been killing me from when I threw it out picking up my dog to wash him in the tub, the weather and the environment have been "between" seasons for the last few weeks, and there's just been no burn or desire to make new images for me for a while. So I'm not going to force it or worry about it or make it a thing- I'm just gonna rest. I did go out and make some abstracty blurry stuff for a bit last week but I haven't even downloaded the card yet- that's where I am right now, just restin'. But in the meantime I still have had my eyes open and here's some of what I saw last week that was interesting:
1. Shoot like an Astronaut!: Here's the NASA Astronauts Photography Manual by Hasselblad! Hasselblads, Astronaut's, Space Shuttles, and High Earth Orbit are all awesome things so you can't go wrong with this read: http://www.hasselblad.com/media/2207875/astronauts_manual_singlepage_lr.pdf
2. How to Photograph the Apocalypse: I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of these kinds of tutorials in the coming weeks as Armageddon and the end times and perhaps our greatest photographic opportunities will be rearing their Hydras many heads and splitting the Earth in two and providing all kinds of can't miss shots on or about the 21'st of December. Don't forget to have a good media back-up strategy in place for that day and perhaps considering making prints of all your favorite images before then because when all else fails I wouldn't expect the binary system to soldier on unaffected.
3. How bout that whole New York Post subway photograph "doomed", and the resulting outcry- this is the most terrible of stories- the whole thing is a sad tragedy, it's all terrible- but the part that made me dwell on it the most was the way the public so vilified the photographer. I've been reading about this for some days now since it happened and only just minutes ago watched the interview with the actual photographer. The associated comments and other anecdotes that they've raised have been really compelling and in the end I can't help but think this: if a journalistic photographer doesn't make images of the news happening before him or her and instead becomes the news then there will be no more journalism? This whole thing sucks- The Post ran a truly tasteless cover sensationalizing a horrible moment that no New Yorker or any body else for that matter wants to see or imagine. This isn't like that horribly sad image of the young girl running naked after being napalmed in Vietnam or even those old Weegee pictures of murder victims in 1940's NYC, I don't really know how to put it into words why I feel it's such a bad picture, maybe that's why I keep thinking about it. There is cell phone video footage of the subway platform there from before it happened from other bystanders and there were other people closer to the situation then R. Umar Abassi was- in the photograph that was run on the cover of the Post there is an Obvious lack of anybody seeming to help- almost as if the place was empty besides Mr. Abassi, but it wasn't, and by his remarks there were all kinds of folks documenting the dead body on the tracks when the EMT's were assisting- they are the one's that should be castigated!. And he is the one victimized- even more so then the maniac killer lunatic who was the one who pushed the victim. Freekin terrible the whole thing. But to recapitulate my point that I probably never capitulated well in the first place- Mr. Abassi is a journalist: his job is to make pictures of the news, that's what he did. The world needs more hero's. We all do the best we can, hopefully someday we can all be "Johnny on the spot" and really make a difference, but if all we can do is react with our reflex to photograph instead of lend a helping hand then the world is indeed a different place- because just know that the guy with the 70-200 who is way down at the end of the platform will get a better shot then we will and that it will have nice telephoto compression and we can just focus on helping the victim. Remember your places people- photographers photograph, policemen police, cooks cook, no matter who we are, we'll all do the best we can to help you- now for the ultra cheesy wrap-up line: "Don't Kill The Messenger".
Be well, do good things, and take good pictures. -N8
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