Hens and Chickens. Found out in the dooryard- I just love the textures. Canon 100mm 2.8L IS USM Macro at f/4.0. 1/200 sec at iso 1250 handheld. For handheld macro you've gotta breathe like a sniper and shoot between heartbeats.

So I was thinking the other day about style in photography, and the way I see it is: content aside, ones style has to do with your individualistic representations of three things (3.) which are one (1.) Contrast- how hard are your gradations from blacks to whites, do you like shadow detail and how much. Two (2.) edge definition and sharpening: are you the halo master or are you the subtle soft spoken type? Do want crunchy goth sharp beard stubble and razor edged leaves or are you more of the romantic seeing through a gauze veil sexy with frankincense burning and John Tesh rhapsodizing kind? and three (3.) blacks and whites- how black do you want to go, how dark are your dayshots? and how white is too white. If your idea of a beautiful day is a cold front churning dynamic sunrise to thick fog til noon then a nice downpour around 1-2:30 that will get the waterfalls flowing and there is a proper nap time, then more high clouds keeping the glare off the late afternoon and making some nice underlight for sunset then you probably like your images a tad darker like I do. And I know of some imagineers who hardly ever pop near whites into their images- their face of the sun will still be 18 percent gray, so, you can't just say they are wrong- it's just their style. Here's an aside by the way: fog has no true whites or true blacks, but that's just a technicality. You all know what I mean: when you look at a thing you think right off "do I like it" and then if you like it enough you look closer and fall into the image- if you don't like it then something is obvious. When something sticks out and exposes the process as being "the process" you aren't seeing the thing anymore- you're distracted by the process. There's a bunch of anecdotes that could be made here resembling that remark how bout- look at fine dining and gourmet amazing foods: you don't want to hear "oh the supple virgin boar was maimed on these freekin precious cherry wrought grates or whatever" you just want your delicious sopressata. How bout super cars: you don't want to hear about how the NASA engineer who designed the airfoil that keeps your $250.000.00 car on the road while going 130 miles an hour around a corner was raised with 4 sisters and no brother and was forced to put on makeup and wear high heels too many times in elementary school and now lives in a too expensive penthouse apartment in the city and is suspiciously unreachable for 128 hours of the week. Or this little gem: where's your Ipad come from, or your cell phone, etc. See: nobody wants to think about the process. The process can be our little shop talk thing but we should hope the potential customer just and only thinks: "they like it".

 All I need to do now is create a scale that factors in these three qualities of a photographers vision and make a multiple choice questionaire so that you too can see where you end up compared to the average, etc. But you already know who you are. Whattaya need me for? Have a good one- N8.

Stand by, stay tuned, and keep on comin back for the sometime this week: FREE Print Giveaway! Because it's there!!

Acadia in Moving Pictures.

There's nothing like being there- but sometimes I'll remember to roll video on the place that I was just photographing to try and feel it again later in that way and although it's never like the real thing I always wish I did it more. This is something of a best of from a recent trip through my hard drives to clean up the dust balls, figured to throw together a best of kind of reel. I could have kept editing on this and on and on but just wanted to keep it a short project. Musics are: Nick Drake, "Black Eyed Dog" from the album "Made to Love Magic". Have a good one and check back for a Big Time Free Print Giveaway!!! sometime this week! :-) That is to say: keep on comin back now, ya hear?!

Four Skiffs. Seal Cove, Maine.

The island is waking up. People are shaking off the cobwebs and taking the shutters off the store windows and a bunch of people who aren't here for the cold season are walking around looking for summer jobs and such and those who've been here for the whole thing are still wearing there beanies even though it's 60 degrees f out- out of fear I figure. You really get used to those "security blankets" of the winter and when you've lived around here for long enough you know that another cold snap is just a gust away. But it's definitely almost summer now and time to turn on the machine that is the tourist industry that which pays for us to live here even after they've all left for the off season. Tell you what- there's nothing like winter around here, I really love it- you feel a tough kind of camaraderie with the people who live here then, a kind of bond of "if you can do it, then I can do it" sort of thing. Everybody waves to each other driving to the store and there's never any traffic driving over to "the big city" of Ellsworth to go to the proper grocery. From here on out most cars on the roads will be from out of state and nobody knows where there going and they crash right into you making 13 point turns to go back to the lighthouse which they missed three miles back. Oh my word how they love that silly little lighthouse! The fishing season will be in full swing and the bait trucks will be leaking their stinky sludge on the way to the docks (that is truly the nastiest smell, a bait truck can stink up the road for a whole day sometimes especially if the breeze is blowing right at ya.) But for all the inconveniences and ridiculousnesses I think most people enjoy it- I approach it like something like a battle, a 5 month long battle- I take multi vitamins and I deal with them wave after wave and they haven't got the worst of me yet. Or is it the best? That remains to be seen. Anyways, here's my formal invitation to all ye listening: come on up to Maine, "vacationland", and get away from the heat and the craziness of the rest of the world and have some tasty lobster (I'll have only about two a year myself- rather get some excellent pizza from "Rosalie's" in Bar Harbor). Go for a hike in  Acadia and take a bike ride around the carriage trails, get some pop-overs and cappuccino at the Jordan Pond House and maybe take a paddle in a kayak on one of the ponds. And most definitely at least once get up for sunrise and go to Eagle Lake or up Cadillac Mountain (at the lakes you'll here the loons calling though which is absolutely priceless) and when you see me with my kit on my tripod please try to stay out of my shot: I'll usually be shooting wide so anywhere behind me will be fine, thanks in advance on that! And if anybody wants a proper photo tour of Mount Desert Island send me a communique and I'll be glad to take you around and tell you where the best lobster bakes are etc.- for a small compensation I'm sure. Right then. Have a good one friendos! -N8!

P.s. 5 days left on the big '30 percent off any of my prints' sale! Get em while they're inexpensive!