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Dave Wrote:  Hi Jim, I am constantly working to improve my set up to photograph birds at my feeder sites. Here is my latest set up and some pictures of birds using it. I had a dead pine tree on my back property line and a dead poplar in my woods. I cut them down removed the tops drilled them out for bird seed. I then placed them outside one of my west windows. The woodpeckers seem to really like this set up. You  have to make things work for you it doesn’t just happen on it’s own.  Dave

AND NOW JIM’S LEARNING EXPERIENCE:

Marc: (My Son-in-Law) wrote: I loves your blog yesterday about your life long learning and using lines in photo composition. I am sending you a photo with lines that I took in a Nature Preserve on Long Island – maybe your can do something with it.

I wrote.  Thx for sending that photo. I love it:  I tried to use the lines to create several surreal photos.  The experience is one of learning and I am really enjoying it.- I will study more about lines and things of nature in compositions – Then, I am sure,  I will use Marc’s photo as a starting base for more of my surreal photos.   Here are two of my attempts so far:

My question to you: “Why do you do what you do?”

My family and friends have often ask why I like to work with Photoshop to create surreal photographs.  In the past, my response was “I don’t know.”  But, now I know. This morning on the CBS show, Sunday Morning, I got my own answer to that question.  The answer came through our former President, George W. Bush, who was the featured person in one segment of the show.

They ask President Bush “Why did he take up art?”  He answered “To learn.”  I have paraphrased here how he explained it: “Every day being president is a learning experience and all of a sudden you are out of the Oval Office and that learning experience stops.  I took up art to keep on learning.”

Boy, I thought, I retired from some very interesting jobs and life styles in my working years and each of those years was a learning experience. I have, also, done many interesting things in retirement that where learning experiences.  It dawned on me, I study PhotoShop and surreal photography because I want to keep that brain of mine learning just as long as it will keep working.

So, in my “old” years, I study every day for the fun and mental value of learning. One of the areas that i have been studying is what are elements of a good photograph. Then I study to learn how I can combine photographs in PhotoShop to create a surreal photograph with those elements. One recent study was about using lines in the photograph’s composition to control the viewer’s eyes and mind – to help the viewer see the photograph’s item of interest. 

Oh, by the way, since the helicopter is taking off early tomorrow morning on Mars, I was thinking about our 1969 moon landing when Commander Neil Armstrong spoke the words “Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed.”   The following surreal photo, titled simply “The Eagle Has Landed”, took shape in my mind before breakfast, this morning, when an eagle landed on my neighbor’s roof. 

You can see, in this surreal photograph, I used the lines made by the contrails and the flag pole to isolate my point of interest from the surrounding elements. My focal point, of course, is our National Bird in front of our Country’s flag: 

Dave wrote: Hi Jim, A beautiful day here in Rome, NY 74 degrees F. Here are some more shots from out in my photo blind. Here is a shot of the blind on a  pond in an old gravel bed behind our property. Some male Ring-necked Ducks and some male Wood Ducks doing their wild crazy act. Dave

I wrote: I can’t say enough about Dave’s photos – They are great – I think I see a story – It may not be the way it was but that is what I saw.  What do you think? Here is the story I saw: (The blind, the quiet just floating along, the show of male duck manliness, the “get out of here posture”, then the “I am the victor”.)

Now my story:

When I show folks my PhotoShoped photos, they often say “How do you do that? – I want to try that.”   I say in response: “Don’t let anybody tell you what to do.   Only you are the expert on you.”

But everybody’s got something to say about what you do. People you know, people you love, people you hate. Even people you’ve never met in posts like this one.

They tell you what to do, who to be, and how to live.  But nobody who tells you what to do actually knows what’s best for you. So stop listening to them.

But I am going to show you how I do it, anyway:

That is a quick look at how I do it – But, do not listen to me – I am sure you got better things to do with your time!

Some times there is no way to give enough thanks for what others do for you.  The Photo Club rewarded me with purpose and  friendship for more than 15 years.  I will continue to say “Thanks.” In fact the Club still offers that friendship even though my role has shifted to more of a quiet participant. – I love it!

Now, on to my story. I found this on the internet:  “If you dream of a fog above the water, it creates a dreamy mood and pleasant thoughts.”

Last week the early morning (6:30am) fog over the lake behind our back porch was beautiful. I sat there sipping my first cup of coffee. By 6:45 I set the cup on the end-table and just stared out into the fog.  I drifted back to sleep and dreamed.

Oh by the way, I found this on the internet: “The average person has three to five dreams per night.   Dreams tend to last longer as the your sleep progresses.”

Well, my drifting off to sleep that morning only lasted 10 or 15 minutes.  My sleep had no time to progress – so my 5 dreams, in that early morning snooze session, were short dreams.

Three dreams were driven by the dreamy mood set into my brain by the beautiful early morning fog bank over the lake.  I created three abstract photos representing those three dreams.

The other two dreams had to do with Adam and Eve and Apple Pie and Motherhood.  They were driven by Dave Spahn (the new leader of the Photo Club) and his team asking us to photograph food.

The foggy morning I am telling you about was right after Dave ask members to share photos of food.  I dreamed of  two food happenings and created an abstract photo of each. I shared them with the Club and now I will share them with you.

When I stepped down, the Club gave me a gift bottle of wonderfully  expensive Scotch.  So, maybe all five Photo Abstracts were really driven by me enjoying that gift bottle of Scotch:

DAVE WROTE:  Hi Jim, Here are some pictures for the blog. We went to the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge one day last week. The refuge is in western NY. There were lots of Snow Geese there. Probably 15 or 20,000 or more. Snow  Geese breed in the high Arctic. They are on their way back north. Took lots of pictures here are a few. The first two shots of the large flock  was about a third of the flock. I had on too  much lens to get them all in.   Dave

I WROTE:  Dave Cesari is a great photographer. I did not ask him, but I bet he has done most of my 10 steps to become great.  Read on, I will try to explain what I am talking about.

Photography is undoubtedly the art form of the modern day – everyone has access to a camera. We are all in the “Hobby photographer arena.”  So, how do we become better photographers.  Well, first we gotta’ know what we consider a great photo to look like. 

The best way for you to figure that out is to take a group of photos, study them all, and then remove 1/2 of them that are least great to your eyes and mind. Keep doing that until only one photo is left. Now study its composition, subject, center of focus, story, color, tone, eye control,… etc. If you do that often enough, you will get a clear definition of what elements of a photograph you uniquely think creates a great photo.  Now you know what you want to accomplish in your photos.

That is only step #2 in my list of 10 steps on how to improve the photographs that you take:

1. Answer: What’s the purpose of your photography?

2. Answer: What do you consider a great photograph?

3. Know your camera.

4. Practice, practice, practice.

5. Have a bucket-list of subjects to photograph.

6. Present a selection of your photographs to others.

7. Develop your own style and be proud of it.

8. Travel to where the subjects of your bucket-list are.

9. Experiment and make mistakes.

10. Photograph what excites you – photograph your passion.

I will talk to each of these steps over the next postings. 

But, for now, look at Dave’s photos (below). Eliminate three, then eliminate two, the one left is your choice for the greatest – it is the one that most grabs you.  Now write down the elements that make it grab you.  If you did that, you started doing my step #2. We will need to do it many more times – pretty soon it will be more fun then you ever expected – and you will be learning to be a better photographer because you will know what elements you want in your next great photo.

THE STORY OF LOVE OF LIFE THROUGH THE ENVIRONMENT                           CREATED BY ARCHITECTURE

Last year, after many years of leading the TGO community photo club, I decided the club would do much better in the hands of some new leadership – new enthusiasm, new ideas. 

Boy, I was right. It is now an exciting club.  They are capitalizing on the zoom technology and they have stimulated involvement.  At meetings there is so much discussion that it is hard to get a word in edgewise.

Last week at the meeting, there was a suggestion that members share, at the next zoom meeting, a photograph focusing on architecture.

Well, you know me, before I set out to create a photograph of architecture  I had to do research on the web – “What is architecture?”

I never did find a description I liked.  You see, I am a professional post-graduate engineer, have designed a half dozen houses, taught computerized architecture drafting, but still I am not an architect. All that made me ponder even more about environment vs architecture.

My pondering concluded that architecture is just a tool to create an environment.  So, you see, environment is the end product of architecture . When designing a community, a house, a room we only use architecture as a tool to produce the environment we want. And my desired environment will be different then yours and different from the one I wanted 40 years ago.

But 40 years ago – even 80 years ago – my desire was to bring the outside inside, make it so I can get outside in just a few steps, give me space to wander once outside,

and make it comfortable for friends to sit in a circle and chat while having vistas that travel magazine editors would die for.  

The architecture of the old farm house I grew up in allowed me to sneak outside, wander 1/2 mile or more through field and woods to where neighbor farmers would have to bring me home – even when I was only 3 years old. My Drummond house had picture windows where every you sat, my Texas ranch house had

12 outside doors so that where ever you were in the house it only took 5 steps to be outside, and my home with 6 round things under it could be parked with windshield vistas of mountains, oceans, or cities – while satisfying my strong need to wander.

Now, I knew I wanted to create a photograph showing how the architecture created an environment I loved to live in.

Thus, I created, to share with the TGO Photo Club members, photos that show the environment the architecture of the motorhome provided.

Dave wrote:  Hi Jim, Here are some pictures for the blog. An adult female Northern Harrier. Used to be known as the Marsh Hawk name was changed a few years ago. The first two flying shots are by Candis. The rest are mine. We are having an interesting and busy year photographing raptors.  Lots of snow here in upstate NY this year.  Dave

Now for the male!

Dave wrote:  Jim, I thought  you  could add these two pictures of a male Harrier to the last batch I sent you as that was only the female Harrier.  Birders call the malet he Gray Ghost.   Dave

After Daves photos, I posted a story about my mind or maybe lack there of. – Tell me what you think.

DAVE WROTE:

Hi Jim,  Here are some pictures for the blog.  We have had an adult and ant immature Red-tailed Hawk hanging around our area for the past two or three weeks. Here is  a shot of the adult on a freshly killed rabbit two days ago. It left the carcass and today an immature Red-tail was at the carcass. I am quite pleased with the flying shots of the bird. I  was right on it as it took off. Some of the best flight shots of a Red-tail I have ever gotten.  For not being down at TGO we are having a very good winter.    Taking lots of pictures. Dave

I WROTE:

Seeing One From Many, My Nonsense Mind

I love creating Photo Abstract Realism. Starting with a base photo and adding many other photo images to create an image that is not real but attempts to adhere to good photo composition, color values, and focus point. Every time I create a abstract realism my mind is not blank, as some my think.  There is always something on my mind.  Let me tell you:

Years ago I worked with all the countries in Europe and the computer development business in the United States. One part of my job was to help each country’s sales force work with the developers here in the States to make sure the documents and the computer screens they were creating could be translated into each country’s languages.  There are many aspects to that challenge including making sure there is enough space on the screen for translation into the German language – some of German words are much longer then ours here in the USA.

But today I was thinking about two other aspects of the job. About things that are local to a country – For example, if I said to you older folks here in the US , “Body by Fisher,”  you most likely know I was speaking about General Motor advertisements.  They used “Body by Fisher” to describe their automobile bodies.  But, European translators may think i was talking about “Cadaver by Fisher.”

Then I thought about the use of homonyms in computer documentation and in the examples in  instruction books.  Homonyms were always to be used with caution because language translators are not sure of the context of the use of a homonym.  For example, if I said “Cardinals”, am I speaking about beautiful red birds or speaking of those people second to the Pope in the Roman Catholic Church, or speaking of the baseball team in St Louis.  

Thus, that is where my mind was while creating the “Cardinal, cardinal, cardinal” abstract realism below.

I know we need stop signs but some times I think we have more signs then normal people need.  Well, more then I need.  Even without a sign,  I am not likely to stick my hand in the mouth of a gator — or am i?  I have done lots of dumb things in my life.  Signs, I am sure, saved me from doing more dumb things.

Actually I am always on the look-out for signs I should have had and signs that make me laugh.  For example, the time I jumped onto my tractor on my ranch in Texas and sat on the seat without looking.  I should have had a sign telling me to look at the seat first to be sure there was not a six foot rat snake curled up there like there was.  YIPES.  

Just today, a man and woman thought I did a dumb thing even though there was a sign right in front of me. Just as I snapped the base photo for the “Signs” abstract realism below that man and woman stood on the road behind me and screamed at me like a mother screams at her two year about to touch a hot stove.  I really was glad their screams did not scare and anger the gator or I might have been in real trouble.  Gators can get up and turn around faster than I can. 

But, I kept my eye on the gator and thanked the couple kindly for their concern, ’cause I wanted a close-up for the base photo of my abstract on gator warning signs.

I wrote: What beautiful story in photographs by Dave. I have often seen the evidence of such a story. I have seen it in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and in Michigan – but never recorded has Dave did. Enjoy his photos.

Sunday, I will post right here a one photo story of some things that happened within the last 30 days. I combined 10 or more photos into one photograph to tell my story. It is Sunday – Here is the photo I made: (SCROLL DOWN UNTIL AFTER DAVE’S PHOTOS, I WROTE A STORY ABOUT WHAT I WAS THINKING WHEN I MADE THIS PHOTO.)

Dave wrote: Hi Jim, Here are more pictures for the blog. First  an adult Red-tailed Hawk with a rabbit in our back yard. Next an immature Northen Harrier on the remains of the rabbit the next morning. Then an immature Red-tailed Hawk flew in and chased off the Harrier. It perched on one of my bird houses  then flew off. We got a full foot of new snow overnight. Some different from TGO in February.   Dave

HERE IS MY STORY:  The human brain expects us to have others around us – to be together (with Covid that means at least six feet apart, in a blog, on zoom, or on our cell-phones).  Much of the time that we are together we tell each other stories about what we saw and what we thought. 

I was thinking that now days things happen fast and are highly technical with digital equipment. Oh my, by the way, did you know that the average new car has 100 micro-chips built into it?

Moving on with my story: In our neighborhood, each set of two poles carrying electric cables were replaced by one pole in an hour or two. Lots of digital equipment designed the new poles and guided their placement in the ground.  A lot of bystanders, including me, used digital phones to photograph the poles being replaced.

This week, most of us saw Punxsutawney Phil look for his shadow.  Lots of complex digital computers were needed to show us that in the morning news on Feb 2.

How about the digits used to create and display on our tv’s the hype on the upcoming football game – to research the history and calculate the odds  of the two star quarterbacks.  Lots of things happen that require computers and micro-chips. 

Here in Titusville we hardly take notice any more when a rocket takes off for the space-station or Mars.  How about the work being done to protect us from the Covid-19.  Air-force 1 flies one president to Florida and returns to DC with the “atomic football” in time for the next President to have it and the secret code by his side. Bernie’s mittens raised almost two million dollars for charity over night.  These things all happened within the last week or so and each one used a lot of digital devices filled with micro-chips.  I love thinking about it all.

Thanks for reading my story.  I made the following photo to illustrate my story.   I am glad we could be together and that I could tell my story through the words of this  blog, my digital camera, and PhotoShop.

As a side thought:  I think a million robins found their way to Florida overnight without micro-chips. I placed the robin up on the pole to illustrate that sub-story.