Abstract Study
This past Saturday was our monthly Art Guild meeting and we had the pleasure of having the Art Mobile come and educate us on Abstract Art. Our teacher challenged us to stand in front of a piece of abstract art of our choice for 5 whole minutes and then we’d discuss how that piece made us feel. Many of the artists were deeply opposed to this kind of art and made it very known in the beginning. But everyone sat and wrote or drew their thoughts on their work of choice and we had a lively discussion afterwards. Some pieces made people feel frustrated, others felt happy and whimsical. Some found a piece told a story from their childhood. I focused on one that made me feel comfortable and reminded me of Polaroid photos. Anyway, it was a real treat and we all enjoyed it very much! It inspired me to re-visit my freelensing and reverse macro techniques yesterday while shooting landscapes for a client. Because of all the moisture we’ve had lately, wildflowers are popping up like crazy.
Scarlet Globemallow
Also known as Copper Mallow and Cowboy’s Delight.
These beautiful little red flowers act as a ground cover in very dry and gravely parts of the land. They aren’t much to look at until the sun is low and they sparkle with a bright copper glow.
I shot this with the freelensing technique yesterday evening. I feels like I’m channeling Georgia O’Keefe and I’m okay with that. 🙂
Freelensing: a Snowflake
A friend and mentor of mine suggested I try the freelensing technique with my nifty 50mm to get macro results. I love that snowflakes really do look like storybook snowflakes. I froze my fanny while working on this and I finally got one that I believe is worthy for your eyes. What do you think? Please keep in mind I am still trying to perfect this so don’t be too harsh.
Freelensing
Most photographers cringe at the thought of changing lenses because the fear of dust getting on the sensor. But I decided to throw caution to the Wyoming wind and give freelensing a try. Freelensing is a technique where you take photos with your lens not firmly mounted on your camera body. This tilts the focus plane which can also be acheived by lensbabies or shift lenses. But since I don’t have ether of those, I tried this with my 85mm lens and my tired Canon 20D camera just as a test to see if 1) the thing would work, and 2) if I could pull this off. Well, as evidence above it didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. I like the colors and the softness but technically, I have a long ways to go. The tutorials say it takes a lot of practice but I don’t think I’ll try this at a wedding just yet. However it is an interesting effect without doing a lot of post production in photoshop.
Freelensing works with most Canon cameras, however, with Nikon cameras I’ve read where you should use a lens with an aperture ring.
You can see much better examples and learn more about freelensing here on the freelensing flikr group.
Happy shooting!
Uprooted Magnolia 
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