I have moved my blog to Squarespace, combining it with my main website. Please visit at:

kirtecarterfineartphotography.com

New Website Under Construction

For the last number of months, I have been (rather slowly), building a new website and blog spot using Squarespace, via a subscription to their service. The software is not particularly intuitive and they upgraded to version 7 when I was a month or so involved with 6. While only a few of the galleries are completed at this point, the Blogspot has now been moved to my new domain. You can access it via:

kirtecarterfineartphotography.com

Within the next few weeks, I will perform a 301 redirect for this site which will automatically redirect queries to the old blogspot site to the new squarespace site. Thank you for your patience. The new Squarespace website will eventually have an active commerce store where fine art prints and greeting cards can be purchased online. Happy New Year.

Kirt

Yooper

Aiden has done well to brave the high today of 3F and make a snowshoe trail for his Aunt Julie and Uncle Eric, who arrive this evening for a week of downhill and cross country skiing. He said the admission price for them to shoe on his trail is either the same as the fare for the Mackinaw Bridige, or a box of chocolate doughnuts with sprinkles and a cup of hot chocolate (per customer).

Snowshoeing with Papa

Aiden is here at the farm for over a week during his Christmas break. We have snowshoed twice and ice fished this morning. He is a joy to have visit.

Convergence-The use of Neutral Density Filters

Over the past few years, I have fielded a number of reader's questions regarding the motion-effect from water in many of my posted prints. Some have asked it if was a special Photoshop plug-in, while others have ventured that it was an "in-camera" effect. In actuality, these shots were exceptionally long exposures, due to the use of a Neutral Density Filter-a  Heliopan ND 10 stop filter, which as the number implies, creates a ten stop reduction in light reaching the sensor (or film in traditional cameras). When looking at the filter, it appears as black glass and does not allow a see-through view in an SLR camera. As such, using the Bulb (B) setting on your dial, first compose and focus sans filter, then carefully place the filter on the lens, being very careful not to move the camera. Exposures can range from one minute, to as long as fifteen minutes, and require a very sturdy tripod and cable release which will lock open. This process was not an option in my days of film, for it would have been a prohibitively expensive venture. Of course, with digital work, a wrong guess and the only thing you are out is your time. With 4x5 sheet film, hours could be spent in the darkroom to discover mostly clear negatives, at a great expense and the requirement of copious exposure notes.  A dear friend and fellow artist and I went through a period during which we worked with classic 120 film cameras such as the Agfa Isolette with the lovely Solinar lens. We found that after some months of experience and using the same film consistently, we could guess F Stop and shutter speed combinations quite accurately, without the use of an external light meter (as the Isolette does not have a meter). The same intuitive skill will develop for you over time when using the ND filter. You will learn to judge by light conditions and F-stop (typically F14-22), the length of time for the exposure. With practice, one becomes skilled enough to get close on the first exposure and then fine tune with a second shot if needed. A challenge with ND filters is waiting the time out.....ten minutes can seem like an hour when you are looking at the exposure timer on the top of your digital SLR. Take a walk, read, scout out your next shot, or practice some mindful meditation-the wait will be worth it. Any thing that moves, in particular, fast water or rapidly moving cloudscapes, turn into a creamy blur. Don't scrimp on buying a filter, for like in the rest of life, you get what you pay for. Heliopan and B&W, both fine German filters, are expensive, but give sharp results. Cheap filters degrade images. Depending on the filter size for your lens, you can expect to pay close to $190 for the Heliopan. Merry Christmas.

Defiance

"In the end, it is our defiance that redeems us. If wolves had a religion-if there was a religion of the wolf-that is what it would tell us."
Mark Rowlands

Black River

"Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other."

Rainer Maria Rilke

Whirlpool

I'm wrapped up in you

I'm like a bird wrapped up in the wind

I'm gliding on these currents, up

and I'm always falling down again

and you've been on my mind

with those eyes staring out their spell

well, into them here I go again

I fell...

and I can't pull out, I'm in deeper than I knew

I'm sinking in your soul, like a leaf in a whirlpool

spinning 'round

though I'm sitting here so very still

what you touched inside of me

I guess nobody else ever will

and you're always on my mind

you're like a demon there to haunt my day

pretty demon makes me want to run

you make me want to stay

and I can't pull out, I'm in deeper than I knew

I'm sinking in your soul, like a leaf in a whirlpool

Jimmie Spheeris, Whirlpool from Ports of the Heart 1976
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99tEU3a3vFE

Ice and Torrent-A Mindful View

When making the three exposures which compose this High Dynamic Range (HDR) image, I was struck with the visual analogy for mindfulness-that is, purposeful attention to the current moment, without judgment.

When we are mindful, we observe difficult thoughts or emotions with curiosity, without fusing with them, and as such, they pass. During a brief two day melt, the Black River was torrential below Rainbow Falls. If you were to attempt to follow the current, your visual experience would be so immediately swept away, you would forfeit the beauty inherent in the present ice formations. Getting tangled in our thoughts is a journey wrought with struggle.

_________________________

"As we encounter new experiences with a mindful and wise attention, we discover that one of three things will happen to our experience: it will go away, it will stay the same, or it will get more intense. Whatever happens does not really matter.

Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

Rainbow Falls, Black River, Gogebic County, MI

"You don't make a photograph just with a camera.
You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen,
the books you have read, the music you have heard,
the people you have loved."
- Ansel Adams


Black River, Gogebic County, MI

"there is a place in the heart that

will never be filled

and even during the

best moments

and 

greatest times

times

we will know it

we will know it

more than ever

there is a place in the heart that

will never be filled

and 

we will wait 

and

wait

in that space."

Charles Bukowski

Blue Gill (Lepomis macrochirus)

First ice fishing outing of the year this morning on Crooked Lake (within the Sylvania Wilderness), just West of Watersmeet. 13 Bluegill between 0800 and 1100, the fillets of which just came out of the oven.

Not as much ice as I would normally encounter this time of the year, due to the insulating factor of the heavy snows in November. Very much looking forward to ice fishing, cross country skiing, and snowshoeing with my seven year old grandson, who I will have to myself for a 1.5 week vacation following Christmas (giving him his own set of Northern Lites snowshoes for Xmas).