Arizona Treks

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My name is Michael Morris, I am a photographer who came to photography later in life. I started with digital and found it unrewarding so after a short time with MF, I moved to LF 4X5. Almost everything I do now is large format B&W. I am working to improve my technical and artistic skills constantly. Living in Phoenix, I have access to some very good photographers who are willing to help and teach. I am on a journey exploring photography, the US, and myself to some extent. Along with my wife Mary, we are traveling the US together, cameras follow us everywhere and as we travel, this BLOG is updated. It is very much a journal of my journey with ramblings about everything from the photograph I took while traveling, to the ah-ha moments when something new is grasped.

The old masters work is enthralling to me and I spend a lot of time looking at their work as well as most other work I have access to.

Entries in stone (2)

Tuesday

Jan122010

Flagstaff Area

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 7:05AM

Last Sunday a friend and I went to the Wupatki/Sunset Crater area in search of snow on the ruins and in the lava fields. Alas, no snow on the ruins, but plenty in the lava fields. I have been to this area many times and never found snow on the ruins in Wupatki, it is a bit lower in elevation than Sunset Crater and so when they get snow, it doesn't last long.

It was another exercise in bold contrast to shoot B&W in the lava field. I am looking forward to printing a few to see what they are like. The scanner does not do a very good job with them. Perhaps later today or tomorrow I will make some time to print a few.

The clouds had the sun obscured most of the day, totally flat light, we celebrated when we spotted a shadow. So it was a game of waiting for the right light and looking for things to shoot that did not depend so much on shadows. The sun did make a brief appearance in the afternoon just before we started for home. Then the clouds almost all dissipated while we were driving home.

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When Will I Ever Learn?

Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 9:07PM

The wonders of creativity will never cease to amaze me. This image has been bouncing around in my head for a few weeks now. It took some time to figure out some of the details, but this is essentially what I have been seeing. I took some time today to work in the studio. This one had to be born but I thought, "just 1 set and them move on to the textures project". After the first set, roses started dancing around in my head as part of the setup. So off I go to our friendly neighborhood florist to buy some flowers. She usually has some older flowers she will sell me for a reduced price or sometimes even at no cost. So I picked up a dozen small roses and 3 others. Back home and several new photos were made using one of the roses.

The bottom line is, the idea began to grow and take on a life of it's own, as these things are want to do. So rather than a quicks set, it was an all day affair. But there is some good work that came of it.

The how was the interesting part. The image above was made using 2 lights, basically on opposite sides. Onr was a reflector with a diffuser on it, the other was a soft-box. The soft-box was used to soften the shadows and it was balanced so no secondary shadows were shown. I used the 120mm macro lens. But was unable to get the desired depth of field (DOF) when framing it like I wanted. I moved the camera back until the desired DOF was found at f/22 and shot it there then cropped to get the desired composition.

The photo below was shot with 3 lights. The first 2 were like in the photo above, but I added a small (100WS) slave strobe with a snoot on it to illuminate the blooms on the roses. It also was shot at f/22. The light setup actually would only provide enough light for f/22.

On some of the shots I stopped down a bit more and had to remove the diffuser from the light with the reflector before I could get enough light.

Considering finals are in < 2 weeks, these will probably be a part of the finals.

In looking at the necessary crops, the new enlarger will not do them without modifications. So now, do I modify it or use the old enlarger. Tough choice.

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