Photo Friday! – [Untitled Commission]

Okay, so for this week, I need your help! This photo is going to be framed and hung, and along with it, as usual, will be included the photographer (Me!) and the title of the work – but I can’t come up with a fitting title! I welcome any and all suggestions, as I want this work to look complete! Also, I apologize (if anyone actually reads these) for the lateness of this - I was in New York all weekend and only now got internet access to post this.



And so, without further ado, on to the actual photo! As I implied, this photo was a commission by a group that will remain unnamed, which I just delivered as a final product this week. The requirements were a vertical composition, 8” x 12” image area, and it had to match the largely monotone theme of a preexisting room. A lot of thought went into this photograph – I waited until the evening sun was shining onto the subject at a low angle and with a warm, orange glow, and I positioned the bottle and myself in such a way as to capture the light as side/diagonal back light. I also placed the glass ever so slightly nearer to the camera than the bottle so as to allow light passing through the bottle to hit the glass at a nice side angle. I actually LOVE how this photo turned out in color, as the deep warm colors of sunset are clearly evident, as is the deep red color of the wine as the light passes through the bottle. It really is a beautiful composition of light and color.

I shot this photograph, like all my photos, in Camera RAW mode. This is a mode of saving photographs that records every piece of data about a photo, rather than just what it sees. This allows for much greater post-processing capabilities without degrading the image, and also allowed me to see the images in black and white in the camera, while still recording the color information in the image file. The down side is that this uses upward of 4 times as much memory as a non-RAW mode photograph, but I personally feel that the sacrifice in quantity of photos is more than worth the gained post-processing capabilities. When I post-processed this image, I actually started with the color image and desaturated it very methodically so as to bring out the hues I wanted and mute the ones I didn’t. Strictly speaking, this photo is not perfectly black and white, but the very slight hues still present were chosen to emphasize important elements in the photo and to match the room in which it is going to be hung.

Overall, I had a great time with this photo, and matching the requirements was actually very fun to do, and gave a sense of direction on where I wanted to go with the photo. Have a great week!

R

Photo Friday! - Sunrise Over Ithaca

(Yes, I'm aware that I'm publishing a Photo Friday blog on Saturday morning. Ah well)



So here we go! This is a very recent photo that I took last Saturday morning. I woke up really early to walk around the Ithaca College campus, and I tried to capture some photos of the sunrise. Regrettably, Ithaca is not a town that lends itself well to watching sunrises, as there are two enormous hills that lie to the east of wherever you happen to be. The sunrises are, however, magnificent beyond description. Possibly I will try for a sunset photograph next week. But meanwhile, this photo was my best attempt at capturing the sunrise in Ithaca. The building in the foreground is the Business building at IC, and the entire front is covered in a facade of clear glass. It really is quite pretty, especially when the light hits it just so.

So that's basically all I have to say about this one. Have a great day!

R

My Hero

I have met so many people in my life who are the epitome of good; the epitome of honesty; the epitome of love and of happiness and of courtesy. However, of these people, there are very, very few who I can call my Hero. One of those individuals is Claire Morgan Murray.

Claire was a very dear friend of mine growing up. We met for the first time as performers in the theatre, something we both had an endless love for, and we never really grew apart. Claire was a year older than I, but she was, and remains still today, one of the kindest, most caring people I have ever met. Claire would go out of her way just to try to make your life a bit brighter, and she didn't even expect or want any thanks in return. She always had a smile on her face and a kind word on her tongue, and she would always lend an ear to listen to your meaningless complaints and sorrows. Sadly, Claire passed away on September 13, 2005 at the young age of 13, the result of a fatal and incurable disease. Despite her young age, Claire's passing was mourned by thousands of people from within the local area and beyond. Every person she touched shed tears upon hearing the news, and even unknown strangers were said to have recognized her picture as "the girl with the infectious good mood."

But despite her charm, none of these is the reason why I consider Claire to be one of my heroes. During the last months of her life, Claire was fully aware of the effects of the disease, and that she would likely not live to see her 14th birthday. And yet, despite this knowledge, her personality remained as loving and caring as ever. Claire would still lend an ear to listen to your petty problems and comfort you, all the while knowing that her very life hung in balance. Rather than feeling sorry for herself and making others feel sorry for her, Claire lived her life to the absolute fullest, taking advantage of every moment she had to do what she loved to do. I hope that someday, whether long in the future or quite soon, I can find even half of the strength and charm that Claire embraced in her final moments of life.

Just Before the Sunrise

I have a distinct and vivid memory of waking unusually early on the morning of September 11, 2001. I was ten years old at the time, and like most ten year olds, I woke up without too much difficulty. But this morning was different. I had no idea why, but for some reason I found myself awake very early in the morning, before the sun had even risen. I remember getting out of bed and laying outside on the grass in my front yard, just waiting for the sun to rise. The rays of the sun quickly overtook the darkness of night, and as the sky began to be filled with daylight, I uneventfully went inside and started getting ready for school like any other ordinary day. Needless to say, that day would prove to be more out of the ordinary than anyone could have imagined.

Ever since 2002, I have risen each morning on the 11th of September to simply sit and watch the sun rise, and this morning was no exception. As I grew older and began to resent waking up more and more, I still managed to find the ability to wake up on this one day of the year and venture outside to watch nature's beauty unfolding before my eyes. I truly cannot explain why I do this. I would like to say that it is a tribute to the lives lost on that day, or that it holds some strong symbolism within me, but neither is true. Quite simply, as I sit each morning and watch a new day burst into being, I am forcibly reminded that, for thousands of people from all different walks of life, this was the last sunrise they would ever see. I think about that day when I innocently sat outside and watched the sunrise before school, and I think about the thousands of people who kissed their loved ones goodbye, who made lasting promises, and who left to pursue new journeys under that sunrise. But most of all, I am forced to acknowledge how lucky and privileged I am to be enjoying each and every sunrise, each and every day, and each and every moment. Because for thousands of individuals, this was the last sunrise they would ever see.

R

Photo Friday! - Lonely Bicycle

So this is an idea I got from a friend who also writes a blog. I've been meaning to do this for a long time, but never got a chance to do it until now. So here's how it works - every Friday, I will post a photo that I have taken and write a short writeup about that photo. Some will be old photos that you may have already seen, some will be brand new photos that I just took that week, and some will be from anywhere in between. So without further ado - here we go!


"Lonely Bicycle"

I took this photo back in April of this year while walking around my hometown taking photos. Unlike many days, I actually went out with a plan of what I wanted to photograph and what themes I wanted to stick with. I started the day with the idea of capturing some older buildings, specifically the lesser-seen unpainted brick that makes up the backs of most of the buildings. I was really happy with my take for the day - the golden hour light was really working well for me, and some of the textures on the bricks were really popping out beautifully.

As I walked across the river to where I had parked my car, I happened to glance to my right and saw, far in the distance, a bicycle leaning against a lamppost. I immediately had this vision for this photo, and ran over to start setting up. The streetlights had not yet come on, and I was desperately hoping that the light would actually turn on tonight so I could get some great toplight on the bike. Eventually they did come on, but the ambient light was still too bright to blend effectively. I kept watching and waiting for the perfect moment when the street light would be just strong enough to light the bike the way I wanted it to.

Overall, I spent about 30 minutes, from conception to final capture, getting this photograph, but I was really happy with the way it came out. I did very little post-processing work - just a little bit of color correction and noise reduction, and the addition of a very subtle vignette to draw focus to the bike. At the end of the day, I was happiest with this photo more than any of the others that I took that day.

R

And So... Goodbye

I've never been very good at saying goodbye. Which is why I'm sitting here wishing that tomorrow would never come. Tomorrow, I will say goodbye to so many incredible individuals and incredible friends, but more importantly, I will say goodbye to everything that I've known for the last three months. Though the events of this summer were far from perfect, I have loved every second I've been privileged enough to be here, and if I could go back and do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. Mere words can never describe the plethora of emotions which I am feeling right now, and which I will be feeling even stronger tomorrow. As I leave the Hangar Theatre for one last time tomorrow night, I will do so as a different person than I was three months ago, ready to march forward into the setting sun and begin on life's next journey.

Here's to the nights that turned into mornings,
the strangers that turned into friends,
and the friends that turned into family.

R