Landscapes

Tender Touch

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven

Pond, Bridgewater, Connecticut © Steven Willard

The benefit of living in a place for years is that you get to see the same places under many different circumstances as the light changes with the seasons.

I’ve watched this pond with its surrounding trees as I have driven by countless times, but it was this particular time when the bare branches revealed what I hadn’t seen before; the two trees at the far end reaching out to touch each other. Too much? What do we really know about trees?

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Sticks and Stones

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven

Sticks and Stones, © Steven Willard

Winter. Just maybe the best season for black and white photography. Many days the color has already been reduced to shades of grey. Cool, huh?

Olympus OMD EM1 with 12-40mm f2.8 zoom, processed in Nova® and Snapseed® on my iPad Pro.

Please visit my blog http://stevenwillardimages.wordpress.com

Naked Tree

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven

Naked Tree © Steven Willard

I wonder if trees dream, and if they do, I wonder if they ever dream of being caught outside in broad daylight naked? Have you ever had that dream? Scary, right?

Pentax K5IIs with kit zoom.

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Tangled up in vines

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven

Tangled Tree © Steven Willard

I struggled at first when I tried to refine the composition of this photograph. I thought there should be a way to crop, or a better angle to simplify the image. I was fighting with reality. In the end, I accepted the fact that what drew me to the image in the first place was the chaos, and how the eye wants to zigzag all over the frame before it lands on the little “bullseye” in the top center of the image. It was an image that knew what it wanted to be before I did.

Olympus OMD-EME1 with 12-40mm f2.8 zoom converted to black and white using Silver Efex Pro 2 in Lightroom.

You can see more of my images at https://stevenwillardimages.wordpress.com

Framing Arizona

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven

 

Framing Arizona © Steven Willard

View from Meteor Crater, Arizona, I loved the idea of putting a frame around it and calling it a picture.

You can see more of my images at http://stevenwillardimages.wordpress.com

Olympus OMD EM5 with kit zoom.

A wall we can afford

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven

Affordable Wall © Steven Willard

Perhaps it isn’t a wall on our southern boarder we need, but a really imposing gate. With this as an example, we can see that by showing people an imposing gate we project the idea we must have a fence to go with it. People will believe anything if it’s presented with enough authority.

Rolliflex with Ilford FP4 Plus, developed in PMK, scanned from gelatin silver print.

Please visit my blog at https://stevenwillardimages.wordpress.com

Fallout

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven
Pine and needles, Woodbury, CT © Steven Willard

Pine and needles, Woodbury, CT © Steven Willard

We get so interested in Fall colors it’s easy to overlook what else is going on around us. I had Wally, my dog, out for an afternoon stroll, and he surprised me by taking a different path than usual. No doubt he had caught the scent of a stranger, maybe a deer or a turkey, perhaps just a feral cat. At any rate, we were walking down a trail that wasn’t on our normal dog walk, when we came upon this pine tree standing in the middle of a bed of pine needles. They looked completely undisturbed, unusual because the grounds crew hadn’t swept them up.

It didn’t occur to me to make a photograph at first. Truthfully, I couldn’t imagine how to compose the subject, if there really was a subject. Here came Wally to the rescue. He found something he really liked the smell of and he refused to leave. I was stuck there, waiting while Wally had his nose to the ground, so why not make an exposure? So that’s what I did; I made one exposure while standing on his leash, and then he was satisfied. What a smart dog he was. I still miss him terribly.

Panasonic G3 with 20mm f1.7 lens, processed in Photoshop CS4 using Silver Efex Pro 2.

Please visit my blog at www.stevenwillardimages.wordpress.com

The Back of the House

Black And White Photography, Photography, Steven
The back of the house, Bethlehem, Connecticut © Steven Willard

The back of the house, Bethlehem, Connecticut © Steven Willard

It must be the contrarian in me, but I found the back of the Bellamy-Ferriday House to be more interesting than the formal front that normally gets more attention. The front is where “company” would have been shown into the house; the work is done ’round back. Besides, at this time of day the light was much more interesting.

Of course this doesn’t mean that I might not photograph the front some other time; I’m leaving my options open. I think this would be good advice if I was in the advice business or if anyone ever asked me. “Don’t just look at the front, explore and keep your options open”. Not that anyone asked me.

The Bellamy-Ferriday House and Gardens is open to the public for a nominal fee and is located at 9 Main Street North, Bethlehem, CT 0675.

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