Eggs and light and shadow part II

Last week I posted a photo of eggs on THE PHOTOGRAPHERS private blog.

I shared the details of the filters I used and how the shadows were most important.

I shared my rule of thumb to use odd numbers even though I accidently used 14.

I shared what I felt worked in the photo and what I planned on improving.

Here is the improved Eggs and light and shadow

To tell my eggs in a bowl story,

I put the eggs in a bowl instead of on a plate which helped the overall feeling of the image and created a better shadow which I used as a natural leading line.

The bowl’s color also helped compliment the egg colors.

I took the photo during early morning light when the sun is still low and focused which helped create better shadow placement and contrast of light and dark on the eggs and of the shadows the eggs themselves created on the bowl.

I used 13 eggs.

I used different filters.

I’m happy with the photo. And now I can move on.

What I didn’t tell in the post on THE PHOTOGRAPHERS blog is the WHY.

WHY I challenged myself to take a photo of eggs.

So, there’s this Photographer.

He is the photographer I’ve always wanted to be when I grow up.

He is cool and handsome, a high in demand Professional Photographer and artist who lives in a sexy modern home built in the desert in an artist town called Marfa, Texas.

And oh did I mention he is best friends with Martha Stewart?

I could easily overlook all of this (wink wink) but, it’s his photos that do me in.

His photos haunt me.

Note: he is famous for his interior design and architectural images.

When I see a photo of his I instantly try to figure it out.

I study it, wanting to know how he created it.

I pay attention to the way he uses natural light.

I actually spend time thinking about the why and how, the colors, the light and shadows, the energy, the conveyed attitude.

Now, this brings us to a morning last week as I was scrolling Instagram, his eggs photo appeared and I instantly said out loud Motherf*cker!

His name is Douglas Friedman also known as

T H E F A C I N A T O R and I highly suggest you follow him on Instagram.

Now, let’s get back to the eggs.

Honestly, I was kinda pissed off when I saw his eggs photo.

It looked like a painting!

And I loved the perfectly placed sharp shadow lines on the eggs and the colors were subtle and yet rich at the same damn time.

If you’ve notice, this guy makes me curse.

HOW did he create this photo? He’s an ARTIST. He sees the world like an ARTIST. Artists move about in this world seeing and absorbing.

He took a simple bowl of farm fresh eggs that yes btw his hens laid and he created a beautiful, photo-painting of light and shadow of color and shape and form.

An artist looks at a juice bottle, an egg carton, or a newspaper and sees something valuable in them. - Ruth Asawa

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I think there is a lot for you to take away in this post.

It’s important to look around and see the beauty in the simple, every day subjects.

No two photos or paintings or art will ever be the same because you bring your individual voice as an artist.

Create art that encourages and inspires others.

Find an artist that haunts you.



I would LOVE to see how you guys do! AND...

Hello Photo Folks!

I am working on the online Aperture control class and I have finished the QUIZ portion!

Here is the link to the Aperture control quiz, TAKE QUIZ

The quiz is 10 multiple choice and TRUE or FALSE questions. I would love to see how you guys do, please comment with your score as a reply to this post!

AND as a THANK YOU for taking the time to do this, here is a GREAT zoom session I recently joined hosted by Photographer John Cornicello with Personality Photographer Greg Gorman who has photographed many celebrities including David Bowie!

CLICK FOR GREG GORMAN YOUTUBE ZOOM SESSION

What I absolutely LOVED about this interview was hearing all of the wonderful experiences and stories his photographer and creative friends shared.

Enjoy and happy October weekend,

Gina

Young at heart

To be young at heart in the 21st century one must choose to believe in magic, fairies and dragons - Gina Zhidov

When I am photographing, I find myself.

I find myself looking for photos where fairies might be.

I find myself seeing magic in the light.

I find myself hoping to find an elusive dragon perched.

When I photographed this I could already see the fairies and where they would be!

Always watching, guarding nature.

Years of drinking from the stream of the red dirt canyon has given him powers.

People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within. - Ursula K. Le Guin

Got to get the shot!

Here is a funny thing that happened to a photographer trying to get the shot!

Bokeh light ball demo video

Hello photo folks!

I’m currently in the process of creating the online Aperture control class and part of it is an aperture practice activities notebook with photo examples and videos.

Here is the Bokeh light ball demo video.

and, here is an absolutely FUNNY video on how to pronounce Bokeh!

I’ve created several fun videos for this class and I am looking forward to getting it online so that I can share!

Soon,

Gina

Happy Equinox 2020

It’s FALL! Oh My Gosh how I love this season!

To celebrate, I walked around looking for Fall photos.

I was happy to find these mushrooms in my backyard!

Camera settings f2.8 and I was using my 24-70 and zoomed in which really helped create a fairy - esque shallow dof foreground and background.

And, to my surprise when I looked at the photo a Fall Fairy appeared!

Happy EQUINOX 2020

It's about the journey

The past six months I have been on a huge learning curve journey.

At the beginning of March I found myself making the difficult decision to temporarily close my photography studio and classroom just as the Spring classes were starting.

As I have done every year for the past 5 years I worked very hard a month prior cleaning, painting, improving the classroom, printing materials and feeling excited about meeting the new students.

Now suddenly I was turning off the lights and closing the door, driving home feeling defeated.

I gave myself a week to regroup and then I decided to put the Beginner Photography classes online!

As you can imagine this hasn't been easy.

Almost 7 months later, and after diligent researching, test driving, learning and practicing I now have the Composition class online and the Aperture control class is almost ready to go live!

I have learned how to create short videos, write scripts, use a teleprompter, use video editing software, use a green screen and how to create effective and engaging google slides and how to use google classroom.

Most importantly, I have learned to create engaging, bite size information when teaching online.

All of this and more in the pursuit of creating an effective online learning platform.

I definitely feel this learning process has pushed me to grow my teaching skills and become a better photography instructor.

And, once I am able to offer in person classes again, I will have even more quality learning resources available to my students.

With that said, writing about how someone learns photography doesn't leave a lot of time to actually do photography!

I have to admit I've briefly picked up my camera a handful of times during this past 7 months.

But, that changed this weekend!

As par for my personality, I decided to grab my gear and head out early to the Wildlife refuge in the Wichita Mountains. This is such an incredible area and I am thankful I live so close.

Only an hour and half away, the Wichita Mountains offer wildlife, nature and landscapes that are therapeutic and healing with endless photographic opportunities.

There are many Wichita Mountains trails to explore, my trail lead me to The forty-foot hole!

As a 53 year old, out of shape photographer who had sat in front of the computer the past 7 months this adventure was starting to get exciting.

I slowly and carefully climbed down into the forty foot canyon.

There, in the morning sunlight was a gentle waterfall and shallow stream flowing through large boulders.

I really do not have the words to describe how the beauty effected me. After 7 months of thinking and being in my head, I now found myself completely in the moment and mindful.

I wasn't thinking, I was SEEING.

I positioned myself onto a small boulder in the middle of the stream and as the water gently flowed around me,

I just took photos.

The wind blew and I took photos.

The birds sang and I took photos.

As I hiked back along the trail headed to the car I was excited with anticipation about my photos.

Now, the trail seemed to have more photography possibilities that I had overlooked on my way to the canyon. 

My mind was reset.

It really is about the journey.

Gina Zhidov is a photography instructor at www.ChickashaPhotoClasses.com

Fun stuff

Hi photo folks!

I have been working on getting Aperture online and it is really shaping up to be VALUE.

Here is one of the slides I thought you might like. Just click on the link and you can view and download it.

CLICK FOR LINK

How to affect Depth of Field demo

Hi photo folks!

Here is a demo video on how to affect Depth of Field by moving the subject. It is part of the online Aperture class that I am currently creating.

Happy Sunday!

CLICK TO WATCH VIDEO

It's a good photo

As Photographers we are our worst critics, pixel peeping (zooming in 100% and looking for detail,) COMPARING our photos to other Photographer’s work (DON’T DO THIS) when instead we should really be seeing how far we’ve grown in our skills and how our eye has become more complex.

PBS Portraits and Dreams Monday Sept 7th

Try not to cry when you watch this trailer of the PBS Portraits and Dreams.

Monday Sept 7th

https://www.pbs.org/video/trailer-portraits-and-dreams/

FAIRIES

“The stones from my enemies, these wounds will mend, but I cannot survive the roses from my friends.” - Ben Harper

I believe in fairies, as a child I would sit in the clovers and look for for a 4 leaf. I found one. - Gina Zhidov

“This may be the last time I see you, forgive me for holding you close.” - Ben Harper

These fairy worlds are created from images of clover fields and vines. When I’m taking the photos, I think about the perspective of how the fairy will look sitting or standing, resting on or under a leaf. This is their world, it’s safe and peaceful. It’s beautiful and magical.

All that is around is a friend.

Often, I lie down on my stomach getting an up close photo, I want to make connection.

I think about placement of the fairy in the final image. I want visual balance.

When I was taking this photo of the clovers, I focused on the spot of the branch where I knew I wanted to place the fairy.

To create fairy worlds of your own, I suggest morning time while the dew is still on the leaves. I don’t mow my clovers, I allow them to grow so they feed the bees and butterflies!

I’ve been working on this one, not quite ready to call it finished. I took the photo of the log and mushrooms and YES that’s a real frog that I placed on the log!

Always a work in progress….

I believe.

Personal Project ECHOES

I’ve been working on this project almost a year.

In the winter I was driving and there was a field of pale gold where the tall grasses had died and only a hand full of contrasting trees with their dark bark and bare leaves.

I thought;

Oh what a wonderful spot for an art sculpture!

And that started me thinking how one day in the future there may only be symbolic art sculptures reminding us of what was once….ECHOES.

When I got home I immediately started on my idea.

I pulled several of my Wichita Mountains landscape photographs and not knowing yet exactly how to do it, I took objects with geometric shapes and created what I felt looked like an animal of the landscape. A bison, a bird, a turtle.

I will say using the geometric shapes and creating the sculptures is the most difficult part of the process.

Using different sizes, material types and various geometric shapes, I am able to create a sculpture that echoes an animals likeness.

I found that by using museum glue (paste and wax) to hold the shapes together and keep them in place, it really helps when photographing them.

In photoshop I place the animal|sculpture within the landscape.

I give this step a great deal of thought.

I want it to look like the sculpture is a natural part of the scenery

and yet acknowledge that it isn’t.

ECHOES ECHOES ECHOES ECHOES ECHOES

I ask myself,

Is the sculpture grazing? Resting? Drinking water? In motion?

I keep in mind the light of the landscape and I try to re-create a similar light and shadow on the sculpture.

My favorite part of the process is creating the story of the sculpture and thinking about where to place them within the landscape. I think about creating visual balance, harmony and using leading lines of the landscape to draw the viewer’s eye to the sculpture.

It’s my goal to try and create a surreal world and still give a feeling of reality.

ECHOES ECHOES ECHOES ECHOES ECHOES ECHOES ECHOES ECHOES ECHOES

This is a project that I am connected with and will continue…



Personal project Reflecting on Reflections

I have several personal photography projects I work on throughout each year.

One is to capture reflections. Especially reflections in water.

I spend time looking at the reflections and I ask myself what visual story do I see?

I look for composition elements such as an interesting subject, I think about how I will place the subject for visual balance, I look for natural leading lines to pull the viewers eye into the frame.

Once I start to see a story, I then have to consider how the image will look when I turn it right side up! Water reflections are technically upside down.

Sometimes leaving them upside down makes a cool photo, but because one of my goals is to create an image that looks more like a painting I usually will turn it right side up.

Then I ask myself:

Will it still evoke the same mood? Will it be an understandable image?

Here is the original image. Notice how I composed the tree reflection. I was considering how the image would look once I turned it right side up and how the tree reflection would be placed in the final image.

One of the reasons I photograph reflections in water is because I really love to create images that have a feeling of a painting.

There are several photography techniques you can use to create a painterly feel to your images.

One is to use a slow shutter and with your camera on a tripod, photograph a moving subject. This will give your image and subject a soft blur effect.

A fun technique I discovered is to use a fast shutter while photographing reflections in water when there is a breeze. The wind creates ripples in the water and when using a fast shutter it freezes the ripples and creates a magical brush stroke effect in your image!

And so it goes, photographing reflections in the water with a light breeze creates a “moving subject” of trees, people, birds whatever the water was reflecting!

There was a light breeze which caused ripples in the water. Using a fast shutter freezing the ripples in motion the reflections of the clouds and trees look like brush strokes!

Please ZOOM in to see the effect.

I now use both a fast or slow shutter to create brush strokes and soft blur motion to give my images a painterly effect.

Most of my water reflection images I either shoot in black and white (monochrome) or I turn them b&w in post because the water is usually a mud dark brown color.

So I have found the water reflection photos look best in black and white.

Once in a while if the weather is pretty and the sky is a crisp blue I can get a nice reflections color shot.

Shutter 1/1000th of a sec