I am trying to spend a little more time doing stained glass, as I know that any piece I make will last longer than my photos. (Nobody is likely to throw away a good glass piece.) I can’t get away from photography, however: it scratches an itch, the itch to capture the beautiful, the visually arresting, the humanly engaging.
A few days ago I went walking in my neighborhood (my usual 40-minute walk, part-way with my wife) and saw something that I have shot before: a light cover of snow on the tops of tree branches, vines and bushes, with the temperature hovering around freezing. I knew that high-contrast black & white would work, so I walked home, got my camera, and came back. I shot for 20 minutes or so, in color. When I got home I post-processed the images in black & white to get what I wanted. In pursuing a high contrast, I even “blew out” some of my highlights — mostly the sky. That’s when you bring up the black point, while increasing the exposure, to the point that there is no information in part of the image: it’s just white.
The snow is on top of the branches, but as it melts it keeps the bottom of the branches and twigs wet and dark — as I say, ideal for this high-contrast treatment. Here’s a sampling.
Because the ground and trunks have some dark, bare patches, against which the snowy lines stand out, the images are often very textural.
If any of these appeal to you, I would be happy to provide you with a print, at a size you like, on paper or canvas, at a very reasonable price. Drop me a line.