Sean Duggan Blog

Interpreting the Scene

Circular Contemplation  [iPhone 4]
November 3, 2011
(click in the image for a larger version)

When I took my daughter to school yesterday I accompanied her inside to say hello to her teacher who I had not seen for several weeks due to my busy schedule. This is the first year for her school in a new location, an elementary school site that dates from the 1940s. While the location does not have all of the wonderful tall trees and open space of their previous site, this place does have a very agreeable and nostalgic small town school feeling. I had only been there a few times since the school year started and had not yet been out into the playground area. On this morning, I followed my daughter out to the play yard as she grabbed a volleyball for some practice before class started.

Out in the playground there are slanted walls at one end since the yard is built into the side of a hill. In one place there were two large circles painted on these walls, presumably as "targets" for where to aim a ball. The early morning light was shining full on this wall and I was intrigued by the scene and how it appeared when it was visually isolated from all of the other details in the yard and the autumn colors in the trees above it. At first I was disappointed that I could not get close enough to isolate the circles without my own shadow appearing in the frame, but then I saw the possibilities for other layers of meaning with my shadow included.

This is one of those photographs that is a simple and understated view of an ordinary scene, but that can be so much more depending on how you see it and the interpretations you bring to it. Minor White said this best when he observed that "One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are." Another thought in a similar vein is from Henry David Thoreau…"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see".

This is one of the things that I treasure most about photography. It gives us the opportunity to see differently, to find hidden and personally significant meaning in otherwise ordinary scenes, to interpret them in our own, unique way and to create an image of these scenes so that they may be shared with others, who can then find their own interpretations.

Join Me in Iceland Next August for
True North: Photographing the Interpretive Landscape

I'm really looking forward to teaching True North: Photographing the Interpretive Landscape, in Iceland next August 12 - 18. During this workshop, hosted by the excellent team at Focus on Nature, we will spend a week chasing the sweet light in that beautiful country, at a time when the sweet light lasts much longer than in more southerly latitudes. The photographic terrain we will cover will be varied, ranging from the city of Rekyjavik, the hot springs of the blue lagoon, and small harbor towns, to icebergs drifting in a glacial lagoon, rugged seacoasts, majestic waterfalls, vast glaciers on the slopes of active volcanos, and spectacular scenery in one of the world's last great unspoiled landscapes.  I hope you'll consider joining me for what is sure to be an excellent travel and photographic experience. Click here for more details.

Scenes from the Olson House

Transference  [Canon 5D]
August 21, 2008  • Cushing, Maine
(click in the image for a larger version)

In anticipation of my upcoming September workshops at the Maine Media Workshops in Rockport, here is another shot from Maine. This was taken a few years ago in one of the second floor rooms of the Olson House in Cushing, Maine. The camera was on a tripod and I set the rocking chair to rocking and then triggered a 1.3 second exposure. For this interpretation, I layered in the faint traces of a shot where the chair was still, as well as adding several adjustment layers to modify the character of the light and color in the room. The most significant change is the bright light coming through the window. In the original shot there was not a lot to be seen out the window anyway (see below), and I felt it worked better for the story of the image to just have that area filled with bright white light.

The original rocking chair image.

Andrew Wyeth, Christina's World & the Olson House

The Olson House is a great location for wonderful interior lighting, interesting textures and rooms full of character and mystery, but the property also occupies a unique place in art history as the location for one of Andrew Wyeth's most famous paintings: the haunting and enigmatic Christina's World.

The painting, arguably one of the most famous American artworks of the 20th Century, shows Christina Olson, who had lost the use of her legs from polio, crawling through the field towards the house. The Olson House was where Christina Olson lived for most of her life. Wyeth had a home in the area and made paintings of both Christina and her younger brother Alvaro, as well as the house itself, over a period of nearly thirty years.

Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth

The house is currently part of the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland and is open to the public on some days. If you're in the mid-coast Maine area at some point in the next few months, the Farnsworth has a special exhibit on Andrew Wyeth, Christina's World and the Olson House, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the acquisition of the farm house by the Farnsworth Museum. It includes abut 50 watercolors and drawings of Christina and her brother Alvaro, as well interior and exterior views of the Olson House (the iconic image Christina's World is part of the collection at the Museum of Modern Art and will not be a part of the exhibition). The exhibit runs through October 30th. I definitely plan on making a trip to see it when I am there next month.

For our class field trip here a few years ago, we were able to gain access to the house before it opened for normal visiting times and we had a couple of hours with which to explore its rooms and exterior locations. It is always fascinating to see the many different ways that one place can be interpreted, both by a single photographer as well as a group of photographers. The two images below are both from the Olson House.

 

Laundry Wringer
(click in the image to see a larger version)

 

Rock on Shelf
(click in the image to see a larger version)

I have two workshops this September in Maine, Advanced Digital Photography (Sept 4 - 10) and HDR & Beyond (Sept 11 - 17) and there are still some spaces in each one. Follow the links for more information on these classes. Mid-coast Maine is a great place to improve and refine your photographic vision and technique. I hope to see you there!

Move your head so I can see Diamond Head

Arm's Length Self Portrait — [Canon 5D w/ Lensbaby Composer]
Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii
April 23, 2010
(click in the image for a larger version)

This was taken during my April trip to Honolulu to teach a few workshops at the University of Hawaii. For the past few years, I have indulged in a now traditional Lensbaby Walkabout along Waikiki Beach. The unique look of the Lensbaby Composer just seems to really fit the visual vibe of that place. It does wonderful things with the bright colors and and lights, whether on the beach itself, or on Kalakaua Avenue, the street that runs adjacent to it.

"Move your head so I can see Diamond Head"

This couple was setting up an arm's length self portrait shot using a method I had not seen before: He held out the camera, pointed in his direction with a view of Waikiki and Diamond Head in the background, while she made adjustments to the position and framing. Then she came around and joined him and he snapped the picture. Making photographs of other people taking pictures, especially in classic touristy locations such as this has been a thread in my photography for a long time. I just find that aspect of the photographic process interesting and the dynamics involved when are people posing their friends or themselves for a picture can often create an intriguing moment. The clever framing method employed by this couple was a new spin on this theme and I felt that the addition of the delicious Lensbaby blur only added to the scene.

What's the Story?

Another thing I like about this image has to do with the story aspect of the scene. I am always looking for story potential in the images I create, either through obvious events in the scene I am photographing, or hinted at through juxtaposition, metaphor or suggestion. Sometimes I am aware of the narrative possibilities as I am making the image, as was the case here, and other times I do not discover the story until after I have taken the photo and am working with it in the digital darkroom. In this photograph I was intrigued by the sense of tension created by the contrast of the idyllic, almost fairytale sky and the relaxed vacation moment with the battered "DANGER" sign next to the couple. They are completely absorbed in making their sunset photographic memory, while the sign juts up ominously, breaking the smooth surface of the sky with its hard, angular warning.

Workshop in Maine Next Week

I'll be heading to Maine at the end of the week to teach my Real World Digital Photography class at the Maine Media Workshops, June 13 — 19. I look forward to going to Maine each year and teaching there. It's a great place for photography and the staff at The Workshops always helps to create a wonderful learning environment. As with all of my workshops, we will search for the extraordinary in the ordinary. There are a still a few spots left so sign up soon if you are interested.

Upcoming Workshops in L.A. & New Mexico

The Creative Digital Darkroom
June 28 — July 1
Marlborough School • Los Angeles, CA
Info & Registration Link

The Creative Eye: Photography & Digital Darkroom Essentials
July 25 — 31
Santa Fe Photographic Workshops • Santa Fe, New Mexico
Info & Registration Link

And coming up September 16 — 19 will be a 4-day version of my popular compositing and collage class, The Creative Collage with Adobe Photoshop at the Mesilla Digital Imaging Workshops in southern New Mexico.

Lightroom 3

In case you may have missed it, Adobe officially announced Lightroom 3 today. It's been in public beta for many months but the final version is now available. This is a major upgrade with lots of new features and improvements to old favorites. If you are already a Lightroom user, this is definitely worth the $99 upgrade price. Here's a link to a video with Julieanne Kost explaining all the new features in Lightroom 3.

The Narrator

The Narrator  [Canon 5D]
May, 2007

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New Newsletter!

Beginning in a week or so I will be sending out the first issue of a new email newsletter that will contain Photoshop tips and tutorials, musings on photography and the creative process, and updates on upcoming workshops, seminars and special offers.

This is a low volume mailing that will be sent out approximately every 4 to 6 weeks. For example, the tutorials in the first one are about using Photoshop Actions.The tutorials will not be in the actual email, so you don't have to worry about image-heavy mail cluttering up your bandwidth. A link will be provided where you can view them on my website.

If you would like to subscribe, there's a sign-up form near the top of the left column of this blog. Should you ever wish to unsubscribe in the future, there will be a simple link at the end of each newsletter that will allow you to do this. Your email info will never be shared, bartered or sold to nefarious spammers. I've had a world of trouble with spam myself so I am sensitive to this!

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Workshop News

I have some cool workshops coming up in Hawaii in mid April, Monterey and Pacifica, California in late April and early May, and near San Luis Obispo, California in early June. For a complete listing of my upcoming classes, click on over to the Workshops Page at my web site.

Islands

Islands [Canon 5D]
October 2, 2007
(click in the image for  a larger version)

This is a reworking of an image that I posted here about four and a half months ago. In the previous version I treated the color original as a split-toned black and white.

I revisited this because I realized it fit in very nicely with a new group of images I am preparing for the gallery section on my re-designed web site (it's not live yet, but coming soon). That series of images uses a color scheme similar to what you see here: muted natural colors with a strong sepia flavoring that I call sepiaesque. The foreground here has been slightly blurred in Photoshop CS3 using a gradient mask along with the Lens Blur filter. In the first version I posted here I decided that I had blurred it  bit too much. I like this version much better. I also like the colors.

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New Newsletter!

Beginning in a week or so I will be sending out the first issue of a new email newsletter that will contain Photoshop tips and tutorials, musings on photography and the creative process, and updates on upcoming workshops, seminars and special offers.

This is a low volume mailing that will be sent out approximately every 4 to 6 weeks. For example, the tutorials in the first one are about using Photoshop Actions.The tutorials will not be in the actual email, so you don't have to worry about image-heavy mail cluttering up your bandwidth. A link will be provided where you can view them on my website.

If you would like to subscribe, there's a sign-up form near the top of the left column of this blog. Should you ever wish to unsubscribe in the future, there will be a simple link at the end of each newsletter that will allow you to do this. Your email info will never be shared, bartered or sold to nefarious spammers. I've had a world of trouble with spam myself so I am sensitive to this!

****************
Workshop News

I have some cool workshops coming up in Hawaii in mid April, Pacifica and Monterey, California in late April and early May, and near San Luis Obispo, California in early June. For a complete listing of my upcoming classes, click on over to the Workshops Page at my web site.

Mirror of the Earth and Sky

Mirror of the Earth and Sky  [Canon 5D]
Rockland, Maine  June 26, 2007
(click in the image to see a larger version)

Here's another view of the cool clouds shown in the previous post, this time with the landscape included. In answer to the obvious question that this image may raise...yes, that amazing sky really was above this causeway when I took the photo. This is a collage of two shots taken sequentially, but I took the two shots merely to increase the number of pixels so that I would end up with a larger file from which I could make a larger print. In the spirit of the interpretive landscape image, I have obviously done some fairly significant dodging and burning here as well as some selective sepia toning, but the sky is not imported from another scene.

It was an amazing and wonderful moment, as I can never recall being in a place where a triangular shape in the landscape was echoed so perfectly by a triangular shape in the clouds.Another aspect of this image that I find intriguing is the fact that the water on the left is rippled and unsettled, while the water on the right is calm. This is all the more noteworthy since the water on the right is the side that faces the open ocean, while the water on the left is the protected harbor side.

Lost

Lost  [Canon 5D]
San Francisco,  January 2, 2007
(click in the image to see it in a separate window)

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Featured Workshop

Real World Digital Photography I: June 24 – June 30, 2007
The Maine Photographic Workshops

This week's featured workshop is two months away and there are only 3 spaces left. If you're interested in a week of learning creative digital photography, digital darkroom workflow and Photoshop techniques, then consider joining me on the beautiful coast of Maine for my Real World Digital Photography I workshop (there is also a level II version in late September that builds on what is covered in the first class).The workshop draws on concepts and techniques, both photographic and those in the digital darkroom, that are covered the book Real World Digital Photography that I co-authored with Katrin Eismann and Tim Grey. Additionally, we'll be covering new developments, such as Photoshop Lightroom. In the  digital lab each student will have a Macintosh computer loaded with Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. In addition to our time exploring digital workflow and creative image enhancement techniques, we'll also have photo excursions during the week for practicing creative camera and exposure techniques at interesting nearby locations. Click the class title above to register.

Thaw

Thaw  [Canon 5D]
March 4, 2007
(click in the image for a larger version)

Eclipse

Eclipse  [Canon 5D]
February 22, 2007
(click in the image for a larger version)