iPad as Photo Art Studio

I've spent a great deal of time during the past months playing with the photo apps on my iPad as I'll be teaching a workshop on the iPad as Photo Art Studio at Art & Soul in Virginia Beach this coming week.  What fun I've had!  There are so many exciting apps out there, and they are pretty easy to use, especially compared to using Photoshop.  Most of them just need a couple of taps and your photo has become a work of art.

One of my current favorite apps for taking an ordinary photo and turning it into something that looks as though I have been working hard with a canvas and paints is Pencil Camera HD.

I love that I can look at dozens of ideas in a space of minutes and choose one that resonates with me.  As I've never taken time to learn how to sketch, being able to create sketches from my photographs is really exciting for me.  I am so grateful to the technical geniuses out there who make this possible!

The Practice of Photography: Focus on FLOWERING

I hope you enjoyed experimenting with the Portals theme in March.  I encourage you to continue with this project - you will see a difference in your images if you do.

The second theme I am sharing from my deck of The Creative Photographer Exploration Cards is appropriate for Spring which seems to be around us here in the south.  The theme for April is FLOWERING.  Flowers are wonderful subjects for close-up photography.

The easiest way to experiment is to buy a bunch of flowers or a potted plant in flower and photograph these in a controlled indoor environment where there is no breeze, where you can choose background colors that complement your flowers and where you can stand comfortably to photograph. Find a window with good light, set your camera to its macro settings and consider using a tripod to avoid camera shake. Engage 

with the flower through the lens of your camera. Try using different aperture settings for different 
results. With a small aperture setting such as f/2.8 or f/5.6 you will be able to blur the background which will accentuate the color and shape of the flower. You may even find small insects living in your flowers.

When I started photographing flowers, I thought, "My God, where have I been?"  I'd never seen the mysteries of a flower. We walk by wonders every day and don't see them. 
Barbara Bordnick

Don't forget to share your photographs on The Creative Photographer Facebook page!

Camera-Color-Closer at Art & Soul

"Color is the language of light; it adorns the earth with beauty. 

 Through color light brings its passion, kindness and imagination to all things:

 pink to granite, green to leaves, blue to ocean, yellow to dawn."

John O'Donohue

Bring your camera and discover the beauty of close-up photography at Art and Soul in Virginia Beach on Thursday, April 25th, 2013.  In this class we'll be doing photography and book-making and mixed media all in one day!  You'll create a unique book that I guarantee you haven't seen before - and the wonderful thing about it is that it is easy but versatile.  We'll be making it using rainbow colors, but I'll show you how to adapt it for other projects and how to create it with a fabric spine as well.

A book is no good without something to go in it, so after preparing our book pages and setting them out to dry we will get out our cameras and photograph at close range a selection of colored objects (including fresh flowers which I will bring).  You will learn how to use your camera to photograph close-up using the macro feature.  Getting closer is the best way to improve your photographs.

Have you heard of White Balance and don't know what it is?  You don't have to have any technical expertise to learn about White Balance, but it is fun to see how it can change the color of your images. I'll show you the easy way how to learn all about the White Balance capabilities that may be available on your camera.  You'll also learn how to re-size photographs to fit into your journal.

Once you've played with your camera, you will return to your journal and add more color to the pages using parts of your personal color fan and color photographs to complete your journal.

And finally, for the visual journalers out there, we'll have a short discussion on how we relate to different colors, and what they might mean to you.

This will be a day full of learning and fun, and you don't even have to go out hunting for supplies as I will provide everything you need to create your journals, and you will get your own personal color kit when you arrive in class.

Register for this "Close Up - In Color with the Camera" class at the Art and Soul website.

Inner and Outer Vision: Intuition and Photography

At the end of February, Jennifer Halls and I co-facilitated a workshop entitled "Developing Your Inner and Outer Vision: An Intuition and Photography Retreat" at the Haw River State Park in Browns Summit, NC.

Both intuition and photograph require us to practice heightened awareness and perception.  As we do this we become more sensitive to subtle differences in color, shape and light.

One of the awareness exercises you can practice is to become more aware of the dance between contrasting elements.  To do this, take your camera out into your surroundings and explore this idea by photographing:

Light and Shadow
Rough and Smooth
Simple and Complex
Round and Straight
Wet and Dry
Old and New
Full and Empty

Notice how this practice increases your awareness of the subtle differences around you.

The Practice of Photography: Focus on PORTALS

Becoming a creative photographer is a practice.  It is about paying attention to your surroundings and seeing with fresh eyes.  We can be overwhelmed by the clutter of the world, and one way to start seeing more clearly is to focus on a specific theme or object for a period of time.  This practice has made all the difference to my photography.

To simplify the practice, and give you a place and an opportunity to share with other creative photographers I am sharing one of the focus themes from my deck of  The Creative Photographer Exploration Cards to Expand Your Creativity each month.  You can share your images on The Creative Photographer Facebook page.

The theme for February and March is PORTALS.  This is the first theme in the series of 24.

A camera could be considered a portal - as it is an entry into another reality.  As you learn to see the world more deeply through your camera, you will notice that everything is speaking to you. For a photograph to be meaningful, you must focus beyond the superficial to the feeling in the image.

Portals include doorways, windows, entrances and exits. They are thresholds to inner and outer realities, and can symbolize openings and closings, beginnings and endings. Consider this as you look for images of portals in the world around you.

Doors or windows can make interesting collections, especially as a way to absorb the feel of a place you are visiting. The doors you see in France are very different from the doors you see in Africa, and the stories of the people entering the doors are all unique.





Art is the window to man’s soul.  
Without it, he would never be able to see beyond his immediate world, 
nor could the world see the man within.
Claudia Johnson

Share your interpretation of portals on The Creative Photographer facebook page.

Everyday Ordinary

Today I am preparing to ship the first orders for my new Creative Photographer Exploration Cards to Expand Your Creativity, and wanted to share with you one of the cards.

The focus of this card is finding  beauty in the ordinary things around us.  We rush through our days so fast that we often forget to slow down and see with eyes of wonder.  We also become habituated to our environment so that things that were once meaningful no longer call for our attention.  What is it you are not seeing?  Is there one thing that is part of your everyday routine that you can see with new eyes today?  Find one thing a day that is simple and ordinary, and see it in a new way.

Darla's Dewdrop

Last weekend I hosted a retreat at Waterfall Mountain Retreat Center entitled "Drawing with Light: Photography as Spiritual Practice".

One of the exercises I shared with participants is the "One-Hundred Images" Exploration on page 37 of The Creative Photographer.  In this exercise I suggest you find a subject and take one hundred photographs of your subject, in different lights, in different positions, at different angles.  This is an exercise I consider to be akin to the writer's "first draft".  There will be some photographs you will want to delete, but there might be some good ones, and every now and then, you may even get some great ones.

One of the retreat participants, Darla Davis, shared the above photograph with me with this note: 

I thought you might like to know that the photo I sent you of the leaf stem with the dew drop came from the 100 photos of the same subject assignment.  I don't think I would have found this image without the encouragement to keep looking deeper and differently at the same subject.  I started out photographing the poke berries, drawn to the contrast between the green berries and the magenta stems.  It was late in the 100 photos assignment that I noticed the little dewdrop on the green stem.

I believe that if this is the only exercise you ever do from my book, your photography will improve.  It is an exercise in practice, in patience, and in seeing.