Health Care Fine Art

Compass Plant Series

Compass Plant Series, click image to see larger version

One important lesson I learned in art school was the value of working in a series. By limiting choice and focusing in on a narrow subject you can dig much deeper.

The Compass Plants caught my eye while I was walking the prairie this morning. Why not do a series of their leaves! The variation of shapes and colors surprised me. I grouped just 9 of the images together to show you what I mean (see above). Fat, skinny, symmetrical, asymmetrical, few lobes and many lobes. But they are all from the same species of prairie wildflower: Silphium laciniatum.

Compass Plant leaves are very unusual; they are very flat and rigid. They feel like they are made of plastic. I positioned the leaves so the morning sun came through the leaves, transilluminating them.

Butterfly Walk

Butterfly Walk Participants. Click on image for larger picture

Yesterday was our 7th annual Butterfly Walk.
Our leader was the butterfly expert Donna Brunet. She is the one on the right in the picture above. The cool weather and lush vegetation meant a record number of butterflies seen.

To see some of the images from the walk: Click here.

If you are looking for images of Butterflies for your Hospital, the first place you should look is at Donna's website: www.donnabrunet.com

Prairie at Peak

Black-eyed Susan

The prairie here at the Prairie Garden Trust is just now hitting peak; peak flowers and maximum growth. Prairie thrives on hot humid conditions, which is what we are getting now.

Since we have had wettest year on record (going back more than 100 years!) the prairie is unusually lush. Photographing that will be keeping me busy the next couple months.

Above is a clump of Black-eyed Susans that I photographed this morning.

Morning Walk with the Dogs

Join me as I take a walk around the lake with my dogs. This 4-minute long video will give you a glimpse of the sights and sounds that I saw this morning with Pete, Sam and Boots.

You can see many of the flowers that are in bloom and hear the birds singing.

Is all Wildlife Art Mediocre?

"Chief" by Robert Bateman,acrylic on canvas

"There's an unfortunate chasm between wildlife art and what's perceived as fine art," says sculptor Bart Walter.

Indeed, I think most art connoisseurs consider realistic wild animal pictures to be "not worthy"; more craft than art.

There is a museum dedicated to art like this: The National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole Wyoming. According to a story in the LA Times, the museum wants improve the publics attitude. The story is called: "Wildlife art museum seeks more humans"

Apparently not enough people know about this new 51,000 square feet museum that houses a collection of 4,000 works of art. The director of the museum (James C. McNutt) is quoted in the article:

"There's tension between first- and second-class art and who says what art is," McNutt says. "Representational art is getting back into the mainstream in ways it hasn't been for a while. But there are still quite a few museums that won't hang this kind of work, that don't care about it."

To read the full article: click here

Any thoughts on why wildlife art is held in such contempt?
Do people consider it to be too close to Kitsch?

Even if Wildlife Art is considered inappropriate in most of today's museums, what about in hospitals and medical clinics? 

Butterfly Scales

Tiger Swallowtail Wing - Detail showing the Scales

On my walk this morning I saw a dead butterfly along our gravel road. I carefully picked it up and carried it to our dining room table to photograph it.

For decades I have been trying to photograph the tiny iridescent scales that cover the wings of butterflies. This has technically very difficult. I'm getting closer to what I want with today's picture (shown above) but it is not anything I would ever put on the galleries on my website.

Why is it so difficult ?

1. Tremendous magnification is needed; it really needs a microscope. The photograph above was done at 4X macro.
2. Very shallow depth-of-focus. With Photography, if you greatly magnify your subject then the part that is in focus is often measured in millimeters. Everything else is just blur.

To get the picture above I had to use a lot of specialized stuff such as: a two-headed macro-flash, a brass focusing rail, a specialized 5x Macro lens, software that allows "stitching" several images into one (Helicon Focus). I'm really not sure it was worth all the trouble!

The more important issue is: even if I am able to zoom-on and show the butterfly scales in all their glory, will it make a successful image.

I want to try this again by attaching my camera to a dissecting microscope.

Featured Artist: Daniel Sroka

Dream-like abstract photographs from simple elements of nature by Daniel Sroka

My twin sister rarely emails me links to look at, but today she insisted that I check out the wonderful artwork of Daniel Sroka. She found him on the website called Trunkt.

This was good timing because I was wanting to feature him anyhow. I've been following his work for over a year.

This is how he describes his work:

I create abstract photographs from what I call the 'artifacts of nature' -- flowers, leaves, sticks, bark, and seeds. I'm drawn to the obscure beauty that can be found within these broken and decayed pieces of nature that are normally just trod underfoot. In the beauty of their organic decay, I discover scenes that feel strange, mysterious, and yet vaguely familiar. As your mind tries to resolve these abstractions into something familiar, they reveal unexpected stories and characters.

In addition to his work on Trunkt, here is a link to his main website: www.danielsroka.com
He also has a very interesting blog that I read routinely: daniel sroka open studio

Good New Flower Photography Book

I've read a lot of books on Flower Photography. Christopher Beane's "Flower" stands above the others. This is a large format "coffee table book" that has 150 portrait pictures of flowers.

Most of the pictures go in very tight on the flowers which allows the formal aspects of the picture to be explored; pattern, color and texture. If you have seen my flower pictures you know this is the way I prefer to see them.

Beane has developed this body of work over years. Even though these are all tight flower shots there is remarkable diversity: color, black and white, groupings, black background, white background and even vibrant abstract backgrounds.

I found the pictures of chewed dying leaves (such as "Hops Camouflage 2000") to lack much appeal, but most of the other pictures work well. I think they would fit well into a healthcare interior.

This is a high quality publication: paper and printing (in Singapore) are first class. Many flower books are lean on text, but here the text by Anthony Janson was useful even if he did tend to gush a bit with phrases like ""one of the greatest photographers I have ever run across."

To learn more about the book: www.christopherbeane.net

Grass Pictures Project

Big-Bluestem_10989

Working on a specific project helps me create better pictures.

I was reminded of this last night when I was skimming through the latest issue of the magazine called "Nature Photographer". There was an article called "Summer Project" by Brien Szabo. He describes how he spent last summer focusing his camera on a small patch of Black-eyed Susans. He got some great pictures.

I've decided that my next project will be pictures of grass. On the 600-acres I live on we have dozens of native grass species. That means I won't have to travel far to do the work.

In many ways grasses (and the prairies they live on) are boring. To me the challenge is how to find something visually interesting with a boring subject.

To see more of Brien Szabo's work his website is: www.natureimages321.com

To read Nature Photographer online, the website is: www.naturephotographermag.com

Featured Artist: David Muench

The cover of David Muench's newest book: Arizona

The Arizona landscape has long appealed to me; perhaps because it stands in such contrast to the lush green landscapes I am normally immersed in. After a while, green becomes monotonous.

One of the masters of the Arizona Landscape is David Muench. If you are looking for Arizona Landscapes for your hospital, you should see his work. You can do that in the book "Arizona" or at his website: www.muenchphotography.com

The June 2008 issue of Outdoor Photographer magazine has a cover story on Muench. To read the story: click here.

Another Arizona photographer covered on a previous post was Alain Briot: click here.