A Visual Notebook…

A quote from Ansel Adams

Jean-Michel — Thu, 18 Jun 2020 11:44:44 +0000

You don’t take a photograph, you make it.
Ansel Adams

When Fall meet Winter

Jean-Michel — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 16:25:33 +0000

It was a clear sky week-end, just after temperature started to drop.

Mid-mountain had just received its first snow, earlier than usual, and the low morning light was bringing out fall foliage colors from the monochrome background.

After a few weeks of a comfortable and connected kind of hibernation, it seems I’m not the only one waiting to look around again with a big smile on my face, and that might be a good news…

A quote from Peter Adams

Jean-Michel — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 12:39:00 +0000

Great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field.
Peter Adams

Irish clouds

Jean-Michel — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 07:15:00 +0000

One of the most recurring sentences I keep hearing from people who manifest a basic interest for photography relate to weather: “Not a good time for photo, there is no sun” or “It’s a sunny day, let’s take some photos”.

Sure, when sky is flat, with a light gray and no directional light, any landscape might look flat and boring.

But a deep cloudy sky, even with no visible ray of light, can bring character to a scene, adding volume and depth to the landscape and creating a special atmosphere…

Ireland is one of these countries where you feel the elements as much as you see them…

Stay outside, and photography becomes a physical experience…

Sligo, Ireland
Maum, Ireland

Summer dusk on Charles’ river

Jean-Michel — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 07:09:31 +0000

Recently I did not had/took a lot of opportunities to practice photography as I used to do when I was abroad…It seems quite usual to be more lazy when back home, the typical “I-have-time, I-can-take-that-picture-tomorrow” syndrome..

I’ll try to do better in 2020…But in the meantime, I still have some archive to explore, like these two views of Boston and Cambridge, MA..

The Dahlia’s Iris

Jean-Michel — Wed, 22 May 2019 12:15:14 +0000

Continuation of the previous post, focusing on the subtle details of the flower’s core and its multiple layers…

Kaleidoscope

Jean-Michel — Tue, 21 May 2019 12:09:00 +0000

When reviewing my photo library the other day, it was obvious flowers are not my primary source of inspiration :-).

Long ago, I used an amaryllis bud for a studio session … and that’s all!

Well, until that visit to a botanic garden in Italia…where I was the amazed spectator of a show I never saw before (we all have our gaps!): multiple varieties of dahlias and other complex flowers with just incredible colors and details…

Hopefully, the 105mm macro lens was in my bag…

50 petals of gray

Jean-Michel — Mon, 20 May 2019 07:35:39 +0000

It is often said that Black & White photography allows to remove color distraction to better focus on the inner subject.

But sometimes color is such an important part of the subject that removing it helps to create a complete abstraction of shapes and patterns.

While reviewing a set of flower images taken when visiting the Villa Taranto Botanical Gardens in Verbiana (close to Lac Majore, Italia), I felt one of them would be a good candidate for such exercise (I will share some others later)…

Filter: Yellow + Graphical

Jean-Michel — Tue, 14 May 2019 09:07:00 +0000

It’s a real work (pain ?) to add keywords to images, and being lazy by essence, it took me a while to make it part of my import process.

Initially, I added general information as keywords (location, people names, type of event, etc…).

However, as my photo library was growing, I realized I was often looking for images that could be grouped together into series. So I started to use keywords to actually describe the image in a searchable manner , in particular its remarkable attributes/items (main or dominant color, shapes, low or high key, sea, cloud, sky, snow, season, etc…

It’s still a work in progress (and it will always be I think), but it allows to explore your own work in a different manner

Yellow circles, Woman, Yellow Jacket, Dark background, Boat, Graphical

Yellow door, Grey House, Dark Background, Rectangular, Graphical

Yellow, Traffic Light, Geometrical, Graphical, Light Background, Dark Grey

Subway, Yellow, Lines, Dots, Dark Background, Black, Rails, Graphical, Minimalist

Peaceful

Jean-Michel — Sun, 12 May 2019 06:19:00 +0000

It was one of these foggy days where everything seems to fade to white. Being in Acadia National Park only for a few days, we left our small cabin for an early walk around Jordan Pond.

Apart a couple of humans and some deers, we were alone in the world.

Among various images captured that day, the one with the simplest composition is bringing back the quiet feeling of that moment…