Dallas Zoo: Wildlife Portraits

I went to the Dallas zoo with the idea of getting close-up animal portraits. I spent 30 minutes watching the gorillas and talking to the zoo keeper. Each gorilla has their own personality and I enjoyed learning about the individuals.

When  you bring a child to the zoo you tend to be chasing them and trying to keep up. When you go with a specific intent, you can concentrate on the specific species you intend to photograph and are more able to just relax and enjoy them.

I watched a group of chimps in a very tender moment. It's amazing how much more you see when you stop and enjoy them instead of running to the next exhibit. The two chimps sat and groomed each other while a young baby hid behind the bushes and played, doing somersaults and enjoying the sunshine.

Next I was lucky to have a cheetah sitting right by the window of the enclosure. The pair of cheetahs were quite active as well and stepped into the light. I got to see more of their personalities than usual, the last time I remember seeing them resting in pasture too far for my telephoto to capture anything but a group of spots.

The giraffes were fun because they come up to get feed, you can pay to get some leaves to feed them. I was impressed by the textures in the face and the eyes and the intricacies of the spots.

Discipline is often the muse that makes us find our creativity

I am working hard to continue to find objects that can be used in abstract images for wall decor. Tonight I found the silhouettes of summers' garden made dramatic imagery.
To create when nothing inspires is where discipline comes in. You are forced to see beyond a gray winter day and seek light when there is none available and I believe that is the fuel that feeds creativity when the muse doesn't show.

I have also been in a situation where the scenery was so breathtaking you couldn't do it justice even if you tried. I was in Glacier National Park and between altitude sickness and a feeling of being overwhelmed, it was hard to shoot something that was truly remarkable.

There is a great space where you need to work a bit harder to see beyond what is obvious and yet the light is perfect, this is the sweet spot and what follows is a landscape where the creative thrives.

Nature's Illusive Form: Nature Finds a Path to Contemporary Art

An autumn stream becomes a rich tapestry of colors as nature intended.

I love the patterns in nature. As an artist, finding a unique perspective that can show a viewer something they might not have seen before is a large part of my artistic intent.

I have always painted landscapes and seascapes but I could never perfect what is already real. I am competing with the greatest artist of them all: God. All I can hope for is to show the viewer an aspect of that image that moved me and perhaps move the viewer with the same or varied feeling.

As I have been photographing more regularly, I have found the need to see deeper than just the landscape. Especially when the light does not cooperate with the subject or doesn't show up at all.

A red Photinia becomes a graphic image when a late afternoon light catches a few of the leaves.

I learned to isolate parts of nature when my desire to photograph didn't lend itself to the light of the day. On a gray winter day, when there is nothing but flat, bland light and no objects are discernible by any effective modeling,  I have discovered a new way of seeing the landscape.

I started seeing how images were painted by stray bits of light. Suddenly instead of a bland landscape, I was able to find just a piece of that landscape that could be a graphic object. I don't even care if the final image is discernible, it is more the aspect of its abstract nature that intrigues me.

A Mexican Milkweed becomes the center piece of discussion as the background blurs into cool greens and blues. These plants are crucial for the survival of the Monarch Butterfly, the pot shows the colors and textures of the wings and would make a nice conversation piece and accent in your home. The pot is also available on Etsy.

I have started gathering autumn leaves, green leaves and patterns in water, in the past I would  have struggled to find something in abstract but now the image jumps out at me. It's a muscle and to strengthen this way of seeing the landscape has changed my whole outlook on contemporary art.

I believe that bringing nature into the house can evoke a calm center as well as a conversation piece for visitors. I like how without representing a specific subject, the image evokes something without trying too hard to be abstract or artsy. I have found my way to the abstract and contemporary subject.

Different aspects of Autumn awaken a cool living environment.

Cat Portrait: Seeking light and finding graphic abstraction

It's been a long gray couple of days and the light has been inexistent. At the end of the day though, just a bit of light pierced through the windows and my cat was watching the birds as is his habit.

I photographed him with limited flash, a raw image that I used Photoshop to accentuate the bit of light touching his face and whiskers. 

I liked how graphic the image became. You can see the eye and his personality but he is become a bit of an abstract image of a cat. Even the light in the eye is hard and graphic and yet I believe you can still he an illusive nature in the image.

I am beginning to enjoy the idea of abstraction more than previously. I like the isolated abstract patterns of nature that create themselves a not so ordinary image of an image we see every day, in this case it's my cat, the birdwatcher, A.K.A Frady.

I would love any thoughts or opinions. Thanks for checking out my blog.