Craig Stocks Arts Blog

What’s the world coming to – I’m actually posting another black and white photo. That makes two posts in a row with a B&W photo!

Yes, in spite of my self-proclaimed love of strong colors, this is another photo that I feel really works best in black and white. Unlike the previous post where the photo had very muted colors, this one did have a bright blue sky. But, that was the only color , so it was really something of a monochrome photo to start with in that it just had one color. In the end, I felt that the color was actually distracting from the strong lines of the cattails and grasses silhouetted against the puffy white clouds.

This photo is also a good illustration of the value of unusual perspectives. I knew when I saw the cattails along the trail that I wanted to show them against the backlight clouds. That meant a very low camera angle. Since cattails grow in marshy areas, I wasn’t keen on the idea of laying on the ground to get the picture. Instead, I simply held the camera down to the ground and aimed it through “dead reckoning” at the sky. With a little practice you can get pretty good at pointing a camera without looking through the viewfinder. Through a combination of practice and luck, I got the shot I wanted.

Have you ever seen a sunset that was too spectacular? One with too much color? Well, I didn’t think it was possible, but I saw one during my term as the Artist-in-Residence at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin. My time was nearly up, and it had been raining pretty steadily for the last several days. But, when I stepped outside to check the clouds on the second-to-last day I saw a great big patch of blue sky overhead, and tall clouds surrounding to the north, east and south.

I grabbed the camera and headed to the overlook area along the entrance road. The colors were just getting started when I arrived, and I shot a number of frames. All of the photos were looking east, away from the setting sun. While it’s normal to get some color in the east, I’ve never seen a show like this one. The red and magenta colors were as intense as they could be, contrasting brilliantly against the blue sky around and yellow grass in the foreground.

Even though I loved the sunset, I ended up rejecting most of the images. The sky was just too bright and bold for the subject. In order to get the photo above, I stitched two frames, each taken with an extreme wide-angle lens. The total field of view is about 160 degrees, so it encompasses the view north, east and south all at once. It seems to be the only way to tame the colors so that they don’t complete drown out the rest of the scene.

I’ve never before tried to photograph a sunset (or sunrise) that was too spectacular, but I sure I hope I get to try my hand at another one someday.

Here’s another photo from the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge where I served as the Artist-in-Residence this Fall. This photo was taken in the early morning before the ground fog had burned off, and that’s what is creating the large burst of color. If you look closely you can see the fringes of the fog at the top where the yellow and red gives way to the blue sky.

Like many of my photos, this one is dominated by strong, contrasting colors. I like black and white photos, but I find that I really enjoy working with colors. In fact, most of my landscape photos are as much about the color as they are the subject. My goal is for the viewer to first be captured by the colors, and then be enticed to look more closely to investigate the subject.