New release called "Haunting Peace" by D. "Bodhi" Smith

My newest composition, simply entitled "Haunting Peace" because of the two words' dichotomy. One one hand, the effect of the long exposure creating a mist among black and blue tones of the pier just as the sun was setting last night in Oceanside, CA created the strong impression of being eerie or "haunting" (especially with the added effect that ropes in the rafters were moving during this exposure to create ghostly shapes)...but at the same time, it has a tranquil and calming peace with its smooth cool colors...

Last night I was in northern San Diego County running some errands, and I noticed the clouds were starting to roll in as a sort of a gray glaze...I have been after a nice light-diffusing cloud bank for some time mixed with a moderate high tide of 3.5ft-4.5ft. I have had a vision in my mind for a while to capture an image under the Oceanside Pier that is similar to one of my top selling images which I took last February under the Fort Baker Pier in San Francisco. I am from Oceanside, and being its native son, I really wanted to capture an image for me of my personal favorite pier, a pier that I have not shot a lot of recently these days, but have always had in the back of my mind to catch this impression you see here.

Last night the conditions were just as I wanted: A diffusing cloud canopy overhead right at sunset with a mid-high tide of 3.75ft. If the tide would have been too high, I would not have been able to have my tripod in the position I wanted on the sand--I would have been up in the rocks instead; if the tide had been too low, I would not have been able to capture the depth of this "tunnel" of pier posts out to the "door" at 200mm. And if the clouds would not have been present in the manner they were to diffuse the smaller wavelength colors, and at the same time not make things too dark, the blue tones and shadows as you see them here would not have been possible. And if it had not been sunset, the color tones in the "door" at the end of the pier would not have been present and the shadows would have had too much contrast for the camera to capture their details.

As many of you out there know about me, when one of my titles carries the word "Peace" in it, the image was captured selfishly for me, nobody else, and for my piece of mind...if the image happens to sell, then that is just a little bit more icing on the cake for me. I, of course, really like this image and have a strong personal affinity to it with many good memories happening for me in this very spot...

And, as always, It was ultra nice to see a couple of members of the IEPC join me for a very nice sunset last night in Oceanside...

Camera Settings: ISO-100, f/8 at 200m for 4mins, 44sec (284secs) using one Lee ProGlass 3.0ND Filter (10 stops) captured right as the sun was setting here on the westcoast just north of San Diego last evening at 4:45pm.

I hope this composition and message finds you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi

New Image Release from Bodhi Smith: "Rastaban"

This new composition is entitled, "Rastaban," and was captured two weekends ago when friend and fellow photographer, Chip Morton, and I went out into the Anza-Borrego desert in Southern California to shoot the metal sculptures of Ricardo Breceda under the canopy of the night sky. Pictured here under the stars is one giant sculpture that Breceda created north of the town of Borrego Springs that has the impression of of being part Serpent and part Dragon that serpentines underground and above ground (with the appearance of going under the road)...

This image gets its name as a reference to the prominent Draco constellation in the northern sky which is the constellation of a dragon/serpent. Arabic in origin, "Rastaban" means dragon's head and is the brightest star in the dragon's head part of the constellation of Draco.

Btw, Chip worked "extra" hard to help me with this shot--he set up the lighting for me and then went back to the Xterra to catch some extra zzz's and slept until I was through... :0

To keep the landscape orientation and eventually make the composition almost square, I used Adobe Photoshop to PhotoMerged two landscape images, one directly above the other, to permit for extra starry sky above the image that could not have been captured within a single frame without losing resolution.

Camera settings: ISO 1250, 24mm at f/1.4 for 15 seconds taken at 11;20pm on 10/25/2014

I hope this message and composition find you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

New Image of Scripps Pier entitled "Idelisa's Sunset"

This image is entitled, " Idelisa's Sunset" This is my newest release of the Scripps Pier in La Jolla, CA. I have taken so many compositions of this pier that I am beginning to think it is like an old girlfriend or something...and every new capture seems to be a new emotion of this favorite pier of mine here in San Diego, CA.
With this image, you can honestly see the influence which the Expressionist/Post-Impressionist Artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries have had on my photography--especially Paul Gauguin.

Anyway, this is a panoramic impression of this scene with very bold colors from a sunset we had hear in Southern California a few nights ago. I honestly think I will never get tied of shooting this pier, I am drawn to it like steel to a magnet...it never lets me down, and I always capture something very different from the previous one...

This composition is created from two images stitched together. I chose to do this to create the panoramic composition without losing any resolution from cropping a single frame down to a panoramic. This method actually permits me to increase my resolution by 75% and give me the ability to print this image huge if a client so wants it to be that way.

Combining two images is not easily done when shooting 3.5 minute exposures. To create the composition, I needed to shoot two landscape orientation images side-by-side, and then blend them together into one long composition. The left side was captured first with the sun setting on the horizon, then the right side was captured directly after. The clouds were moving mostly horizontal (north) which allowed me to keep the sky pretty even even thought the two images were captured three and a half minutes apart. Plus, with the pier being almost in the middle and not moving, I permitted to easily stitch the two images together to create a 1:3 ratio panoramic composition using PhotoMerge in Adobe Photoshop CS6. Had the pier NOT been in the middle of these two long exposures, there would have been no possible way to create a seamless composition as this, or at least not anyway I have figured out yet.

Camera settings: ISO-64, 20mm at f/8 for 213 seconds (3 mins, 33 secs) (both images)

I hope you enjoy this new "emotion" of this pier as seen through my vision, my eyes, and the lens of my camera.

I hope this message and composition find you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

New Release, "Panther at Play"

This is my new release entitled "Panther at Play"... pictured here are the beautiful Panther Falls in southern Washington's Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

This area is really super super wet much of the year as practically a true rain forest, so everything is extremely green and soft looking. Panther Falls are very powerful and have numerous cascades coming down about 100 foot cliff into a ravine below. There's a nice view from the top of the falls via a wooden observation deck. getting down to the deck is very easy once you find the trailhead, which is basically an unmarked trail from the road. The entrance to the trail is marked by spray painting on the pavement "PF -->" in blue...you gotta look really closely just to find it.

For me however, the vantage point from the deck doesn't really show the power of these majestic falls, so I wanted to make my way down the cliff to the base of the falls. Looking down, you could tell human traffic had been below in the canyon by the falls as the moss next to the stream was trampled a bit. So there had to be a way down somewhere, somehow. Of course, I found out that there's no easy or safe way down, at least not from the observation deck. I scouted the area and managed to find a treacherous little natural staircase winding down the cliff's face for about 20 feet to a more manageable slope that had a rough trail others have used. These super narrow little natural rock steps were very wet and mossy, but there were pretty good hand holds and foot holds using trees, roots, and rocks down this small portion of the cliff located south and above the observation deck. I muscled up some courage and told my self I could do this climb if I take my time. So when I did climb down, I made sure to maintain three points of contact at all times as I slowly make my way down with handholds and footholds that were slick but stable. This was a path that has been obviously used before, but probably not when its real wet like when I went down on this day.

With this being a short weekend flight to Portland, my dog and my muse, was unable to join me on this trip (and his presence was truly missed). This is one of those cases where if the Dude (my pup) had been with me, he would have moderated me as I would not have gone down this way because he would not have been able to follow me safely. I guess in this way, he sort of looks out for me...as I always look out for his safety, and in doing so, being safer comes back to me. Part of the way down this small cliff, I even had to throw down to the trail below my tripod and my waders that I was caring...I had them attached to my camera backpack and they were snagging things making the climb a bit more dangerous than it already was. By tossing them down, I was able to better balance out my pack and make myself a little bit more agile in the tight spaces.

So, I did make it down safely, however this was probably not the smartest and safest way with me being alone. Had something happen to me, who knows how long I would have been there before someone would have found me for this is a very remote area. Once I was down, I did manage to find a better way out that climbed up to the road about 2 tenths of a mile south of the "trailhead." Not exactly calming and safe, but definitely a much better way in and out...still quite steep and very sketchy, but much smarter and safer than scaling down a 20 foot cliff in the wilderness in the wet and so forth. I will visit these falls again in the future, and this will be the route I will choose, especially when the Dude is with me.

At the base of the falls, there was tons and tons of mist being thrown off from the falls. Extreme wetness in the air. So there was no way I would be able to do a long exposure here in the ravine at the base of these falls. I did some tests, and it seemed like no longer than about 10 seconds was possible with all the missed hitting my lens. So I opted for about a 3 second exposure, which is the time for the composition that you see here. I had to clean my lens after every shutter release, it was that wet out. This image is actually a composite of two images stitched together using Adobe Photoshop PhotoMerge since the area is impossible from the bottom to shoot with just one frame. So I had to shoot two frames and put it together and make a 1:2 ratio image which is what you see here.

This spot had rampant beautiful mossy greens everywhere, dotted with some fall color...and there was low light filtering in from Sun which was about an hour from setting. This made for real nice soft colors and allowed me to hold a three second exposure at f/22 using no filters whatsoever.

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 30mm at f/22 for 3 seconds taken at 5pm on Saturday 10-18-2014

peace,
D."Bodhi" Smith

Photography of Mine on Display through 02-01-2015 at the SD Natural History Museum

F.Y.I. for those interested: tomorrow (Saturday November 1, 2014) is the artists' reception of the Best of Nature show at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

The reception is free to the public from 11am-2pm tomorrow and is in the Abe Ordover Gallery on the 4th floor of the SD Natural History Museum.

Awards are going to be presented during the reception. I have been honored with three of my photos being selected to be on display in this international show. And no worries, If you cannot make the reception tomorrow afternoon, my work as well as the works of the other photographers in the show will run on display in the gallery through February 1st, 2015.

The three compositions of mine pictured here are the three works of mine juried into this show...

"Moody Three"

"Venturing Cobbles"

 "Formal Inequities"

Hope to see you there.

I hope this message finds you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

New Impressionist Photo: "Fall Four Ward"

This new image is an impressionist composition of mine entitled "Fall Four Ward"... this is a composite of two images and I created this image to compliment the green aspen, "Moody" series of images of mine created the same way. "Moody Three" in that series is currently on display at the San Diego Natural History Museum:

Anyway, this new fall scene composition, "Fall Four Ward" is actually a composite of two images taken back-to-back. A pan-head tripod mount is need for this technique. The first image is shot at f/8 and is as sharp in focus as I can get the camera to go; the second image begins at the same identical framed scene, but it is blurred by panning the camera upward (with moderate consistent speed) directly along the y-axis enough to cover the entire scene.

Next, the two images are layered together in a Adobe Photoshop document with the blurred layer on top with a layer mask. Using the dark brush, I bring through visible only the sharp points of the image that I want from the bottom layer. In the case with this image, only the four trees in the foreground were brought through...

This same effect can be achieved with some success by using the motion blur filter in Photoshop, but the problem with that is the entire program is linear and will not adjust for curves. Whereas my in-camera method will blur over curved shapes very nicely.

This composition was captured about two weeks ago during my trip to Portland. I drove out about three hours east  of Portland to a massive poplar tree farm near Boardman, Oregon and was able to catch a few nice shots.

The image title is another play-on-words around the term "Fall Forward" which is often wrongly confused as the saying for what we do with our clocks in the fall when practicing daylight savings time (we "Fall Back" of course). Anyway, is is an image of fall trees, four of them in clear focus, all forward in the foreground, all in a big ward of trees.

Camera settings: ISO-1250, 64mm at f/8 for 1/25th sec with both images taken back-to-back about 10 mins before the sunset under a canopy of orange glowing poplar back-lit by the setting sun

I hope you enjoy this unique photograph of mine.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

Smooth Sunday Sunrise on Coronado Island: "Promise"

This is a new image entitled "Promise"... like Coronado Island where it was captured, this compositions has its own "Je ne sais quoi" (for those of you not well versed in French, this phrase means: "a quality that is hard to describe")

The image you see here is inspiring on many levels for me personally and hence the composition's title. Some of those are:

1. Sunrises at the beach always promise the start of another beautiful day here in SoCal...and I spent all day this past Sunday roaming the beaches of San Diego County with my dog--just does not get much better than that in my book.
2. This is my first released image taken on Coronado Island (San Diego, CA), so there is definitely a promise of more to come. This image may be the start of something beautiful.
3. A wonderful couple commissioned me about one month ago to create an image for them close to the spot this composition was captured. It is a special place for them on Coronado Island--they met, were engaged, and were married all at the same spot (pretty romantic, eh?). They know that is might take months for all of the conditions to be right for the composition I have envisioned in my mind for them; and on this morning all of the conditions (especially the tide) were not right for what I needed, however, I did manage to capture this marvelously peaceful composition. This showed the couple the promise of this area and gave them a taste of what I will create for them as soon as all the variables align to permit me to do so.
4. Scenes like this make me reaffirm the promise I mad to myself to be in as many spots (such as this) at the right time to be able to share my vision, emotions, and memories as I live my life and walk the path I must follow...

This image was taken on the rocky reef that protects the beach in front of the famous Hotel del Coronado here in San Diego. Coronado Island is one of the many neighborhoods that make up San Diego Metropolis, and this small community definitely has is own "Je ne sais quoi." It has beautiful beaches and a very nice dog beach as well. It is a bit more upscale and has some fine dining and shopping. However, up until recently with my commission, I have never had this location on my radar for my photography. So this image may be the start of something beautiful. :)

What caught my eye at this spot was way the ebb and flow of the waves were mixing the sea water in the small pool in front of me. The way the waves were crashing into the rocks out front, they would lose all of their force and back off into the ocean...but some of the sea water was still managing to just trickle through the cracks between the rocks and rapidly fill in this small pool in front of me and then recede back into the ocean with the waves. It would repeat this cycle in 15 second intervals, so I determined my exposure time should be around 2 minutes. Honestly, I cannot tell you definitively why 2 minutes and 22 secound was the time I selected for this image, and why not select 5mins? 10mins? (but my OCD creates the 2.22 from 142secs). Through my experiences, I just know and feel it with the effects I want to create in the scene before me. Many times, I can actually see the long exposure in my minds eye before I even capture it...

When shooting long exposures as I do, waves crashing into things usually create a misty effect (which you can see evident here). However, it is really difficult to ever get any sort of a  reflection that transcends down into the mist. In this composition, I was able to capture the rocks reflecting in the mist because of the relative calmness of the water in the pool, even though it was all bubbled and constantly moving around from the force of the relentless waves hitting the reef. Combined with the soft morning light, this misty reflection really creates a soothing scene that I really dig...

Camera settings: ISO-64, 24mm at f/14 for 142 seconds (2 mins 22 seconds), captured about 45 mins after the sun had risen under a canopy of morning clouds on Sunday October 26th, 2014.

I hope you enjoy the tranquility of this smooth morning impression...

peace,
D. "Bodhi"