Kauftheilphoto

Arizona Light

This is the reason I love living in Arizona. I love the light and the background I get to explore with it.

The landscape can change so quickly thanks to the explosive development that it is easy to get from rural, to desert, to metro, in the space of a few minutes. Most of the people I run into from day to day aren’t even native zonies but are transplants from all over the country. Making this state more of an eclectic mix of experiences than most people give it credit for. You just have to be open to it and know where to look.

I am in awe of the fact that as I ride home I get to witness this on a consistent basis, as long as I don’t become wrapped up in the daily monotony of life. With the exception of a crop this is exactly what I got out of my camera. In other places I have lived you get a nice sunset on occasion but here we are treated to breath takers like this as the norm rather than the exception. I plan to never get to a point where looking into the western sky becomes routine and forgettable.

Every single one of us can look up and be treated to the spectacular show every morning and evening and for that I am grateful.

Prickly

When you think of Arizona you probably think of deserts with the iconic cactus silhouette standing tall and plentiful. That’s fair considering that Arizona’s state flower is the saguaro cactus’s bloom. That image doesn’t do the diversity that exists in the Sonoran Desert justice. Without talking about all the different flora and fauna that live here and most likely can kill or wound you. Of course the most striking are the succulents known as cactus.

I can find at least 20 different types of cacti just by going for a 30 minute walk out my back door. I’m not a botanist by training or inclination so I just have the obvious differences to go by. I’ve had a chance to take a few a couple of desert biology classes and what I learned in them really awakened a love of the desert I didn’t know I had. Because of what I learned in those two classes I gain immense enjoyment when I am walking and hiking outdoors. That is of course tempered with the understanding that everything has evolved to wound anyone silly enough to get close.

I tell anyone willing to stand still long enough for me to finish that I love Arizona’s landscape much more than almost any other place I have been too. The ocean is amazing, but it is also pretty flat and empty and gets old after a while. Those rolling green hills that people from the coasts go on about are breathtakingly beautiful until you have been looking at them for years. Then they start to look exactly the same no matter where you go. Arizona’s rocky mountains battered rocky face each present something different from far away. When you get close the landscape can change almost as fast as the summer rain can come and go. Some plants are so specialized the they can bloom up to 12 times a year as opposed to the normal once, during spring, and then quickly go back to looking like your garden variety dead plant in the middle of sharp rocks.

It is amazing to me that humans were ever able to live here. With the exception of places that never thaw it seems like the Sonoran Desert might be the last place anyone could survive let alone thrive in. Even the trees here have spines that will stab you if you try to hug them. So you have your choice of poisonous plants and animals or ones with spikes to tear into soft flesh or a terrifying combination of both. I know I heard multiple times growing up that you can get water from a cactus. Just be careful you don’t try to get it from one of the ones that poison their stored water.  Also you have to pulp it or just eat the flesh to get at the water. It sounds like a lot of work for a small return so I normally just travel with plenty of water bottles.

I’m going to continue enjoying my summer here.

Art Ramblings

Last week I went to an art show that some of the members of ASMP had participated in called “Through Each Other’s Eyes.” It was a sort of exchange program for photographers. This one was about the Japanesse experience in Arizona and vice versa. Taken as a whole it was pretty informative and successfully reminded me that there is always something visually interesting going on no matter where you were. Like my IR work you can always find something beautiful in the mundane if you just keep your eyes open. On the more specific level I found the photos from the Americans in Japan to be more compelling. It might of had something to do with them doing them all exclusively in black and white and some photoshoping the contrast as opposed to the Japanese photographers working in color with less post process work done to their images.

The funny thing is that I spend most of my time working in color with minimal post processing and working with available light when I can. Though when I was in school my teachers and editors never missed a chance to let me know to always use additional light when it will help out the reader and the image. I’m still a little skittish whipping out too many strobes but I make sure to always carry at least one with me. Again, one of the main reasons I moved down here was to work with Jason and learn from his lighting techniques. I’m still amazed by how much gear he brings with him to a shoot but by the same token I am often amazed by what he brings back as well. After saying all that, here is a natural light photo I took while I was wandering around the gallery.

This was taken upstairs where they mostly kept paintings. I’ve never been a big painting lover since most of the time the price/quality ratio seems pretty arbitrary to me. I know painting takes a lot of work and understand that that time is worth something, but just because it took a while to make doesn’t mean I should pay for that if it doesn’t bring something new to the table. This bee had been bleached white laying on the sill and it got me wondering how often that place was cleaned. As you can see it wasn’t quite within the ‘golden hour’ time for light but it was soft and I figured it was worth a snap. I enjoy better than most of the paintings I saw up there that day.

Infrared shots

This is the first, but it won’t be the last shot I post here from the infrared spectrum.  I am totally taken with the slightly off qualities of IR photography. At first glance it looks like a typical black and white shot even if your brain gives you a tingle that there is something slightly not right. Then you look a little closer and you realize that things are outside of normal. Colorful dynamic plants end up showing up as an almost uniform white. The white’s of people’s eyes go almost black, and the sky turns a deep black regardless of the time of day.

I’ve been shooting in this spectrum for a few years now and much like the visual spectrum I can normally ‘see’ in my mind’s eye how the photo is going to come out before I make the shot. The thing that keeps IR fresh for me is how I can still be pleasantly surprised with the little surprises I end up getting.

This was made at my old apartment complex. I’d walked down these paths so many times I had become essentially blind to the scenery. The paint was faded, the plants were slightly wilted and nothing striking was presenting itself. Early afternoon light is harsh and unflattering making a lackluster view boring and flat. Luckily for me that is the time when IR is at it’s strongest and I had my modified camera on me. For the heck of it I took a couple of shots and came away with one of my favorite IR shots from the past year. It is the way IR can turn a drab walkway into an enchanted wonderland. Even if it is just in a photo.

One of the things that makes IR so dramatic for me is the extreme contrast between the light areas and the dark. Shadows create a well defined dark zone for IR light that in the visual spectrum softly transition from blinding to black. IR lets you take one of the least photogenic times of day and turn it into one of my favorite time to create photos.

Another fire day

Been a busy past few days. Some of it was even photography related work. Jason and I went for a hike in the Dreamy Draw Park. That is where the picture of the flowers comes from. I’m linking to the Yelp page because Phoenix’s own page is pretty lame.  I’ve been hiking in a few different parks in the Phoenix area lately but this one comes in am extremely close second to the one my buddy Ross took me to last week. This state has some of the best and most convenient hiking I’ve been around in a long time and I am just loving every chance I get to spend it outside running around in this beauty. Jason was looking to get some mountain bike shots as well as some exercise. I engrossed in the trails and scenery. It doesn’t take long to hike high enough up to get a breathtaking view of the valley and we decided to stop and just take in the view near sunset.

I was once told to always be looking around and not fixate on the most obvious thing in front of you. That’s how those magicians get you. I found these beautifully lit seedpods shortly after parked. We were walking along the paved path to the trail head and I just couldn’t not make the shot. These are forgettable little plants that are seen almost everywhere, but the low sunlight made these borderline weeds memorable to me. I love the way dropping just a little of the saturation turns this into one of those faux black and white shots I’m sometimes partial too.

Today we went back to the firehouse. The guys were great, again. This time the pace was faster as the captain had everyone run real time drills for us which gave us more action shots rather than portraiture. I’m probably most comfortable working on the fly like that. The tools in my hands become an extension of my limbs and I get wrapped up in the moment. It makes reviewing my shots a refreshing activity and letting me slow down and relive the scenes on a different time scale. I find Nikon’s lighting system to be extremely valuable to just going with the flow. My pop-up flash talks to any newer Nikon strobe and makes fill and rim lighting a breeze. When company finished their drills and had packed up their equipment we had them line up out front with the truck and the station house sign visible and did a group shot. Jason taught me a valuable new trick to keep people from squinting when they are facing the sun. That alone made getting out of bed this morning worth it. All the other shots I got today and getting to hang out with these people was just icing on the cake.

The rest of the day was spent learning new unrelated painting skills, working (unintentionally) on my tan, and learning I need to drink more sports drinks if I want to feel like a normal person in this heat. Water just isn’t keeping up with the heat anymore. I’m going to have start cutting to the two since the sugar part of it is a little too strong for my sweet tooth.

Shooting Fire

Jason comes by today and notifies me we are going shooting at a Phoenix fire station in an hour. I made a few incorrect assumptions based on this limited information: a) this place was abandoned and b) that we were going to be working with some random model from Model Mayhem or something. No big deal, I would have brought one less lens.

I love going to visit firehouses. In a previous life as a journalist student I had a few occasions to visit firefighters and police and it’s like night and day. Maybe the police just have to know you before they open up, but every time I visited with them for class I was greeted with a cold reception and a lot of red tape. Firefighters on the other hand are nothing but fun and welcoming.

We were worried when we pulled up just as a firetruck was pulling out possibly leaving us with no truck to shoot.  Turns out they had a spare so no loss there. The guys were, of course, friendly after we explained who we were and that the captain knew we were coming. After introductions and some idle chatting we moved out to the garage. The captain is an extraordinary woman who the other guys call their walking miracle. Jason figured out his lighting just as a second call to action ended up leaving us alone in the station with no trucks. We putz around with a few atmosphere type shots in the garage to pass the time bemoaning our fate. Ten minutes later our guys came back and it was game on.

The guy with the hands here was lots of fun and even put on the full fireman suit complete with fireproof hood and heavy air tank in the middle of a Phoenix afternoon. He took all the direction Jason gave him without once blinking or sweating the entire time. That last bit is probably the most impressive part. J got a few shots he was proud of and we’re invited back Thursday morning for a longer more involved shoot which promises to be loads of fun.

I’m a sucker for hands so I had to get our model’s paws at some point. After the shoot was done seemed like a good chance.

It was a great night

J Dodson told me in no uncertain terms that I was going with him to an ASMP meeting tonight. I got to meet a bunch of really talented photographers, like Steve Dreiseszun and Penny Ann Dolin, that are based in the area.  I found everyone’s work to be really inspiring and I am hoping that I’ll get a chance to work with some of them in the future.

Here is a blurry shot of the Studio one and the radio tower on an historic hotel at the end of the block.