Noon shadows or moon shadows.

So often photographers put their cameras away at midday. The warm light of dawn is gone and shadows shorten. For many, it's time to do something else until the sun gets low in the sky when the shadows lengthen and the warm light reappears as sunset approaches. But God gave us the sun to light the whole day and the moon to light the night so let's use them both while we have the opportunity.

For example, the sharp shadows of the wrist straps with their red keys wouldn't be the same at dawn or dusk. It's the short sharp shadows of the overhead light, whether sun or moon, coupled with the deep cold blue that makes this image work. After all, moonlight is only reflected sunlight, and great photography is all about managing the image before you with the light above you.

Nuts & bolts

My dad was one of those engineer types who liked to keep things in order. Me? Not so much. He used to have a cabinet of about a hundred oak parts drawers to hold what I would call "miscellaneous stuff" in the basement, that is now in my garage. Of course to him they were full of parts and other useful hardware like nuts & bolts. When he wanted to be left alone, but felt I needed something orderly to do, I would be sent to the basement to sort "stuff" like nuts & bolts by size. I would carefully slide each one into a machinist's gauge and those above a certain size would go into the "large nuts & bolts" drawer and those below into the "small nuts & bolts" drawer. Once I got them all sorted, I thought I was finished, but no, next he wanted me to match the nuts & bolts to keep together in the drawer.

The other day, I dumped the large nuts and bolts drawer onto a table. Somehow many of the nuts and bolts had separated. They were spread out across the vast white expanse like old friends that haven't seen each other in a while. Over time, they just lost touch with each other.

Now that he's gone, there's a part of me that wants to get out the gauge, sort the nuts & bolts and put them back together again, but not so much. I'd rather photograph the disorder for my own posterity and leave the sorting to the next generation.

Tusk, tusk.

This really is up close and personal, but I have to wonder, where are the teeth, teeth? Perhaps if I had only gotten in closer for a "Jonah" shot, I would have found them tucked away behind the gums, but I guess then I would have been on the inside looking out. However, I have since found out that elephants only have molars, in fact six sets of molars throughout their life. When one set wears out, the next one grows in. We only get two sets and have to buy the rest.

Framed art . . . no, Russ Framed.

Ok, so today I framed Russ, a big Italian landscaper, with a Cuban cigar and a Hawaiian shirt. It turned out to be an out-of-the ordinary portrait of an extraordinary guy. Fortunately, he loved it, or else he would have wrapped the fifty cent frame around me.

Framed

I have found that choosing the right frame for a picture is about as much fun as picking wallpaper, which is why all our walls are painted. I have found it more fun to take a frame with me and shoot until I find just the right picture for it.

So, over the past few years, we (that's editorial for "I") have been buying those large ornate frames that are the last items to be sold, or often given away, at tag sales. You know, the gawdy, over-gilded, tarnished frames that are chipped or cracked and have more screw hooks and wires in the back than the local hardware store.

As my inventory approached the clutter stage, I began overlapping my prized collection across the wide mantle in our studio. I told Lois it was a new art form. She bought it, and they stayed.

Train of thought

Our train of thought is focused on our next workshop scheduled for May 22, at the Danbury Railway Museum in Danbury, CT. We spent some time there last week scouting it out and getting some promo shots like this one.

It will be interesting to see the juxtaposition of old railroad cars and equipment from the past with the latest in today's digital camera technology. These trains rode the rails in the days of box and brownie cameras, instamatics and Polaroids. Our parents quietly added up the cost of each print as we took one picture after another and burned our fingers changing flashbulbs.

Now, as we prepare to visit the past, we think nothing of shooting a hundred or more images in less than an hour on our digital cameras. It doesn't mean they cost less, it's just that the technology just makes it easier and we really can see our pictures instantly.

You see, I still have the inexpensive, low-tech box and brownie cameras. It's the film and processing that's expensive, if you can find it. But the expensive "high tech" camera I bought five years ago is like an old pullman car sitting on a sidetrack somewhere waiting for a museum to clean it up so people can look at it and wonder how anyone could have used it.

Find a photographer

In our world of acronyms, professional photography groups like to promote their proprietary FAP, or "Find a Photographer," service that lists photographers by style, category and geography. But in this picture, it's more like "Where's Waldo," or perhaps WOP, "Where's our photographer."

Normally, photographers wear black to minimize reflection and hopefully allow them to be less obtrusive, but not this time. Lois opted for a bright green vest as we shot at the flea market. So what started as a cool image of a bunch of flatware ends up being a game of FOP, or "find our photographer."

Take a good look and FOP. We found her seven times. How many can you find?