Documentary – Page 39

Friday: Fungi

three photographs
one tree
my beloved box elder
succumbing

(click photograph for larger view)

Leica R8/DMR, 100 mm Apo Macro Elmarit 1:2.8

Leica R8/DMR, 180 mm Apo Elmarit 1:2.8, 2X Apo

For love of the line

(click photograph for larger view)

Leica R8/DMR, 100 mm Apo Macro Elmarit 1:2.8

Black and white plant portraits

(click photograph for larger view)

Leica R8/DMR, 560 mm 1:6.8 Telyt w/extension tube

or should it be color?

Leica R8/DMR, 180 mm 1:2.8 Apo Elmarit, + 2X Apo

Visiting with our tiny neighbors

(click photographs for larger view)

Leica R8/DMR, 100 mm Apo Macro Elmarit 1:2.8 (on bellows)

Leica R8/DMR, 560 1:6.8 Telyt (with extension tube)

Remains

temporary containers
still life

(click photograph for larger view)

Canon 5D, 24 – 70 mm 1:2.8 L USM

The Remains by Mark Strand

I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road.
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.

What good does it do? The hours have done their job.
I say my own name. I say goodbye.
The words follow each other downwind.
I love my wife but send her away.

My parents rise out of their thrones
into the milky rooms of clouds. How can I sing?
Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same.
I empty myself of my life and my life remains.

The Leica User Group has been discussing the use of sharpening when post processing digital camera files. The Leica M8, M9 and DMR use CCD sensors without anti-alias filters. A number of us on the list believe that increases the rendering of fine detail and makes the use of sharpening an optional, aesthetic choice, rather than a necessary one.

The photograph below, from a RAW DMR file was processed in Lightroom with image sharpening at 0, and Output sharpening at OFF.

(click photograph for larger view)

Leica R8/DMR, 100 mm Apo Macro Elmarit

a section from the file

Friday’s flower – interbeing

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, “‘Looking deeply’ means observing something or someone with so much concentration that the distinction between observer and observed disappears. The result is insight into the true nature of the object. When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. It “inter-is” with everything else in the universe.” …INTERBEING

This “looking deeply” implies “being with” — looking beyond our “ordinary” views.

(click photograph for larger view)