Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘impressionism’

Autumn color

Posted in Art, Autumn, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on October 30, 2023| 7 Comments »

How do you capture the beauty of the fall foliage? I like to try a variety different approaches with my camera.  These three images of the water retention pond in Kingstowne, only a mile or so from my townhouse, convey some of my impressions of this colorful season.

The first image is perhaps my favorite of the three. By photography the reflections in the water I was able to remove the details of the foliage and focus on the colors and the light. It reminds me a little of some impressionist paintings by Monet and others.

For the second photo, I pointed my camera at a particularly colorful patch of leaves that were being backlit and zoomed in quite a bit. In addition to the brilliant colors, I really like the interplay of the light and the shadows.

The third image is the most “traditional” in its approach to the foliage—it is the kind of photo that you might see on a calendar. It provides the “big picture” that I sometimes forget to include in my normal photography, when I tend to concentrate on capturing the details of a subject with a macro or telephoto lens.

This season of autumn color will soon be coming to an end. When I left my house yesterday morning, I couldn’t help but notice that all of the streets and yards in my neighborhood were covered with fallen leaves. Life, it seems, is all about changes and celebrating each new moment.

autumn colors

autumn colors

autumn colors

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

Read Full Post »

Pretty in pink

Posted in Gardening, Macro Photography, Photography, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

For much of my life I have loved impressionist paintings and especially those of Monet. Monet painted a series of approximately 250 paintings of Water Lilies (or Nymphéas) and they were the main focus of his artistic work for the last thirty years of his life, according to Wikipedia .

Last November I spent countless hours at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris visually exploring eight massive paintings of water lilies by Monet that covered the walls of two large oval rooms. The painting were all different and covered the themes of morning, clouds, green reflections, sunset, reflections of trees, clear morning in the willows, morning in the willows, and two willows.

The Musée de l’Orangerie allows you to see each of the paintings in high definition on the internet but navigation is not exactly direct. Click first in the left column of the main page on “Les Nymphéas” and then on “L’ensemble de l’Orangerie”  which brings you to a page with all of the paintings. You click on the painting you want to examine and click again on the box that says “explorez le tableau” (“explore the painting”). You then can drag your mouse to see each part of the painting or zoom in at 2x or 4x. There also are detailed explanations of the paintings in French that are fascinating, as is a history of Monet and these paintings. You get to that part of the website by following the previous directions and selecting “De Giverny à l’Orangerie” instead of “L’ensemble de l’Orangerie.” I should warn you that it is very easy to lose track of time as you take in the beauty of these paintings.

I love photographing water lilies surrounded by green lily pads, with reflections of their beauty in the dark water, the same flowers featured in Monet’s paintings. Until this past weekend, however, all the water lilies that I had seen had been pure white in color. At Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens I encountered and managed to photograph some water lilies that were a beautiful pink in color.  They made quite an impression on me.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

Read Full Post »