It’s been too long since I took some time out for photography – even just 20 minutes to make new images. In fact it’s been more than four weeks since I made my little Lensbaby Sees Red, Infrared series. That is way too long, but work has had me bogged down!

I start getting agitated when I go for too long without creating new images. Who said anything about an addiction?

The other day I had a good exchange of e-mails with a photography friend from the blogoshere –  Trond Haugerud – who is in similar situation as me (and many other people I’m sure).

We are trying to juggle work, young children, partners, social lives and photography all while surfing around the internet as well! Oh yeah, and Trond is squeezing in a phd as well.

Anyway, we arrived at the conclusion that we were both trying to do all the things we did before we had kids. We agreed that it was time to look at how we could prioritize things better in order to get photography back on top of the list of things to do regularly.

Photography is important stuff. No one wants an agitated husband or wife running around the house pulling out their hair, do they!?

Impermanence #01

Today I found a large fig leaf on the concrete ground just outside our warehouse and office. It was an unusual place to find a huge fig leaf as we are located on the upper level of a large business complex where no trees grow nearby. It must have blown up there after the stormy night we had in Sydney last night.

The leaf was incredibly beautiful. Stunning colours, an almost leather-like texture, attractive lines and intricate veins.

Well, it was beautiful to my eyes, some might have not even glanced at it. Some might have found it ugly. Others might have thought it less than perfect. But it was love at first sight for me.

I picked the leaf up and took it with me inside. Instinctively I knew I would want to photograph it later. It would be a photograph of impermanence.

Impermanence #02

The term impermanence is often also interchanged with the term wabi-sabi.

Wabi-sabi represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience. The phrase comes from the two words wabi and sabi. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”.

This is a very intriguing concept and if you want to study the idea of wabi-sabi in more details I recommend that you pick up Leonard Koren’s book Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers. It’s an excellent read.

Impermanence #03

The Canadian photographer Richard Martin has also writen an excellent article on the topic of wabi-sabi in the Canadian photography magazine Photo Life relatively recently, and he also displays some excellent Wabi-sabi images in his Metal Works gallery on his website.

Another photography friend from the blogoshere – Scott Crane – also displays some incredibly beautiful and creative wabi-sabi images on his photoblog The Oswegan which is well worth a visit.

Impermanence #04

Anyway, back to the leaf story.

I barely greeted Myriam and Laura as I walked in the door just past six o’clock. Thanks to daylight savings I still had a good 30 minutes of reasonably bright light although the light was already starting to fade. I was determined to satisfy my urge and make some photographs, plus it was overcast and therefore a perfect day to make some leaf studies.

I grabbed my relatively new Canon 5DMKII which has seen much too little use since I got it in exchange for my Hasseblad XPAN II. I fitted my 100mm macro lens on it, got the tripod (which was dusty!) and stepped out on the balcony and got into it straight away.

Impermanence #05

I entered the beautiful world of macro photography for about 20 minutes, and though quite a short time, it was enough of a burst to at at least quench the immediate thirst. But when you are really thirsty and have a glass of water, you feel like a second glass shortly after the first one! Note to self: make more time to make images.

Impermanence #06

As you can see above I have made several different images of just the one leaf. In total I made 16 images and six of them are included with this rambling.

There is little doubt that investing even just a little bit of time in your subject is one of the easiest ways to become more creative. Look deeper and you shall find.

I hope these images have inspired you to look for impermanence and photograph it. Find some beauty in the imperfect.

As any photographer I enjoy feedback. I aspire to make an interactive website. So please feel free to chime in with a comment. What do you think about the concept of impermanence. Do you look for subjects that might be less than perfect seen with ‘traditional’ eyes? Do you have a favourite among the six images displayed above? I’d love to hear from you.

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Yesterday I picked up my Lensbaby macro lens kit at the post office (along with a telephoto kit and a set of creative apertures) and today I had an opportunity to make a few images with it.

Oh boy, am I going to have a lot of fun with the two macro lenses that come in this kit? You bet!

So how does it work? Well, it’s super easy.

Obviously first of all you need to have a Lensbaby if you don’t have one already. Choose between the Muse, Control Freak or the Composer.

I have both the Muse and the Composer but I much prefer the Composer which is also the latest lens the creative people at Lensbaby have put on the market.

The macro kit itself comes with two lenses: +4 and +10. The macro lenses simply screw on to the front of the Lensbaby. The +4 lens focuses to 6 to 13″ (15 to 33cm) and the +10 lens focuses to 3 to 6″ (7.6 to 15cm). You can also stack the two lenses and focus as close as 2 to 3″ (5 to 8cm).

As with any macro lens these two macro lenses open up a whole new world of amazing image possibilites.

Today I put my Lensbaby Composer on my Canon 20D which I have had converted to a dedicated infrared camera a few months ago. The good folks over at LifePixel did the conversion for me. I can highly recommend them, they are quick, easy and professional to deal with.

I’m yet to experiment a lot more with infrared photography, but I really like the effect you can achieve with a dedicate infrared camera. You can see some examples of black and white infrared images in my posts Infrared Black and White and More Infrared Black and White.

In the case of these images I didn’t convert them to black and white as I really liked the rich red brown tones that emerged as I messed around with the images in Lightroom. 

What do you think? If you have made any infrared images I’d love to see them. Just share a link in the comments to this post.

P.S. You guessed it. The edge effect was created using OnOne Software’s PhotoFrame plug-in for Photoshop. Use the coupon code 24SEVEN at check-out to receive an immediate 20% discount.

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