Here I have created a semi-abstract landscape, which reminds me a bit of A.Y. Jackson's style, as well as Toni Onley. Actually, I was inspired by a Chinese artist, Wu Guanzhong who I discovered by googling chinese masters. I like the loose style that Wu employs in his work, as well as his more modern style, which I prefer over the more traditional Chinese art. As I  become more familiar with the brush and ink, I have become a bit more brave with the subject matter. Here I try to create a focal point near the centre of the painting, by using contrast between light and dark, and between lines and dots. Movement is in a circular pattern. An acquaintance of mine said that it reminded her of being in the middle of an ocean. So by accident I created a bit of ambiguity, which I like.

Bird of Paradise

So I am progressing with my Chine brush  painting. The paper I am using is a  rice paper that smears beautifully. The brand name is Waterstar paper, and it comes from China. The ink I used is Japanese blue ink, although I haven't been able to achieve the blue colour. Apparently it must be highly diluted to get the blue tonality.
Chinese water colour employs the use of water and ink, using various types of brushes, inks, and  Chinese watercolour paints. The paints are not as saturated as typical western watercolours. The paper is almost translucent, so that one can actually paint on the back side of the paper, and have the colours come through.  Here I have used only the ink on the paper. Another chracteristic of Chines brush painting is that the negative areas on the paper is left unpainted, and this really appeals to me.

Rose

For the last four months I have been pursuing a new endeavour, that of Chinese water colour painting. I am under the tutelage of Henri Lee, a master watercolour artist who lives in Los Angeles. My initial paintings hopefully will reflect an improvement of my ability as a painter, as time goes on. Shown here is my first posted painting, a simply depiction of a rose.

Shooting in Shade

This shot was taken last year in the spring near Wainwright, Alberta, on a deserted farm. The sun was quite bright, being midday, but I was able to find a sheltered area behind the farmhouse. It was quite windy, and therefore the grass shows lots of movement. I liked the shapes of the two trees, forming a repeating pattern, which is always desirable in any composition. A wide angle lens, my WATE Leica lens set to 18 mm, was used to take the shot. I was very close to the tree in the foreground, almost standing right over it. But the wide angle gives it some depth. The image was shot with TMAX 100 film, and scanned. Its always a good idea to shoot landscapes in the shade during midday, thus eliminating a high contrast range that you would encounter in open sun.

Farm Scene

This shot was taken about a year ago, with my Leica M7, a film camera. I was shooting with Delta 400 I believe, and the tonality I achieved is really wonderful. This image was always appealing to me, and I think it had to do with the white trailer in the centre of the image, standing out because of the contrast. Without that white subject, in the midst of the grey tonality of the majority of the scene, it would be a bit boring. The tonality of the sky also lends an appealing aspect to the scene as a whole. The negative was scanned into my Mac, and was touched up a bit to achieve the proper contrast of the original negative, which was lost in the scan. One of my favourite shots.

Toronto Back Alley

This is one of my favourite images that I took in Toronto last winter. Taken just off Queen street, I was drawn to it initially by the graffiti seen in the right side of the frame. But I found the alley and the buildings of greater interest. The image has good repetition of shapes and lines, resulting in a good composition, as well as a central focal point, as defined by the alley which draws the eye to the centre of the photograph. The strong verticals are balanced by the horizontal lines, making the whole composition interesting. The day I took this shot, the weather was dreary, and the sky was grey, but even in this kind of light, nice colour and tonality is evident. Taken with my Leica M9, 50 mm Summicron.

Leica Black and White jpegs

It's been a while since I posted, and i thought I would start again with a black and white jpeg, straight out of my Leica M9. This is a picture of my mother in law, Nancy. She objected to me taking the shot, but I took it anyway. I took it because I had just finished reading an article by Thorsten Overgaard, about jpegs taken with the Leica M9. They are not your run of the mill jpegs. Leica does something to them that makes it hard to discriminate them from a DNG file. Fine detail is held in the file, and the wonderful Leica lenses suffer little from glare problems when shooting into a bright background. In addition, I also used a gold reflector to shine some light back into her face.

I like Thorsten Overgaard's analyses of the Leica M9, since he uses it in all his photography. He works for Getty Images, and shoots a variety of commercial images. He gives workshops around the world, some for the "filthy rich". His weekly blog gives a lot of good information about Leica in general, and a lot of instruction on how to shoot in the digital age. I highly recommend him.