Shadows and Light
Shadows and Light
As the season begins to color up from the greens of summer to all the colors of autumn, a black and white photo of waning summer sunlight.
It looks so mysterious, but it’s just my round galvanized tub with carrots growing in it and a few leaves around it, shadows, shapes, angles and lines, the wanted and unwanted, expected and unexpected, a new view on a common thing.
This photo is on traditional black and white film, taken with my Pentax K-1000 to capture the huge variety of textures and patterns without the distraction of color. I scanned the print, and someday may scan the negative.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
Thunder Moon
Moonrise
In 2006 I was still lugging around a few film cameras that could capture what my first little 2MP point-and-shoot digital could not. I’d been working with a number of local and larger land conservation groups for years and had a literal field day photographing and painting those beautiful areas as they recovered from industrial or other use, or were simply conserved as overgrown land that housed an ecosystem all their own.
Softened Layers
At the same time I was canoeing Chartiers Creek, sometimes for work but usually for fun, and from early morning until night I saw incredibly lovely scenes that I couldn’t catch in a moving canoe. I vowed to return some time to capture as many as I could in different areas.
Sentinels
I was familiar with Wingfield Pines as a large flood plain conservation area and also for its access to the creek, and I remembered at one evening event watching the moon rise over the ridge to the east, so when I got the idea to photograph the moon rising in summer using black and white film I chose that destination. Next full moon available was the Thunder Moon in July.
Mist in the Trees
Though it was a clear night, a mist rose with the moon. These were shot with film, and while I had my notes from a test session on a night with a partial moon, and from photographing the moon at other times, I knew the mist was a variable I couldn’t control, and I might possible end up with just a bunch of blur because the mist was moving across the open field, not hanging in the air like a fog.
Moonlight Through the Pines
When I got the photos back I was so disappointed at not being able to get the clarity I’d remembered in the moon and the surroundings that I put them away for a bit, then got them back out and decided I liked them for what they were. In fact, I find them quite magical. A few of them I like very much.
Path Across the Creek
And because a few of canoeing buddies didn’t want me wandering around on a full moon night in an isolated area alone, or walking in the creek with my camera gear and no one else around, they joined me.
Aliens
I truly need a better scanner, but since this is a “supermoon” month, I’ve decided to scan and share them anyway.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
All images in this post are copyright © Bernadette E. Kazmarski and may not be used without prior written permission.
In Another Context
In Another Context
Big snowflakes on the floor, shadows of paper snowflakes taped to the window. I found them fascinating.
On the rug.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
Way Down There
Way Down There
There’s a tunnel through the hill.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
Inside and Out
Inside and Out
Though the photo looks old, it’s not, but the building is, and on a misty, snowy winter day the rest of the city around the building is misted out while the Victorian light fixtures and gingerbread appear. And the tromp l’oeil of the semi-circular awning reflected in the glass makes it look like a dome, though half of it is indoors.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
A Shared Past
A Shared Past
Two ancient apple trees guard the entrance to a farm that no longer exists. What memories do those trees hold in all the years they’ve been welcoming visitors? And the land itself?
Another shot found in the moody light of a dark winter day after snowfall. Still glad I got lost chasing a tree on a hill.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
Birdwatching
Birdwatching
Mimi and Mr. Sunshine keep an eye on the activities at the bird feeders as the snow swirls around outside their window. Is it birdwatching, or meditation, both, or do the mesmerizing movements of the birds and snow lead to a meditative state? They do for me, but perhaps I’m overthinking this.
This photo won a Certificate of Excellence as a Black & White Photo in the 2011 Cat Writers’ Association Communication Contest.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
Walking Past the Fence
Walking Past the Fence
I often felt I wasn’t alone on the sidewalk as I walked past this fence. Perhaps this photo captures that feeling.
It’s a long-ago photo using black and white film with my old Pentax K1000, and the 50mm lens with the adapter that I typically use for extreme detail. I decided to walk around one bright and sunny early December day and see how the world looked through that lens. I’ve always felt this lens was more sensitive than most.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
A Fading Sun
A Fading Sun
These tired grasses sprouted, flourished and faded in the sun now wait their turn to give back to the earth as the sun fades before a storm.
I took this photo with black and white film in my old Pentax K1000. It suited the season.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
Tangled Light
“Tangled Light” desaturated 25%.
The sunlight has struggled between the leafy branches of the river birch and sifts down into the little teapot holding feverfew blossoms, crossing over each blossom with the shadow of another to reach the darkness of the leaves below.
Originally, I thought this would be a great straight black and white shot because of the contrast in the lights and darks and the abstract shapes it created. I don’t like the way my camera captures black and white, so I take the color photo into Photoshop and desaturate it because that captures more levels of gray.
“Tangled Light” in black and white.
But that one just fell absolutely flat for me—losing the lighter tone of the yellow created too many dark areas. So I tried one that was desaturated, but only to about 75%, and that is the one you see at the top. It’s just right.
Below is the original color version, which I like as well. In any case, the light traverses a tangled path.
“Tangled Light” in full color.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
Shadows and Light
Shadows and Light
As the season begins to color up from the greens of summer to all the colors of autumn, a black and white photo of waning summer sunlight.
It looks so mysterious, but it’s just my round galvanized tub with carrots growing in it and a few leaves around it, shadows, shapes, angles and lines, the wanted and unwanted, expected and unexpected, a new view on a common thing.
This photo is on traditional black and white film, taken with my Pentax K-1000 to capture the huge variety of textures and patterns without the distraction of color. I scanned the print, and someday may scan the negative.
. . . . . . .
If you are interested in purchasing this painting or any other originals I have posted here on Today, please contact me. I will also have prints of this painting after the exhibit.
Drum Cat
Drum Cat
That’s just what it is, drums and a cat.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
All images in this post are copyright © Bernadette E. Kazmarski and may not be used without prior written permission.
Thunder Moon
Moonrise
In 2006 I was still lugging around a few film cameras that could capture what my first little 2MP point-and-shoot digital could not. I’d been working with a number of local and larger land conservation groups for years and had a literal field day photographing and painting those beautiful areas as they recovered from industrial or other use, or were simply conserved as overgrown land that housed an ecosystem all their own.
Softened Layers
At the same time I was canoeing Chartiers Creek, sometimes for work but usually for fun, and from early morning until night I saw incredibly lovely scenes that I couldn’t catch in a moving canoe. I vowed to return some time to capture as many as I could in different areas.
Sentinels
I was familiar with Wingfield Pines as a large flood plain conservation area and also for its access to the creek, and I remembered at one evening event watching the moon rise over the ridge to the east, so when I got the idea to photograph the moon rising in summer using black and white film I chose that destination. Next full moon available was the Thunder Moon in July.
Mist in the Trees
Though it was a clear night, a mist rose with the moon. These were shot with film, and while I had my notes from a test session on a night with a partial moon, and from photographing the moon at other times, I knew the mist was a variable I couldn’t control, and I might possible end up with just a bunch of blur because the mist was moving across the open field, not hanging in the air like a fog.
Moonlight Through the Pines
When I got the photos back I was so disappointed at not being able to get the clarity I’d remembered in the moon and the surroundings that I put them away for a bit, then got them back out and decided I liked them for what they were. In fact, I find them quite magical. A few of them I like very much.
Path Across the Creek
And because a few of canoeing buddies didn’t want me wandering around on a full moon night in an isolated area alone, or walking in the creek with my camera gear and no one else around, they joined me.
Aliens
I truly need a better scanner, but since this is a “supermoon” month, I’ve decided to scan and share them anyway.
. . . . . . .
For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
All images in this post are copyright © Bernadette E. Kazmarski and may not be used without prior written permission.
Entering Reality
Entering Reality
Not so much what it looked like in life but the way my camera recorded images at this spot, all the figures outside the shadowed area looked vaguely abstracted, kind of cubist or sometimes just a shadowy rectangle because the sun was so bright on the pavement and on the river beyond. As they walked toward the shadow they gained detail. Interesting.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
All images in this post are copyright © Bernadette E. Kazmarski and may not be used without prior written permission.
Elongated Patterns
Elongated Shadows
The winter sun’s low angle creates dramatic elongated shadows as the afternoon wanes crossing the McKees Rocks Bridge, a a steel trussed through arch bridge over the Ohio River near Pittsburgh (you get to know bridge types when you live in a city with, well, 446 bridges within the city limits–three more than Venice, Italy–in a county with nearly 3,000 bridges and a state with 22,280 bridges, and that’s not counting the ones shorter than 20 feet that carry local traffic across streams or deep ravines). The double steel arches and criss-crossing trusses make an interesting pattern of light and shadow.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
Snowy Waiting Room
Snowy Waiting Room
All my wooden outdoor chairs on my deck got a little to a lot of snow cover, and just enough snow falling still. A little unusual on my deck.
Below, The Waiting Room.
Waiting For Summer
And one more, just a nice composition.
Snowy Arch
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
A Straight Line
A Straight Line
From last year, but something I saw just today.
Possibly a good way to begin the year, but virtually impossible for most of us.
But train tracks always fascinate me in their absolute perfection of line in this part of the country. This line variously clings to the side of a hill before running along the edge of a hill and crossing a number of tunnels and trestles. The topography is everywhere here—hills come in every shape and size, creeks and streams run down every hill and along the bottoms of hills, little back roads wind back and forth with creeks and yet the railroad lines predictably go in a straight line off to the horizon, aside from ones that make lovely gentle curves like another local line I photographed last week.
This line actually does go gently around a curve where it disappears in the distance.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
Rainy Window
Giuseppe watches the rain.
These are two photos from a series I took of one of my black cats looking out a rainy window. Today is rainy and contemplative and I thought I’d share them here; you can read the post about them on The Creative Cat.
Giuseppe looks away from the window.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
Holding Pattern
Holding Pattern
A songbird nest, filled only with cold snow, is snugly held not only in the reaching twigs of Japanese knotweed along the creek but also in the overall crisscross pattern the branches make from a certain angle.
Right on both sides of the solstice, the days seem uniformly short and the nights long, and often the weather, however it chooses to express itself, is incessant as we take on a holding pattern as well.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
At Rest
At Rest
The two baskets I use most often are still ready for me to swing by and pick them up on the way to the garden. They can have a good seasonal nap now when I hang them on the hook for storage.
A little bit of a diffuse glow filter applied.
At Rest
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
A Shared Past
A Shared Past
Two ancient apple trees guard the entrance to a farm that no longer exists. What memories do those trees hold in all the years they’ve been welcoming visitors? And the land itself?
Another shot found in the moody light of a dark winter day after snowfall. Still glad I got lost chasing a tree on a hill.
. . . . . . .
For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
What is the Goal?
What is the Goal?
Possibly just as much a question of my activities as my aesthetic intentions with my photographs of this one lone tree, at the top of a path at the top of a hill, clouds scudding across the sky on a dark winter afternoon, dark enough to dim the colors in the winter field. Something we should ask ourselves on a regular basis.
One conclusion was that I should get lost on country roads more often. I saw this from a distance, a ribbon of winding road before me and many hills and curves between me and the tree, and drove until I found it.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
Crystallized Pattern
Crystallized Pattern
Snow on pussy willow branches, early. Black and white, above, color, below.
Crystallized Pattern
Snow on pussy willow branches, early.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
Gargoyles Await Your Entrance
Gargoyles Guarding
These gargoyles guard the entrance of the Outlet Barn garden and gift shop. They are friendly with people and animals but can detect any evil spirit seen or unseen. I have merchandise there and I’m sure no evil spirits will enter the building while my goods are there.
PhotoShop desaturate and diffuse glow applied, lots of film grain.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
Today 