karen maze photoblog

Last weekend, the two of us drove out to Joshua Tree. We’ve been talking about doing a “Painting With Light” project out there for a long time. If you’re not familiar with the technique, during a long exposure, you use a light source (usually a flashlight, strobe or speedlite) to add to the ambient exposure. You really get the feeling of “painting” when you use a flashlight, because you end up applying using a brushing motion to add light more to certain areas than others, according to your artistic license. It’s a really fun technique - and one I hadn’t done since taking photography classes at Santa Monica College about 8 years ago. We learned a lot on our first outing…

• We”ll be bringing additional flashlights on our next trip. As it was, only one of us could be painting.
• Also, a stop watch. Or just a watch…our “One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand” method of counting out the exposure length was woefully inaccurate, as the EXIF data later revealed.
• Gloves. It gets colder than you think out there.

The results of our efforts are below. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as we enjoyed taking them. I can’t wait to get out there again soon.

We chose the exposure we wanted for the moonlight and sky, then selectively painted in the foreground with our flashlight. Some post production in Adobe Lightroom.

This was a much longer exposure than the photo above - almost 6 minutes. Just a kiss from the flashlight during the exposure adds extra detail in the tree.

Nothing fancy here. A straightforward silhouette against the desert sky.

It's hard to resist that desert sky.

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-km

What is it about the middle of the night that makes me want to work so hard? I sat down at the computer around 9PM last night, thinking I’d do a few things until 10 or 11. A couple of demands for attention from the cat notwithstanding, I was still staring at the screen, ready to do more at 4AM.

What kept me up so late last night was an update to my website. I’ll be honest, I’m not in love with my website. I think it serves me well enough for now, but does it say to me “I’m so KAREN MAZE”? No. As I continue to home in on what exactly I want it to do for me, I like being able to do it myself. But those days are going to come to an end.  Outsourcing it is looking more and more like a good idea. But not yet…not just yet. Please check it out by clicking here or on the photo below. Be sure to check out the Recent Work page. It is brand new, has selected images from New Zealand, my day with Poptart and Brent, and more.

On New Year’s Eve I posted my first article on Examiner.com. I am the new Los Angeles Neighborhood Photography Examiner. I applied on a bit of a whim and mostly out of curiosity, but now that I’ve dipped my toe into the Examiner.com pool, it feels just right. It’s caused me to think more about the Los Angeles photo community more than ever before. It inspires me to get out and talk to people (I can be a bit shy sometimes!) and having a forum for their stories adds a new layer of interest. I’ll be covering photo-related events, gallery openings, museum exhibits, interviewing local photographers of all types, and more. If you have something you’d like me to write about, comment below or send me an email: karen[at]karenmaze[dot]com.

Like all of you, I’ve been touched by the ongoing suffering of the earthquake victims in Haiti, and by the frustration of so many people who want so badly to help, but are held up by a lack of infrastructure and the sheer mass of the devastation. If you’d like to make a donation, you can do so through these websites:

Red Cross

iTunes

Clinton Bush Haiti Fund

Whichever method you choose (I used iTunes), please make sure it’s a trustworthy organization. It’s lamentable that there are people out there who take advantage at times like these, but there’s no denying their existence.

I am going to get out and take some pics now. The rain has stopped and the tornado warning (!) is over. It wasn’t for my area of LA, but STILL! Los Angeles is never more beautiful than after a rain storm. We’re getting four of them this week (2 down, 2 to go), so there should be some incredible vistas out there.

By the way, my Examiner.com income is based on the traffic my page receives - so click away, won’t you? I’ll strive to write content you’ll find interesting and indispensable, so I hope you’ll head over there now and click on “Subscribe”. And by all means, tell your friends.

Happy shooting, y’all!

-km

Human population = 4 million

Sheep population = 40 million

I made a short photo trip to Fresno in July. It’s in the Central Valley (as in, San Joaquin Valley) of California, about 200 miles north of Los Angeles. I had never been there before and what I found was a hub of trade, transportation, and agriculture.

1) Fresno Train Station. This is the new facade, a revitalized version of the classic. 2) "Fresno" is the Spanish word for "ash tree". The leaf of the ash tree is featured on the county flag. 3) Marquee of the Tower Theater in downtown Fresno. 4) A veritable tree of forklifts.

Drive five minutes out of the bustling downtown and you’re suddenly surrounded by grape, apricot, corn and a host of other crops as far as the eye can see.  Along with several hundred photos, I came home with a car full of local produce, including grapes and pluots - fresh, organic and local - alive with flavor like I’d never tasted before.

1) Farmers Market peppers.2) Grapes grow along the side of a road in Fresno. 3) Fresh Fresno peppermint plant.

but it was an acquired taste.

Most of the time, I’m something of a sharpness freak. Soft images make me crazy…absolutely nutso! That’s because softness often robs what might otherwise be a great photo of its power, its “wow factor.” The eye hunts for the sharpest point in the photo. If it has to hunt too long, or isn’t satisfied when it gets there, it’s a fail. In some cases, another element in the photo can be so powerful that the softness is not a distraction. Phew! But squeaking by on what, to me, amounts to a technicality is not the goal. Unless, that is, I’m in a situation where I can embrace the blur.

For me, this idea was born of laziness. It had gotten dark and the tripod was all the way back in the trunk of my car. I’m no heart surgeon. There’s no way I am going to get sharp images hand-held at 1/30. So I blurred the heck out of the images. I spun. I shook. I practiced my triple toe loop. And I got some images I like a lot. So much, that I started doing it even when I didn’t have to.

There’s a bigger issue at play here: Intention. It’s probably the most important element of commercial and fine art. Did you mean to do that? Heck yes! Think about why you chose to do what you did. There’s a reason, even if you weren’t aware of it at the time.

Blur is just one of the tools available to communicate with your viewer. In the case of seascapes (#1 & #3), it emphasizes the line and color. Each element of the scene flows indistinguishably into the next, like the sound of waves lapping onto the shore. It’s peaceful, serene, other-worldly. Sometimes, as in photo #2, I like to make the image completely abstract (it’s sky and sunlit ocean peeking through through the pylons under Santa Monica Pier, btw) .

In the case of the beach with mountains photo (#5), I was interested in the mood and didn’t want to get caught up in the details that can keep our minds looking, guessing, racing (is that girl too deep in the water? Where is her mother? I hope she’s wearing sun screen. What’s up with that guy’s hat?). It’s not about the people as individuals, or even that moment in time. It’s about the feeling of spending time on a beautiful beach.

For Christmas is a Blur (#6), I broke out my Lensbabies 2.0. I was interested in capturing a unique Christmas image that captured what, for me, represents the spirit of the season without being too literal.

Do you blur? I’d love to see your intentionally blurry pics. Put links in your comments below.

Ebb & Flow

Light vs. Dark

Awash

Into the Light

Beautiful Day

Christmas is a Blur

-km

I get a major kick out of being published. It raises the stakes, focuses the mind, and makes everything way more fun. This month, I can point to  San Diego Magazine and say “I shot that cover.” (Are you still reading?? GO GET ONE!)

Ok, seriously…This was my first time working with San Diego Magazine. It came about because I sent an email to a former colleague who is now an art director there. I just wanted to remind her that I’m here and available for assignments. A few weeks later, my phone rang. After a few phone calls and emails back and forth, I was driving to San Diego to shoot the job.

The assignment was to photograph food and drink from at Ortega’s Mexican Bistro in the Hillcrest area of San Diego. The directive was that people should see the photo and say “I want THAT!”

Ortega’s had many different options available to us in terms of location, props, food and drink. We decided early on to concentrate on a couple of different margaritas and two locations within the restaurant and play with those. My main concern was that the background provide some interest without getting in the way of the subject or any text that the magazine might want to place on top of the image. The colored glass window you see on the cover fit the bill perfectly.

The shoot went very well and as fate would have it, the image they selected for the cover (a Rasperry Mint Margarita, yum!) is mine. I was eager to do the job cover or not, but I won’t deny being more than happy about how it turned out.

-km

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I was on my way to meet TSNY's Jonathon Conant for the first time when I saw this scene. Taken from behind the school, looking toward Malibu.

This was taken on the night of TSNY LA's opening celebration. Taken from the roof of the Arcade next door.

This is Poptart Sprinkle. She would 'fly' (as trapeze folks call it) at TSNY LA often when I first started taking pics there. Poptart's drive, energy, and creativity make her a force to be reckoned with. She's pushed me to new heights as a photographer.

Poptart on the rings, a shot from our most recent shoot on the beach in Santa Monica.

July 27, 2009…I’ve chosen these photos for my first post as a reminder that sometimes you should just listen to that little voice inside. Don’t question it. Don’t reason with it. Just do what it says.

Like so many photographers starting out, I used to have a lot of angst about what I was doing, what I should be doing, what other people thought I should be doing. Even the simplest of projects felt like an enormous challenge in some way or another. When I wasn’t struggling to overcome my shyness to put myself out there and meet new people, I was stressed out because I had to apply a technique under pressure for the first time - or both. Sometimes I’d wonder why I put myself through it.

I’ve always loved the Santa Monica Pier. The iconic status, the beach atmosphere, the history…It’s also one of the most photographed places in LA. I spent a good deal of time thinking about unique projects I could do involving the Pier, but none of them pulled strongly enough. Then one day about a year and a half ago, I heard that Trapeze School New York was going to be opening its Los Angeles location right next to the arcade. How cool! I didn’t know anything about trapeze, but I knew that I wanted to photograph it. A quick email later, I was in touch with Jonathon Conant at Trapeze School New York, and he invited me down. It was a pivotal move for me - and believe me I was nervous. But after one day of shooting at TSNY LA, I thought to myself ‘this is what I’ve been practicing for all this time. And it’s fun!’

That’s what it comes down to. Photography and all it entails can be an incredible pain in the butt. At the end of the day, if I’m doing this right, it should still be fun. So far, so good.

-km