Photography and the Creative Process

Maritime Abstraction

Bill Gatesman — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:11:30 +0000

In a total departure from my usual practice of creating black and white photographs of people, I present to you the image I call “Maritime Abstraction”, a photograph I shot at Grand Manan Island in Canada a couple of years ago.

Maritime Abstraction

This photo is featured in the new Abstract Imagery gallery at www.wmgphoto.com. Also showing in that gallery is another abstract image I created using a pinhole camera made out of a tubular oatmeal box.

Available Dark Photography

Bill Gatesman — Tue, 25 May 2010 17:14:36 +0000

Shooters who take photographs in low light without using flash refer to their action as available light photography. Some wags, when touting their camera’s ability to take pictures in extremely low ambient light, refer to this as “available dark” photography. In this image, my subject’s face was illuminated by the birthday candle. The exposure overall was fine, except that the candle flame and cupcake were severely overexposed, so I had to adjust those elements in Photoshop. I think that this picture is a good example of available dark photography.

Subject illuminated by candlelight

Pinhole Photograph

Bill Gatesman — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 18:56:55 +0000

I took a basic photography course in college in 1981. In that class I made a pinhole camera out of a tubular oatmeal box in which I exposed photographic paper. The image below was created using that pinhole camera.

Still Life Gallery Opens

Bill Gatesman — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:36:08 +0000

I have opened a new Still Life gallery at my Online Photo Gallery. While my interest has centered on photographing people in recent years, I have a number of pictures that can best be described as still life images.

The photo in this post, Table Plane Study, is one such example. I was particularly struck by the way the several mirrors in the image portrayed the table top. That scene presents a study in planes, which I captured upon strolling into an antique shop in Washington, D.C. over 20 years ago.

Table Plane Study

Spirit of a Boy

Bill Gatesman — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:52:14 +0000

Going through a box of old work prints, I came across this image which I call Spirit of a Boy. In this instance, I made a number of exposures of my young son, backlit as he stood before a window in a camp facility in upstate New York. I wasn’t sure about the metering of the light. While my subject is extremely underexposed in this picture, the resulting image makes for quite a striking photograph.

Spirit of a Boy