What a gorgeous light with which to end the year, and also a good way to end it, i.e., with a long walk around a now familiar old park. For 2012: into the neighborhoods for more Americana (and historic architecture) and, possibly, people by way of old fashioned street shooting.
Fairgrounds Park – Magic Hour – 11/7/2011, originally uploaded by James S. Oppenheim.
From just a little earlier this year, but certainly worth a brag. The series within the set involving branches and the moon is available via Fine Art America’s print-on-demand service: http://james-oppenheim.artistwebsites.com/ — Enjoy!
Click here to view additional photographs from the series..
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Mikasa Vase
Fenton Green “Vasoline” Glass Slipper
Tashira Shoten Teapot
Turtle Riding Imp
Noritake Teacup
“Nebula” Paperweight by Glass Eye Works of Seattle
Lucite Paperweight With Gulls
Obsideon Stone Earring
Victorian Amber Crystal Doorknob
Handblown Inkwell
For some time now, I’ve enjoyed working with one lamp, usually with a “snoot” on it, and a black velvet pad inside what the industry calls a “light tent”. A circular polarizing filter on the lens cuts and controls reflections, as does the geometrical relationship betweeen light source, object, and camera, and the rest involves a reasonable positioning of the object, choice of exposure, and judicious post-processing.
Lighting: Alien Bees B800 with 10-percent grid or snoot plus, here and there, a sheet of diffusion paper.
Camera: Nikon D2x with either a 60mm f/2.8 Nikkor or an old 35-105mm f/3.3-4.5 AF Nikkor. Both lenses feature strong “macro” capabilities.
Surfaces: black velvet mat and plexiglass.
The winter has brought me a neighbor who collects and trades through the local and national auction markets. Some things he keeps and some he sells, but whether to the box or curio cabinet, one may appreciate both the artistry and craft involved in the creation of exquisite objects and observe–much harder to see–the love of the tangible that quietly sustains markets for them.
Barn visible off of Longmeadow Road on the parcel south of The Good Shepherd Ministries, Jan. 2, 2010.
As I feel I should, I’m picking up the pace on shooting, in general, and getting out in the surrounding rural landscape, in particular, and following up with greater involvement in tonal iteration and in computer-generated illustration.
I’ve fiddled with the above in color too:
My photographs have a sound architecture and Nikon-driven veracity as regards the representation of the real. However, one wants to push at the interior seams of the digital envelope, punching up the impact on the way and, sigh, struggling to avoid just that touch too much of magenta.
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Communicating Arts - The Journal 
