What is it about Monhegan Island that gets your creative juices flowing? Maybe it’s the how beautiful it is; ocean, cliffs, forests, gardens, island life. Maybe it’s the sense of getting away from it all; the island is 12 miles out to sea. Maybe it’s the creative community on the island; it’s had a long history as an artist’s colony. Whenever I’m on the island I give myself license to play – writing, drawing, photographing and dreaming.

Here’s a selection of my iPhone images made on recent excursions to Monhegan Island.

Find out more about my Monhegan Island photographic workshop here.

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Charles Adams (my assistant both in the studio and in the field) is having his first exhibition this coming Friday, May 4th at Asymmetrick Arts in Rockland, Maine. It will run until May 25th.

24  of his images will be on display, along with sculpture from artist Vic Goldsmith. For those that cannot make the opening, there will also be an Artist talk on May 19th.

May 4 – 25
Asymmetrick Arts
405 Main Street, Rockland ME
207.954.2020

Learn more about Charles Adams and view his images here.

Visit Asymmetrick Arts here.

Category: Artists, Event, Exhibit, Images
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These images came together quickly – after a lot of gestation. I sketched the idea several years ago during a workshop with Focus On Nature. I made the shots last summer, scouting for another workshop with Ragnar th Sigurdsson and Arthur Meyerson. The first time I visited this location, (Skogafoss, Iceland) I took a few shots in less than half an hour, looking for major compositional variations. After looked at those shots and identified this idea, I shot very differently the next time, standing still for the better part of an hour and watching the water for significant variations within just a few compositions.

I wasn’t certain, but I suspected I’d want to add an accent to the abstract composition, deciding on smoke during processing. While I processed the files, I also sketched out a number of significant variations to test location of symmetry/assymetry, positive/negative space, light/dark, and location/angle/value of smoke. Doing this revealed more options than I had initially pre-visualized. And that means there are more related images to make. It also clarified a few outstanding ideas and connections to other images, some made and some still in development. That means I have some ideas about how they’ll can be integrated into existing projects and new things that will come out of them. I find the seeds of future work are usually planted in current work and if tended will yield more fruit.

I think about and plan series of images, often for quite some time before and over an extended period of time during their development. While I’m focussed, I look for surprises and modify my plans based on the new insights they introduce at every creative stage – planning, exposure, development, reflection, redevelopment, metamorphosis.

Find more images here.

Find out about my Iceland workshops here.

Category: iceland, Images
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I’ve just completed a new suite of images from Sossusvlei, Namibia.

You can view previous images from Namibia here.

You can find more images here.

Category: Images, Namibia
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My Top 20 2011 Images

January 4, 2012 | 2 Comments

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One of the things I like to do at the beginning of each year is identify my top images from the previous year. It’s always helpful see what was accomplished; it feels good. More than just assembling the images together, asking a set of questions makes this process truly helpful.

What kinds of images were produced?

What common qualities do they share?

What would you like to do more of?

What project would benefit from more sustained attention?

Are there frequent deficiencies you’d like to correct?

What haven’t you done yet?

What missing?

From these images, how many directions could you go in?

Of all the possibilities you could pursue, which are the easiest to accomplish?

Of all the possibilities you could pursue, which are the most important?

 

Here are my top 20 images from 2011. I’m now selecting my top 12.

Which one’s would you include?

View more images here.

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Images are updated for my posts on my recent 2011 Antarctica Voyage.

You can see all new images and read the stories behind them.

Visit my Antarctica blog today.

Find out about my 2013 Antarctica digital photography workshop here.

Category: antarctica, Images
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We do lightning fast reviews of participant’s images in my digital photography workshops. We discuss what works and why and what doesn’t and why not. It’s wonderful to see how different the images are, made by individuals in the same situations using the same tools. A lot of learning happens by simply sharing images and spontaneous responses to them.

Here’s a sampling from participants in my 2011 Iceland workshop.

Find out about my 2012 Iceland digital photography workshop here.

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Category: iceland, Images, Workshops
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The patterns found in a majority of my images were created by nature. Yet the surfaces in these pictures are not untouched by me. I have influenced them all: by selection of moment; by choice of perspective; by use of tool; by inclusion and exclusion with the picture frame; by further eliminations from and additions to what remains within the picture frame; by changing proportion; by orchestrating color; by creating symmetries; etc. I consider all of these opportunities to collaborate with the hand of nature.

With growing frequency, traces of my physical presence are displayed in my images. Sometimes I set things on fire. Sometimes, I push and pull smoke with my breath. Sometimes, I toss ash in the air. At other times, I create ripples in water. In this case, the circles and trails in the receding foam were created by placing my feet in the pulsing surf.

I prefer that the marks I make in nature remain ephemeral. In this way, the next person who experiences the same location I was in, is free to experience it in their own ways. If we’re lucky, we may even be able to compare our experiences. The only durable mark I leave in my process is the photograph itself.

The impulse to acknowledge my involvement in every moment and create something beautiful from it, has been growing stronger and stronger within me.

View / read more here.

Category: Images, Statements
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This slideshow presents multiple variants of the same image.

View 8 images simultaneously here.

Preview the book Refraction here.

Read the accompanying artist’s statement here.

See the prints for the first time at my annual exhibit New Work 2011.

Category: Images, Slideshow
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77 images. Inspiring text.

Read the accompanying essay here.

View more books here.

Many new images will be displayed for the first time in my upcoming exhibit New Work 2011.

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I issue quantum editions of select images from my series Refraction; the viewer can choose how many and which versions they would like created for them.

To date most of these editions offer variations in the number and position of the lights within them. In this image, variations in states of the background are presented.

Changing states and different rates of change are important themes in all of my work.

I find reversal to be the most rewarding creative strategy. Whether it succeeds or fails, I always learn something valuable from trying it.

Read my ebooks Reversal and Breaking the Rules.

See more new 2011 images here, here, here, and here.

The exposures for this image were made in Iceland.
Learn about my Iceland digital photography workshops here.

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My series Refraction has challenged the way I think in so many ways from the moment the first image appeared.

The series is informed by modern physics and the nature of light. An observer influences what’s observed. The questions they ask and the way they ask them influences the answers they get. The universe is similar to a holograph in that information in one location can be found in another simultaneously. Two people in different positions can see the same rainbow as existing in different locations. Perception is relative, to some degree.

In this series, I found that multiple compositions that worked were possible and that it seemed appropriate for the first time to present them simultaneously. So I produce ‘quantum editions’ for this series. People purchasing a given print can choose both which and how many variations they want produced for them.

I’ve never seen this done before -  but that’s doesn’t dissuade me.

I like to innovate!

See more new 2011 images here, here, and here.
The exposures for this image were made in Iceland.
Learn about my Iceland digital photography workshops here.

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I often find the same compositional strategies, patterns, subjects and themes resurface in our work. Sometimes the ideas from two different images merge into a new one. I pay close attention to these visual bridges as they help me understand the both the similarities and differences between individual images and series.

In Inhalation 29 two series (Inhalation and Suffusion) cross-pollinate.
For more on this read my ebook Combination.

The exposures for this image were made in Iceland.
Learn about my Iceland digital photography workshops here.

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I recently produced these two images Inhalation VA & B while completing the long-standing series.

I only use the same source materials in composites when I want there to be a strong connection between the separate images. I like to produce serial images, where a change in state is displayed between the separate frames. I like the sense of disappearance between these two frames. And I like that even though an empty space is left by the absence of the ice, the space left behind is still very full.

More than one picture is required to produce a body of work. The separate images within it reinforce each other. I sometimes find the same is true of individual images within a series.

When does a situation benefit from multiple images and serial images? It’s a guiding question I hold with me wherever I go.

The source images for this image were exposed at Jokulsarlon during my annual Iceland workshop.

Find out about my Iceland digital photography workshops here.

Find more images here.

Find my books here.

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Every year I take an extended period of time to make new images.

These two images came through last night.
They’re part of my series Exhalation.
They’ll soon to be collected in a new Blurb book, portfolio, and exhibit.
Formally they explore giving symmetry a twist and white.
Thematically they suggest that the whole of nature can be seen as being alive.

The two source images are of Antarctic clouds and icebergs on the horizon.

Read more to see the source files … Read more

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The latest issue of View Camera Magazine features my father, Paul Caponigro with a special portfolio of unpublished work from 1959-2009.

64 pages of images with inspiring and insightful text.

“The eminent designer Eleanor Morris Caponigro has established a pace and rhythm here that allows each picture to breathe.  See how each refers to the one before it and sets up the next. A record of an amazing life – an astonishing achievement – climbs to elusive harmonious heights. ” – Michael Moore

Find more at View Camera

Read our father son conversation

Read over 40 conversations with photographers

Category: Artists, Artists On Art, Books, Images, Magazine, People, Photographers, photography, Published, Reading
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Earth is truly beautiful when viewed from space. The U.S. Geological Survey has released a new selection of particularly interesting images from the Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 satellites, prolific sources of data for earth scientists. WIRED magazine selected their favorites from the USGS’ Earth as Art collection, which will take you on a tour of the world from the glaciers of Antarctica to the deserts of Algeria.

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Here are a few of the keepers participants made during last weekend’s White Sands 2010 workshop. Sunrise and sunset locations were complemented by midday reviews. We’ll do it again in 2011!

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Here are a few of the keepers participants made during last weekend’s Santa Fe 2010 workshop. We had great locations – Tent Rocks, Red Rocks, Ghost Ranch, Echo Amphitheater, White Place, Taos Gorge, and Great Sand Dunes National Monument. Sunrise and sunset locations were complemented by midday reviews. We’ll do it again in 2011!

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Here are some of the selected images from this years Maine Fall Foliage Workshop.

Find out about my digital photography workshops here.

Category: Alumni, Images, photography, Workshops
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