Snow. Evening. City. Traffic. And a guy with a camera…I like where this went.
09
May 12
This Guy!
![]();" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carusophoto/7165841164/" title="This Guy!" rel="flickr-mgr" class="flickr-image"><img src="http://farm9.static.flickr.com/8009/7165841164_11f17a51a7.jpg" alt="This Guy!" class="flickr-small aligncenter" title="I was at a local lawn and garden store buying some potting soil when this fellow jumped into my shopping cart. He said, "who wears a red hat and has a thumb? This guyyyyy!" I knew I had to take him home so he could live in our gnome garden...where he)
I was at a local lawn and garden store buying some potting soil when this fellow jumped into my shopping cart. He said, “who wears a red hat and has a thumb? This guyyyyy!” I knew I had to take him home so he could live in our gnome garden…where he’s fitting in just perfectly.
07
May 12
The Geometry of Smoking
![The Geometry of Smoking](http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5311/7006695310_6bce4d8df0.jpg "I love scenes that just get the old noggin' to thinking. My wife saw this sign and said, "now there's a picture for you!" And she was right. So out came the camera and click went the shutter.")
I love scenes that just get the old noggin’ to thinking. My wife saw this sign and said, “now there’s a picture for you!” And she was right. So out came the camera and click went the shutter.
05
May 12
Rock Path
![]();" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carusophoto/7145624903/" title="Rock Path" rel="flickr-mgr" class="flickr-image"><img src="http://farm8.static.flickr.com/7041/7145624903_e98c8fc700.jpg" alt="Rock Path" class="flickr-small aligncenter" title="Some days, you photograph the house. Other days, it)
Some days, you photograph the house. Other days, it’s the path. This day was one of those “other days.”
I tried photographing this scene from a variety of angles with a variety of lenses. I finally settled on emphasizing the cool rock path…and what better way to emphasize something in the foreground than going ultra-wide. In this case, it was fisheye-wide.
04
May 12
Dandelion Trio No. 1 & 2
![]();" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carusophoto/6996442438/" title="Dandelion Trio 1" rel="flickr-mgr" class="flickr-image"><img src="http://farm8.static.flickr.com/7137/6996442438_9607354dc5.jpg" alt="Dandelion Trio 1" class="flickr-small aligncenter" title="Ah, the beauty of diffused light! I saw these dandelions while I was photographing an unrelated scene...and was delighted when this photo turned out to be one of the highlights of the day.
It just goes to show, one never knows where the next photograph will be found, so it behooves us to keep our eyes open." longdesc="" /></a><br />
Dandelion Trio 1</h6>
<h6 style="text-align: left;"><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview( "Dandelion Trio 2"){kind=tracking}
![]();" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carusophoto/6996442354/" title="Dandelion Trio 2" rel="flickr-mgr" class="flickr-image"><img src="http://farm8.static.flickr.com/7093/6996442354_fc7cfdac1d.jpg" alt="Dandelion Trio 2" class="flickr-small aligncenter" title="Ah, the beauty of diffused light! I saw these dandelions while I was photographing an unrelated scene...and was delighted when this photo turned out to be one of the highlights of the day.
It just goes to show, one never knows where the next photograph will be found, so it behooves us to keep our eyes open." longdesc="" /></a><br />
Dandelion Trio 2</h6>
<p>For today’s image we get a double. And I get to (once again) mention just how much I love diffused, natural light: I love it! Overcast days are so much fun for photographing. Sure, the sky isn’t going to be anything to write home about, but everything else…well, an overcast day acting like one huge, sky-sized soft box makes for some wonderful opportunities.</p>
<p>As for the images, I saw these dandelions while I was photographing an unrelated scene. I took a few moments to explore them and was delighted when these photos turned out to be highlights of the day. It just goes to show, one never knows where the next photograph will be found, so it behooves us to keep our eyes open.</p>
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<small><span class="date">03</span><br />May 12 <!-- by John Caruso --></small>
<h2><a href="http://carusophoto.info/?p=3089" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to The Photographer as Illusionist">The Photographer as Illusionist</a></h2>
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The Magician's Entreaty. This photograph seemed eminently appropriate for this post. First of all, we have the magician/illusionist. But since this was made at the cabalistic House on the Rock in Spring Green, WI it felt more than "right" for a post discussing Erin Morgenstern's book, The Night Circus.
I just finished reading a magical book: Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus. It’s one of those novels which transports one to a dream world where things feel comfortable and foreign at the same time. It was a dream from which I didn’t want to wake, and sometimes I feel I still haven’t. I will not go into detail about this fine book here (plenty has already been written about it) but I do want to say that it got me thinking on many, many levels.
One of those levels pertains to photography and photographers.
Throughout the book, we are challenged to consider the artifice and reality of illusion. As I tripped my shutter over the past few days, this concept rattled around in my head. Then in a moment of realization, I saw the photographer as an illusionist. We see the world around us. We interpret it through our unique filters and aesthetic. We then present it back to the world transformed yet the same. Every time we make a photograph, we create an illusion of the subject which is a wholly singular presentation of it. Certainly, no two photographs can ever be the same because no two photographs can ever be taken at precisely the same moment in time. But more importantly, no two photographs can ever be the same because they are necessarily unique constructs of the individual photographers making the images. One of my favorite things to do is go on a photo walk with other photographers. We walk the same paths. We see the same sights. But when we look at our final images it is as if we weren’t even in the same zip code. What feels familiar in my photographs looks oddly foreign in my friends’.
In short, every time we make photographs we create our own illusions. We conjure them from slices of time and sprinklings of light. They are our achievements. They carry our stamp and signature.
So even though The Night Circus is not a book about photography, it is a book about the way our illusions–our creations–relate to us and the world around us. It is about the many paths we take to get to them. It is about our dreams manifest.
To learn more about The Night Circus, please check out Erin Morgenstern’s website at erinmorgenstern.com.
