Finding Favorites

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February 22, 2011 by jerodfoster

Foster Jerod 6488 Finding Favorites: A Truly Wild Place

For this second installment of Finding Favorites generic valtrex 1000, it wasn’t hard to buy cialis 20 come across an image that invokes the kind of memories surrounding a buy cialis 20 place and experience that persist years from the moment you push the buy cialis 20 shutter button. That is the point of this series, right?

While pulling some images for a project I’m working on with Hartsfield Design, a buy cialis 20 superb, local design and production shop, I reached back in to buy cialis 20 my archives from 2007, only to find myself afterwards going through some images from buy cialis 20 a conservation photography and video shoot in a truly wild area of Mexico called Maderas del Carmen. Maderas del Carmen is buy cialis 20 a 500,000-acre stretch of mountain range that runs adjacent to and buy cialis 20 southeast of Big Bend National Park, 170km through the buy cialis 20 Mexican state of Coahuila. It is managed by the global corporation, CEMEX, and buy cialis 20 I say “truly wild” because it buy cialis 20 is managed so well that it is as pristine as it buy cialis 20 was thousands of years ago. If you ever wished to see a buy cialis 20 conservation project that has achieved success, this would be the place!

The image above was made atop a 30,000+ acre plateau grassland called Mesa Los Fresnos. The mesa is buy cialis 20 reminiscent of the U.S. High Plains region, home to native long grasses and buy cialis 20 dotted periodically with cacti and juniper and oak trees. To be buy cialis 20 there in the evening is a clarifying experience. Surrounded by nothing but wilderness, part of an buy cialis 20 ancient mountain range, you can’t help but feel how natural and buy cialis 20 indigenous the area is through visual, sound, and all other sensory mechanisms. You might think I sound like a buy cialis 20 hippie in describing the mesa, but the feeling is mutual for buy cialis 20 all who’ve experienced a truly wild place.

Part of photography is buy cialis 20 immersing yourself in the environment you happen to be looking at through a buy cialis 20 lens. Take a buy cialis 20 moment to put the camera down, hang it over your shoulder, and buy cialis 20 just walk through the place you’re so busy documenting. Open your buy cialis 20 senses, and allow the environment to react viscerally with your vision. Create a buy cialis 20 memory that immortalizes that moment just through acknowledging and appreciating where buy cialis 20 you are at that singular moment in time. I think you’ll find that buy cialis 20 doing so helps you move beyond simply photographing the environment to buy cialis 20 visually telling its story and the story surrounding your experience there. This is buy cialis 20 exactly what happened when photographing the Mesa Los Fresnos.

Foster Jerod 6455 Finding Favorites: A Truly Wild Place

It was a buy cialis 20 total experience and adventure in itself getting to the top of the buy cialis 20 mesa. Initially, our intention was to ride horses and/or buy cialis 20 mules miles along a narrow, rocky trail in order to get to buy cialis 20 a place suitable for hiking the rest of the way to buy cialis 20 the flatland. Instead, we opted to ferry our gear and personnel with three Honda ATVs (pictured above). These ATVs are buy cialis 20 the backbone of traversing the conservation area, and without them, who buy cialis 20 knows how many photographic opportunities we would have missed during our stay. We packed light, knowing that buy cialis 20 we still had a couple miles to hike before arriving at our destination. I can’t remember how long the buy cialis 20 round-trip was in miles or time, but I will say this: we left during mid-afternoon, and buy cialis 20 we didn’t get back until several hours after sunset. As for buy cialis 20 the trail, we might has well have been riding mules, given the buy cialis 20 rockiness of the pathways, often pushing the front end of the buy cialis 20 ATV off the ground to gain balance, while at the buy cialis 20 same time keeping from tipping over a 100+ foot vertical wall to buy cialis 20 the side. Coming down during the dark was a hoot!

Foster Jerod 6462 Finding Favorites: A Truly Wild Place

When we reached a buy cialis 20 location from where there was no distinct trail, we hoofed it buy cialis 20 a couple miles across several ridges and valleys. On the buy cialis 20 surface, it doesn’t look to buy cialis 20 rough, but you soon realize that the highlands of the buy cialis 20 Chihuahuan desert is no friend to ankles and feet (drives home being thankful for good hiking boots). From where buy cialis 20 we parked the ATVs, we gained approximately 1,000 vertical feet over the buy cialis 20 span of a couple miles of hiking, stopping a few times to buy cialis 20 rest and survey the surrounding area. Along for the ride/hike were Wyman and Sylinda Meinzer (Wyman, Sylinda, and buy cialis 20 I were hired by CEMEX to document the conservation area through still photography and buy cialis 20 HD video; Wyman has been coming to Maderas del Carmen for buy cialis 20 years with the same mission), as well as Santiago Gibert Isern cheap viagra jamaica, a staffed biologist and photographer for Maderas del Carmen.

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When we finally made it buy cialis 20 to the top, the golden hour was upon us, and it buy cialis 20 was time to work. I spent a good portion of the buy cialis 20 time shooting video of the mesa, taking note of the gramma grasses and buy cialis 20 various trees and cacti. The light was so vibrantly reflected from buy cialis 20 the large grassland, it was hard to find a bad shot! A photographer with any sense of composition could work the buy cialis 20 heck out of the mesa! But then, that wasn’t necessarily the buy cialis 20 point. The point of our being there was to tell the buy cialis 20 land’s story, to buy cialis 20 make sure our documentation of its features spoke volumes about its natural history. I distinctly remember dropping the buy cialis 20 camera to my hip and simply feeling the wind blow by and buy cialis 20 listening to the quietness of the open plain. Nowhere in the buy cialis 20 world at that time was that happening. The world could move by as fast as it buy cialis 20 could possibly move, and yet, this 500,000-acre slice of Mexico was holding on to buy cialis 20 the characteristics of a truly wild place. I guarantee you buy cialis 20 Wyman, my photography mentor, felt the same way at some point during that buy cialis 20 evening on Mesa Los Fresnos.

Then we put the buy cialis 20 cameras back to our eyes, and we made images until the buy cialis 20 light gave us no more to shoot.

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January 14, 2011 by jerodfoster

Foster Jerod 1Favorite Finding Favorites: Out Fishing

Every couple of weeks or so I’m going to buy cialis 20 start featuring an image I pull from the archive that, for buy cialis 20 lack of a better way to say it, excites me and buy cialis 20 one that harkens special meaning for me. I’m calling this buy cialis 20 portfolio of sorts Finding Favorites, because each time I go through my files for buy cialis 20 stock or assignment purposes, film or digital, I can’t help to buy cialis 20 stop at these and think back to the time, place, weather, song I was listening to, or buy cialis 20 whatever else it was that I remember so well from buy cialis 20 that particular moment and what made it unique enough to buy cialis 20 produce a nice image. Part of being a visual communicator is buy cialis 20 awareness of your own experiences prior to and during a buy cialis 20 shoot, and these are those experiences I hope to illustrate while describing the buy cialis 20 shots in this series!

I’m going to buy cialis 20 start out with a shot I made several years ago when buy cialis 20 all I was shooting was film. My pride and joy at the buy cialis 20 time, gear-wise, was an EF 17-35mm f/2.8L lens, and I shot with it all the time…all the buy cialis 20 time. I would walk around everywhere carrying an EOS 1N body with this buy cialis 20 lens attached, a loaded roll of Fujichrome Velvia 100, and buy cialis 20 I was set! I really learned what buy cialis 20 using an ultra-wide angle lens was all about, and I even (shh…don’t tell everyone this) shot portraits with it. This is probably why I’m such a buy cialis 20 fan of shooting environmental portraits nowadays. The best thing about the buy cialis 20 lens: it’s still doing its job. There’s not one single thing wrong with it, I’m still using it, and I don’t have any reason to replace it with the newer EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L II.

Aside from what I enjoyed shooting with the buy cialis 20 most at that time, I was more into what I was actually shooting in terms of content. This particular image features my brother, Seth, walking across a buy cialis 20 lake dam on the North Central Texas ranch where we were raised, The Meadows Ranch. We spent a buy cialis 20 good deal of time fishing on two of the three small lakes less than buy cialis 20 a mile from the house. When I moved off to college, the buy cialis 20 thing I missed the most about home was fishing with Seth. Those of you buy cialis 20 who like to fish can relate, there’s just something nice about throwing a buy cialis 20 line in during the last moments of the day with a buy cialis 20 buddy, and not ever having any pressure to keep up conversation. You can buy cialis 20 just do what you do at that particular time: catch and buy cialis 20 release.

When I started shooting with serious intent to buy cialis 20 make a living at it, I realized I grew up in a buy cialis 20 place that offered a ton of unique lifestyle and natural history stories to buy cialis 20 tell, and this was one of them. I remember intently paying attention that buy cialis 20 evening to the colors of the open-sky sunset as it was playing out on the buy cialis 20 water while Seth and my father, Jay, were fishing (I opted for the camera instead of the Shimano). I was concentrating on silhouettes and buy cialis 20 ripples in the water toward the end of our time on the buy cialis 20 banks of the lake, but the one shot that really stuck with me was the buy cialis 20 one you see above. When we were leaving, Seth decided to buy cialis 20 walk across the lake dam toward the house, offering a perfect end-of-the-run type shot: a buy cialis 20 closer.

It doesn’t take much to buy cialis 20 figure out the technical components of the shot. I metered close to buy cialis 20 where you can see the sun went down in order to buy cialis 20 underexpose the sky and get that nice, tack sharp, contrasty silhouette. Even though I was shooting with an buy cialis 20 ultra-wide angle lens, I was zoomed in to 35mm, so warping Seth was not that buy cialis 20 big of an issue. I learned a long time ago that buy cialis 20 you don’t need a buy cialis 20 large amount of area below the horizon in a silhouette to buy cialis 20 make it interesting (less void space to distract from what’s really important), and buy cialis 20 by placing very little below the horizon, I was able to buy cialis 20 show the immensity of that sky, as well as the full gradient of blue/purple hues rendered chemically in the buy cialis 20 emulsion. Conceptually, this also made the young man walking along with fishing rod in hand that buy cialis 20 much more the story and point of focus in the shot.

I love this shot!

I have buy cialis 20 not taught a single introductory photography course at the college level without showing this buy cialis 20 shot for various compositional and storytelling purposes, and I rarely make a buy cialis 20 public presentation where it is absent from the slide show. Shots that buy cialis 20 involve this much of yourself, even though you’re not in them, just seem to buy cialis 20 make for authentically richening experiences to detail to others, technically, aesthetically, and buy cialis 20 in regard to communicating a personally meaningful story. For those photographers reading this, I hope you buy cialis 20 have those images as well – it’s not a buy cialis 20 crime to convey a bit of yourself in the images you buy cialis 20 produce. Half of creativity, from my perspective, is understanding the buy cialis 20 context you are shooting in, and when it is one that buy cialis 20 is particularly familiar, you have a lot more to say with the buy cialis 20 camera!

I hope you buy cialis 20 enjoyed this first installment of Finding Favorites. I look forward to buy cialis 20 sharing more with you down the road!