Portland Japanese Gardens - Self-Imposed Constraints
Ann and I had some business we had to do up in Portland (buy more photo paper!) last weekend, and, given that the cherry blossoms were out in our neighborhood, we decided to make it a photo trip as well. And where better than the Portland Japanese Gardens? Photographically it turned out to be a weekend of constraints - self-imposed and otherwise.
Drawing from the concept I used the last time we were at the Japanese Gardens, of adopting a self-imposed constraint based on the photographer I was studying at the time, I decided to use two constraints drawn from Michael Kenna’s work. First, I was going to shoot in black and white. I would push myself to see and to create images with black and white in mind (which I have done too little of recently). Second, I was going to shoot in a square format. The second was by far going to be the more difficult of the two constraints. Let’s just say that I’ve bought, and traded away, two square-format cameras in my previous life. I occasionally shot with a Hasselblad too while I worked at Virginia Tech. While I’ve made a few successful square images, I just had a difficult time seeing in the square and simply have an aversion to the square format. Think of it as some food you disliked as a child and have little real interest in trying as an adult. Sometimes you wind up trying it again anyway.
Fortunately, I could set the LCD in my camera to project a square, black and white image, so that would help a bit. I also still have my black & white viewing filter, which helps to see things tonally. And I’d been studying Michael Kenna’s images carefully, so I figured that it was worth taking the challenge to compose in a square format. I was not, however, going to even attempt to make the kind of minimalist images he does in a place as complex as the Portland Japanese Gardens. I’m not that crazy.
As the weekend approached, I was hoping that I wouldn’t immediately regret my decision to go black and white, and arrive finding the gardens in a cacophony of color. Fortunately, Spring is just beginning, so while the early blooms were out, everything else was just budding. That allowed me to focus on the task at hand.
We decided to start down our usual route, but only backwards, which led us first to the waterfall. I was starting to worry about how to handle such a linear image until, from a distance, I saw a reflection in the water and forgot all about the square format, and the waterfall. The reflections were so strong that I even forgot that I was working in black and white, the tonal qualities were working for me.
After composing on the lantern, the side rocks, and the reflections, and making a couple of images of that, the fish started coming. Then it was a matter of waiting for the right fish in the right places.
After I was confident that I’d gotten an image that would work, I turned to the falls.
What I realized quite quickly was that the square format allowed me to look anew at things I’ve photographed time and again. Like these falls; instead of trying to frame the entire falls, it seemed better to work with a portion of the falls, and givie more prominence to what is around the falls. That allowed me to also still give some weight to the reflections, without over-emphasizing them.
I spent quite some time there trying different compositions. One of the great advantages to working in black and white was that while the water still had its winter brownish color to it - a quite unappealing color - it was barely noticeable in black and white, adding only a bit of haze to the water.
I worked my way over to the boardwalk to try a composition involving both the lamp and the falls. And of course, wait long enough and the fish start swimming by.
Looking at these images reminded me how important it is in black and white to have tonal separation between objects. I’ll definitely have to try the above composition again, next time paying more attention to the pointed top of the rock on the left. That really bugs me.
After making a couple of more images of reflections in the water, I moved inland and saw a lovely patch on one of the stones that lines the path leading away from the waterfall area. This was a difficult image in that there is an edge just off to the right of the image that limited how far to the right I could move, which left the image a bit more visually right-side heavy than I’d wanted. Perhaps how I dealt with that in the image below is worth taking up in another posting.
Unfortunately, while making that image I became aware of an “issue” with my camera. I’d mounted the 90 mm lens on my camera, both because it is the sharpest lens I have and because it allows me to focus closer than any other lens I have. It also happens to be the largest lens I had with me. When I mounted it, with the camera locked into the tripod by its L-bracket, I noticed that the camera body moved. I thought that perhaps the connector to the L-bracket was loose, so I bummed an allen wrench from Ann to tighten the bracket. Nope, it seemed solid enough. I remounted the camera to the tripod and there it went again - a slight wobble.
From that point on it became obvious - every time I’d adjust the tripod head, I’d frame everything the way I wanted (I tend to adjust things by loosening a knob on my tripod head and, holding the camera as if it wasn’t on a tripod, get the framing I want, then, while still holding the camera in place, remove one hand to lock the knob), and once I locked the tripod head knob and let go of the camera with my other head, the framing would sag a bit. That was not normal.
Thinking it through, I came to the conclusion that my fall in Yosemite did a bit more than dent up lens. Who would have thought that falling down on a granite boulder and bashing it with your camera might damage it? Well, we were going to the professional camera store that day - in part to talk about my lens - so add the camera to the list.
I tried to set my worries aside and to concentrate on photography, just taking care to remove the camera after I was done making my shot while I moved from one location to another.
It was a real mix of an environment, with some things in bloom and others looking like winter. I framed a couple of more images, but didn’t get anything productive until I came across these right by the side of the path to the tea house.
We worked our way back up towards the main area, and as Ann looped back down on a side footpath, I saw an image that I’d never envisioned before, even though I’ve looked at this grouping (and photographed it) on several occasions. While the background is a bit distracting, it’s the best one so far - perhaps I’d overcome my aversion to the square format!
I wound up also looping around the small path that Ann was working on and decided to photograph the stone lantern that lies at the end of the path near the large pond.
Ann kept working the path and after a frustrating effort to capture some trees that had some lovely light that would periodically breaking through - frustrating because it had hit 10:00 and the crowds were coming in (people constantly in the background - ugh!) - I wound up at the top of the stone path and decided to make another image of the lantern.
By that point, we’d been there a couple of hours and there were lots of people there. We wondered why that was so for a Friday morning, but then realized it was Spring break and there were lots of parents with their children. So we decided to walk around a bit more and scout things out for the next morning.
While crossing the veranda overlooking the graveled garden, I clearly saw another square image that required me to stop for one final photograph. Another stone lantern. This time in a sea of vegetation.
We were done for the day so we headed back to the car. Next stop, the camera shop to take care of business, and then down town to meet some friends for lunch.