Water Dance.

Yeah, I know, water on the brain. That happens when the skies are dry. Water is a great subject, and a long time fave. When I first moved from a point ‘n’ shoot to a D80, I was very intimidated, and didn’t want to use it. One day, I decided to set up where I could just play with settings. I set a sprinkler on low, and stuck it under a bunch of flowers, then I just started playing with various shutter speeds and apertures, and ended up with results which were overall delightful. You can’t really fuck up water shots, either, so that’s a bonus. If you don’t want to mess about outside with sprinkler, or go find a river or something, the tap in your house provides opportunities. Photograph the running water, photograph it spilling into a pretty dish, or slowly dripping, and capture those splashes. If you want to go for the dramatic splash, set up a tall clip with a sandwich bag full of water, your receptacle and background set, then poke a pinhole in the bag. Water is fun, and it’s a grand displacement activity too, which can also be restful and relaxing. So, water, from a sprinkler, at wildly varying speeds and ap settings. I do prefer underexposing when shooting water from a sprinkler, but that’s a matter of personal preference. No shopping whatsoever, just resizing to 1500 x. Click for full size!

And just a taste of tomorrow – Waterscopes! :D

© C. Ford.

The Importance of Water.

The temperatures here have been near or over 100 F for months, and there’s been considerably under an inch of rain. It’s like living in a tinderbox. I’ve put a sprinkler on low, and have just been moving it about, day by day. Yesterday, tiny baby Sparrows which can’t yet fly were launching themselves from the trees, landing with thumps, to be able to get a drink of water. There’s no life without water.

© C. Ford.

A Momentary Companion.

The lack of water situation here is dire; I am trying to feed a bit of life where I can. The scent of water on the wind is intoxicating, it’s quite easy to forget what a wondrous thing it is. That scent calls to all, and this little beauty decided to keep me company for quite a while, in between bouts of chasing a grumpy dragonfly. Click for full size.

C. Ford, all rights reserved.

Lincoln’s Body Double.

John C. Calhoun print, 1852 Library of Congress/LC-DIG-pga-02499.

After Lincoln’s assassination, there was a dearth of “heroic-style” pictures of the president. So one portrait painter got creative. On a print of the late president, Thomas Hicks superimposed Lincoln’s head onto the body of John C. Calhoun—the virulent racist and slavery proponent who did not exactly see eye-to-eye with the 16th president.

Engraver A.H. Ritchie created the Calhoun print in 1852. The original included the words “strict constitution,” “free trade,” and “the sovereignty of the states” on the desk papers. But when it was altered to feature Lincoln instead, the words were changed to “constitution,” “union,” and “proclamation of freedom.”

Lincoln edited print Library of Congress/LC-DIG-pga-02353.

For a century, no one noticed. The famous photo was only recently revealed to have been faked.

Photojournalist Stefan Lorant was compiling photos of Lincoln for his book Lincoln, A Picture Story of His Life (first published in 1957, then revised in 1969) when he discovered something odd: in the Hicks print, Lincoln’s mole was on the wrong side of his face. After some investigation, he realized that Lincoln’s face in the print exactly matched his face in Brady’s five-dollar bill photo—except in the print Lincoln’s face was flipped, making Lincoln’s mole show up on the opposite side.

Apparently, Hicks hadn’t noticed this discrepancy when superimposing the picture onto Calhoun’s body.

You can read more about this and the other photographic manipulations done by Brady when it came to photographing Lincoln at Atlas Obscura.