Lori Carey Photography

Friday, September 28, 2012

Tempest

Trona Pinnacles under stormy skies in black and white
Tempest




When I first started photographing the desert I was in love with the rich sun-drenched colors. Over the years I gradually began desaturating many of my images because I felt that the strong colors frequently took away from the mood I was trying to depict. Most recently I have been doing a lot of black and white. I think it's partially in response to the hypersaturated overdone HDR images that seem so popular these days, but also because I believe that color can add to an image or it can take away from an image. When color doesn't actually add anything to an image I prefer it in black and white.

This is the Trona Pinnacles under stormy skies. They are tufa towers, similar to the ones found at Mono Lake, formed of calcium carbonate rising the from the ancient Searles Dry Lake bed. One of the strangest landscapes you can ever see, this has been the filming location for many movies such as Planet of the Apes, Lost in Space, Battlestar Gallactica and Star Trek: The Final Frontier. The Trona Pinnacles were designated as a National Natural Landmark in 1968.

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I just recently discovered that when my website host migrated their pricing function to a new system they messed up my pricing. I had checked a few galleries when they first did the migration and verified that all was fine, unfortunately I did not realize that most of my galleries no longer showed the option to buy prints. I'm not very happy about that, but it is what is. It has now been corrected (I think I fixed all of it). I also now offer mounting, matting and framing for all traditional prints in additional to my canvas gallery wraps and float mount metal prints. If you would like to purchase a print of Tempest you can do so here.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Of Barbed Wire and Hubcaps

Hubcap on barbed wire fence, Mojave Desert

Sometimes I wonder if I should try explaining why I photograph the things I do and why I "ruin" a beautiful landscape with man-made elements. I wonder to myself if people will understand that somewhere along the line all of the pretty landscapes became just another pretty landscape to me, pretty to look at but with rare exception after a while they all started to look and feel the same. (This is not in any way meant to denigrate traditional landscape photographers, they enjoy what they do and the world loves and needs beautiful photos.)

I don't often share much of myself except through my images. Would you understand if I tried to explain that it's the story of the desert, the struggle of life and death, questions of mortality and immortality, man's constant attempts to conquer the desert ( Check says man, Checkmate says the desert), that it is all about the incongruous juxtaposition and meant to challenge your assumptions about traditional beauty, that it's about aloneness but not loneliness, that it's about strength and resiliency and loss and broken dreams but not loss of hope? Would you understand my need to roam around aimlessly for days on end looking for exactly this?

Does it even make sense to try to explain these things, or will it all sound too much like the pretentious rambling of some art school dropout wannabe? Should I post some random poem or song and let you make of it what you will? Or maybe I should post just the photo with no words knowing that most people won't understand because it doesn't meet their definition of beauty?

One day I will have this all figured out.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Curator's Pick - Story Number 23







I was very honored to have this seascape image chosen as a Curator's Pick from among all of the images submitted this week in the G+ Fine Art Photography theme of MinimalMonday. Many incredibly talented photographers participate in the theme and I've only recently started sharing my abstract minimalism so it was a very validating experience to have it compared favorably to works by one of my favorite photographers Eric Fredine.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Last weekend of summer...

Beautiful clouds at dawn at the San Clemente Pier

Even though sunrise light is very hit or miss on a west coast beach it's still my favorite time of day to be there...no one around except the surfers, some joggers and a few workers getting everything ready for the crowds...I like to watch the world wake up. Every once in a while if I'm lucky and not socked in with fog, even though it's rare to get good color I might get some really cool clouds.

I'm selfishly glad that the official summer season is over; we'll still have summer-like weather here for at least another month or so but without the crowds and traffic and I'll actually be able to find a parking space close to my destination again. And hopefully soon we'll have some relief from the marine layer that has been hovering since March this year, making it more worthwhile to head to the beach for sunrise and sunset. All of my best beach sunsets were taken during the winter months.

This is technically an HDR image. The sun had only been up for a few minutes so the foreground was still quite dark, requiring multiple exposures. I'm not a big fan of overdone HDR for landscapes, especially ones that are oversaturated and have glaring halos. I blend multiple exposures quite often in my work but I prefer a more subtle and realistic look.