Photographs From The Edge by Art Wolfe with Rob Sheppard

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Photographs from the Edge tells some of the stories behind many of the photographs Art Wolfe has created over the years. The subtitle of the book is A Master Photographer’s Insights On Capturing An Extraordinary World.

I love this book, and find it a perfect complement to Earth is My Witness: The Photography of Art Wolfe. Earth is My Witness is focused primarily on the photographs. Photographs from the Edge focuses more on the stories behind the photographs.

The book is organized by decade, showing Art’s work from the early 1980’s to more recent work just prior to the book’s publication in 2016. It is a collection of stories about Art’s experiences. Each section has about one page of story, along with one or more photographs. Additionally, each contains a paragraph about the nature of the photograph, and another with a photo tip relevant to that photo or experience. This edition is a nice hardcover book measuring approximately 7.5 x 10.25 inches with 280 pages.

Below are some sample pages from the book.

Photographs from the Edge by Art Wolfe, pages 38-39, October 1990, Polar Bears, Churchill, Manitoba, Canada.

Art says Polar Bears is a special image for him, depicting the bears coming together, communicating in a very gentle way, and with such a beautiful symmetry. This was the first time the image was used in a book.

Photographs from the Edge by Art Wolfe, pages 46-47, November 1992, Emperor Penguins, Weddell Sea, Antarctica.

To create Emperor Penguins Art lay on his belly, letting him fill the frame with the penguins, eliminating anything distracting from the frame. He said one of the difficult things about shooting penguins was their curiosity. One minute he’s looking through the lens shooting a group of penguins and the next the entire frame goes white as a penguin comes right up to him, standing in front of the camera.

Photographs from the Edge by Art Wolfe, pages 60-61, August 1994, Simbu Dancers, Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea.

For Simbu Dancers, Art tells how he approached these men who were preparing themselves for a celebration. He didn’t speak their language and was without an interpreter, but he boldly approached them and began arranging them into the abstract composition seen in the photo. He says it’s often best to be decisive. I suspect having the right kind of personality also helps.

Photographs from the Edge by Art Wolfe, pages 66-67, October 1995, Les Aiguilles and Lac Blanc, Savoy Alps, France.

Les Aiguilles and Lac Blanc is such a beautiful photograph with a nice symmetry between the mountains and their reflections. Art describes the miserable weather they had to endure to be in the right place at the right time to create this image. He also talks of using a graduated neutral density filter to balance the exposure between the reflection and the mountains.

Photographs from the Edge by Art Wolfe, pages 82-83, January 2001, Spiritual Journey, Ganges River, Uttar Pradesh, India.

I love the feeling of Spiritual Journey, a lone figure in their white washed boat, paddling towards the sunrise. Art was able to visualize this shot the night before he created it. Then, the next morning, he had this person pose in the boat while they waited for sunrise. But they needed to pull the boat onto mud to keep it still. The shutter speed was far too slow to have captured this image if the boat were floating on the moving river.

Photographs from the Edge by Art Wolfe, pages 246-247, January 2014, Blue Courtyard, Jodphur, Rajasthan, India.

With some of the previous photos Art was able to arrange subjects to create a composition he had visualized. With Blue Courtyard he took advantage of serendipity to create a beautiful image of a woman and child using a frame-within-a-frame effect. He’d been walking down a road in a rural community when he came upon this scene. He says he often has time when working on projects to get out and explore the local areas. Such was the case with this photograph.

You can see the range of subject matter from the sample images. Art has photographed wildlife of every form all over the world. He loves interacting with, learning from, and photographing people of all cultures, especially those still keeping traditions alive. And while in all these locations he seeks out and captures beautiful landscapes.

Photographs from the Edge is a perfect book for anyone who appreciates Art Wolfe’s work and is interested in the stories behind the photographs.

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My First Impression of the Lensbaby Velvet 56

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The Lensbaby Velvet 56 f/1.6 Lens

Such a beautiful lens! That was my first impression.

I’ve always been curious about the Lensbaby line of lenses and often thought about purchasing one. This year I finally did, choosing the Lensbaby Velvet 56. This particular lens creates a soft, glowing look to photographs. When you stop down the lens all the way (close the aperture to its smallest setting) you will minimize the softness. But as you open the aperture the lens begins to add a really nice soft, ethereal effect which gets softer the wider the aperture.

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A red rose photographed with the Lensbaby Velvet 56 using a smaller aperture to lessen the soft, ethereal look.

The lens has a maximum aperture of f/1.6, which allows it to create some very nice bokeh (the beautiful out of focus areas). I’ve included several pairs of sample photographs in this post, one created with a more open aperture than the other to better show some of the effects you can create. Click on any of the photographs to see a larger version.

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A red rose photographed with the Lensbaby Velvet 56 using a larger aperture to increase the soft, ethereal look.

As can be seen in some of these photos the Lensbaby Velvet 56 is also useful for shooting macro. It has a minimum focusing distance of 5”, letting you get fairly close to your subject. And you can always use extension tubes if you want to get even closer.

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A red rose photographed with the Lensbaby Velvet 56 using a very large aperture to really increase the soft, ethereal look.

I will say it can be a challenge learning to use this lens. It is a fully manual lens. There is no autofocus. You manually change the aperture on the lens (as used to be the case for all lenses, back in the day). And there are no electronic contacts on the lens so the camera doesn’t know what aperture you’ve set.

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A pair of pink dianthus photographed with the Lensbaby Velvet 56 using a smaller aperture.

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A pair of pink dianthus photographed with the Lensbaby Velvet 56 using a larger aperture.

I have found, at least with the Nikon D500, that I can often use the lens with the camera in Aperture priority mode. The camera doesn’t know the aperture the lens is set to but it can usually meter through the lens, choosing a shutter speed to match the aperture. However, sometimes this fails and I need to switch to Manual mode, setting both the aperture and shutter speed myself. This seems to happen most often in low light situations.

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A group of gomphrena flowers photographed with the Lensbaby Velvet 56 using a small aperture to create a sharper image.

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A group of gomphrena flowers photographed with the Lensbaby Velvet 56 using a large aperture to create a softer image.

As mentioned there is no autofocus with this lens. You must focus manually. This is not as easy with today’s digital cameras as it was with some of the nice focusing screens in the older film cameras. But as with all things you will get better at this the more you practice, so keep trying. It’s well worth the effort.

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A blue balloon flower photographed with the Lensbaby Velvet 56 using a small aperture.

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A blue balloon flower photographed with the Lensbaby Velvet 56 using a large aperture.

Some of the effect this lens creates might be possible through software in post-production. And you may be able to replicate some using props, such as tulle or other fabric held over the lens. But it’s very convenient and enjoyable creating these effects with so little effort using just the lens. Not to mention how much more reproducible the effects will be.

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A large aperture on the Lensbaby Velvet 56 created a soft glow around this yellow maple leaf.

I will share more photographs created with Lensbaby Velvet 56 in future posts. And I look forward to working more with the lens, exploring what I might be able to create with it. I have some ideas, but no clue yet how they might work out, if at all. That’s part of the fun using a new lens of this sort.

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A small aperture on the Lensbaby Velvet 56 allowed me to keep most of this red hibiscus bud in focus.

Have you ever used the Lensbaby Velvet 56 or its longer focal length sibling, the Lensbaby Velvet 85? If so let me know what you thought of it in the comments below.

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Pistils of a red hibiscus flower, using a small enough aperture on the Lensbaby Velvet 56 to keep the tips of the pistils in clear focus.

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Using a wider aperture on the Lensbaby Velvet 56 created a soft glow to the pistils of this red hibiscus flower.

If you purchase a Lensbaby Velvet lens be sure to get the correct version for your camera’s mount. They make them for Nikon, Canon, Sony, and several other brands, as well.

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The Soul of the Camera by David duChemin

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The cover of The Soul of the Camera

The Soul of the Camera: The Photographer's Place in Picture-Making feels like a different style of book from some of David duChemin’s previous works, such as Within the Frame (one of my favorites), and Photographically Speaking. And yet I suppose it really is not so different. Each of these books takes a core theme and explores it, trying to convey to the reader its importance and how it might be used to better our photography, and even to learn what better photography means.

In Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision, the main theme is that of vision. He talks about how creating an emotionally impactful image is greatly enhanced by vision, and he then spends the book going into all the details of what vision entails and how important it is to our development as photographers.

In Photographically Speaking: A Deeper Look at Creating Stronger Images, duChemin continues the discussions from Within the Frame, but with a theme of visual language. What is it? How can we use it to better understand what makes an impactful image, and hopefully as part of this learn to create more impactful images? The book attempts to answer these questions.

The Soul of the Camera is similar to the other two in that it focuses on a theme, that of “the Photographers Place in Picture-Making.” None of these books were very focused on gear or technique and this book is even less so than the others. It centers on topics related to the photographer, such as the need to be open to the world and to creativity, the need of patience both with your craft and with yourself, and the importance of curiosity in developing your creativity.

Pages 106 - 107 of The Soul of the Camera. The chapter on Obedience to Curiosity.

Where I suppose this book feels different than the other two is in how the topics are presented. It feels like a book of short essays, each able to stand on its own (perhaps as blog posts), but taken together also able to convey a larger whole. And interspersed between each essay is a collection of duChemin’s photography, all in black and white. So it ends up feeling to me like two books in one: a collection of essays and a portfolio of duChemin’s work.

Pages 54 - 55 of The Soul of the Camera. Photograph from Jodhpur, India, 2016.

I really enjoyed the photography in The Soul of the Camera. I think I would have been happy with the purchase even if it only contained his photographs. The choice of using only black and white photographs was a good one. There are some very beautiful and impactful images in these pages. You may have seen some of these photographs before in his previous books or on his website, some in color. But he says some of the photographs are new to this book.

Physically, this edition of the book measures about 7 1/4 by 9 1/4 inches. It is a hard bound book, which is actually rather nice. There are a total of 274 pages. If I counted correctly, there are 86 black and white photographs placed between the 26 chapters (or essays), which include an introduction and conclusion.

Pages 64 - 65 of The Soul of the Camera. Photographs from Kenya, 2015.

Would I recommend this book? Absolutely, but not necessarily to everyone. I don’t know if this would be a good first book on photography. Some photography newbies might get something out of it, but I don’t know that I would have. I think I first needed to focus on the more common technical aspects of photography. Once I started feeling more secure in my technical ability then I think I became open enough to learn some of the softer topics that have far more impact on the creation of beautiful and meaningful photographs.

If you are new to David duChemin and his writing then I would start with his first book, Within the Frame. That remains one of my favorite photography books, being about more than the typical technical aspects of the craft. Then I might recommend Photographically Speaking, which continues the discussions of the first. If you are still drawn to his work and inspired by his writing then I would recommend giving The Soul of the Camera a try.

“It is time now to turn our attention to what is ultimately responsible for the making of photographs — the photographers themselves.”

— David duChemin

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