10x10 Exercise - Reflections of Early Spring /  by Todd Henson

I recently listened to an episode of Daniel Gregory’s The Perceptive Photographer Podcast, one of several I enjoy. In it he mentioned a creativity exercise he uses to help us learn more about our work, about patterns and habits we might fall into, and about discovering new ways of seeing and approaching our work.

For a 10x10 exercise you take 10 of your images and edit them in 10 different ways, resulting in 100 different images. He figures over this body of work you can begin to see default editing patterns you fall into, ways you often approach your images. And it also might help you discover other ways of looking at the work, trying things you might not have thought to otherwise try.

So I decided to give the exercise a go, and here are the results of the first image I worked on.

Version 1

Reflections of Early Spring - Version 1

This is a fairly straight forward edit, very close to what I saw in late March of this year.

Version 2

Reflections of Early Spring - Version 2

With this version I went for a softer feel with less color, but focusing on some of the muted colors in the center.

Version 3

Reflections of Early Spring - Version 3

Continuing with the softer feel of the previous version I softened it up a bit more around the edges and took out some of the color, especially the blues.

Version 4

Reflections of Early Spring - Version 4

This time I thought of trying a split toned monochromatic image to give an older feel.

Version 5

Reflections of Early Spring - Version 5

And another split toned monochromatic but shifting more towards the blues.

Version 6

Reflections of Early Spring - Version 6

And pulling out all color we get a black and white image.

Version 7

Reflections of Early Spring - Version 7

Given the reflections I thought it might be interesting seeing how it looked inverted, so I flipped it along the horizon putting the reflections up top and the sky down below.

Version 8

Reflections of Early Spring - Version 8

An obvious choice was turning the horizontal image into a vertical.

Version 9

Reflections of Early Spring - Version 9

I felt like I was running out of ideas, so for this image I zoomed in to focus just on the central part.

Version 10

Reflections of Early Spring - Version 10

For the final image I took inspiration from a great book cover for The Children of Red Peak by Craig DiLouis, a book I’ve not read but one whose cover I really like. Similar to a previous image, I flipped it, putting the sky down below, but I also cropped it to focus on a specific section.

Thoughts

It might be too soon to draw many conclusions or lessons from this exercise since I’ve only performed it on one image so far. But I did see how it can be a challenge to find new ways of processing an image. I think I often see an image a specific way and have to really put in effort to see it in other ways. I did enjoy this process, though. I can see how this exercise could help us creatively, letting us see more potential in a scene. And though this was focusing on processing an image, I think in doing so it could help us see differently when in the field if we’re more open to the later possibilities of what we’re capturing.

And I think this exercise could be applied to other art forms, at least to some extent. If you’re a musician try writing 10 variations of a song. If you’re a sculptor try 10 different versions of the same basic figure. If you’re a writer try 10 different variations of a story or a scene in a story.

What do you think? Did you prefer any of these images over the others? Is this an exercise you might try?

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3 Views of Harvestmen /  by Todd Henson

A harvestman carrying something across a leaf.

Today we take a brief look at 3 views of 2 different harvestman species, an arachnid often confused for a spider. Though they do look very similar to spiders, they apparently have more in common with scorpions. Don’t let that scare you, though, harvestmen are completely harmless to people. In fact, they don’t even have venom glands, nor do they produce silk as spiders do.

Harvestmen are one of the species sometimes referred to as daddy-long-legs for their very long legs. And speaking of their legs, one of their defense mechanisms is intentionally dropping one of their still moving legs to get the attention of the predator and let them escape. Unfortunately, the leg doesn’t regrow, so they can’t use this defense very often.

Spying on a harvestman.

I found these harvestmen on leaves along the trail of a wildlife preserve. I was fortunate to have some decent light and non-distracting backgrounds to help the subjects stand out. I believe the black/white/gray harvestman might be a striped harvestman (Leiobunum vittatum). I’m not certain the species of the brown/orange one as there are several that resemble it.

One thing I was fascinated by was how the striped harvestman is carrying something below its body. I’m not entirely sure what it is, perhaps food of some sort. They eat insects and plant material, so it could be a piece of either.

Hello, Harvestman!

When was the last time you sat and watched a harvestman walking? Next time you see one spend a little time with it. They really are fascinating to watch.

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Bridge Over the Channel /  by Todd Henson

Bridge Over the Channel: The Francis Case Memorial Bridge over the Washington Channel

This photo came about during a trip into Washington, DC, to view the cherry blossoms early one spring. My brother and I had travelled into DC many times over the years viewing and photographing cherry blossoms, and so for this trip we decided to look for cherry blossoms in an area we’d yet to explore, East Potomac Park. The park is located on a finger of land surrounded by the Potomac River and the Washington Channel, and is just outside the typical circuit route popular with most cherry blossom viewers.

You have to pass under a couple bridges to get to the majority of the park, and one of those is the Francis Case Memorial Bridge, over which 395 spans from Virginia into DC. I often find bridges, and particularly their underside, fascinating, and this one was no different. So I paused briefly and composed some photographs before moving on to the rest of the park and the cherry blossoms.

I like the symmetry you often find with bridges. And with this one I was drawn to the slightly lit undersides of the metal beams, lit from sunlight reflected from the water below. I did lighten them further in post-processing to help bring out some of what I’d been drawn to, the light and shadow, the patterns of the parallel lines occasionally crossed by the horizontal supports. And I liked the variety of tones to the stones of the support columns.

A lesson that was reinforced this day is that even when you go out with a specific goal in mind, such as photographing cherry blossoms, always keep your eyes open to other possibilities. You never know what you may find.

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