Portraits of Plants and Rocks

This is a story of light,

specifically light inside a box,

specifically light inside a light box, which I made.

The project began a little over two weeks ago when I saw Amanda Peters’s beautiful photos of larch cones.  I asked her about them, as did others, and she then explained the process.  The light box was inexpensive and simple to build, but using it was another matter.  I had to experiment … a lot.  Most of the 366 shots from the first session ended up in the trash.

I learned a fair amount from my trials and errors.  Of course I could have consulted some of the many webpages on the subject, and I will next time.  But honestly, I enjoyed exploring on my own.

Because so much of the scene is white, a camera in Auto mode underexposes, making the subject too dark.  Fortunately last month I learned about exposure compensation.  For most of these photos I set EC to +1, or even +2, and everything in-between (three increments per step).  Yet I still had to adjust in iPhoto.  Maybe it's time to start checking photo histograms after shooting.

My light source was sunlight through a window.  But the day was only partly sunny, with clouds sailing by.  More light would have been nice.  A tripod might help, allowing photos with longer exposures to be more in focus.

But even after severe culling, I still had enough photos for a modest exhibition.  All post-processing was done in iPhoto … nothing fancy.

I’m strictly a wild plant botanist.  I've never learned the names of the house plants that I bought 24 years ago, along with a house.

This is the sagebrush that's traditionally burned in women’s sweat lodges.  It’s also called fringed sage, Artemisia frigida.

Rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus) in my yard has green stems through the winter.  I spotted the buds when I was composing the photo.

One can never have enough pebbles … nor enough pebble-searching.

Never!!!

Treasures from the Lunar Crater Volcanic Field in central Nevada.

Sand ripples from tidal flats 250 million years ago; San Rafael Swell, Utah.

In 1875 Grove Karl Gilbert studied Mount Hillers in the Henry Mountains in Utah.  He called it a “laccolite” and thereby made it the type locality for structures now known as laccoliths – uplifts formed by shallow intrusion of magma.  Gilbert was one of the greatest early geologists of the American West.