The photographic work of Desmond Manny. Earnest, Artstic Photography.
Today I’ve added two new prints to my Sunflower gallery. These are fine art images, one in color and one in black & white. I was really taken with the shape and form of sunflowers a few months back and it resulted in a rather large body of work on the subject.
There are a few more images to be added to this catalog in the near future, likely just before Christmas 😉
As always, prints of my work can be found at desmondmanny.com.
I have been including fine art flower photography in my photographic oeuvre almost since I first picked up a camera. There’s no real mystery to it. I have mentioned it before but flowers are a fantastic photographic subject because of their availability and infinite form. There are very few flowers that are not a worthy of photographic attention. Of course, like everyone else I have my favorites. I’m very partial to lilies (Peace and Stargazer, thank you), tulips, and now sunflowers.
Yes, consider the humble sunflower. Okay, it’s a pretty popular flower. It’s an evocative flower. The color, the shape of the petals, the variety of different breeds. All of this is in aid of saying that I photographed a ton of sunflowers recently.
As usual, my fine art prints are available at several portals including artspan, pixels.com, and redbubble. Additionally, I’m offering a limited discount on a 20″ by 16″ canvas of Sunflower #6 here (until September 13, 2017).
These images have become some of my recent faves. I find there is something meditative about these particular images. There’s something about the shapes and textures of the sunflower. What do you think?
A two day photographic study of raspberries, because why not? Actually this is just more of me getting very familiar with my recent switch of camera systems. For the images posted today and tomorrow I used the Fujifilm XT-2 and XF90mm f/2 R WR.
Even though it is not a macro lens the 90mm does allow for some fairly close focusing making it a passable faux-macro lens.
I promise tomorrow’s images are a little more interesting 😉
I’m currently splitting my time between the Fujifilm X-Pro2 and X-T2 in the ongoing journey to mastery of each camera. My experience of the X-T2 is most pertinent to this post. Being closer in design to a modern digital SLR, in contrast to the X-Pro2’s rangefinder design, makes it very familiar with my having mostly shot Canon dSLRs the last few years.
There is some muscle memory to overcome as I still find my fingers going to the wrong place for the functions I want. This is something that will become intuitive the more I shoot with the X-T2. As good a reason as any to shoot often.
On many forums and websites there is a lot of talk about Fujifilm’s X-Trans sensor and its support by RAW editors such as Adobe’s Lightroom. Having jumped off the Adobe bandwagon over a decade ago this is far less a concern for me.
As an open-source advocate and user of FOSS software my raw editor of choice for a number of years has been RawTherapee on Linux (available as well for Windows and Mac),and at times Darktable. My experience of the X-Trans sensor with both of these programs has been excellent.
As an example here are a couple of comparisons between SOOC jpgs from the X-T2 and RawTherapee processed counterparts.
Can you tell which is which? Or rather does one seem inferior? To my eye there is a slight difference in contrast and gray tones, but both images are quite nice.
And here, another comparison.
The top image was captured in the X-T2 using the Acros film simulation + red filter and the bottom Acros + Green filter. RawTherapee was able to produce similar images from each neutral RAW file very easily.
So, which is which? Highlight the following text to see: SOOC jpgs on the left, RawTherapee processed files on the right.
I’m very happy to say that there is nothing but positives so far about my change in systems.
Well hello there…
Tangentially related to the previous popcorn post.
A bit of food still life, to prove this blog is still alive.
Honestly, the reason for a lack of updates is that I have been very busy updating my catalog of prints that are available. Giving some much needed love to this aspect of my photography is long overdue.
Photography is at most times a solitary, self-interested activity; the time spent in contemplation of subject and technical considerations, the processing of taking a negative or digital file and making of it something that expresses the active urge that made the photographer press the shutter.
However, photography expresses, at it’s best, sentiments we all have, distills human experience into an artifact. To me that is an amazing thing, an important thing. To me that is the reason that every photographer who takes the craft seriously should be sharing, making their work available to others and taking in work by others. Of course, as with all points of view your mileage may vary.
Possibly one of the great culinary achievments of humanity.
DESMOND MANNY PHOTOGRAPHY 