The Captains' Return

Sculpture under the Eads Bridge
Photograph by Tom Atwood

My guess is you probably have never seen this sculpture in person, unless you were wandering under the Eads Bridge for photos, or on your way to the President's Casino, which is now shut down. It is billed as the "second-largest monument" on the St. Louis riverfront. (The Gateway Arch is number one.) Twenty-six feet high, "The Captain's Return" depicts the end of Lewis & Clark's expedition west 200 years ago. Maybe it was placed at the exact spot where the explorers landed with their dog Seaman, but Harry Weber's sculpture seems almost hidden away to me. Shutter: 15 seconds; Aperture: f/8; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm

Venus and the Moon

Staunton Road
January 29, 2011
Photograph by Tom Atwood

I have photographed this farm on Staunton Road more than once. But this latest picture, taken yesterday morning, isn't really of the farm. It was Venus and the Moon, hovering not too far from the horizon, that I was interested in. The Moon can be tricky to photograph mainly because it's so bright, much brighter than everything else in the sky or on the Earth. But when the Moon is waning, as it was at dawn yesterday, it's more cooperative, especially with Venus floating next to it in the morning sky.

Shutter: 6 seconds; Aperture: f/16; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm

Silver Creek

Spillway near Silver Creek
Photograph by Tom Atwood

Long exposures are easy at night, but they become more difficult during the day for one simple reason: too much light. This photo of a spillway on this stream as it connects with Silver Creek is a four-second exposure. It was taken in the early morning today, before the sun came up to spoil the fun.

Shutter: 4 seconds; Aperture: f/22; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm

A foggy snow

Fruit Road near Highway 157
Photograph by Tom Atwood

I'm always tempted by fog. Tempted to go out and shoot an incredibly mysterious and otherworldy kind of photograph. However, it usually doesn't turn out that way. Fog can be defiant, refusing to resemble on film what it looks like in reality. It's misty like that. Shooting fog in snow can be even more challenging. Everything turns out white and gray. Kind of foggy. I have found it's helpful to get close to something. In this case, a blacktop road and a car passing by, with a driver no doubt wondering what he sees through the fog standing by the road. Shutter: 1/13; Aperture: f/14; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm

The Vanishing Night

Water Tower
Collinsville, Illinois
Photograph by Tom Atwood

Orion almost gets lost in this picture. The constellation, one of the brightest remaining in a sky increasingly washed out by artificial light, is just to the right of the Brooks Catsup "bottle."  The water tower on Highway 159 in Collinsville, is lit with a floodlight, while clouds reflect the light shining up from below. Except for the few stars visible, this photo almost looks like it was taken during the day. But it wasn't. This is what Collinsville (and much of the country) looks like at 4:30 a.m. Shutter: 10 seconds; Aperture: f/4.5; ISO: 400; Focal length: 18 mm

Hit or miss

Hannah Faulkner
East St. Louis Relays
Photograph by Tom Atwood

Sometimes it takes a moment, when you first see a photo, to figure out exactly what is going on. In this case, as pole vaulter Hannah Faulkner is about to clear the bar at East St. Louis, a photographer, full of hope, has pointed his camera straight up. The polarizing filter on the lens turns the sky a deep blue, or in this desaturated image, black. My photographic technique is pretty much hit or miss, unlike Hannah's pole vaulting, which took her again to the State Finals as a junior, where she placed 9th. Shutter: 1/640; Aperture: f/5.6; ISO: 400; Focal length: 18 mm.

Location

Fourth of July
St. Louis, Missouri
Photograph by Tom Atwood

This photo is unusual not only because planes appear to be attacking the Gateway Arch, but also because it seems to have been taken by someone hovering above the middle of the Mississippi River with a camera. In fact, it was shot from the middle of the Eads Bridge during an air show on July 4. From that point of view the planes flew directly above, and sometimes directly at, the people on the bridge. Shutter: 1/640; Aperture: f/7.1; ISO: 200; Focal length: 18 mm

Columbarium at St. Andrew's

St. Andrew's, Edwardsville
Photograph by Tom Atwood

The columbarium in the garden at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Edwardsville contains ashes of the dead. The garden is spectacular in the spring and summer, full of color and flowers. But on Sunday afternoon, at the end of a light snowfall, it was very quiet.

 Shutter: 1/40; Aperture: f/7.1; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm

Smile!

Jake, SIU Edwardsville
Photograph by Tom Atwood

When I take portraits, I usually ask people not to smile for all the pictures, so they'll have some options to choose from. For some it's difficult. People have been trained whenever they see a camera to smile. I remember a photo session with Jamie Brown, a beauty pageant contestant. When I asked her not to smile, Jamie struggled so much that she finally used her fingers to literally force her face and mouth out of its almost frozen pageant smile. However, with Jake, seen here smiling as he romps through the snowy Gardens at SIUE, I don't even try. When Jake is running in the snow, there is nothing he can do but dog smile. Besides, he doesn't have fingers. Shutter: 1/500; Aperture: f/7.1; ISO: 400; Focal length: 200 mm

The Landscaper

Pin Oak Road near I-55
Photograph by Tom Atwood

This is the spot, exactly, where I was standing in the fall of 2009, when the farmer who owns this property stopped in his pickup truck to ask what I was doing. He had seen me driving up and down the roads around here lately, and just wondered? Why was I taking pictures of his house? I told him I was shooting a series of landscape pictures in Madison County for a photo exhibit. The farmer seemed perplexed, but said he had also done some landscaping work, on the side, for homeowners in the area. Maybe it was impossible for him to think of his own home, and the land that he sees and works day after day, as art?

Shutter: 1/80; Aperture: f/6.3; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm

Stolen Goods

Strasen Lane near Marine, Illinois
January 21, 2011
Photograph by Tom Atwood

This is the coldest picture I've ever taken. After I took it, the thermometer in my van (a scientific instrument) read minus one degree Fahrenheit. What's interesting to me this morning, though, is not the cold, but the phrase "take a picture." To take a picture sounds like stealing, or at least removing something. I wonder, who did I take this picture from? Am I a thief? Or maybe I am just addled by the cold, a kind of frostbite of the mind. All I know is I can't give it back.

Shutter: 1/50; Aperture: f/7.1; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm

Enduring the Snow

Quercus Grove Road
January 20, 2011

It's difficult taking a good photograph while it's snowing. Not as difficult as, say, teaching second grade, but still, not easy. Falling snow rarely looks like snow in a photo. It looks like something else. Streaky. Cloudy. So usually for landscape pictures I wait 'til the snow is over. But driving around this morning with Sally,  I decided to stop when she saw this steer in the snow, basically enduring it. I was sure he would move away when I approached and asked him if he minded being photographed, but he didn't. He endured it, along with the falling snow. Shutter: 1/40; Aperture: f/5; ISO: 100; Focal length: 28 mm

Apocalypse of Sepia

Old Chain of Rocks Bridge
Photograph by Tom Atwood

There is something apocalyptic about this icy photo of the Mississippi River at the Chain of Rocks. Part of it is the ice, which seems to bubble up out of the river. Part of it is the bridges, empty, except for one truck on the I-270 Bridge. But I think the main ingredient in this end-of-the-world image is the finish. The sepia, in high contrast, makes everything seem more stark and forbidding. It was actually a beautiful day - as you can see in the original color image below.

Shutter: 1/160; Aperture: f/5.6; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm

Found objects

Irrigation valve. Adams County, Wisconsin
Photograph by Tom Atwood

I doubt if the Wisconsin farmer who owns this irrigation valve thinks of it in any way as art. And maybe it's not. But something about it appealed to me wandering around in a field one morning near Wisconsin Dells. But then again, I am fascinated by certain everyday objects. Among them, water towers, cell phone towers, telephone poles, and blacktop roads. However, if the farmer had approached me demanding to know why I was trespassing so close to his irrigation valve, I probably would have had a hard time explaining it to him.
Shutter: 1/125; Aperture: f/1.8; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm

Extreme Close Up

Sunflower along Highway 159 near Moro, Illinois
Photograph by Tom Atwood

One of the most important decisions a photographer makes is where to position the camera. Sounds simple enough. But when you think about it, the possibilities are infinite, among them - how close? Moving in extremely close to this sunflower near Moro, Illinois reveals small, otherworldly features with otherworldly names: micro and megasporophyllis, hundreds of them, housed in the androceium, surrounded by yellow. Instead of just beautiful, an extreme closeup helps the gaudy sunflower become interesting, too. And for photographic purposes, that's better. Shutter: 1/250; Aperture: f/3.2; ISO: 100; Focal length: 35 mm. (Double-click image to enlarge)

Clarity

West Alton, Missouri
Photograph by Tom Atwood

"God has given you one face," Hamlet says to Ophelia, "and you have given yourselves another." Like Ophelia and her friends, this photo is wearing some makeup, too. God has given my camera a lovely image of these small islands where eagles roost in Ellis Bay, and I have put makeup on it. To be specific, I have added saturation (using the processing software Lightroom 2), and I desaturated the color blue, to bring out the snow on the islands' shores. The main "makeup" I have applied, though, is a dramatic reduction in the "clarity" of the image, which fuzzes it up a bit, giving the image a slightly dreamier quality than God did. Shutter: 1/60; Aperture: f/5.6; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm

Each dawn is different

Goshen Road
January 15, 2011
Photograph by Tom Atwood

It's cloudy today, but sometimes clouds in the morning create dramatic dawns, dawns that seem to change minute by minute. When I woke up and saw the sky, I only had enough time to get to one of my nearest spots: Goshen Road leaving Edwardsville. As I drove by this barn (yes, I have photographed it many times before), I realized this was it, the moment. So I stopped and shot the barn again, thankful that each dawn is different. The sky's reflection on Goshen Road is courtesy of melting snow. Shutter: 1/60; Aperture: f/5; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm (Click image to enlarge)

Unretouched

Ellis Bay. West Alton, Missouri
January 14, 2011
Photograph by Tom Atwood

I never photoshop an image. I don't want to drastically alter my photographs. Old fashioned, I believe photography is best rooted in reality. At least the pictures I take. However, I almost always alter my photos in some way. More contrast. More saturation (color). Brightness. Exposure. Clarity. Vignettes. Usually, I think every photo can be improved. But not this one. This image of dawn at Ellis Bay along the Mississippi River near West Alton is unretouched. Exactly as the camera saw it. A perfect, cold, still morning. Shutter: 1/80; Aperture: f/5.6; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm

Motion & Decay

Bridge over the Big Thompson River
Photograph by Tom Atwood

There is a lot of motion in this photograph. One reason I love the Big Thompson River in Colorado is because it is always moving very fast. It was the first "mountain stream" I saw growing up. When I was 13 I took 8 mm home movies of it. An entire three-minute reel of the Big Thompson. (I was used to slower-moving rivers like the Big Muddy and Mississippi.) But there is another movement in this photograph taken last summer in Rocky Mountain National Park. The motion of decay on the bridge, moving even more slowly than the Big Muddy in Southern Illinois. Shutter: 2 seconds; Aperture: f/29; ISO: 100; Focal length: 32 mm (cropped)

Best Portraits 2010

Maybe instead of calling this collection "Best Portraits 2010" I should have called it "Photographer's 25 Favorites." Because that's what these photos represent. They may or may not be the "best" portraits I took in 2010, but I think they are among the most interesting. Not everyone is smiling. Not everyone looks perfect. But to me, they all appear to be very interesting, lovely people. People you'd like to get to know.

To see high resolution images of all 25 photos, visit the Tom Atwood Media gallery on Smugmug.

This one doesn't count

Joselyn Simms
Photograph by Tom Atwood

"This one doesn't count," I said to Joselyn Simms as I took this picture. I say that when I'm shooting a test photo to check the lighting and exposure. Or to make sure I have film in the camera. I mean, a memory card. I've noticed, though, sometimes these photos that "don't count," can make for interesting, revealing and, occasionally, very good portraits. The guard comes down. The subject relaxes.  But for Joselyn, a dancer, the gracefulness remains, almost as if it has nowhere else to go, even when she isn't "posing." Maybe it's the training? Shutter: 1/640; Aperture: f/2.8; ISO: 100; Focal length: 35 mm

Composition

Pelicans on the Mississippi River
Photograph by Tom Atwood

Composition is important in a photo, but sometimes it is mainly left to chance. Especially when shooting wildlife. All the pelicans floating down the Mississippi in this picture cooperated, in terms of composition, except one or two. Their beaks are at a different angle, or point in a different direction. Nothing I can do about that, except Photoshop® them out. But that would be animal cruelty. Shutter: 1/250; f/5.6; ISO: 200 Focal length: 105 mm

Joselyn

Joselyn Simms
Photograph by Tom Atwood

Today I learned what an arabesque is. Joselyn Simms,  a dance student at Webster University, needed a photograph of her performing this fundamental ballet step to include with her resume. We took the photos on campus at a dance studio flooded with winter sunlight through a wall of windows facing south. When I first saw the room, I thought shooting would be difficult with so much sunlight. But it actually created a bright, beautiful setting for this lovely ballet pose, in which the dancer "stands on one leg, straight or bent, with the other leg raised behind, fully extended. The arms are held in a harmonious position to give the longest possible line from fingertips to toes." Better yet, see photo.

Shutter: 1/640; Aperture: f/2.8; ISO: 100; Focal length: 35 mm (Click image to enlarge)

Winter

Orland Park, Illinois
Photograph by Tom Atwood

Urban eagle

American Bald Eagle, Alton, Illinois
January 1, 2011
Photograph by Tom Atwood

Some days I wish I had a 500 mm lens. If I did, the eagle  would be a much larger part of this photo, taken along the Mississippi River near Alton on New Year's Day. But something would have been lost, too. Mainly the train, which adds a sense of place and time. This eagle is not exactly in the wild. It's more of an urban eagle, feeding along the locks and dams of the Mississippi, which churn up fish and keep part of the river unfrozen in winter. He's a little bit of a showoff, too, posing at a distance on the rocks, knowing most photographers have lenses long enough to capture every feather. Just not this photographer. Shutter: 1/320; Aperture: f/5.6; ISO: 800; Focal length: 200 mm

The Rookery

The Rookery
Chicago, Illinois
Photograph by Tom Atwood

Daniel Burnham, the architect who was Director of Works for the World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893, also designed (along with John Root) one of Chicago's most famous buildings, known as The Rookery. Built in 1888, The Rookery features interior design by Frank Lloyd Wright. The 11-story building is so magnificent and ageless that the people in this photo somehow seem out of place. Like the cars and streetlights, they are from another era, from a future that is small and plain, when compared to the Rookery's timeless grace. (For more about Daniel Burnham, see Erik Larson's fine novel, "The Devil in the White City: Murder, Madness and Magic at the Fair that Changed America.") Shutter: 1/30; Aperture: f/5.6; ISO: 100; Focal length: 18 mm