Light Experiments-TBD

Name: TBD

Light Studies -continued

Light Studies

Outer Space / Inner Space

Kaleidoscope - painted with light

                                                                      Detail of Above

Perception

These are dried flowers. I guess it really depends how you look at it.

Painted by the Moon

This image is painted with the moon.
What I mean by that is, I took my camera, I looked at the moon and painted and pulled that light.
I love moving light, shaping it, bending, swirling and dancing with it.

- Stefanie Atkinson

Tools
Canon Rebel (film)
Creativity
Light
Full moon

The tallest tree in the jungle

We were hoisted up 100 ft. to have a lovely breakfast in the tallest tree in the jungle at the Manu Biosphere Reserve in Peru. We were well above all the other trees and this was the view above us.

- Stefanie Atkinson

Tools
Canon Rebel (film)
Adventure
Adobe Lightroom - love the color corrector

Left, Silently

One evening I was walking back from the Estuary below our house. It was getting dark. My eyes were drawn to the top of a nearby pine tree. I felt there was something there, but I really could not see well enough to know for sure. Curious, I took a very long exposure.

When I brought my camera down and looked back up, there wasn’t anything there. Yet, I really thought I had seen something.

I went inside and uploaded this image. I had to crank up the exposure in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Sure enough, I had captured an owl and its trail.

- Stefanie Atkinson


Tools
Canon 5D
200 L series lens
Walking Shoes
Curiousity

Standing Bear

We were at the twins’ club garage sale surrounded by a sea of double strollers, high chairs, car seats, and bouncy things when my cell phone rang.

The man on the phone told me I had won a trip to Alaska. I was one of six photographers picked to be part of a Grizzly Bear Photographic Expedition to the Katmai Coast leaving in a little over two weeks. I was chosen for my unique photographic style, which he had labeled “Naturalistic Impressionism.”

I would fly to Alaska, take a seaplane to the Katmai Coast, and sleep on a live aboard for seven days.

It was what I had been dreaming about. So I thanked him for the honor and accepted the invitation. At that moment, surrounded by my and other families, all I focused on was the honor of winning the trip and photographing birds in Alaska. I didn’t think about the Grizzly Bear part, at first.

But then, while still incredibly excited, I was a bit nervous before I left. Why do I want to photograph Grizzlies anyway? I know I like adventure, but it all sounded a bit risky.

It didn’t stop me though and before I knew it, I was standing 25 feet from the bear in this picture. It sounds strange, but the moment we looked at each other I felt safe. I was curious, grounded, my monopod in hand, my feet planted in the mud. It had been misting all day and my camera was under a rain cover.

For some reason, I felt the need to wave and say hello.

She rose.

We looked at each other.

In that moment, I felt we were equal. Until I remembered that that Grizzlies can run up to 25 miles per hour, stand at about 8 feet and weigh around 500 pounds.

But, I reminded myself, for all she knew I had a gun.

We were face to face.

Six photographers and a guides were with me, but all were looking the other way. The bear went back on 4 legs and all turned and yelled in hope that someone got the picture.

My friend Andrea got one. But she was too close and as she said, “That bear was looking right at you.”

The bear stands in front of me now, like a hologram.

She has been the topic of many conversations.

Those that live with her, who place her image on their walls, often tell me of her lessons.

To me she is a symbol of "Mother."

She is powerful, strong, protective, graceful, courageous, curious, and grounded.

And as a mother myself, I appreciate and honor those attributes.

* Stefanie Atkinson