"The Guardian" ©David A. Ziser OK, this image may surprise you a bit when I tell you the back-story.  Over the weekend, LaDawn and I visited the Cincinnati Conservatory where they were featuring their annual Butterfly Show.  On the way into the exhibit, we had to pass through the Bonsai Tree exhibit.  I have always been fascinated with Bonsai trees and remain inspired by how the

"Sky High Blues" ©David A. Ziser OK, here it is - my favorite shot from our New York visit last week. I pointed the camera straight up, set the lens on the widest setting, framed up the buildings and shot away. The lines are the exciting element in this image with all lines heading skyward. I love how the light gets brighter as the eye travels up the buildings. Your eyes can’t help but

"Eye Play”
David A. Ziser

One of my favorite things to do when visiting any big city is to shoot the urban landscape.  I love to look for the lines, shapes, and forms of the buildings. Then I crop in closely to isolate on one particular design aspect of that building or buildings.  I try to end up with some kind of abstract design that visually is just pleasing to explore. When you’re in a city like NYC, there’s lots of urban landscapes to photograph.  Here is one that I photographed yesterday while walking down Lexington Avenue.  I love the play of all the small rectangles against the framing of the two larger rectangular spaces.  Each rectangle had within it a smaller play of patterns that I thought added interest and texture to this cityscape.  I aligned the right side of my camera’s viewfinder with the leading right edge of the buildings.  I thought I would later correct the perspective in Photoshop, but decided that I liked the visual illusion of the composition “pulling” out from the top right corner of the image.  Just stare at the center of the image for a second or two and see if you don’t see what I’m talking about.  Something keeps telling me to FIX it, but by not doing so almost creates a visual “argument” with the

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"Cabo Afterglow"
©David A. Ziser

Since the topic in today's Technique Tuesday involves the sun, I thought I'd post one of the fabulous Cabo sunsets.  This image was taken last December while on a visit to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Every time we head to Cabo this time of the year, the sunsets are always magnificent.  This evening was no exception. This view is from the beautiful Westin Hotel which is on the way to San Jose del Cabo, near where we stay when visiting that beautiful part of the world.  Even with a few tweaks in Lightroom 2, this is pretty much how I remember the sunset that beautiful evening. The foreground is actually a reflection pool.  I positioned myself very near to its surface so I could get the "infinity pool" look in the image. The two lone palms framed the image of the sky, sunset, and reflection perfectly. The results of this image speaks to the beauty of the moment. Moments that we should all strive to make a bigger part of our busy lives.  Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 10-22mm wide angle lens at 10mm, F 8.0 @1/200 second, ISO 200. Enjoy!  David

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"Stepping Up In The World"
©David A. Ziser

Here is an image I made on one of our photowalks in Cabo last month. I just love the bright colors of the buildings in Mexico. Under the clear blue skies, those colors stand out even more brilliantly.  OK, what do I like about this image?  First the bright color of the wall, but I also like how it is interrupted by the steps.  Look too how the steps shadow tonalities change as one proceeds visually towards the top step.  I also like the two diagonal "zig-zags" running through the image.  All in all, I find it a very pleasing, simplistic and colorful composition.  Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 60mm, F 8.0 @ 1/1250 second, ISO 200. Enjoy!  -David

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