My #thursdaythoughts theme was retired for 2025. While searching for something new to replace it, the current theme will be Anything Can Happen Day. This was what Thursdays were called on the Mickey Mouse Club where I stole the idea!
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.—Salvador Dali
Surrealism was a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s and is best known for its art and writings. The surrealist’s aim was to “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality.” To that end, artists painted what some considered to be “unnerving, illogical scenes” with photographic precision, created strange creatures from everyday objects and developed painting techniques that allowed the unconscious to express itself. What’s that got to do with my photography?
How I Made this Photograph: The Olympus E-620 I used to make this shot was a Four Thirds System DSLR that combined some of the features of Olympus’s smaller E-420 DSLR with a new 12.3 megapixel sensor, slightly larger viewfinder and a flip-out LCD screen.
To make this image, I attached an Olympus 40-150mm f4-5.6 Zuiko Digital ED lens. The Program mode exposure—my favorite for what I call my street photography—was 1/640 sec at f/10 and ISO 200. Some of the reflections that you see in this image are real, but some are surreal and were created using Flaming Pear’s Flood plug-in. There’s a free trial version of the software that lets you see what kind of effects you can produce, like I did with this post.
The Four Thirds DSLR system, which Mary loved and used back in the time it was available, is no longer being produced, although its sensor format (17.3 × 13.0mm) lives on in the Micro Four-thirds system. The beautifully crafted, high quality lenses that were part of the original system can be used along with the Olympus MMF-3 adapter with Olympus and Panasonic’s Micro Four-thirds mirrorless cameras. When the the Four Thirds system ceased being produced, Mary deserted it and moved on to Nikon DSLR and mirrorless cameras. Me? I went for the new Micro Four-thirds system that includes cameras and lots of different lenses from Olympus and Panasonic. That’s maybe a story for another time…
If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to treat Joe to a cup of Earl Grey tea ($3.50), click here. And if you do, many thanks.
Along with photographer Barry Staver, I’m co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s new available from Amazon fpr $21.50 with used copies starting around ten bucks, as I write this.