My Influences - Harold Feinstein
Harold Feinstein was an inspiration for me in photographing butterflies.
“You must photograph where you are involved; where you are overwhelmed by what you see before you; where you hold your breath while releasing the shutter, not because you are afraid of jarring the camera, but because you are seeing with your guts wide open to the sweet pain of an image that is part of your life.”
© Harold Feinstein Photography
Have you heard of Harold Feinstein? He was an American photographer, born in 1931, he started his photography career at 15 years old in New York! I can’t imagine picking up anything at 15 and having that be THE thing that I get to do for the rest of my life. He has a very broad range of subjects from Coney Island, portraits, nature, and of course the ones that speak to me the most, flowers and butterflies.
Of course, you can see that his style of photographing butterflies is different than how I photograph butterflies. His work is beautiful studio lighting with preserved butterflies and I go out in nature, and to places like Butterfly Wonderland, to photograph the butterflies as they fly all around. These photographs of Harold’s are an inspiration to me because his work is ALWAYS fantastic, the details of the butterflies show off their brilliant colors and patterns, and they are just so real that I expect them to fly off the page.
© Harold Feinstein Photography
One of the things that I appreciate so much in finding an artist that inspires you is you find someone who does work that you love and you think, how can I make something from this that inspires me!? His photos often show the inside of the wings but think it is so interesting when the work shows the beauty of the wings from the inside, where we always think about the exquisite beauty and shows the outside of the wings as well. It is fascinating to see some butterflies, like a Blue Morpho butterfly, that has spots on the outsides of its wings and a vivid blue on the inside.
I don’t remember exactly when I discovered Harold’s work but I believe it was after he passed away in 2015. I was struck by his work and started to collect the different books that he published. My two favorite books are The Infinite Tulip and the Infinite Rose because I love to see the very wide variety of both these types of flowers.
Now that you have had a brief introduction to Harold Feinstein take a bit of time to check out some of his other work as well. Click here to go to his website. Let me know what some of your favorite work is of his!
September 2022 Calendar
September’s desktop calendar
The month of fall is officially here! We have had our summer fun, now as we get back fully into a routine, we say goodbye to the carefree days of summer. The next thing you know everything will be pumpkin flavored and pumpkin decor.
Around here, I just want to keep your computer desktop beautiful for you each and every month! This month we have a beautiful gymnocalycium cactus flower. This cactus has never bloomed for me before and recently I walked through the door and there was this flower that was about to bloom! I was so excited and ran back into the house yelling for everyone to come and see.
I hope that this little bloom will light up your day, just like it did mine when I first saw it!
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Still Becoming
As we all have, I have spent my whole life becoming who I am, and I will continue to spend the rest of my life becoming who I am as I grow even more. I wanted to share with you how I became who I am as an artist.
I officially started to study photography in 2001 when I went to Arizona State University. I had finally picked a major, for my bachelor's degree, that I thought would really hold my interest. Photography was something that I had always been interested in and hoped to really hone in on skills that I had never learned before. I can still remember the shopping trip with my mom to pick out my first SLR film camera, which I still have, and then getting to learn all about how cameras worked, working with film and in the darkroom, and most of all how to be in control of the camera. Those early days were lots and lots of learning all about the camera and how I could use it to shape the art that I was creating.
I tested out many paths along the way in discovering what type of photographer I wanted to be. For a while, I wanted to be a newborn baby photographer, and with supplies and courses purchased, I have tried my hand at wedding photography, and family photography. Each and every idea has taken me one step closer to photographing the things that I enjoy most, flowers!
It was at the Academy of Art that I discovered my love of photographing flowers abstractly. This gave me permission, from myself mainly, to push photography in a different way than what I had always thought was the proper way or been taught. It allowed me to play and discover things about myself. I guess I always looked up to different masters of photography, like Imogen Cunningham, Ansel Adams, and Edward Weston, who always had everything in focus in their work.
Spending time creating, exploring, reading, and figuring out who you are and what you love. You may find that as you grow that one thing you once loved isn’t for you any longer or something you never saw beauty in before suddenly holds a great beauty for you! That is how it was for me with cacti, I never saw the beauty in many of them, and then last year and this year I have become obsessed with them and now have cacti growing in my backyard! This was a journey that I didn’t expect to be on, especially after living in Arizona for around 30 years!
What does this journey to becoming you look like? I write down my thoughts and ideas, sometimes multiple times, so that I have that idea someplace and then I can always come back to it again if right now is not the right time. I am excited that I get to be on the journey of becoming over and over for my whole life. Things change and things change us, rather than resisting this change I want to lean into it.
Tell me about your journey, was it a straight path, a winding path, or one with a lot of pit stops along the way?
My Favorite Equipment
These are a few of my favorite things to take with me when I go out photographing.
Quite often you see my face and you know who I am. So, today I wanted to introduce you to the equipment that I take with me on my photographing flowers sessions.
My camera, I have a Canon 5D Mark ii and I have used this camera for many years now. I got this camera when we, Bryce and I graduated at the same time, were just about to graduate from graduate school at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. So this camera has been on many adventures with me. I have a few different lenses that I use often but these are the three that go with me on every flower photographing trip. My trusty 100mm macro lens, pictured on the camera, has been my go-to lens for photographing flowers since I first laid my hands on it. I was able to check out lenses at school and after a few times of using it, I was hooked and purchased my own knowing that it would be used a lot! I love this lens because it gives a life-size 1:1 magnification, it also has a very wide range of f-stops, which tell you how shallow the depth of field is, blurry, and how deep the depth of field is, sharp, from f-2.8 all the way to f-32. I love to photograph at f-2.8 which creates a beautiful shallow depth of field and allows me to pick the area that I want to have sharp in my images.
The next lens I love to use is my 85mm, f-1.8, this isn’t a run-of-the-mill lens that you would want to use in any and all situations. This is a portrait lens and that is just what I love to use it for, both with people and flowers. Again, I love to photograph with my lens wide open at the lowest f-stop so that my background creates a bokeh effect. The last lens I like to take with me is my 50mm, f-1.4, it is a nice “must-have” lens that is so lightweight and of course, it has the artsy shallow depth of field. I use this one for images that I am taking just a little further back from my subject.
The last couple of items are my diffuser and my monopod. I have a few different diffusers and reflectors but this is a nice pocket-sized diffuser that I can take with me just about anywhere. I use the diffuser when I am evening out the sun, blocking the sun if there is too much of it, creating even light, and sometimes blocking the sun from getting in my eyes while photographing. Last but not least is the monopod. Now not always do I have my monopod with me on day trips around town but when I am away from home I like to make sure that I have that extra bit to make sure I am steady and going to get the photograph.
Not pictured but often I bring along a kneeling mat to give my knees a bit of cushion and also for the times that I am photographing cacti. On more than one occasion I have gone home with a spine or two in my hands or my pants, so I have learned!
This is the equipment that I most often take with me and what I would call my favorite, for sure!
About a Metal Print
Questions and answers about metal prints for your home.
I love metal prints, the colors are just luminous, and I wanted to share a little bit about them. Photos printed on metal create a stop-you-in-your-tracks contemporary kind of art. Perhaps you have seen metal prints listed on my website and you were hoping to learn more about what a metal print is and how they look. A picture is worth a thousand words so I have added those as well as tried to answer questions that I once had about metal prints.
What is a metal print? It is a photograph printed on thin aluminum, 1/16” thick, and the images are coated with a vibrant glossy surface. Metal prints offer crisp vivid colors which bring the images to life and you have never seen such a brilliantly colorful photograph.
What sizes do they come in? I offer these in a variety of sizes, 16x16, 24x24, 30x30 in square images, and 16x24, 20x30, and 24x36 for vertical or horizontal images.
How do I hang them on the wall? All metal prints come with a floating mount attached to the back. They float 1/2” off the wall and are ready to display in your home.
How do I clean my metal print? The surface can be cleaned with a soft cloth (microfiber works well) or a feather duster. Avoid using chemicals, abrasive cloth, and cleaners (such as Windex.)
Will my metal print have straight edges or rounded edges? All of my metal prints have rounded edges for safety.
Do metal prints rust? No, they will not rust.
Can I hang my image in the sun? Please keep your image away from direct sunlight, as direct sunlight isn’t good for any art, and causes it to fade.
Are metal prints archival and how long will they last? Yes, when kept indoors and out of direct sunlight, they are made with a Standard Archival Value of 100+ years.
Are metal prints durable? Yes, they are durable but with all art, you want to handle them carefully to avoid bending, denting, or crushing the metal.
Do you have more questions? Please make sure to leave a comment in the comment area below and I can answer more questions for you. I hope this information will help you with your decision if a metal print is what you have been looking for!
Order your favorite flower photograph on metal wall art print from Anna Chipman Photography to liven up your home wall decor today!
Please note:
Images are printed on metal and could the metal could have minor variations and imperfections that are on the surface of the metal that we can’t control. While we make every effort to reduce their visibility, we cannot consent to returns for these imperfections.
August 2022 Calendar
August desktop calendar
"Breathe the sweetness that hovers in August."
―Denise Levertov
The prickly pear cactus and its blooms have shown up here a couple of times and I have to tell you that I am just awestruck that each one of these different prickly pear cacti can have a different flower. Some have yellow flowers, others have yellow with a red center and another type of prickly pear can have just red flowers. Nature is AMAZING! This image was photographed this spring at the Botanical Garden here in Phoenix. At that time there were blooms everywhere and the desert was bursting with transformation. So, today I present to you Fire Ducky.
As always, I hope that this cactus bloom will bring a smile to your face and brighten every day!
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Showy Lady Slipper
The seriously amazing adventure of seeing Showy Lady Slippers in person!
You know that thing that you have wanted to do or that place that you have wanted to go? I got to check one of those things off the list this year. I am a note taker and I have about 20 places where I take notes, notebooks, scraps of paper, plain paper, lined paper, my arm….I think you get the idea! Anyhow, one note that pops up a lot in things that I dream of photographing is the Showy Lady Slipper in Minnesota. I was born in Minnesota and spent a lot of summers there growing up.
This summer the kids and I got to go up in June. My cousin, Dawn, told me that the Showy Lady Slippers blooming late this year, as she and her hiking buddy, Gail, love to see them as well and had been on the lookout for them. We made plans to meet up that Friday and we would all head out to where they would often find the Showy Lady Slippers. We, Dawn, Gail, my dad, my kids, and I, climbed the small hill up to where the hilltop was covered, just covered, with so many plants that were dotted with the pink and white of the Lady Slippers. Honestly, you would think that I would have had my phone out to record the moment that I first saw them, but, I didn’t. I was so incredibly wrapped up in that moment but I just kept saying, “wow” over and over, while turning to see all of them.
So, I asked you, you know that thing that you have wanted to see or do? Well, I already told you, I got to do one of them. You know how sometimes after you have done that thing, that thing that you have been thinking about non-stop or planning forever, you can feel a little let down or like it didn’t meet your expectations? Well, this was not that way at all! My expectations were blown out of the water! I could have stayed there for a few hours, and in reality, I did have to go back because this isn’t an opportunity that will come along often, but I know that watching me photograph flowers can’t be all that exciting.
So, what did I learn from gettting to visit this beautiful location filled with flowers? My take away is that I need to keep making lists, telling people about the things on that list, (because how will anyone know what your dreams are if you keep them to yourself), and plan on completing the things you have written down!
A GIANT shout out to Dawn and Gail, my buddies, for helping me check this amazing experience off of my list! Thanks for waiting around while I took a lot of photos!
How I Dry Flowers
Today I am telling you about ways that I dry flowers.
I love when people give a sneak peek of what their “behind the scenes” looks like. I know I have told you before that I love dried flowers and you know I have a whole series on them. When I was in graduate school I had a smaller studio all to myself, which I spent just about every day in and absolutely loved! I would photograph the flowers that I had just purchased and then, if it was already wilting, I would hang them from my metal rack with clothes pins. My studio was COVERED in dry flowers! I couldn’t bear to get rid of the flowers yet when there was still so much beauty waiting to be photographed!
When we graduated I had to pack up my studio and I took many of those flowers home with me. A couple of years after that we moved from the San Francisco Bay Area back to Phoenix and that same box of flowers made that long trip with us! I had that same box of flowers for quite a few years. During one of our many moves in the first years we were back in Phoenix, we ended up moving 5 times, including from the Bay Area, in five years, which was A LOT of transition, the flowers had finally had enough of being moved from one spot to the next and I let those dried flowers go.
This wonderful hanger displays my flowers and dries them perfectly!
Obviously, I still have an obsession with dried flowers and I still have them around my art studio while they wait to be photographed. There are times that I get them right off of the plant, pick them out of a bouquet that is wilting, and of course when I have finished photographing them. I got this amazing little drying rack, for clothes, that I hung and now it dries my flowers and it displays them so beautifully for me to see every time I walk in the room.
The flowers that were forgotten while we were out of town but still have so much character.
The kids and I went to Minnesota a few weeks ago and I bought some peonies right before I left, thinking that I would have free time before we left, spoiler alert, I was wrong! My flowers got left in the vase they were in the whole time that we were gone! They dried very nicely and are continuing to hang out in the vase until it is time to move them. (It’s only 112 degrees Fahrenheit outside right now and I work in a non-air-conditioned area.) But I just want you to share that even when they are forgotten in a vase they can still dry in a beautiful way!
Flowers taken from my parent’s house from a bouquet for my dad’s 90th birthday.
I hope that this peek into my dried flowers was interesting and helpful! Soon I hope to press flowers, which I do have some hidden away, and talk to you about those as well! Let me know if this inspires to as well to give drying flowers a go!
Summer Magic
With school starting soon I am reflecting on the things that I love about summer!
Summer Magic…or things that I Love About Summer
It’s only a short three works before school starts again for my kids. Summer break is such a short time and it had me thinking about the things that I love about summer!
Exploring new places with family.
Iced coffee in the afternoon for a pick-me-up!
The kids getting to add color to their hair!
A new book that keeps me turning the pages.
Learning new things, then seeing that in real life. I just learned about Century Plants, an agave plant that flowers once (at about 10-25 years) and dies, and now I see them EVERYWHERE!
Tending to my garden. Smelling and tasting the fantastic things that are growing.
The sound of my kids laughing and them enjoying each other’s company.
Splashing in the water, at the lake, watching the sunset, and making memories.
Fireworks on the 4th of July and watching the amazement in my children’s eyes.
The colorful Arizona summer flowers lining the road that I live on - bring a smile to my face!
July 2022 Calendar
Your desktop calendar for July 2022
Yay, it is summer!!! July is time for popsicles, BBQs, and, my favorite, fireworks!! Fire Blossom, from the series, Pointed Elegance, is a photograph of a barrel cactus bloom. The colors of this barrel cactus bloom make me think of sitting out under the stars on the Fourth of July. This image has me imagining the fireworks crackling overhead, watching one small trail of a firework shooting up until it bursts into an explosion of color!
If you like this image, you really should check out the series, there are even more images to love!
Enjoy your summer and the summertime vibes from this barrel cactus bloom!
How to Download
Save the calendar to your desktop by right-clicking and saving the image, or clicking and dragging the image to your desktop.
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