Baker's Dozen: Yellow

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"There is a sun, a light that for want of a better word
I can only call yellow, pale sulphur yellow, pale golden
citron. How lovely yellow is!"

—Vincent Van Gogh

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By Darren Livingston ¹

By Jim Arthur ²

By Jeff Pressman ³

By Nicolas Vincent ⁴

By Keith Poole ⁵

By Marshall Smith ⁶

By Richard Reusser ⁷

By Kurt Kramer ⁸

By Mark Kinsman ⁹

By Melissa O'Shaughnessy ¹⁰

By Mark Sirota ¹¹

By Gilson Topfstedt ¹²

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And one more for good measure....

By Rodger Kingston ¹³

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(Thanks to Jim Arthur for the Vincent Van Gogh quote. —MJ)

Notes

1. Darren Livingston: "This photo was made 40 years ago when I was in Art/Photo school. Tech info: Mamiya 330f with 80mm ƒ/2.8, Ektachrome 200."

2. Jim Arthur: "From last year's office Halloween costume contest. I found this crop in a crowd scene where all the contestants were standing around watching and waiting to be judged. I like the juxtaposition of the happier looking Day of the Dead face with the ceramic tragedy face, and the fact that both chose to line their eyes in yellow. FYI, the mask is mounted on a large cardboard disk that is held up to the face using straps glued to the back. I used a Canon 6D and a Canon 135mm ƒ/2 at ƒ/6.3.

3. Jeff Pressman: "A number of years ago I was in Melbourne, Australia with my family for a wedding. We were just walking around and near the rail station we passed a painted weathered wall when the Aaron Siskind in me screamed out to take a photo. The colors and patterns to my eye worked perfectly as a kind of impressionist work, and this is still one of my favorite 'still life' photos. I had my trusty Fuji X100 with me at the time, which is still a great carrying-around camera for traveling."

4. Nick Vincent: "A straightforward, no-fuss photograph I took last October. Every year, there is a quinta (vineyard) celebrating the end of the harvest season not far from where we live in Portugal. It usually coincides with the most astonishing weather and beautiful autumnal colours in the countryside. This is the first year our hosts had prepared these decorations for the celebration. I could have have gone for more contrast and saturation in the leaves and flowers but I thought I’d let the yellow paint take over the whole of the composition."

5. Keith Poole, Glendale, Arizona: "This was taken at the base of the mountains behind Flagstaff, Arizona (Weatherford Trail), maybe a half mile from the parking area. This was my first real outing with my first real DSLR (Canon 20D) back in 2004. It was a really nice shooting day, I just remember being caught up for hours shooting away at amazing scenery, completely thrilled seeing the photos right away on the screen (film shooter since the '90s), thinking 'these frames are costing me nothing' (ha ha, how little did I know how much I'd spend after that on gear), but in the moment such freedom. I don't even completely recall taking the photo. It's one of those shots that jumped out at me afterwards when viewing on my computer, like 'I TOOK THIS?!?'"

6. Marshall Smith from Stamping Ground, Kentucky: "Northern Flickers are beautiful birds at any time, but a backlit wing is something special...in yellow. Taken over our local park pond with a Canon 5D Mark IV, 1/2000th sec., ƒ/8, ISO 640."

7. Richard Reusser: "Buried among all the yellow taxis and daffodils I found a picture of my daughter, Molly, hamming it up in the leaves. My stalwart Canon 5D Mark I would've only been a few months old back in 2006—and Molly half of her twenty two laps around the sun."

8. Kurt Kramer: "I have a friend in his mid-70s. He lives in the same six-flat building in which his parents lived when he was born. His apartment is a time capsule. When you enter, you feel as if you are going back in time by 50–60 years. This is the bathroom in the apartment. Data: Olympus E-M5 Mark II, M.Zuiko Olympus 12–40mm lens, 1/125th sec., ƒ/3.5, ISO 2500."

9. Mark Kinsman: "I took this on while at the local mall with my family. As we entered a new addition to the mall I noticed the escalator had yellow outlines steps and then noticed the women on the down ramp wearing a purple coat. Only had time to shoot two frames, this one in focus. Shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and 24–105 ƒ/4 lens."

10. Melissa O'Shaughnessy: "This yellow revolving door at the Standard Hotel in the Meatpacking District in New York City is a spot I frequented many times several years ago in an attempt to make something even more interesting out of an already eye-catching architectural detail. I have pictures of people coming and going in this spot in many configurations, but it was in this split second, when the morning light was ideal and a man of exactly the right height pushed his way through the door, that I knew I had my shot. I've returned to the locale several times since, but so far have not improved upon this simple—but to me delightful—moment."

11. Mark Sirota: "I photograph fireworks, generally large commercial displays like you see on the Fourth of July. Given that it's coming up, it seems apropos. I usually use a wide angle and try hard to include the crowd in the foreground, because the crowd is why we have fireworks displays, but sometimes for a change of pace I try something a little different. This is a photo of an aerial firework, shot at 180 mm-e with a focus pull during the 1.4 second hand-timed exposure (focused near at the beginning, shifting towards infinity at the end). Adjusting the focus by hand causes camera shake, which is what causes the wavy lines at the ends. I come away from a typical 20 minute fireworks show with about 100 exposures, of which maybe 20 will be salable and two will be great. I often sell as triptychs by color—for example, one that’s primarily red, one primarily green, one primarily blue. Or three purples. You get the idea. This is one of my favorite yellow ones. Normally yellow doesn’t stand alone well as a primary color in a firework photograph; it’s not bold enough. A big yellow burst over a great foreground often looks a little weak…. But thanks to the focus pull and the fortunate timing, the yellow is quite powerful in this one."

12. Gilson Topfstedt contributed from Germany. "Shot taken in January 2018 in Fuerteventura (Canary Islands) on an evening with nice sunlight, highlights, and shadows, and nice colors. All we need for a nice picture. Camera: Fuji X-T1."

13. Rodger Kingston: "Empty Gallery, Museum of Fine Art, Boston, Massachusetts, 2018. The color here is strictly from the warm lights on the neutral white walls. I suspect that work of Edward Hopper may have taught me to see this scene."

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Kenneth Tanaka: "Excellent. Simply excellent."

Nature Lover: "They just made me smile. Blue, green, red, they just will not make me as happy."

Ken Owen: "Kurt Kramer's photo of his friend's bathroom is my favourite. The details are fun."

Charlie Didrickson: "Very nice set of photos. I'm partial to #10—Melissa O'Shaughnessy."

Dave Jenkins: "The leadoff picture by Darren Livingston is the most striking photograph I've seen in a long, long time."

Comments

[Chris Kern]

That image by Melissa O'Shaughnessy is what street photography is all about—talk about ‟the decisive moment!”—but I couldn't help wondering why she didn't rotate it slightly to align the windows of the building with the edges of the frame.

[Jack]

Outstanding

[Tim Bradshaw]

Of course, Van Gogh was wrong: the Sun is actually white.

[Speed]

I just went through the 150 or so page instruction book for my camera and couldn't find the "focus pull" setting.

[Another phil]

Great choice of images. Some great photographers here.

[MikeR]

All quite nice!

[Eolake]

Gorgeous pictures.

And good qoute. Vincent is by far my favorite painter, long has been.
Watch Loving Vincent, it’s amazing.
(In fact there’s half a dozen really worthwhile movies about him, but that one is exceptional, being made all out of paintings in his style.)

[Eolake]

BTW, personally I would like the pictures to be up to 2k on a side. That would make for great wallpaper if you like them, on modern monitors.

[Mark Sirota]

Responding to Speed: "focus pull" means to adjust the focus during the exposure. It's common in video, rare in still photography. Some modern cameras and lenses with focus-by-wire won't allow it when shooting stills, but it'll always work with lenses that focus mechanically.

[Jnny]

Hah, small world. Mark Sirota and I raced cars together in the 90s.

[Michael Ferron]

Nice work folks. I wanted to say my favorite is....? But I can not. Inspiring photos, all of them.

[John Krumm]

Inspiring and wonderful. Nice work everyone.

[Ned Bunnell]

Nice series and congrats to all. I just saw this image by Melissa O’Shaughnessy who I follow on Instagram. Thought you’d enjoy it Mike.

https://instagram.com/p/BkaEs1NFrpb/

[Bill Bresler]

Great pix! Mike, you're a pretty darn good editor, too. I'm partial to #8, by Kurt Kramer. That hot water bottle!

[mark]

All very interesting interpretations but #8, the bathroom, does it for me. If the criterium had been "storytelling" than this one wins the prize. So much to look at and write about. Lots of detail, lots of content. You could start writing a novel just by looking at this one photo. All in all, great fun. Mike, thank you once again for sponsoring such an interesting event. Just by participating each of us learned a lot about our own photography.

[Tom]

If I might just mention that personally I would prefer to read the contributors' comments immediately beneath their image rather than having to keep scrolling back to the picture each time. A small point, I know.

[Ken]

Previous editions of baker's dozen left me with mixed impressions - a lot of images I liked, but a few that did not move me. Not so this time - I really like every single one of these images. I might not have picked the 13th image, but it works in this set. And while I am not usually big on people pictures, Mr. Reusser's daughter's picture and Mr. Arthur's masks in particular are very nice. But really, great job by all the photographers and great choices by the curator. Well done!

[Animesh Ray]

What an awesome collection!

[Nature Lover]

Am I the only one who saw Demuth's "I saw the Figure Five in Gold' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Saw_the_Figure_5_in_Gold (from William Carlos Williams' 'The Great Figure") in Jeff Pressman's submission?

[Mark OShaughnessy]

Wow that's a nice group. Kudos to all.

[Omer]

The gams. Yeah.

[eric erickson]

Mike, great post. It is because of post's like this that I am happy to contribute every month. Keep up the good work. Eric

[Richard Parkin]

Regarding Tom’s preference for comments under photos rather than as footnotes, I like the comments together and open the page in another browser and set side by side — best of both worlds ;-) .
(On iPad I do this by opening second copy in Firefox, then split screen and landscape — Chrome doesn’t work.)

[Bruce]

Ditto to Eric; Living near Melbourne, Australia, I'm going to hunt for Jeff's pic-- I hope it's somewhere near Southern cross station -(formerly Spencer St)- otherwise I'll be hunting forever-there are a lot of stations! Ta for other link , Nature Lover... All wonderful photos.. especially Darren's lead pic, and Melissa's chance pic. Inspires me to get out on these cold winter days.

[Bruce]

Revisited Melissa's pic... saw the yellow cabs on the right!!

[Gordon Lewis]

Nicely done. The photos work individually and collectively. I particularly appreciate how each photo is not exclusively yellow but the warmth and vibrance of yellow adds the perfect dash of hot sauce.

[Chester Williams]

Excellent choices, Mike. I especially love Keith Poole's image..

[Joe]

Wow , yellow was a great choice for a theme!

[Jim Arthur]

It was quite a surprise to find my image displayed on TOP. It made my day.

Congratulations to all the photographers who were selected and a big thanks to our humble Editor.

[Richard Gonet]

I really enjoyed viewing this collection. Thank you for initiating this project and curating it. Since we all have different tastes in art, I suspect there are some hidden gems in the ones that were not selected. Is there a way to present the "runners up" so we can see more of the entries? Even a collection of stripes and rubber duckies would be fun to see.

[D B]

Kramer and O'Shaughnessy for me.

Excellent work.

Thank you.

[Keith Poole]

Wow, I'm really honored to have my aspen photo picked out of all the submissions. Kind of a bucket list of mine to have MJ/TOP say "good job" lol! I've followed your site for years, I consider you one of my main "virtual mentors." I didn't submit comments with my email but basically this was taken at the base of the mountains behind Flagstaff, Arizona (Weatherford Trail), maybe a half mile from the parking area. This was my first real outing with my first real DSLR (Canon 20D) back in 2004. It was a really nice shooting day, I just remember being caught up for hours shooting away at amazing scenery, completely thrilled seeing the photos right away on the screen (film shooter since the 90's), thinking "these frames are costing me nothing" (ha ha, how little did I know how much I'd spend after that on gear), but in the moment such freedom. I don't even completely recall taking the photo. It's one of those shots that jumped out at me afterwards when viewing on my computer, like "I TOOK THIS?!?!?" Thanks again, I'm glad you liked it.

[Nicolas Vincent]

Hi Mike,
A little late to comment on this post, sorry. I am, of course, delighted to be featured in your selection. I sure there are plenty of other photographs that would be worthy of another Baker's Dozen but, these thirteen shots fit very nicely together.
I read in your comments that you saw the suite 3-4-5-6 very early on and it is true that they echo each other.
I am just throwing an idea here that might not be worth its while but why not try to print them together? I'd have no problem volunteering to run a few test prints if the other photographers are in and you would be the focal point/judge on the prints? Or would this take too much of your time for the (little) money it would bring you? I'm not sure myself it's a good idea... just my two cents...
Thanks again for these Baker's Dozen series and the rest of the blog.
Best,
Nick

[Richard Reusser]

Thanks so much for featuring Molly and the nice write up ! The garish gloves are common stock in the medical industry. I use them every day to start IV's so perhaps I'd gotten accustomed to the hue.

Molly remains a beautiful (and quirky) person. She had a short modeling career, with the apex a couple of shots in the newest David LaChapelle book. She's a sun Goddess (or something)... and he pushes the "garish" to eleven !

Rich

[David Comdico]

Nice batch of photos. I particularly like Kramer's bathroom with its beautiful light and idiosyncratic detail and O'Shaughnessy street shot. Good catch.