May, 2009

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Frame within a frame

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

HDR of clouds and trees

I read a lot on photography. One of the more common themes a year or two ago were about finding the “fram within a frame.” That is to say, find a new composition an existing photo. For example, take a look to the right. An HDR from last weekend, which has some incredible light in the clouds, but sorta loses the feel in the trees. This was hand-held, mind you, so that might have contributed to the trees being off, but it was also slightly windy.

Nonetheless, the light in the clouds was great! Wanting to capture this, I dinked around for a few minutes in photoshop, until I came out with the photo below.

There I go again with abstracts…

HDR Clouds, from cropping in the previous pic

Posted in Photographs, Post Processing, Technique | 1 Response »
Tags: clouds, hdr, photograph, photoshop, Post Processing, sky

Sometimes you get lucky

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

Horsetail fern in our backyard. Stupid things, can't get rid of them.

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I left my camera on auto-bracket. Merrily snapping away, I ended up with precisely… crap.

However, one photo just barely squeaked in as decent. About 5 minutes in photoshop and it came out as you see to the right.

Details on the photo:

105mm macro lens (nikon)
f/18
1/80 sec.
ISO 640

Seems that 640 ISO is the best that I can do with my SLR. Any faster and grain really pops in there.

Posted in Observations, Photographs | No Responses »
Tags: depth of field, ferns, macro, photograph, sd500

Box o’ Rocks

Friday, May 29th, 2009

The title is a family colloquialism for my head.

This, as opposed to an exhibit being shown right now at the Ansel Adams gallery in Yosemite. I actually have the book from Bill Atkinson, which covers some of the groundbreaking work with the printing. I don’t recall exact details and I’m too damn lazy to actually open the book, but I recall there being some incredible works there.

I suppose I’ll have to look at the book again.

The book, in case you’re interested.

Posted in Authors | No Responses »
Tags: ansel adams, art, book

Never forget about auto bracketing

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Or rather, never forget to turn off auto bracketing.

A few years ago a friend of mine had to return his Nikon D2 (H? Don’t remember.). The internal metering was going batty – you could focus on a flower and it would fluctuation, without moving the camera, from 1/8000 sec to 5 secs. Quickly, too.

Yesterday, I was afraid that my SLR was starting to go down the same path. Crappy over- and under-exposed pics. Lousy results. I’m getting depressed.

Today I noticed that it was set for a 9-picture bracket, for HDR photos.

Posted in Observations, Technique | No Responses »
Tags: hdr, photograph, slr

Colby Katz on Beauty Pageants

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

I check out PDN’s photo of the day pretty much… well, daily. Yesterday, Colby Katz was the subject – specifically, a project of hers where she’s taking behind-the scenes photos of beauty pageants. Did that bring you images of Miss USA or Miss America?

Oh no, not that wholesome. No, these are pics of child beauty pageants.

I can only describe what I see as disturbing. Putting 5-year old girls through bathing suit competitions? I have a 4-year old daughter (who would doubtlessly love the dressup part of this), and I can’t help but wonder: what the hell is wrong with you people?

As I read through the article, I started to think back to my own past. Lorna, a supervisor where I used to work – she was into these. Travelled with her family all over. They loved it, near as I could tell. When the JonBenet Ramsey tragedy unfolded, I remember being told that it’s a huge thing in the south. Lots of southerners in Alaska – I suppose it’s good for keeping perspective.

But now as a father and photographer, I am left with unsettled disgust.

Posted in Observations | No Responses »
Tags: philosophy

One final B&W

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Well, for now. The same day that I took the photo of the mountains across Turnagain arm also yielded the photo below. This one didn’t come out as well as I would have liked, but it does have something of that light, old-timey feel. I like that.

In post-processing, I did actually do a bit of burning to the shadows of the trunk, and dodged the details back in to some of the branches. When working in black & white, I usually stick to that – I feel it’s closer to the original techniques in the darkroom.

Bird Creek Tree in B&W

Posted in Photographs, Post Processing, Technique | No Responses »
Tags: anchorage, B&W, photograph, Post Processing, tree

Starting to like Black and White

Monday, May 25th, 2009

Despite taking photos for years, it’s been only recently that I’ve actually started converting them to black and white. I’m starting to like it, though – in some situations, that is. Such as this fence, which (with the high structure & contrast) somewhat reminds me of some work by Ansel Adams.

Gate to Fence, B&W

Posted in Photographs, Post Processing | No Responses »
Tags: B&W, fence, photograph

Creating Bokeh

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

pure bokeh - nothing to distract you from blurriness

Yesterday I posted about bokeh. This is actually a rare post for me, in that it was taken on an SLR.

So I was later asked: how to take that photo? Well, on an SLR it’s fairly easy: turn focus to manual (on my SLR, I just move a switch), and make sure the background is nice and blurry. Tot the right: an exact example.

If you’re focusing on something, then the background needs to be a suitable distance away, and the f/stop needs to be as large (low number) as possible.

On a point & shoot? It can be done, but it’s trickier. That may come in a later post, someday.

Posted in Photographs, Technique | No Responses »
Tags: abstract, bokeh, photograph

Boken behind branches and buds

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

Bokeh around buds of a tree

Bokeh – the big spots in the background. Yesterday I was at my folk’s place, playing around with my SLR and the big 18-200mm lens. Noticed when I tried to pull off a macro shot that the bokeh was wild.

I’m not normally one for doing bokeh – it can be beautiful in the hands of a master, but I’ve seen a lot of gimicky things. Thinks that I’d doubtlessly love to play with, mind you – but don’t feel honest to me.

This pic is different. I noticed the effect and worked with it until I got what I wanted. Then the wind blew & spoiled the composition. Three times in a row.

A more patient photographer would have waited, but I was without tripod. So consider this good enough: a sample of boken, and a reminder: just a week ago, this tree just barely had leaves on it. Pretty amazing how quickly the flowers came out.

Posted in Photographs, Technique | 1 Response »
Tags: alaska, anchorage, bokeh, photograph, tree

Observation on Black and White images

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

This isn’t a well publicized blog – I’m not really sure where I’m going to go with it, so not many people stick around that long. I like to think of it as an ongoing conversation. Kinda like talking with myself, but with folks interjecting observations and whatall.

So on that line, I should point out that I have a photostream on flickr. Now, I bring this up because I’ve noticed something: the black & white images are by far the least popular images on the site. This may be due to poor marketing, and there’s certainly a pretty short list of B&W photos for observation. But I can definately say: if it’s black & white, there’s a huge drop in traffic.

And yet, I like B&W. Not always, but the mountain pic in Tuesday’s post really spoke to me. So don’t think I’ll be stopping, but I may steer away from the topic for a short while.

Posted in Observations | No Responses »
Tags: B&W, Meta, Observations

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