…well, for around here. A momma moose & her calf decided to take a nap right behind our house. The photo below was shot from our balcony, and they’re physically lying down between two houses.
Mother and child
July, 2009
...now browsing by month
Just something odd…
Saturday, July 11th, 2009On photography books, in general.
Friday, July 10th, 2009I’m a sucker for books. Any book, really – it’s like a fetish, without the perversion. As far as you know.
One of my resolutions this year was to stop buying technical photo books – start focusing on artsy ones, instead. It looks like I’ll be breaking my resolution – Trey has finally come out with a book on HDR. I have absolutely no idea if it’ll be that good or useful for me (although if it’s anything like his work, it’ll be beautiful), but I know I’ll buy it. It’s titled “A World in HDR
I really wish I could afford the packet that Trey’s offering ($60 for autographed book & print), but I’m completely self-funded. I’m afraid I’ll be going the cheapest route…
What is “British Style Photography?”
Thursday, July 9th, 2009Hell if I know. With the exception of the picture below: that’s an “English Photograph”. Except that it isn’t, It’s mine. And it isn’t a style, it’s what I saw.
Pond near South Rolly. Really, it's Alaskan, not British
I suppose my comment comes from one that was made to me, how the English photographic style is idealistic, and tranquil, and has lakes in it, only they’re small lakes. I’ll admit that I’ve recently been reading David Ward’s
Urban disguise, first impressions
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009So after a few days, my first impressions of the Think Tank Urban Disguise 40
Part of that is the pack-rat in me. There are a ton of pockets – you can’t open a flap without getting an extra zipper. It’s extremely well designed for daily walkabout use, and you can pack a crap-load of stuff in it. For landscape an wildlife photography, I’ve packed it with my Nikon d200, the old-style (meaning huge & bulky) Nikon 80-200mm lens
But that’s not all – it also carries my blackrapid strap, filters, memory cards, extra batteries, pens, paper, space for a few magazines…
I’ll update again in a couple of months, but it looks like an excellent carry-around bag. The type that works well for urban photography, travel, and maybe even car camping.
Kinda Orton effect
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
A glade by our campsite at South Rolly
To the right you’ll see a picture of a glade. It’s similar to this one: (link to flickr), but with a big difference. No post-processing. This was all done in-camera.
The technique is pretty simple, and I’m not going to take credit for it – I read about it in Tony Sweet’s Fine Art Flower Photography. To pull this off, you’ll probably need an SLR of some sort: in my case, a Nikon D200. You’ll be messing around with menus, and you’ll need to find how to take a multiple exposure photo. On the Nikon, it’s a menu setting (and a pretty basic one). You set it to take two exposures, and when set:
- Take the first photo at +2ev;
- Take the second photo at +1ev, but manual focus and blur everything out;
In post processing, I did add some contrast and a light sharpening to the leaves at the bottom. But coming right out of the camera, it needed nothing else.
Well received
Monday, July 6th, 2009You remember the update the other day about shipping to Alaska? Well, it arrived over the weekend. I’m curious now as to what the true cost is to them, but I give an enthusiastic thumbs up to Norman Camera and Video.
If you’re in Alaska & need to buy something, I highly recommend buying from them. Granted, a single observation, but they’re now on the short list of “companies I order from.”
Pink flowers at the zoo
Sunday, July 5th, 2009One more photo, a study in not blowing out the highlights. This was about as perfectly exposed as could be for the lighting. Even though our summers are short, folks really work hard at making them bright & beautiful!
Pink flowers at the Alaska Zoo
A peak near Portage Glacier
Saturday, July 4th, 2009From a couple weeks ago, our Seward trip. One of the resurrected photos from the messed-up sensor:
Peak near Portage
Pink flowers in the sun
Friday, July 3rd, 2009Flowers in the sun: just an up-close pic of the lilacs growing in our front yard…
Pink flowers in the sun.
Finally, a decent shipping option
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009If you remember my gripe from the other day, you’ll know that I’m mighty frustrated with shipping costs up here. It’s not the whole problem of paying for shipping – that’s fair anywhere. The problem is that there’s no choice: I can only order “second day air”. And that’s padded with each company’s shipping charges.
Well, I don’t want second day air. Or rather, when I do want it, I’m OK with paying it. But if I need something in a few weeks – say 3 or 4, then I’m just as happy paying less for a slower service. Ground is OK, really!
But no, few folks offer that.
Well, I’d like to update that: Norman Camera and Video offer ground UPS to Alaska. It’s too early to state that this is a winner, but reviews are looking good. Assuming everything comes through, I think I have a new favorite place to order from.