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Boken behind branches and buds

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009
Bokeh around buds of a tree

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.

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A Black and White image from Monday

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
I think this is Bradley Peak, on the far site of Turnagain arm

I think this is Bradley Peak, on the far site of Turnagain arm

Monday, driving home: had spend dinner with my folks at the Bird Creek campground (it’s all of 20 minutes south of Anchorage).

It was about 9pm – golden hour was just beginning.  For some reason, the color version came out extremely blue and flat, despite the angles and the shadows.  So I dropped it into Photoshop and opened NIK Silver Efex.  A basic conversion, but I added some noise, burned in the top edge a little, and slapped on a red lens conversion.

Instant drama.

It was interesting, this reminds me of Ansel Adam’s famous shot of the half-dome.  In his book Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs, he mentions that he used a red filter on that image.

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Brilliant colors

Monday, May 18th, 2009
Anchorage in the evening, last Friday. 9:20pm. Still quite a ways from sunset.

Anchorage in the evening, last Friday. 9:20pm. Still quite a ways from sunset.

The picture to the right is typical of Anchorage, this time of year.  Or rather, the light is fairly typical.  We’re not so far north that we get sunlight 24×7 (plus it’s too early yet), but we do have direct sunlight until nearly 11pm (officially, we already get over 20 hrs of sun per day).  But due to the angle, we end up with relatively weak sunlight for large parts of that.

To a photographer, that gives us a few advantages.  The golden hour, for example: it lasts well over an hour.  None of the hurrying to take a shot in 15 minutes, like we see so often when we make it to Hawaii. The tradeoff on the golden hour: the light often isn’t as brilliant and saturated, like you see in places further south.  So yesterday was an exception.

While on the topic of benefits of northern light, one of the things I’ve noticed: in more temperate areas, there is a definate period of time where the sun is directly overhead and light is either too harsh or just unflattering.  You still get that here, but even in the middle of summer the sun isn’t directly overhead.  No, it’s always at an angle, which means there’s very little time where  you can’t do landscape photography.  Or even outdoor portraits with natural light – the sun is that low most of the summer.

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Self Portrait (sorta)

Saturday, May 16th, 2009

This was taken years ago, on an older camera that was (sadly) stolen.  The predecessor to my sd500, I took it everywhere.  In this case, it was a semi-cloudy day (foggy, when up high), where my old man & I went hiking.  I handed off the camera, hoping for the best.

In this case, it came out well.  The ambient light was bright enough to not fire off the flash, and the fog came out beautifully.  The view from the peak wasn’t obscured at all, either.

Semi-self portrait at the base of Ptarmigan peak. 7 years ago and 20 pounds lighter.

Semi-self portrait at the base of Ptarmigan peak. 7 years ago and 20 pounds lighter.

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A note on abstracts

Thursday, May 14th, 2009
Indian Pass - a hike to the south of Anchorage on the New Seward Hwy

Indian Pass - a hike to the south of Anchorage on the New Seward Hwy

When I originally started this blog, I had a stated purpose.  I believe it’s on my “about” page right now: to learn.  Well, I’m learning.  For example, I’ve learned that I like to take abstracts.  I never really thought about it before, but they’re always there.  Even when I take landscape photos, it’s not about the obvious subject, but the way the subjects trace lines in the picture frame.

For example, when I took the photo to the right (in hindsight), I was seeing the sloping lines to the sides of the photo.  Blame it on my (old, long in the past) background in economics.  I like graphs, and I saw one in this photo.

I just didn’t know it until I started this blog.

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The weather turns

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

It’s now starting to look like last summer – raining yesterday, overcast today, hazy earlier this week.  Sunday was the best weather of the week.  So a cop-out photo for today:

Running the trails behind APU

Running the trails behind APU (click for larger view)

This is a self-pic from a jog I took at lunch on Tuesday.  Notice the flat lighting – hazy already by that time.  Rich colors, though.

Neat thing about the sd500 in this situation: it has a pretty wide-angle lens for such a small camera, so I could get this by merely holding the camera at arm’s length.

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Last shot of Goose Lake

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

This is perhaps my favorite shot of the day (well, of last Sunday).

The lifegaurd station at Goose Lake.

The lifegaurd station at Goose Lake.

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An abstract

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Now, I’m no abstract photographer.  Wouldn’t consider myself a fan, or even knowledgable.  But sometimes things just jump out at you.  Below is one of those things: crossing power lines (maybe telephone lines?) that I’ve passed a thousand times.  On my Sunday bike ride, I finally looked up.

A series of shapes, drawn by the lines

A series of shapes, drawn by the lines

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Pics while biking

Monday, May 4th, 2009
Eastbound Northern Lights blvd.

Eastbound Northern Lights blvd.

The photo from yesterday’s post and the one to the right here are both pics that I took yesterday while out on a bike ride. This is one that I took towards the end of my trip – it’s no more than a mile from Goose Lake.

It’s supposed to range between mostly & partly cloudy for the rest of the week, so I suppose I’ll need to enjoy the memory of this for a few days.

At any rate, this is a prime example of why I like the sd500.  I can shove it in a pocket & run around, stopping when I feel like it to take snapshots.

On that note, you can look forward to the rest of my posts this week being populated from my Sunday bike ride’s pics.

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Finally, decent weather

Monday, May 4th, 2009
Kids playing in the water

Playing in the water

Unless you have lived up here for a while, this may be hard to understand: we’re finally getting temperatures in the 60′s!  Now, to most of the world, that’s nothing that impressive.  For us, however, this is something: we’ve just wrapped up an eight-month winter (seriously, it starts in mid/late September and ends in late April/early May).  Before that long, cold winter, we had one of the worst summers on record.

Normally, we get a sunny May and June (occasionaly cloudiness & maybe some rain), partially sunny July, and a partially rainy August.  Then it gets nice again in September, but it’s cold – around mid September things will occasionaly start to freeze, and by October it’s pretty regular.

Last summer, however: no such luck.  We had some sun in early May – when it’s still cold.  From that point on, it was mostly overcast through July, and then rain and cloudy conditions from there to September.  We didn’t have a summer.

Now we’re finally getting one.  I just hope it stays.

Click on the image for a larger view.  This was a shot I took today at Goose Lake.  It’s May 3rd and already warm enough that people are getting in the lake.  Just last Friday there was still ice on that lake, even now it’s cold.  But refreshing

photo details: -1/3 EV, ISO 50, Sunny WB, manual mode on the sd500

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