Saturday, July 31, 2010

Found Still Life

That was the name of a category for a monthly contest some time ago. I always liked that expression. Still life is art depicting inanimate subjects. I always thought of still life as having been arranged ie: a vase of flowers or basket of fruit. Found Still Life you don't arrange it you control the composition and lighting of the subject but is left as you found it. I hadn't thought of that for some time until I found this last night. 

I think in my further adventures with the camera I am going to keep "Found Still LIfe" in mind. 

Shot with a 24-85 zoom at 50mm f5.6 iso 400. 

Friday, July 30, 2010

My Daughter The Bar Wench

Jennifer just had her bar wench costume made for Cosplay (Anime Evolution) by her good friend Tris who is not only an accomplished artist but a pretty good costume designer as well. As soon as I saw it I thought "blog" so we ran down to a local park and took some photos. Of course we left it late and it was getting dark so we didn't have long.


Shot with the 17mm at 1/80th f5.6 iso 200 with the flash through an umbrella high and to camera left.

I very much like this shot but it doesn't show off the costume. So I am including the next one to show it off a bit. 

Shot with the 50mm 1/80th sec f2.8 iso 200 once again flash through an umbrella high to camera left. 

Thursday, July 29, 2010

What The Heck Is Bokeh?

I put this photo up on Facebook with photo's I took on my expedition with Darlene. When I showed it to Darlene I said I think it has nice Bokeh. She Gave me that look so I tried to explain. Basically it is about the quality of the out of focus area of an image. I thought someone was making it up when I first heard this. Some lenses because of the shape of the aperture ring create better "bokeh" than others. The link above explains it more thoroughly. Here is what I think is good bokeh. 

 
I don't usually talk a lot about the post processing that I do but here I think it is worth mentioning. The last step I make before printing or displaying is sharpening the image. In this case I want the chimes to be sharp but don't want to affect the background. So in Photoshop Elements I opened the photograph and created a duplicate layer. Basically a copy of the picture sitting on top of the original. I sharpened the image on the bottom layer with the unsharp enhancement tool (sounds backwards but is does sharpen an image real nice). I then went to the top layer and masked out the chimes from it so the sharpened chimes on the bottom layer showed through. That is basically it. 

This was shot with the 50mm 1/80th sec at f1.7,  iso 100

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

What Is Left Behind

In our travels the other day Darlene and I drove past a small group of old abandoned buildings. We debated for about half a second whether should go back, turned around and pulled into the lot. We noticed quite a few No trespassing signs and as we weren't trespassing but taking pictures we went around them. The buildings were rather empty with a few items strewn about. Broken things or things just no longer wanted. We both could see a lot of opportunity here. It was the kind of scene where you could wonder about the history of these things. Who used that fridge and where are they now? What were the children like who may have played at the little table? Or, you could think, "Wow what a mess! Why doesn't somebody clean it up?  Well we got what we came for. 


Shot with the 17mm at 1/10th sec f4.5 iso 100

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

And Now, The Other Side Of The Coin

Yesterday I showed you the sleek lines of a beautifully restored vintage Jaguar. It was about the sunlight but the car made a great subject. Now the opposite. An old piece of a truck tossed aside, perhaps to be used again but for now left to rust. Here is something great about photography. If you do it right you can take a photograph of an ordinary thing, or even something a person might not normally want to see, and make it art. It wouldn't be to everyone's taste but I think if one person out there enjoyed this picture then it qualifies. 

There are limits absolutely. I would never put something offensive in front of someone and expect them to see art. This is a whole argument of course that goes beyond my little blog here so I'll leave it at that. 

Shot with the 50mm at 1/2000 f1.7 iso 100 

Nicola, this is a Kenworth pronounced Ken-Worth 

Monday, July 26, 2010

Let There be..... Sun-Light

It really is about the light isn't it? In photography it is considered the best light early in the morning and late in the evening The Golden Hour. Quite often you don't have the luxury of choosing specific hours. Photographers generally use methods to soften the harsh direct sunlight to keep the photo's coming. There are lots of ways to improve on the natural light you get during the day. Sometimes it is good to just use it as it is I think. As with this photograph of a fully restored (right to the original colour) vintage Jaguar.


My good friend who happens to be British is very insistent that that it is pronounced Jag-you-are, not Jag-waugh (as she puts it). Ah well, what do those Brits know about the English language anyhow?
Shot with my 100mm macro at 160th sec f6.3 iso 100.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Not Gone, But Forgotten

Yesterday my friend Darlene and I went out on a photography expedition. We weren't quite sure where we were going to go when we started out. The idea was do pick a location and if we see something on the way stop and photograph it. We ended up in Fort Langley. We walked around the area for a couple hours finding different things old and new to take pictures of. There was a little yard between 2 antique shops with a tree in the middle and 2 things. An old wooden wheel barrel and what looked like an old bed-frame. We were in there for about half an hour taking pictures. The light through the trees kept changing and making different patterns on everything. It was a real treat. We finally got our photo's and were walking to the gate to get out when we noticed something else tucked away in the corner. 


This old washing machine rusting away. So there we were for about another 15-20 minutes taking pictures getting different ideas. The thing with the light again. It shined on the attachment for a brief few moments then went away. I was fortunate to catch it at that moment. 

Shot with the 50mm at 1/125 sec f1.7 iso 100. I sure am using this lens a lot. If you own a DSLR you should get one... Cheap and sharp.  I might have already said that. 

Saturday, July 24, 2010

You're Not Quite Done Yet

When I left the event the other night I thought I was all done and packed away the camera as I got ready to leave. I stepped out of the building ready for the mad dash to the car. I was Just on the edge of skid road you see. I was just about to turn the corner off Hastings and run up to the car when I saw this. 

 It's not often I am downtown at night anymore so don't get much opportunity to take photographs like this. Keeping a careful eye on the 2 drunk guys as they barreled on by I got the camera out and set up the shot. Just then this fellow was walking along so I waited a sec and took a few shots as he went by. Then of course I ran to the van like a scared rabbit stuffing my camera in the bag as I went.
Shot with the 50mm at 1/30th sec f1.7, iso 200. Overcame the urge to run long enough to get 3 shots.

Friday, July 23, 2010

A Great Day

Last night I had the privilege to do background photo's for  The r-Evolution ENDANGERED YOGIS CALENDAR Photo Shoot. I had a lot of fun, met a group of really nice people and learned a lot about my photography. Thank you Sarah E for inviting me to do this for you. Here are some samples of photo's I took. These are all Photo's of the body painting being done. 

 Please follow the jump to see a few more. 

Thursday, July 22, 2010

The Ties That Bind (addendum)

Tonight I will be out to the wee hours of the morning so I thought I had better get my blog out early today. I was looking for something from previous times when I came across today's photo and I thought it would tie in (get it?) with yesterdays real well. Can you see the symbolism here? Yesterday the rope was loose, not holding anything together left to wander aimlessly. Today the rope is binding, the tie that keeps the two logs together. The order is better too, right? Better to end with the rope tying the logs together than laying loose and allowing them to fall apart.

Don't worry, no plans to go all philosophical with this blog, but you never know, if an idea catches my eye, I might just run with it. After all, it's my blog and I will do what I want.... unless of course someone tells me not to...
Shot at 1/1000 sec f5.6, focal length 75mm iso 400. Simply cropped and the lighting adjusted.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

The Ties That Bind

I was wandering around the yard taking pictures of flowers this evening. I just couldn't see anything, I wasn't getting inspired. I stepped over the rope about 20 times. The 21st time I actually looked at it and noticed the way it wound itself around the yard. I am still sort of in get low and wide mode with the 995 so I did just that.

Shot with the Coolpix 10.mm with a wide angle attachment, 1/17 sec f7.3 iso 100. Kind of weird numbers but that's these old digital cameras for you. Oh and I shot in colour, converted to black and white, then messed with the contrast and such a bit.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Artistic License

Today is the first day of surviving with out the use of my main camera (blew up yesterday remember?). So thinking about what I should take pictures of. Then it dawned on me. Take a picture of one camera with the other. The subject was my Minolta Maxxum7. Not sure if I mentioned it's the best camera I ever owned.




I set up the white background. Put a flash shooting through an umbrella on the left pointing right at the camera and another on the right pointing down and behind the camera. Both were about 2 feet away from the camera. I used the Nikon Coolpix995 with an accessory wide angle lens attached. Nice thing about those Coolpix's you could get the lens real close to the ground. 
I was saying I should go out to take photo's but was feeling lazy. My friend told me that's artistic license. Hence the title. After the work setting this up then preparing the photo, I don't feel so lazy but I liked the title anyhow.

Ps: I just noticed I forgot to mention. When I used the camera I had a cable for the flash sticking out the bottom so I couldn't get the camera as low as I needed. Solution? I turned the camera upside down and was able to get real low. Then I just had to rotate the picture right side up in the computer. 

Monday, July 19, 2010

Oh No!

My camera blew up while taking a picture.  Here's me reacting to this....

 I just didn't know which way to look. 
It didn't really happen of course. I got to thinking though what if it happened to me... Most professionals have a back up with them to use in case the first one fails. People who are not so professional might not be able to afford to keep a second camera just like the main one. So what does one do. Well I have my old Nikon 995 and even my film camera, which is the best camera I ever owned (I believe I have mentioned before). So I am going to try and live with just those 2 cameras for a while. Might even last a day. 
By the way I took this with Nikon and a wide angle lens on it. Rather daring of me I think.  

Sunday, July 18, 2010

When In Doubt

Fall back on an old fave. I seem to be having some technical difficulties. My photos seem to be kind of mixed up on the computer. I love Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver. A sense of wilderness with flushing outhouses! I kid you not. What a treat. Worth the trip just for that. Ha ha. 
Anyhow, this goes back to my early days of digital. My old camera which I am still using because back in the old days they built them to last. Most of what makes this what it is was done in the computer. In this case a simple conversion from colour to black and white. I think it gives it a classic look. 

I wonder if I should have worked the title of this post into the theme of my blog. "Let there be...... Lighthouse". Naw I'll stick with the current one.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

The Moon From Here

My big plans of pulling out the camera today didn't pan out. Life still seems to get in the way. I did however find this little gem. I remember  walking along a dirt road in the Okanagan when I happened to look up and spotted the moon through the branches. I took a few shots and carried on. When I see the picture that small moment always stands out. Since then I quite often would stop to look at it if I happened across it. I was never quite sure about it but today I decided I should bring it out and see what I could do.

 Shot at 1/250th sec f5.6 and the lens set at 400mm. The iso was 100. I cropped the image somewhat and did some work to sharpen the moon without affecting the softness of the branches.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Don't Start?

My heart just isn't with this tonight. It is something I truly care about but (this may sound odd) sometimes I just don't get it. If you aren't sure what it's about, maybe it's right you just don't start. So tonight I am not going to pursue it, instead I will offer a picture of a pretty flower to tide things over. 

 Tomorrow I'll pick up one of those camera's and get some picture taking done instead of being all philosophical or whatever......

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Go Fast!

For some reason I keep coming back to the airplane photos lately... Airshow coming up perhaps. F/A 18F Superhornet doing what fighter jets do best. Go Fast!

Shot at 1/1000sec, f/8, 135mm focal length, iso 200.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Don't Take My Picture. Don't Take My Picture. Hey Come Back! Take My Picture!

Let's face it, some people just don't like having their picture taken. I come across people like that all the time. So when I know I respect their wishes. Cathe is like that. Sometimes we've struggled with it, she will pose reluctantly with the kids or family at times but she doesn't enjoy it. So when she sat on the log that day and posed I got to work right away. I was lucky because the light went pretty quick.....


 So yeah, I know golden hour and I did say the Golden Hour series was done and this is in the Golden Hour. It isn't about the Golden Hour so I can use it. Besides I like it a lot. 




Tuesday, July 13, 2010

If You Don"t Like it, Fix It

Take a photo that doesn't quite tell the story and change it so it does. Here is an example with this vintage police car. I took it straight and low to make it look big and powerful. However the modern truck and car in the background spoiled the effect somewhat. They were mostly sharp as I was using a wide angle lens. So, in PS Elements I opened it up and made a duplicate layer. I desaturated the colour out of the top layer. Then I masked the red light and the logo on the grill to bring the red out from underneath. I merged the 2 layers then created another duplicate layer. I put heavy gaussian blur on the lower layer. I masked out the area around the car on the top layer so the background would look out of focus. 
And..... Voila!

Monday, July 12, 2010

Take My Picture if You Please. I Am Just the Bee's Knee's

Well you know, it can be easier to get a bee to pose than some people I know. Take this little fellow. He even got a hair do and threw on some extra pollen.




I have talked before about macro photography and dealing with little subjects who don't really care about the guy hanging around with the camera. Sometimes, everything falls into place. The little one turns just the right way at the right time. Always a fleeting moment that when it happens is like magic.
Shot this with the 100mm macro, 1/125sec at f7.1 iso 200.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Back When Real Men Flew Real Airplanes

Here is a Harvard Mk IIB. The photo was taken at the Abbotsford Airshow last summer. The day was grey and cloudy. It just wasn't bringing out the colour in the airplanes. Nothing would do it on the computer so I went the other direction and made it black and white. It stayed that way for a while and I added vignetting. I decided to try the sepia look, tonight actually, and Here it is. 

 This was shot at 400mm 1/500sec (a propellor plane should really be shot at a speed more like 1/200  or so)  at f14 iso 200

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Silence is Golden

This photograph is from one of my several trips to The B.C. Museum of Mining. Not only is the museum interesting, there are a lot of things to photograph. There is a tour of a mine shaft which is definitely worth seeing however it is pretty much pitch black in there. Little tough for the fine art photo's.

This was a large room which has lots of old heavy equipment being stored. When I was there it was very quiet, I thought this photo caught that mood. 
This is a scan from film. Exposure wasn't recorded.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Let's Talk Gold

This is the last of the series of my golden hour moment. I wandered down to waters edge and spent some time with a waterbreak there. I think I could post a few more there was so much subject matter there. We'll see. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this one. Goodnight my friend. You are Golden.
 Taken with the 50mm 1/250th at f1.7 iso 100. I am definitely enjoying the shallow depth of field, almost an opposite of what I used to strive for. 

Thursday, July 8, 2010

A Golden Harvest at A Golden Hour

I took this picture at the beach last night. Almost an hour before the one of the kids I took last night. It was a little patch of grass gone to seed I guess. This is the golden hour just before sunset. This grass catches the light nicely. You have to be somewhat careful with the focusing as if the focus sensor picks on the wrong piece of grass it'll make the whole photo all wonky. I took lot's of close up pictures with my 100mm macro and my 17mm. 
 This was with my 100mm macro, 1./320th sec at f5.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

An Evening Walk at the Beach

We Hadn't gone down to the beach yet this year. It something we normally do 3-4 times a year in different seasons. I dutifully brought the camera, even though in past trips I hadn't been inspired. What a difference a new frame of mind can make. I will be posting photo's for a few days from this evenings foray. It was just before sunset I noticed this log so I got Cathe, then the kids to sit on it for some poses. Please look in amazement. They are sitting together, not fighting and not making goofy faces. That was the other pictures.....

 I shot this with that trusty 50mm again, 1/500th f1.7. all natural light from the sun just before it set.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

A Walk In The Park

Today I finally got to Tynehead Park. What I was trying to achieve today was some HDR (High Dynamic Range) pictures. I was in the park for several hours taking lots of pictures, some of which I am sure will never see the light of day. I didn't quite get what I was striving for I don't think but I took one that I quite enjoy. 


Monday, July 5, 2010

Let's Go For a Walk

We haven't done a lot of walking lately but it is a pastime we all quite enjoy. I think we should get out and do that more this summer. This photo is from a walk on the Iona jetty at Iona Island. There is a covered seating area about halfway out. The picture feels like looking out a window to me with the jetty going on forever past it. It is almost 4km long so feels like forever walking it, to me anyhow. 
I shot this with my 24-85 lens at 24mm, 1/250sec f14. The iso was 200. the photo has been residing on my computer for a while now. I have always liked it but wasn't sure about it's appeal. It continues to grow on me. The 2 fellows there were both walking along reading books. It was an odd sight but not much more odd than my son walking along wearing a gas mask. The question I have is, are they such avid readers they have to have books absolutely everywhere, or are they so bored with the scenery, they have to read books. Which, I guess they just happen to have in their pockets. 
Please click read more to see another one. 

Sunday, July 4, 2010

You Should Have Been There


So Here's the story about this eagle photo. Reifel Bird Sanctuary again. I pull into the parking lot where there's this huge dead tree next to a pond full of ducks. Sitting close to the top is a juvenile bald eagle. I think great! Nice to get some shots of an eagle! I go up to the ticket booth to set up and get the big lens on. The lady says "Oh you should have been here a few minutes ago. There were 5 eagles there all fighting over a dead duck one of them found. It was mayhem. One fell off a branch that broke from under it. Never seen such a thing." I thought well, neither have I. He sat there for about half an hour and I got to take quite a few shots of him there. He eventually flew off just as I was taking a quick look to see if there was any action at the hummingbird feeder. 
Taken with my Tamron 200-400 zoom, at 330mm 1/640th sec f6.3. It has been fairly heavily cropped. 

Saturday, July 3, 2010

I'm In The Movies.....


Pretty big day today. I was at the movie shoot from 7:00am to 9:00 pm. It was filled with hours of watching them film then short periods of furious photo taking. (I like that line "furious photo taking" ha ha). I ended up with over 550 frames today which I now get to go through and delete the rejects, then trim the bunch down even more. This was a great experience for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I was very nervous at first as these people are all professional and I had never done anything quite like this before. The cast and crew were all so helpful and pleasant I was soon quite comfortable. Here is a group photo of the cast I took yesterday. 



The technical aspect was interesting for me too. Not being familiar with how a set is lit I didn't know how I was going to deal with the light. Turns out all the movie lights worked fine with the still camera. 
So this was a unique experience for me and given the opportunity I would likely do it again. 
This particular shot was 1/15th sec (very slow) at f3.5, iso 200 with the 17 mm lens. I had had to use that lens a lot as the space we were in was quite close.

Friday, July 2, 2010

I Post Therefore I Am.

The movie shoot went well today. I took lots of photos and am pretty happy with what I got. I haven't work out with cousin if I can put any on here so have to resort to another old photo. I don't want to blink out of existence because I didn't get to post one day.
  Just a quick post as I am very tired. This is a Sandpiper diligently hunting for lunch. Taken at Reifel Bird Sanctuary. Shot at iso 100, 1/1000sec at 5.6 (wide open for this lens a Tamron 200-400).

Thursday, July 1, 2010

All That Flash, Uh Jazz

I will be pretty busy for the next few days helping my cousin with her film shoot so I may not get to take a lot of photos. Or, I will be taking a lot but not for my blog. So I will be checking out stuff from the past. 

By now you will have figured out I like to take photo's of my kids. Jenn is more into it so there are more photographs of her. 
This was a first attempt at using multiple flash "on location". Not far from where I work there is a tunnel that was built but never used. The local kids have taken to putting up graffiti on the walls. They do some great stuff and it provides interesting backgrounds. We were there for a while taking photo's and got some Great shots. 
I have to try and remember, I used 2 Vivitar 285's and one 283. One close to the wall for the artwork, one directly to her right, one to her left providing some fill. All were straight on with no diffusion. Shot at 30mm 1/125sec f5.6.


Also the photo was sharpened with the unsharp mask so the art would pop out a bit however it was too sharp for Jennifer. I made a duplicate layer, sharpened it and masked out her face, arms, and legs so the softer layer underneath came through. Worked well I thought.