Category Archives: Photography

Anticipation

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It’s early Saturday morning.  Today is a big day.  I am nervous.  Taking on getting the word out about the event with a $100 budget for printing materials was a new challenge.  It’s an interesting comparison to have a corporate event where you know exactly who your target audience is–all their emails are in your contacts list, you have a budget in the 10’s of thousands (it was a small users conference for about 150 customers back in the days when corporations still spent money on such things), and you plan your activities based on your known audience.

In comparison, this event is the opposite in every way.  You plan your activities based on what you can do, then you try to find people who might be interested in attending what you’re planning, and you spend as little as possible to try to find them.  Social networking was not really an option for me although the other planners were able to leverage their Facebook pages and email lists.  Since no one on my facebook friend list lives in the vicinity who isn’t already participating in the event, my social networking was pretty limited.

I reached out to every person I knew in Chattanooga (which was 3 people) to find ways to get publicity.  My trainer hooked me up with a newscaster and we did the early morning news spot that I posted previously.  I sent emails to several radio show hosts and newscasters I’d heard about through my second contact (a small business owner in the same building as Pat).  That resulted in one radio spot.  So, we got a little free publicity from that.  A connection through other organizers resulted in a second news spot yesterday at noon.  Maybe, just maybe, people will know about it.

Now the question is, will they come?  The skies in Chattanooga are overcast.  There is a steady rain falling.  The weather says it’s supposed to clear for a few hours in the afternoon and then turn into thunderstorms later in the day.  We have indoor areas, but will people come out to Wildwood, GA if the weather is bad?

I’m crossing my fingers that this work will result in a huge turn out and lots and lots of funds raised for S.O.A.R.

For today’s photography lesson, I look at my impromptu portraits in the parking lot with Osceola from last night.  I see that I have taken on a rather challenging photography assignment.  Getting enough field of view for both bird and person means either using a shorter focal length or getting further back, which may not be possible.  I used the shorter focal length last night and am not pleased with the results.  There is no bokeh effect (background blur) yet in some shots I don’t have enough depth of field for both the people and the eagle to be sharp.

The classes I’ve taken don’t happen to mention how to get great shots of people holding birds.  Maybe I can find a niche for myself yet!

Day Off

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Today I took a much needed day off.  Well, mostly off.  We headed out to the training hills bright and early.  Since it’s been more than four days since I last cleared for the mountain launch, I have to return to the training hills to reclear before I can head up for my elusive first mountain launch.

Unfortunately, there is enough fog to mess up the reclearing process.  Part of what we’re expected to demonstrate is our ability to hit a target.  In the heavy fog of the early morning, there aren’t any targets visible.  We spend a lot of time waiting.  First on the fog and then on the tailwind.  Eventually, I reclear, but when we arrive at the mountain launch, the wind is crossing it’s way over the launch pad.  I can’t launch in a crosswind until I have more experience.

So, we return home once more, me still safely in one piece, but with no mountain flight under my belt.  After doing a little work, I return to the flight park.  Not to fly but to help setup for the fund-raising event I’ve been helping plan for S.O.A.R.

If you happen to be anywhere near Lookout Mountain Flight Park tomorrow, the festivities start at 1PM with kids activities, a silent auction, artists booths, photo opportunities, and interactions with owls, hawks, and Osceola, the hang gliding bald eagle.  At 4PM, the birds from S.O.A.R. will educate and amaze us, doing things like fling over the audience’s heads.  At 6PM, there will be a dinner and beer with a live band.

It will be a spectacular event, especially with hang gliders taking off and landing in the background.  Guests can even purchase a ride in a tandem glider while they’re there.  I’m pretty sure this is the way St. Patrick’s Day was traditionally celebrated in Ireland, right?  Birds of Prey and Hang Gliders–isn’t Ireland known for that?

In any case, we’re hoping to raise lots of money to help rebuild many of the bird enclosures that are in need of improvement.

While we’re setting up for our big event, John arrives with Osceola.  He pulls him out of his kennel and we all take turns holding him.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to process the photos from today yet.

Instead, for today’s photos, I have a collection of shots from last night in the early evening.  I had the classic problem of an exciting but bright sky and dark foreground.  I did a lot of shots at different exposures, hoping to be able to HDR process them together into a correctly exposed whole.  I consider using my gradient neutral density filter, but it’s round and doesn’t line up with the horizon line properly.  I probably should have tried it anyway.

I’m disappointed with the HDR results.  In the end, I like the underexposed shots with minimal processing that show the most detail in the sky the best.  Call me old fashioned.

Sunrise, Day Care, and Separation Anxiety

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Tisen has become highly attuned to my whereabouts.  For example, the other day he was lying on the couch next and I was sitting at the computer.  His head was at an angle where it seemed impossible for him to see me and he appeared to be asleep.  If I turned my head towards him, an immediate “thump, thump” of his tail followed.  When I looked away, silence.  I got up and started walking towards him, thump thump.  When I backed up, silence.  When I walked all the way up to him, THUMP THUMP THUMP.

He’s equally good at telling when I’m near the door.  No matter how quietly I slip away or what he is in the middle of, he always appears in the entrance hall before I can make it all the way to the door.

When we started putting him in his crate at night, he stopped coming into the bedroom at all.  Not just at night, but at any time of day.  We stopped trying to put him in the crate and started leaving the bedroom door open.  His desire to be near me apparently overcame his fear of the bedroom because he started sneaking in at night and where do you think he started sleeping?  In his crate.  As long as the door is open, it’s his preferred place to sleep.

Today, I took him to dog daycare.  I was nervous about whether he would be OK with the other dogs.  I had the video cam web page up on my personal computer and periodically checked in on him to see how he was doing.  He spent the vast majority of the time in a kennel.  The door was open, but he wouldn’t go out.

A couple of dogs came in and hung out with him from time to time.  The staff told me a greyhound was cuddled next to him taking a nap at one point.  This makes me feel a little better.

But when I pick Tisen up, he wants to go home.  He’s thirsty and distressed.  I suspect he didn’t drink any water the whole time he was there.  I thought it would be good for both of us to have some time apart, but I’m not sure I can handle the stress of being separated.  I’m encouraged that he made a couple friends, though.

You can just barely make out Tisen in the open kennel in the upper left:

This morning, I managed to get in about 10 minutes of shooting time at sunrise.  I wish I would have been in less of a hurry–I might have noticed I has the ISO set on 1000 and turned it down sooner.  The moon looked so cool with the clouds around it.  One of these days I’m going to figure out how to expose the moon and the clouds in the same shot.  Or maybe my future camera will.  The one I want will process two exposures into one picture.  Can’t wait!

Shooting the Breeze

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Today, I continue my quest to graduate from a 101 use of depth of field to, well, I’d like to jump up to a 400-level given it seems I’m not going to get a great shot before I die if I continue at this pace.

I was hoping for a nice sunset to play with–there are always so many interesting clouds.  I would really like to figure out how to get the clouds sharp from front to back in the image.

So, that is my assignment for today:  sharp clouds front to back.

As I gather up my gear to head up to the roof, I feel like I am doing a scene written for Chevy Chase or Tim Conway.  I pick up my tripod, swing it around and knock a glass off a table.  I set it down and trip over the leg.  I pull myself together, clean up, and then become frantic trying to find the radio trigger for my wireless remote (which mysteriously and thankfully started working again).

I wish I had a video of me darting back and forth looking fearfully over my shoulder out the windows at the fading light.  I run into two door frames, a door knob, and trip a second time over my tripod leg in the process.

I am considering changing the name of my blog to “Bumbling Photography.”

When I get all my stuff together, Pat puts a bowl of food down for Tisen, which means I have to stay until he’s done eating or he won’t eat his dinner.  I watch him eat.  He’s pretty into it, so I decide to sneak down the hall.  Tisen pokes his head around the corner only seconds later and I pretend to be setting up my tripod in the hallway.  Tisen stares at me.  I leave the tripod where it is and then return to the kitchen until Tisen finishes eating.

Finally, up on the roof I realize I haven’t missed much.  The light is not very dramatic, although the clouds will still work for my assignment.

I’ve identified two possible causes for inadequate depth of field in my landscape photos:  1) not consciously choosing an aperture based on the depth of field I want, and 2) focusing too far back in the field of view.  Tonight, I learn that maybe my lack of skill is not the only reason.

Those clouds are moving.  And I don’t mean crawling along.  I mean hauling across the sky like they’ve got somewhere to be.  Given the amount of light, stopping down for good depth of field means slowing the shutter speed to speeds like 2 seconds to get what the camera thinks is a good exposure at 400 ISO.  I play with balancing ISO, aperture, and shutter speed to see if I can get something that gives me enough exposure, enough depth of field, and enough speed to stop the motion.  I really thought it was going to be easier!

Just for fun:

Down on the Farm

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I was ecstatic to learn that one of the lovely women I met through S.O.A.R. has a farm they are converting from cattle pastures to sustainably grown heirloom produce.  And, best of all, they are managing the farm as a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) venture.  It’s like outsourcing a garden to someone who knows what they’re doing.

I love this concept.  It makes me feel more connected to the source of my food and more involved, even if it’s only through my checkbook.

The most exciting part is that Wildwood Harvest (the farm) was open to all for a visit and a tour this weekend!

The farm is set in northern Georgia, about 20 minutes South of us.  The long driveway curves its way up a hill, lined by evergreens.  In the afternoon sun, the rolling hills look romantic enough that I forget the back breaking work, the endless mud, and the perpetual coating of dirt that comes with farming.

We get to see the newly planted fruit orchard, the bee boxes waiting for their hives, the mushroom logs inoculated and plugged, the freshly tilled field ready for planting, the newly restored 100-year-old barn that was crushed by a tree, and the amazing collection of chickens and one male turkey who I will forever think of as “Thanksgiving.”

It’s always a little difficult for those of us who don’t live with our food sources to meet what we’re going to eat.  It’s particularly difficult when it’s an amazingly beautiful bird that keeps flirting with everything that moves.  I’ve never seen such a gorgeous turkey.

Had I known, I would have brought my camera.  As it is, I pull out my iPhone and shoot as best I can.  I get a few shots of Thanksgiving and a lovely rooster I start calling Coq au Vin.  (I figure it’s best to associate these birds with food before I get attached.)

In the house, we get to peek at the unending array of seeds selected for this year’s crop.  There appears to be 1000 seed packs lined up on the table.  If variety was a concern, it’s certainly been alleviated!

We meet fascinating neighbors who are artists from New York and swap stories about trying to find good produce.  What are the odds of meeting artists from New York on a small family farm in Northern Georgia?

We are called to leave by the barking of Tisen.  He’s been banished to the car to avoid an ugly dog-chicken encounter.  He’s either bored or trying to establish dominance over the farm dogs who know better than to chase chickens.  It’s about time to head back to the mountain to see if the wind will die anyway, so we say our goodbyes and head on our way.

My photography lessons:  1) Take your camera.  2) Shooting birds on the move with an iPhone is tough; see 1.  3)  No matter how beautiful Coq au Vin is, the soft focus ruins the photo; see 1. 4)  Chase all farm animals into shade when in full sun.

Flash of Insight

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When children learn a new grammar rule, they often start over applying it.  They get that adding “s” makes things plural, so they add “s” to everything.  They learn the exceptions later.  I’ve had the realization that I have learned what the depth of field will be like at a few aperture settings and started applying those settings all the time.

Now, the trick is to step things up a notch and start paying closer attention to the exact results I get in each circumstance.

In the meantime, I had a moment of weakness.  Upon spotting a very good price on some used studio lighting, I decided it was time to figure out how to start taking control of the lighting in my living room.

Today I take on two lessons simultaneously.  First, control depth of field.  Second, control lighting.  I start by using Pat as a reluctant model, but he bails and I turn to Tisen.

As it turns out, the enormous soft box and umbrella of light flashing at him are enough to motivate Tisen to go nap elsewhere.  I am stuck with only Tisen’s toys to shoot.

In reviewing the shots I’ve selected, here are the lessons I took from each (so far):

  1. Over exposure is easy when using giant studio flashes.  I actually really like this picture however.  This is a barely retouched photo–the drawing effect is purely from the overexposure.

2.  The second shot is what happens when you are using two monolights and you forget to turn one on.  I actually like this shot, too, though.  I am beginning to think I do my best work by accident.

3.  A grouping of Tisen’s toys are a great tool for depth of field practice.  In this shot, at f/4.5 (another thing I learned–I apparently have 1/3 stops enabled on my camera), I got a relatively shallow depth of field.  Shallow enough that I was able to tell that Red Dog and Mr. Beaver were not sharp from my camera’s LCD.

4.  Same group shot at f/10, the depth of field is significantly better than the last shot, although Red Dog still does not look sharp.  I am beginning to suspect that it’s difficult to get fake red fur to look sharp.  I also added a fill light to reduce shadows.

5.  I switched Lamb and Mr. Beaver, who always looks like he’s in a shadow.  The depth of field was the same as the previous shot.

6.  Here, Tisen demonstrates both a shallow depth of field (paw in foreground out of focus) and what happens when your subject decides to pop up and take a nap with his head propped against your soft box.

7.  Repeating the previous shot with greater depth of field, now the paw is in focus and so is his face (I think?).

8. Finally, I thought it would be nice to see the setup (plus Tisen).  There is also a light behind the umbrella.  Given that this is all new to me, I was pretty happy with the lighting results.

Could’ve Been Great

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There are times when everything just falls into place beautifully and you exceed your own expectations.  Then there are times like tonight.

At 8:15, I start gathering my gear.  Wireless remote shutter release attached to camera, check; 100-400mm lens with 1.4x extender on camera, check; lens foot secured in tripod, check; CF card in camera, check; reading glasses on head, check; warm layer of clothes added, check; beer in hand, check.  Time to head up to the roof.

By the time I get set up and in position, it’s 8:30.  Five minutes to moonrise.  I start looking for signs.  There is nothing.  The moon is always late here in the valley.

I start trying to focus on something in the vicinity of where the moon should rise since I have to focus manually and there is very little time to catch the moon as it rises.  Unfortunately, the maximum aperture at 560mm is f/8.0.  There’s not enough light to focus using the LCD and it’s impossible to tell if I’m in focus looking through the viewfinder.  I shoot, check my shot, try adjusting the lens in one direction or another and then shoot again.  I do not recommend this method of focusing.

When some light starts appearing above the ridge in what must be the only clouds in the sky, I get excited.  I go through the shoot and focus exercise several more times, hoping to get something sharp by accident.

The moon starts to appear and I go into a slight panic.  Now there is enough light to use the 10x magnification view in the LCD to focus, but I can’t seem to get the sharpness I want.  The moon looks sharp in 10x magnification before shooting, but when I review my shot, the focus is soft.  It’s not good.

Part of the problem is that I’m overexposing the moon.  I want to allow enough light to capture the great clouds around the moon with all the color–it looks like an amazing sunrise.

About the time I think I’ve got an exposure and focus that will look good, the camera suddenly stops working.  Now I am really panicked.  The moon moves so fast that when you are focusing on it at 10x magnification, you can watch it move in the LCD.  I am about to miss the rest of the moon rise.  Once the moon is above the horizon, the show is over–it just looks like a big hunk of moldy cheese.

Just when I decide I’m going to go order that new camera after all, I try removing the remote shutter release.  Sure enough, the camera start shooting again.  I get just a couple of quick shots of the last trees in front of the moon before it turns into floating cheese.  Then, I head back downstairs.

So close to that great shot I’ve been chasing!  Maybe next month.

Today’s Tisen shot is also not a sharp shot, but his stuck lip cracks me up too much not to share it anyway.

Mooning

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Well, I was hoping I would be posting a really cool shot of the full moon rising behind a row of buildings on a ridge.  I had this really great image in my mind that I’ve been planning for the last few days, watching the moon’s path through the sky, looking at the moonrise and sunset times, and figuring out the best place I have access to shoot from.

The moon had an alternate plan.  It decided to hide behind so many layers of clouds that not even a bright spot appears in the sky.

The good news is that it’s supposed to be clearing up tomorrow, so I may be able to shoot a nearly full moon rising tomorrow night.  The bad news is that the moon won’t rise until after dark tomorrow, so I probably won’t get any of the twilight sky I was hoping for tonight.  Oh well.

Instead, I’ve pulled together some moon shots taken since the last new moon.  I find it fascinating to see how the craters flatten out and disappear as the moon waxes until it pretty much looks like an unevenly colored, smooth rock.  I am still looking for a great shot of the full moon.  I have one shot I like of the full moon rising through the red leaves on fall trees, but now I can’t find it.  I’m sure it’s in one of my photo archives somewhere.  It’s fun, but not sure it’s great.

I’ve been working my way through 10 weeks of an online photography class and, this evening, I had one of those moments when something I’d been taught turned into something I’d learned.  I was looking at some of my recent vertical landscape shots, specifically this one:

I was trying to figure out why it doesn’t quite work.  While I’m sure I will eventually figure out several additional reasons (like the cutoff aquarium building), what I suddenly realized is that I am focusing on the stuff in the background instead of focusing about 1/3 of the way in, throwing the clouds in the foreground out of focus.  This realization was like a giant light bulb going on.  I can’t wait to shoot another diagonal subject that crosses the frame front to back and see if I can get all of it in focus!

As I scroll through photos, I see this has been a consistent problem in virtually every image I’ve shot where there is something that should be in focus in the foreground.  There have been so many times when I’ve stared at a photo trying to figure out why it isn’t the amazingly dramatic image I envisioned in my head but not being able to say why not.

I can’t wait for the next ah ha moment!

Tisen is less excited about my obsession.  He’s getting tired of competing with the laptop for space in my lap.  I feel guilty every time he bangs his head against it.  Guess it’s time to call it a night . . .

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Speak No Evil

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I am having a lot of issues with my TMJ.  It feels physically impossible to relax the muscles of my jaw.  Some have told me that this implies I’m holding back.  I wonder about that.  Generally, I am an outspoken person.  But, when I think about the things I would like to say vs the things I actually say, I realize I do hold back.  A lot.

For example, when I’m at work on a call with someone who is preventing me from moving forward with a project and I can’t figure out why they are even involved in the decision making process,  I don’t say, “why do you think you have the right to an opinion about this?” or “I’m sorry, why are you here?”

There was a time in my life when I probably would have.

Acclimating myself to a career in the corporate world has largely meant learning how to keep my mouth closed.  Apparently, clenched tight.

Oddly, people seem to feel like they’re a “value add” (one of my favorite corporatisms) by pointing out any possible reason why we shouldn’t do something.  It’s rare to meet a person who wants to suggest how we could do something.

Even more oddly, this has been consistent across the companies I’ve worked for throughout my career; it is not unique to the company I work for now.  I wonder what it is about corporations that create the need in people to be gatekeepers?  Or is it that they feel that way their whole lives and a corporation just provides a place to express their inner selves?  Is there such a thing as a born gatekeeper?

When these people say “I’m here to help,” what they mean is, “I am here to maintain the status quo by causing delays so that we’ve completely missed the market before you can force any changes.”

In the meantime, I clench my jaw and try not to scream.

I guess I am holding back.

Thankfully, I now have Tisen to nudge me with his nose during the highest stress moments in my day.  Tisen reminds me that there are far worse alternatives to being gainfully employed and able to work from home.

Working from home also saves me an hour and a half a day that I get to spend on trying to become a better photographer.  So, who am I to complain?

On the subject of photography, this is the final edition of “Going Vertical.”  Today’s shots are, however, macro shots rather than landscape.  Well, at least some of them.  I’ve been told the official definition of “macro” means a 1:1 relationship between the size of the image and the size of the subject in real life.  Clearly, not all of these photos meet that criteria.

I had a lot of fun shooting reflections in the wetland area.  Unfortunately, I’ve found that how much fun I have while shooting is not a predictor of how much I like the resulting images.

UPDATED:

The completely original 3 images processed into the horizontal shot:

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Going Vertical (Part 3)

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Having spent a couple of hours shooting in Renaissance Park over the weekend along with a few evenings of moon shooting, I have a collection of photos I am hoping will get me through the duration of my camera being serviced.  [As a side note, Canon announced the new 5D Mark III.  I might just wait until I win the lottery before I buy another camera body.]

So, today is really part 3 of the “Going Vertical” experiment.  I didn’t explain the experiment in part 1 or part 2, so I thought this would be a good time to do so.

I find I get stuck in a rut.  Especially because I shoot the same scenes over and over again–if I don’t, I won’t shoot often and shooting often is my goal right now.  Instead of investing in a new toy for inspiration (since I need to save everything I can for that new camera), I am trying to give myself new assignments to see if I can shoot the same old things in a new way.

That’s what created the Going Vertical experiment.  It was a gorgeous day with interesting clouds doing interesting things and it seemed like the perfect day to try shooting landscape photos vertically.

It’s pretty fascinating what happens when you draw a box around your view and eliminate everything outside the box.  I think that’s what people mean when they talk about “the photographer’s eye”–the ability to imagine a scene through a box.  However, just like those optical illusion experiments where you stare at an image and then look away, but the image still appears because it’s fused in your brain, after looking through a horizontal frame so many times, I start to forget I can turn the frame any direction I want.

And the scene looks completely different tall and narrow than it would wide and short.

I frequently shoot on the vertical when I’m shooting long architectural structures like the bridges over the river.  But with my assignment limiting me to shooting only on the vertical, I find myself looking for interesting intersections of shapes and getting down on the ground a lot, trying to maximize the use of the sky.  In other words, I’m having a ball.

Twice, people stop and ask me what I see.  They clearly cannot fathom what I find fascinating enough to get down on the ground to capture.  To the second person, I smile and say, “the clouds–they’re always doing interesting things.”

Since the tradition for the last month has become to include at least one shot of Tisen in every post, I do another HDR experiment with Tisen lying out on the balcony in the full-day sun.  As nice as HDR should be for capturing both his black spots and his white spots in correct exposure, Tisen’s breathing introduces just enough movement that when the three images are combined, the focus looks soft.  He’s still cute, though.  🙂