Tag Archives: Photography

Skinned Knees, Wuthering Heights, and South Korea

Posted by dkrashb on

While shooting wildflowers up close may invoke yoga muscle memory, shooting a landscape of not-so-wild flowers from the ground invokes many childhood memories. First, there is the memory of scraped knees as I kneel onto the sidewalk with my older-than-their-years knees and feel a stab of pain. This is a different stab of pain than the feeling of having your flesh grated by concrete (an all too familiar feeling for me). But being outside fascinated enough by the way the sun hits different flowers as it pokes through holes in the clouds to set up a tripod flat to the ground and then kneel down to look through the viewfinder to see what I can see, that feeling invokes the feelings of exploring and trying something new–a feeling my childhood was full of.
My photo album from my childhood is full of pictures of me in dresses with both knees scraped, bruised, or stained white from climbing a big white fence in our back yard.
I could never get away with anything on today’s world–I left way too much DNA evidence behind everywhere I went. This is still true today. It’s hard for me to make it around the park without a single stumble. At least I outgrew the desire to wear dresses all the time.
I try sitting all the way down to the ground on one hip. My knees are grateful, but my neck kinks as I twist to look in the viewfinder. Is getting older really better than the alternative? I would prefer a just staying young choice.
As I look up the slope with its long grasses and mixed flowers, another memory comes to me. It’s a memory of reading Wuthering Heights. I don’t know what a landscaped slope in Chattanooga, Tennessee has to do with an English moor, but I am suddenly reminded of the Monty Python skit where Catherine and Heathcliff are running towards each other across the moors and inevitably pass each other (since it was a Monty Python skit).
But the memory of Wuthering Heights takes me to another place. It takes me back to South Korea where I spent 4 months when I was 18. I bought a bunch of books there. They were pirated classics, poorly copied and poorly bound, but they were the only affordable books in English I could find.
In a place where everything felt different and strange, I found a little slice of “home” by reading stories that took place in England, where I’d never been. I wonder why that felt familiar?
Today, I wrap up my shoot and slowly stand, testing my sore knee gingerly before putting weight on it. I try to imagine Heathcliff and Catherine with my knees running across the moors. If it would have been me, I would have tripped at the last second and cracked heads with Heathcliff. I should have been on Monty Python.

Booth Babe

Posted by dkrashb on

While sitting in a booth on a Saturday may not sound like fun to a lot of people, consider the following:

  1. I work from home.  The only “person” I see during the day is my dog.
  2. My knee is troubled.  Hang gliding really isn’t an option.
  3. 10AM-4PM makes for bad lighting for photography
  4. The only people I know in the area are all busy doing things
  5. My husband has been working weekends.

So, when the opportunity to set up a booth for S.O.A.R. at an Outdoor Expo in Coolidge Park presented itself, I was more than happy to set aside a day to do it.

John and Dale and their cast of characters were busy performing at Rock City Earth Dayz and couldn’t join me, so it was just me representing the organization.

The event was not just an Outdoor Expo, but also a Green Expo and an Adoptapalooza.    The Outdoor Expo part attracts groups related to fun things to do outside ranging from kayaking to simple picnic games.  The Green Expo focused on environmentallly friendly ways to live.  The Adoptapalooza was all about getting homeless animals adopted.

As it turned out, all three events fit into one section of Coolidge Park.  This meant dogs were wandering by the tent all day.  Since birds of prey are not fond of dogs, it was a good thing they were busy performing at Rock City.  Since I didn’t have any birds of prey with me in the booth, Tisen got to spend the day with me.

In spite of the bad lighting, I was hoping to get some interesting pictures of some of the characters in the park while I worked the booth.  Whenever I could, I would jump up and snap a few quick shots.  The booth next to me was an ongoing source of interesting subjects.  They were all dressed like their favorite Star Wars characters.  I didn’t quite get the connection between outdoors, going green, or pet adoption, so when Pat came to give me a break, I walked over and asked them what they do.  They explained that there are three separate clubs, one for the dark side, one for the good guys, and one, well, I lost track.  They are into professional costuming.  Quite honestly, I walked away still puzzled about what they do, but they clearly take it very seriously.

I also discovered there was a horse in the park.  At first, I thought they were referring to a very large great dane that had walked by earlier, but it turned out there really was a horse running around in the park, giving children rides.  How cool is that?

In the end, I got to talk to a lot of nice people about what S.O.A.R. does, I got a few photos that are, well, fun if nothing else, and I even collected enough donations to more than cover the cost of the booth.  Oh, and Tisen got to hang out with Mommy all day.

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Hunting Herons

Posted by dkrashb on

After attending a photography workshop in the morning and volunteer training at the Audubon Society in the afternoon, I decided spending some time shooting would be a nice way to end the day.

Tisen, feeling better after his bout of upset stomach, and I packed up and headed on over to the park.  I can’t decide what I want to shoot today, so I take everything I own.  Worst case, I get some extra exercise, although the sofa is a little unwieldy  😉

When we arrive at the entrance to the park, a blue bird flies over my head.  I haven’t even taken my camera out of the bag yet!  I stop right there and get out my camera and opt for the 100-400mm lens, deciding I’ve been neglecting it since getting the 70-200mm lens.  Besides, I could use the extra length for birds.

Of course the blue bird is long gone.  I guess that’s what I get for letting fate decide what kind of shooting I’m going to do.

We head on down towards the wetland.  When we get there, a great blue heron is stalking the water.  I hand hold the camera for a change–it feels strange in my hands having worked on a tripod so much lately.

Tisen and I walk around to the shore of the wetland to see if I can get a better angle on the heron.  On the way, some people eye my lens and ask if I’m taking pictures of the wedding. Confused, I explain I was shooting a blue heron and the people laugh.  I look around and see a bride and groom disappearing down the path.  Is it funny that I am more attracted to birds than brides?

The blue heron stalks a fish, coming up onto the shore and then back down into the water.  It hangs out for awhile on the way, peeking at me from between blades of tall grass.  It amazes me how a giant, blue bird that resembles a pterodactyl can disappear amongst blades of grass.

As he wades through the water, moving in slow motion, he crouches until he suddenly strikes and nabs a fish.  I missed the strike with this one, but, lucky me, I get to try a second time when another blue heron hunts on the other side of the wetland.

One thing I learned is that a shutter speed of 1/250 is not fast enough to stop the motion of a striking heron!

Unfortunately, he turns away from me to swallow the fish and I only get a view after the fish is deep in his gullet.  Both heron give themselves a big shake after a hunt–it reminds me somehow of Tisen marking a tree after having an encounter with another dog.

Sorry for the excessive number of pictures, but I love the succession of the second heron crouching lower and lower next to his reflection in the water until he strikes.  Just for fun, a movie version:

Here Comes the Moon Again

Posted by dkrashb on

After a long morning of shooting at the Lookout Mountain Flight Park training hills, Tisen and I went shopping.  First, we went to Target to stock up on exciting supplies like Q-tips and shaving cream.

After waiting for me, Tisen got to do his own shopping–we took a stroll through PetsMart.  Tisen discovered a table loaded with cats hoping to be adopted.  One cat in particular really didn’t think Tisen should be there.  I guided Tisen quickly on by and back to the salon.

In the back, Tisen got a quick pedicure–they use a dremel, leaving his claws short and smooth.

Since Tisen doesn’t like treats, he got to pick out a new toy.  He chose a small beaver squeaky toy, so now Mr. Beaver has a Baby Beaver.  Tisen proudly carried Baby Beaver around the store with the large tags hanging out of his mouth.  People were highly amused.

After getting Baby Beaver out of Tisen’s mouth long enough to pay for him, we visited the good folks at the McKamey Animal Center, where Tisen’s life was saved.  At least a dozen staff members came out to visit him.  They all commented on how fat he is.  Considering he has gained about 25 pounds since he was originally rescued, I guess he does look fat by comparison.

He enjoyed being treated like a superstar.  The staff comments on his confidence and how happy he seems.  I smile proudly, slightly choked up as I always am when I think about how close this boy came to dying.

When we return home, Tisen cannot take a nap fast enough.  I spend some time working on photos while he rests, but soon, I join him on the couch.

After dinner, I prepared for a second chance to shoot the almost-full-moon.  Having learned a few things from my many attempts to shoot moonrise and set, I set up early, and found something well enough lit in the vicinity of where the moon will rise and focus on it ahead of time.  The biggest challenge of focusing at moonrise is that there is so little light when just a tiny bit of the moon starts to show that I can’t use live view and I have a hard time seeing in my view finder.

At least this time I was mentally prepared for the process and reminded myself to take a breath and relax.  I got way more shots of the moon rising than usual thanks to clouds that kept the moon looking interesting when it is well above the horizon.

As I review my images, I realize that for once, the success of my photos is limited by the capability of my equipment.  This might be a new achievement for me–I didn’t make any major mistakes but my camera couldn’t deliver the goods.  I’m disappointed by the noisy images.  I guess I’d better go see if the price of that new camera has started dropping yet . . .

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Spectator

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Tisen and I make it to the training hills.  It’s a mile walk in my barefoot shoes on rough gravel carrying about 40 pounds of gear, but we stop frequently along the way to shoot, so it doesn’t seem so difficult.

Tisen gets confused shortly after we arrive.  When a hang gliding student drives off on a Kubota, Tisen sprints across the field following him.  I don’t realize Tisen thinks I’m on the Kubota until he gets 100 yards away and shows no sign of turning back.  I call him and he hears me, but he can’t tell where I am.  A glider flies into the field about 10 yards from Tisen and he decides it’s me, running straight for the glider.  I call him again, hoping to prevent him from “playing” with the pilot.

Tisen hears me, but when he looks up, he sees a group of people and decides that’s where I am.  I keep calling him, hoping he’ll locate me.  He is now 30 yards from me and running from person to person, eliminating each as a possible me.  After he passes them all, I am the only person left.  I wave my arms high in the air and call again.  At last, he sees me.  He’s so excited, he practically knocks me down when he runs up to greet me.  Poor guy.

After I take a few shots of the training hills half wishing I were flying today, we walk to the top of the big hill.  I take only my tripod and camera with the 16-35mm lens on it.  At the top, one of the pilots asks if I’m selling pictures.  I laugh.  He says he was hoping maybe he could buy some from me.  I take his email address and tell him I’ll email some photos to him for free.  Now I have a client.

I take some rapid-fire shots of his flight, but the wide angle lens looking down isn’t the best view.  Tisen and I walk back to the bottom of the hill and I set up again with my 100-400mm plus 1.4x teleconverter.  I shoot my client a second time, but this time looking up at 560mm.  It looks like I’m standing next to him.

Unfortunately, I cannot pan and focus manually at the same time, so I only get a few good shots during the launch before he drops out of my frame and then I lose focus when I find him again.  This is exactly why I don’t ask for money to shoot people.

I pack up, load myself with all my gear, and Tisen and I head back up the road, stopping to enjoy the sun on more spider webs and the contrasting colors of bright, new leaves against dark evergreens.

When we make it back to the car, Tisen hops in like he wasn’t sure we were going to survive this adventure.  He’s tired.  Come to think of it, so am I.

Walkin’ in a Spider Web

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Tisen and I arrive at the gate to the training hills; there are already two trucks waiting for the arrival of the instructors.  I pull off as far as I can so cars can fit between us, hop out and start putting on my pack mule costume.

My costume consists of: a rain jacket, a book-bag sized backpack that weighs over 30 pounds, my tripod bag, my loupe, my camera with my 16-35mm lens, my five-in-one reflector, and my extension tubes.  I hang each accessory off of my body in a fashion best described as “sherpa.”

A man waiting in a truck rolls down his window and asks if I’m a professional photographer.  I assure him I am not, but I’d like to play one on TV.  After swapping stories about professional photographers, I excuse myself on the basis that the sun is rising rapidly.

Tisen gets very excited when he realizes we’re going for a hike.  He runs ahead of me doing his happy-dance-prance, with tail wagging, and turns to look back at me as if he thinks this is too good to be true.  I love his happy-dance-prance.  Never fails to make me smile.

We make our way down the gravel road until we reach an open field at the base of the mountain.  This field provides a home to what might as well be an infinite number of life forms, but today, I am mainly interested in the homes built by spiders.  Every time we’ve driven by this field early in the morning, the light has hit these dew-covered condos that are shaped roughly like a ball.  I’ve said at least a dozen times that I want to come out some morning and shoot these spider webs; today is the day.

Tisen gets a little frustrated that our walk is so short, but he amuses himself by running around exploring in the vicinity, occasionally disrupting my shot by brushing against the plant holding the spider web I’m shooting.  But once the vibration settles down, the spider web itself is undisturbed.

Interestingly, even though I end up shooting at least a dozen different spider webs, I never see a spider.  This could be because I didn’t put on my reading glasses to look at the spider homes, but it at least implies that the spiders who build these webs are small and hard to see.

Eventually, I decide I have enough spider web pictures and we head down the road to see what else we can see.  I grab a quick shot of a bend in the creek with the mist rising off of it with the 100mm lens still on my camera.  When I hear a Pileated Woodpecker call, I switch to my 100-400mm and 1.4x teleconverter in the hope he’ll fly our way.  We never see the woodpecker, but I do get a couple of shots of flowers high up in the trees.

What the . . .???

Posted by dkrashb on

Today, Tisen and I are on a mission.  I’ve often said I wanted to go to the training hills some morning when I wasn’t flying in order to shoot.  Today seems like the perfect day for that.

My plan is to arrive at the entrance to the training hills no later than 7:00AM so I have time to hike down the gravel road and get set up before sunrise.

As Tisen and I get on the highway, I have a clear view of the full moon.  It’s still too high to make an interesting shot, but I want to shoot it before it sets completely.

Now I’m racing the moon.  Each time we go up a hill, the moon disappears behind the mountains.  I watch it set over a ridge on 4 separate occasions during our drive, only to reappear moments later.

As we enter Trenton, the moon is close to the ridge and I’m sure I’m out of time.  But as I drive on down into the valley towards our destination, the moon rises up above the ridge, giving me more time.

Unfortunately, I pull over where there’s a bad angle.  I hop out of the van, grab the tripod from the back and run up the road about 100 feet or so where the angle is better.  I set up the tripod and run back to the van.  Fortunately, my 100-400mm lens with the 1.4x teleconverter is already on my camera because that’s the only way it fits in my backpack.  I run back to the tripod.  The moon is getting closer to the ridge line; it’s already sunk behind some of the topmost trees.

As I get into position, I realize I didn’t grab my glasses or loupe and I don’t have time to get them.  I turn on live view, enlarge the image, and stand back as far as my arms will let me to try to focus.

The moon keeps sinking rapidly.  I fire off as many shots as I can before it disappears.  When I play them back in my viewfinder, I think they look OK.

Much later, when I view my moonset shots on the big screen of my computer with my glasses on, I almost spit a mouthful of beer on my screen.  I didn’t realize my vision was quite that bad!

Besides not having focused properly, I also had too slow a shutter speed so I’m getting movement blur in the moon.  I also have had some movement in the lens.  I don’t recall it being that windy, but that’s a possibility.

This leads to the age old question:  you’ve blown the shot, now what do you do with it?  I probably should just delete these images, but I decide to see how far photo editing can go.  I used Aperture, Photomatix, Lightroom, and Photoshop Elements (the majority are from the latter) to see just what can be done with a completely blown shot of the setting moon.

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Reflection

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s been a long week.  I’m tired and feeling uninspired.  On days like this, I really want to do something quick and easy by crossing the street to the park, but how many times can a person shoot in the same park?  I’m not in the mood to go macro.  It’s late enough that the light is getting really nice and I hate to not shoot landscape.

As I’m deciding what to do, an email with a blog post that’s a collection of images of reflections.  I immediately think of the wetland in the park and feel suddenly inspired.

I put my 16-35mm lens on my camera and take nothing else except my tripod and my loupe.  Tisen looks at me hopefully and I realize I won’t be going alone.

I sling my tripod bag over my shoulder, hold my camera up off my neck along with my loupe and then pick up Tisen’s leash in my free hand.  Tisen grabs Puppy Love and we head out.

We walk down the street, making many motorists smile (I assume this is because Tisen has a purple stuffed heart in his mouth that says “Puppy Luv” and not because I am wearing five finger shoes, my hair is sticking up weird because it dried while I had my glasses on my head, or because I’m carrying an oddly shaped bag over my shoulder.

We make it across the street and down to the wetland where I set up my tripod very low to the ground.

People are standing on the end of the viewing deck above the wetland and I can hear them talking about me.  They are wondering what I’m doing.  I do not hear any words like “insane” or “dangerous” and no cops come running up, so I assume they at least realize I’m unarmed (I’ve heard stories about people calling the cops because of a photographer’s tripod making people think they were a crazed gunman).

Tisen is not being the most cooperative photographer’s dog today.  He winds himself around the legs of my tripod and lays down right in the middle.  I have to untangle the leash and adjust the legs so they’re not in contact with Tisen to avoid him introducing vibration and blur into my photos.  I hear the people overhead chuckling.

We have a lovely time working our way around the wetland looking for interesting shots–and trying to keep Tisen out of them.  I only got a few of reflections, but at least I found something to capture my interest.

We pass a mourning dove whose been nesting on an abandoned nest from last year.  I try to get a shot, but, of course, one of the hazards of leaving the house only with a 16-35mm lens is that when these opportunities present themselves, it’s tough to get a shot worth looking at.

Tisen is worn out from our adventure and quickly makes himself comfortable on the couch when we return home.

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Exposed

Posted by dkrashb on

I am on a quest to get the exposure I want.  The scene is one I enjoy daily, but this particular day there was a stunning cloud display in the background.

The problem is a classic one.  A camera cannot correctly handle the same range of light that our eyes can.  Especially not when I’m looking at the world through polarized sunglasses. 🙂  It’s an issue that photographers have struggled with since the beginnings of photography.  You see a stunning sky and a lovely foreground view.  The camera can only properly expose one or the other.

I took shots of the scene with multiple exposures, hoping I could combine them successfully into one image.  High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography has been both rejected and embraced by the “serious” photographers of our time.  I believe it’s not the combination of exposures that troubles more traditional photographers but the special effects that can make an image hover on a line between a drawing and a photo.  I get this impression because many traditionalists extol the value of having a camera that will combine multiple exposures into a single image but have no interest in “HDR” post processing software like Photomatix.

Not that anyone is looking to me for guidance on the subject, but I continue to be on the fence.  I don’t care for photos that make you wonder if it’s a photo or a drawing. but I don’t mind an image that looks clearly like one or the other.

I also don’t like spending hours editing a photo I could have captured in the camera in by making better decisions.  However, when it comes to the age old problem of limited range of proper exposure when I really want to see the sky and still see the details in the foreground, I feel a little more fond of HDR processing.

For today’s exercise, I made an attempt to get a photo that combined the dramatic sky with enough detail in the foreground to keep it interesting.  Unfortunately, I forgot I’d changed my camera setting to JPEG, so I’m afraid I have limited resolution to work with and each edit step diminishes the resolution further.  But, I’ve given up on ending up with something I want to print and hang on the wall at this point.

Attempt 1:  Underexposed image with the shadows lifted a lot, the highlights pulled down a little, and a few other minor adjustments.

Attempt 2:  Overexposed image with the highlights pulled down a lot, the shadows lifted a little, and a few other minor adjustments.

Attempt 3:  3 images 2 stops of light apart combined in Photomatix with no other post processing.

Attempt 4:  2 images 2 stops of light apart combined manually in Photoshop Elements (and looking very weird).

Attempt 5:  3 images 2 stops of light apart combined in Photomatix (with different settings than attempt 3) and then adjusted further in Aperture.

In the end, let’s just say I wish I had a camera that could combine two exposures.  🙂

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This is the Point

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. . . Continued from “What’s the Point?”

High on top of Lookout Mountain’s Northern point, we make our way around the paved path that leads to the museum.  The museum itself is perched on the edge of the mountain, built of stone and probably a civil war relic, but we didn’t go check it out thinking I wanted to get set up on the West side of the point in time for sunset, which was fast approaching.

However, when I got set up on the West facing overlook, the light was just right for shooting back towards the museum–golden and dappled through the leaves that have appeared from no where in the past week.

The cliff face below the museum makes me think that whoever fell of the earlier rock formation was lucky it wasn’t here that they lost their balance.

We consider briefly taking the metal stairs down to the trail below, but the thought passes quickly as I stare down the stairs and imagine my knees after going down them.  I content myself with shooting Pat and Tisen seated amongst rock outcroppings while we wait for the sunset.

As I watch the light hitting different parts of the clouds, I contemplate why I still shoot sunsets.  When I’m looking through hundreds of sunsets images, I get bored almost immediately.  Yet, I can’t look out the windows and see interesting clouds at sunset without rushing up to the roof with my camera.  For some reason, I never grow tired of watching sunsets (or shooting them), but I quickly tire seeing pictures of them.

As the light fades, a line of cumulus clouds becomes more interesting.  As I line up a shot, a park ranger approaches and tells us the park is closed and we have to leave.  The park sign says they close at sunset (which officially isn’t for 4 more minutes), but he seems tired and I don’t really need the additional images to bore myself with later, so I don’t argue.

We walk out of the park with him and a group from Seattle.  We learn that a man did, indeed, fall and that he broke some ribs.  We also learn that the park ranger is from East Liverpool, Ohio originally–near the town Pat grew up in.

The group from Seattle is amazed by the weather.  They ask us if it’s like this all the time.  I laugh and tell them we moved down last August on a day when it was 110 degrees and that we had to use our AC in March.  They seem to think that sounds nice.

As a side note, I added a photo of Tisen from my iPhone.  I had my camera all set up for the sunset and didn’t want to swing it around to capture Tisen perched on a rock like a lion (although his Holstein fur doesn’t really conjure images of lions), so I pulled out the iPhone instead.  Another reason I need to get that second camera body!  🙂

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