First Macro Attempt

Bought a cheap plastic mounting ring so I could shoot reverse macros without holding the lens up to the body. New ivy leaves, about an inch across:

1/2 sec

ISO 100

50mm lens reversed on body

I'm lighting the subject with two bright fluorescent lights clamped to my workbench. I've got a piece of black (not really black, unfortunately) card stock propped up behind. The camera is on a tripod. To get maximum depth of field, I'm not opening the aperture at all. Hence the long exposure.

This is a nice trick ($10 macro lens!), but the depth of field is so narrow that all of my energy went into just getting a usable shot. Trying to compose a nice photograph would be exceedingly hard this way.

HDR Black & White Landscape

I wanted to try an HDR capture down in the spruce bog to see if I could get some contrast into the scene. I also wanted to see if I could convey the weird dread that place gives me. Here's the result:

Five exposures, +-2 stops
Aperture: 8-16
Shutter speed: 1/4-1/15 second
ISO 100
31mm lens (~47mm equivalent)

It's creepy, which is what I wanted, but the problem shooting in the forest is that you're so hemmed in, it's hard to get a shot that conveys how it feels. This was taken from a realistic perspective, but the low angle makes the trees look much larger than they are. The eeriness of the forest comes from the trees being stunted, which doesn't come across well here. I might try it again with a stepladder sometime.

I created this using HDR Pro in photoshop, though I still don't understand the HDR editing options very well. I just played with them until I got contrasty trees and flat light. The sky is a little overdramatic.

Night Shooting: West Ridge and Downtown

Went night shooting alone this time. Twenty below. First wanted to shoot one of the greenhouses. I've always been drawn to the green glow inside the snow-and-frost covered structures. I didn't get a good long shot, but some of my close-ups of the ice crystals came out:

f/11

1/45

40 mm lens (~60mm equivalent)

ISO 200

Show with a tripod and the white balance set to tungsten. I cropped this to a square because I wanted the three columns, each with a different ice pattern and a different balance between ice and leaves.

Next went downtown to try to shoot the frozen berries and frosty branches along the river. Got some okay ones, but on my way back to the car I noticed these two low steam vents (~8' off the ground) with the big stack from the power plant in the background:

f/22
15 sec
40 mm (~60 mm equivalent)
ISO 1600

I got a few okay shots, but then the wind on the ground and the wind up high blew in opposite directions and I got this one, which I really like. The steam blowing out of the frame in both directions really makes it. I haven't done very much to this image. It turned out well. Didn't go looking for it--just saw it on the way back to the car.

Night Shooting: Creamers Field and GI Roof

Went out for a second try at night shooting with Shadoe. We started at Creamer's Field and were surprised to find an early aurora. Shadoe advised me on keeping the shutter speed slow to keep it from looking like a blob:



f/1.8
6 sec
31 mm lens (~46 mm equivalent)
ISO 800

I was surprised by how well the camera captured it. The aurora was much fainter than this. Truly though, I have no interest in aurora photography. Other people can do it and I will look at their beautiful pictures.

We went from their to the GI roof. I wasn't interested in anything until Shadoe started taking shots of the big satellite dish. This one is kind of a mess (not easy capturing a person in the dark without a flash), but I liked the colors and I liked how it captured how dedicated and absorbed she is when she's shooting:

f/1.8
1/4 sec
31 mm lens (~46 mm equivalent)
ISO 1600

The snow is red because its main light source is the red light on the element in the middle of the dish. You don't notice it with your eyes, but the camera captures it. It you try to make this snow white, the colors of the background go crazy. Anyway, I like it. It looks a little unreal.

Event: GI Thanksgiving Potluck

Shot the Geophysical Institute Thanksgiving potluck for the event/photojournalism assignment. I had grander plans, but a series of disasters kept me from getting to other events. This shoot was challenging because the sun was very strong and the entire venue has floor-to-ceiling south-facing windows. Harsh, orange light, with huge differences from one part of the room to another. Still, I think I got some almost campy shots that get across my dislike for Thanksgiving:

f/8
1/125 sec
31 mm (~47 mm equivalent)
ISO 800



















f/4.5
1/125 sec
31 mm (~47 mm equivalent)
ISO 800

I didn't have to edit this one very much. They were well back from the windows, so the light and color came out well. I like how their bending towards each other almost intimately but completely absorbed in their carving.

f/9.5
1/125 sec
31 mm (~47 mm equivalent)
ISO 800

I like this moment. The turkey hats makes it sadder. The light was brutal, though, and I seem to have gone overboard on the noise reduction (it shows especially in the plasticky look to Susie's skin). A cloudy day would have been so much better for this.





jklh

Night Shooting: Parking Garage

Went shooting at night with Shadoe and Allison. It was very thirty below. Went first to the parking garage downtown. We had to sneak in behind a car. On the top floor I found this fake owl hung from the ceiling to scare away small birds. I liked how it looked with the snow on its shoulders and East Fairbanks behind it:

f/1.8

1/60 sec

50 mm lens (~75mm equivalent)

ISO 1600

I shot this handheld, with the camera up above my head, and the focus and exposure turned out great. Not bad for a plastic $200 lens. The colors came out a little garish, which surprised me for a night shot, but I desaturated a little to make the scene look a little colder.

Went down one floor and looked south and saw people in their apartments in the Northward building. It was a cold and depressing scene (everything looks depressing to me when it's 30 below):

f/1.8

1/60 sec

50 mm lens (~75mm equivalent)

ISO 1600

I white balanced this and cropped it very slightly to make it straighter. I'm very happy with the original shot on this one. Two weeks later a woman jumped from this building but was caught and saved by firemen. Again, handheld. Very pleased with this lens at night.

FLASH!

An interesting thing happens when you have to do an entire assignment in one day. You'll take pictures of anything:

f/8.0

1/125

ISO 100

31mm lens (~47mm equivalent)

This was taken in a dark room, bouncing the flash off the ceiling. I've cropped it a little. Hard to compose a shot in the dark. I also toned down the highlights and lightened the shadows just to smooth out the transition from top to bottom. The cool thing about using flash as the only light source is that the color comes out almost perfectly. I don't think I white balanced this at all.

f/9.5

1/60

ISO 400

31mm lens (~47mm equivalent)

Another bounce flash shot, again taken in a dark room. Flight suits. I should have arranged them instead of just leaving them as they were. Maybe move the orange suit on top so it's not right over the orange suits below. I don't know. 

f/22

1/180

ISO 100

50mm lens (~75mm equivalent)

Last bounce flash shot. Dark room again, this time with a low ceiling. This one was significantly underexposed, but I like how it lightened up when I adjusted the exposure in photoshop. There isn't much contrast, but I like how Scout blends into the blanket. I think it brings her eyes and nose out. Also note that Scout has learned to use a pillow like a person would.

But here's what I mean when I say you'll photograph anything when you're desperate:

f/4.5

1/180

ISO 800

50mm lens (~75mm equivalent)

This is a fill slash shot. That's a daiquiri, except it's almost entirely rum because too much lime juice would have given it a urine-like hue. It's strongly backlit by a high-output fluorescent, with paper masking the tubes. I'm directing the camera flash directly at the glass. 

It was fun playing with this one. In the end I bled a lot of light and color out of it to emphasize things like the texture of the paper and the condensation on the glass. I had to crop heavily to get a white-only background. I didn't have enough blank paper readily at hand. Not an interesting photo, but don't you want a drink now?

And here is the direct result of drinking that daiquiri:

f/11

1/180

ISO 400

50mm lens (~75mm equivalent)

That's my direct flash shot. I stuffed the pig with paper, mounted it on a shovel, and doused it in diesel. The shot was taken at night, from a low angle to exclude snow and brush. The black background came out great. The flames came out great. I never did get the pig to talk.

I would have liked to get a greater variety of shots to work with, but you would not believe how fast this thing burned. The flash only managed to charge four times before the pig was totally unrecognizable. Still, it turns out that direct flash on flames works pretty well.

Self-portraiture II

I looked back at the coffee photos again and found that I liked different ones this time around. I spent some time working on two:

f/2.8
1/45
ISO 400
31mm lens (~47mm equivalent)

f/2
1/125
ISO 400
31mm lens (~47mm equivalent)

I liked how the top one looked in b&w. It captured all of the age in my skin, which doesn't come across as well in color. It was interesting to see myself looking that old. I mean, accurately. I can't use this one because of the dark shadow from the coffee cup. I had to tone down the light a lot for this photo to look good at all, but that shadow clearly shows that the photo as edited is lying.

The one in color is maybe an obvious joke. The coffee is in focus but I am not. Which pretty much describes every morning of my life. I like this one. I like the soft focus and the transition out-of-focus. The Atka mug says something about the subject, if the viewer wants to look into it. I like that I'm looking away from the blank space rather than into it. Also the white corner (mug) and the black corner opposite.

Still needed one more self-portrait:

f/5
1/50
ISO 100
Zoom at 18mm (~27mm equivalent)
Camera in auto mode, triggered with remote

Wanted to get one more picture out of that pig. Ripped the plastic eyes off and burned the eyeholes bigger. I wanted to spend some more time on this. Try a few different compositions, inside and outside, shoot in manual, etc. But the second I put my head inside the pig, my eyes started to burn. This was only meant to be a test shot. I had to spot lighten my eye a little. Goodbye, pig.

Peregrine at Creamer's Field

Took Scout for a walk on Saturday evening, and we met a man with a falcon on our way back to the car:

f/2
1/45
ISO 1600
31mm lens (~47mm equivalent)

It was 6:00pm on a very clear evening, and this was right at the edge of what I could do handheld without jumping up to ISO 3200, which is notably worse in terms of noise. I was lucking to get any decent shots of the bird at 1/45sec because it was moving quite a bit as it tore up that pigeon.

Also, it's that time of year. Everything is blue. The actual scene was nowhere near this blue. I tried to improve things in photoshop:

Did I go too far? I'm not sure. But I enjoyed the challenge of trying to make the colors truer while keeping a late evening look. I like the apartment building in the background. I think the shape and the yellow help to fill out the background, and they show that this is an urban scene--that this guy is flying his bird in the middle of town. I think that's important.

Here's the other decent one I got:

f/2.8
1/45
ISO 1600
31mm lens (~47mm equivalent)

Really the only good thing about this photo is the eye contact between the man and the bird. I had to stop down to get enough DOF to have them both in focus, and I knew it would be underexposed. The whole right side of the frame is empty as well, and the background behind the bird is way too busy. Here's the best I could do with it:

Really had to up the exposure to get the detail I wanted on the bird and the gore. Made it square to emphasize the relationship between the man and the bird. There's a diagonal line across the center between their eyes. In spite of the problems, I like this one. Will work on it some more to try to get the evening sky a little better.

Anyway, a good lesson in the importance of carrying your camera and talking to strangers.