Exploring the art of painting with light.

Spoon Fed

February 2, 2012
Spoon Fed-1

Focal Length: 50mm; ISO: 250; Exposure: 1/60 sec @ f22; Camera: Canon EOS 50D (Click to Enlarge)

Spoon Fed-2

Focal Length: 70mm; ISO 250; Exposure: 1/60 sec @ f/22; Camera: Canon EOS 50D (Click to Enlarge)

I was going through withdrawal, having not been out to shoot any photographs for a couple of weeks, so I searched around the house for something to take pictures of. I decided on a collection of antique spoons that had belonged to Mrs. Rambler’s grandmother. I wanted to see how much detail I could get out of the spoons while working with a flash.

I don’t take many pictures with my Canon Speedlight, so this was definitely a learning process. Another goal was to play with arranging multiple items to get an interesting image that also captured interesting details in the different items.

Each of the images above has elements that I really like. The first has a spontaneous quality with the spoons being jumbled around. I also like the orderly appearance of the spoons that are lined up, alternating directions. Both of them have nice detail and coloring, and I think I pretty much got the lighting right with the flash. Of course I welcome your critiques and suggestions.

Category:

Still Life

Leave a comment

Tagged with:

Vaults of History

February 1, 2012
Vaults of History

Focal Length: 24mm; ISO 500; Exposure: 1/200 sec @ f/5/6: Camera: Canon EOS 50D (Click to Enlarge)

My 7th grade history teacher was a Civil War buff and ignited an interest in me that has lasted to this day. Moving to North Carolina in 1996 brought me closer to history, with access to many sites that played a role in that conflict. I haven’t quite adopted the southern term for that war, The War of Northern Aggression, but my perspective shifted quite a lot when I learned that I have ancestors on both sides of my family that served in the Confederate Army.

One of my favorite historical sites from the Civil War is Fort Macon, located near Atlantic Beach, NC. It did not play a huge role in the war, having been captured by the Union Army in 1862, a little over a year after the war started. It remained in Union hands for the rest of the conflict. But part of the appeal for me is the long history that included use as late as World War II.

This picture is taken inside one of the rooms on the interior of Fort Macon looking out toward the parade grounds that are in the middle of the pentagonal walls of the fort. One of the challenges was shooting from the unlit interior toward the brightly lit doorways and windows of the room. It was a bright, sunlit morning and I didn’t get an exposure that worked well for both lighting elements. Hence, the highlights were blown out or the shadows were completely black. This would have been an ideal situation for a HDR image, but I didn’t have a tripod, nor would I have been allowed to use one.

I decided to use Nik Silver Efex Pro to convert this to black and white and then add a slight sepia tone to give the impression of age. I also made some adjustments to specific areas of the image with the adjustment brush in Photoshop Lightroom to reduce the exposure in the areas where the highlights were blown out. The thumbnail below is the image before any adjustments in Lightroom or Silver Efex.

Vaults of History - Original

Before conversion with Nik Silver Efex Pro (Click to Enlarge)

Category:

Architecture, Black and White

3 Comments

Tagged with:

Butterflies Are Free

January 31, 2012
Butterfly

Focal Length: 105mm; ISO: 200; Exposure: 1/60 sec @ f/4.5; Camera: Canon EOS 20D (Click to Enlarge)

Another favorite subject to photograph is butterflies. But they can be extremely frustrating because they don’t take direction well. I chased this one all over my yard begging it to sit still long enough for me to focus, but she just wouldn’t cooperate. Finally, she stopped to take a breather on the tailgate of my truck long enough for me to get this shot. Handheld and shot very quickly, I was initially disappointed because so much of it was very soft in focus.

The next time I try to shoot butterflies, I’m going to set up my tripod near a promising flower bloom and wait for whatever opportunity presents itself. I’m going to work very hard at practicing patience if I do that, and it’s not something that I’m particularly good at. But I’m learning that my best photographs come when I patiently plan the shot, set it up, and take my time composing it before I click the shutter.

How do you approach your shots? What steps do you take to prepare?

Category:

Color Photography, Nature

4 Comments

Tagged with:

Grenada Spice Worker 2

January 30, 2012
Greneda Spice Worker 2

Focal Length: 40mm; ISO 100; Exposure: 1/60 sec @ f/5.0; Camera: Canon EOS 20D (Click to Enlarge)

Another of the women working in the spice processing building in Grenada. I’m still enthralled by the colorful, dressy clothing the women were wearing. It was almost as if they were dressed for church instead of a day of work.

Category:

Color Photography, Travel

2 Comments

Tagged with:

Grenada Spice Worker

January 29, 2012
Grenada Spice Worker

Focal Length: 24mm; ISO 100; Exposure: 1/60 sec @ f/5.0; Camera: Canon EOS 20D (Click to Enlarge)

One of the stops on our tour of Grenada was at a spice processing building. The workers were all elderly women dressed in what appeared to be their dressiest clothing, and almost all of them wore hats. This woman was apparently taking a break from sorting nutmeg and sat smoking her pipe and allowing people to take her picture for a dollar.

This is one of my favorite photographs of all the shots in my portfolio. The woman’s colorful dress and the pipe clenched in her teeth is very compelling to me. It is not the most technically correct photograph in my portfolio, but it definitely has a lot of interest. The details of the wood and the assortment of “props” around her tell a story of working in a spice processing plant.

Category:

Color Photography, Travel

2 Comments

Tagged with:

Tag Cloud