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Canon 5D Mark II, 35mm F/1.4, f/13, 1/30, iso 400
While at Philadelphia's "graffiti underground," this scene was one of the first to catch me eye. Amidst the chaotic and layered graffiti, "SHINE" rendered in a beautiful font. Simple word, simple lettering, simple thought.
It's a good word for the day, don't you think? What will you do to shine today?
On Wordless Wednesday, you tell the story... (And no cheating, John Barclay!)
Canon 5D Mark II, 14mm F/1.8, f/7.1, 1/250, iso 200
When we arrived at Fonthill for our morning shoot, we were treated to (what I'm told is) an usual sight, a sky full of clouds. Several of us hurried down the gentle slope to gain this vantage point. It really was a sight to behold. I practically expected a group of knights to come charging down the path after us.
With no modern artifacts in view, I realized this would be almost exactly what the creator, Henry Mercer, would have seen on a September morning just like this one. It was a thrill.
And the morning just got better as we explored and photographed this wonderful structure. It's one of my favorite "historic houses" I have ever been to.
In Topaz Adjust 4.0, I gave the image a very light treatment. I wanted all that detail that Topaz gives us, but didn't want to go overboard.
Thanks for your visit and feel free to leave a comment if today's image strikes your fancy! As is the tradition on Topaz Tuesday, on the continue link below you'll find the original image so you can see before and after.
Canon 5D Mark II, 85mm F/1.2, f/2.5, 1/640, iso 800
Model Monday? Well, I went on another model shoot this weekend, with the Click Monkeys, a Sacramento based photography group I belong to. The venue was Preston Castle, which you may remember from a series I posted here on the blog. (Here is the first post of that series if you want to go back to review them.)
I know I'm more known for nature images, macros, still lifes... But I'm just having SO MUCH FUN shooting these models! Now I'm getting into the swing of things and designing my own scenes, like this one. A group of photographers were shooting Kayla just kind of standing by the building. I looked to my right and saw these stairs going down below the building and said "hey, what about something more sinister?" Kayla got that flash in her eyes and we went over there. I came up with this pose, and she was good enough to go for it.
I really like her expression, you have to try to decide is she's alive or not... I'm leaning toward not alive.
The image looked very good SOOC, but I decided to increase the creep factor and give it a moonlit kind of look. I began with a Lightroom preset called B&W Creative - Cyanotype, and went from there.
So thank you Kayla for being such a good sport, you are a joy to work with (this was the second time I got to work with her), not to mention beautiful.
Comments anyone? What do you think of this image?
Sorry, gotta be brief in today's post. This is the infamous "red chair" from Eastern State Penitentiary, another of our shoot locations in the Philadelphia workshop. Pretty creepy, eh? Let me know what you think of this image.
Canon 5D Mark II, 14mm F/1.4, f/6.3, 1/30, iso 640
Before I left for the Philadelphia trip, the leader of the photography group I belong to in Sacramento said that we had been invited to do a gallery show. The theme would be "deterioration." I knew I would be getting some shots that matched the theme, on this trip, but I didn't think I had time to turn them into framed prints.
When I got home, I sent a couple images to Tim (the leader) and he said "you gotta get these in the show!" I thought about it a bit and realized I had a couple of frames I could recycle, and yes I could get in the show. So I did.
I chose this image as one of my two entries. This car was at the Graffiti Underground area that was the location of this week's zoom-stop-zoom image. While on location, my thought was to get inside this car, not shoot the entire car. Having my 14mm really worked. "Ghost Rider" would be a good title. This POV makes me feel like me and another ghost are going to hop in for a joy ride.
I'll show you the second image tomorrow, but in the meantime let me know what you think of this one.
Hey, I'm in my first gallery show! (the Beatnik Gallery in Sacramento FYI)
Canon 5D Mark II, 35mm F/1.4, f/6.3, 1/400, iso 100
I try to fly as little as possible any more. Pretty obvious why, right? But the Philadelphia weekend was pretty compelling, so fly I must. When I got to the gate at around 7 am I was treated to this site and quickly got me camera out. I felt a little of the excitement that I used to when I was going on a plane ride. Adventure!
But the news about air travel always seems bad. My own last trip across the country was a horror show, which I documented here on the blog.
I'm happy to say this trip was different. I stacked the deck a bit by going non stop. I chose USAir, mainly because of the non stop service. What went wrong? Absolutely nothing. On time everywhere. Nice clean planes. No complaints about the crew. No crying babies. In fact, it seemed like 3/4ths of the passengers slept. Made a nice new friend on my first leg. Did I mention I had an aisle seat and no one was in the middle?
I did buy a turkey croissant that was pretty soggy, but as I have no expectation about airline food any more I don't think it is a valid complaint.
When we touched down back in Sacramento, the landing was like a swan touching down gently on a pond. I saw the pilot and exclaimed "GREASER!" (that's pilot speak for a nice landing.) He broke into a huge smile and said "Thanks bud!" So props to USAIr for a job well done.
Maybe I won't have to give up flying eh? Anyone else had good commercial flying experiences recently?
Canon 5D Mark II, 70-200 F/4.0L, f/22, 2 secs, iso 100
Last weekend I traveled to Philadelphia for another John Barclay led workshop. For the workshop, we had three destinations. Outside of the workshop, John and I visited two others, including the abandoned train that was featured in yesterday's image. You'll be seeing images from all these locations as time goes on.
With our group, the first destination was a place known as "the graffiti underground." It's kind of a concrete jungle that has been extensively decorated by artists/vandals with spray paint. And I took many images I like a lot. But there's more to this image.
Before we set out, John said "be sure to bring your zoom, to do some zoom-blurs." Well, I had not brought a zoom lens (mostly I use primes these days). So of course he lent me one of his! He described two variations on the basic technique. The basic technique is to use a long exposure and zoom while the shutter is open. One variation is to smoothly zoom, and the other is a "zoom-stop-zoom" where you try to zoom through the range, but stop and then start, several times each second.
This image was made using the zoom-stop-zoom method. I believe a great abstract begins with a strong composition, and this scene had it. There's a big pipe on the left, and then on the right there are various concrete elements, as well as an opening to the sky and foliage.
Given that the subject is mostly concrete, you can imagine that the original image is a lot of grays. In my processing, I did a fair amount of saturation and some other tweaks to bring the image to life. I think this is one of my better abstracts, and I'm interested in your opinion. The comment link below makes it easy to feedback here on the blog. I appreciate your visit and comment when an image inspires you.
And thank you to JB for the inspiration (and lens) for this particular image. It's good to have great friends.
On Wordless Wednesday, you tell the story...
Canon 5D Mark II, 85mm F/1.2, f/3.2, 1/1600, iso 400
You just can't keep me out of the koi pond, can you? I find these endlessly fascinating, and it's fun working on them in post processing as well. But can one of these be "simple?"
That was my challenge. I wanted to include a Topaz koi shot in my simple series.
But my fishy friends do not always cooperate, so one has to be creative. With the koi, you can look for "pictures within pictures" as there is so much going on. Click on the continue link to see what I mean.
Continue reading "Simple Series - Day Six - Topaz Tuesday" »
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