Quiet

Interesting things on a quiet morning walk.

Foggy Adventure

A bunch of us hit the road super early on Sat to travel to a little town outside of Goochland for an early morning adventure.

The fog was so thick we had to hold up the entire caravan of travelers in a parking lot until it cleared up a little. 

The sun finally burst out full force from the thick, cloudy sky and mother nature gifted us with a bright fall sunrise over the foggy hills. It was incredibly lovely to watch the steam slowly burn off the landscape to reveal beautiful fall colors.  

Such a stunning and unexpected visual treat!

 

Pumpkin Time

A blog in motion tends to stay in motion, whereas a blog at rest tends to....well, you know rest.

Hello. How have you been?

Haiku

Blossoms fade.
Birds fly south.
Summer will soon be taking a hike.

Haha. I'm not a poet by any stretch of the imagination.  The most I can muster is three little measly lines of Haiku.

But I DO love this bag (picked up at my local camera shop) for my latest camera acquisition - a Nikon D700!! Finally, I now have a new (well, it's used, but new to me) full frame camera. I'm going to be giving it a good test run this weekend.

This week I'm also determined to figure out how to shoot with the medium format Mamiya, without fail.

Hello, it's me.

Hope you're all having a super weekend. We're watching the Dragon Boat Festival on the James River from our balcony.

Of course the horse has nothing to do with the festival, but I think that eye reflection is so cool, and being near the water with all the reflections made me think of this shot. Spent the day at a farm not long ago and had the best time photographing it all - not just the obvious things (like reflections in a horse's eye :), but also tiny vignettes tucked in corners all over the place.

I'm attempting to make Burst Tomato Galette with Corn and Zucchini for dinner tonight (with roasted chicken). Looks delicious and hope I do it justice. I'm a little nervous about the crust, truth be told! A full report later!

Oh, does my a** look wide in that reflection? No? I didn't think so.

Filmology Continues

Got my second roll of expired film back from the lab - Kodak black & white TMax 400.

I like the results! The images are super grainy, but I'm not at all unhappy with that (by-product of expired film). And I'm pretty pleased with the exposure considering I was getting used to the camera and learning the proper way to expose film.

I did some dodging, burning, and adjusting for contrast in Lightroom (rather than in the darkroom like previous - dare I say old - days). A faded look seems to be another hallmark of expired film, especially if hasn't been stored properly over the years.

I'm in the process of shooting my 2nd roll of fresh film - Fuji 400H. I finished the first fresh roll of Kodak Tri-X 400 B&W a few weeks ago.  Then I plan to move on to the Mamiya 220 - can't wait to shoot with that monster. Once I get two rolls shot with the Mamiya's (I have two of them for now) I'll ship all the rolls off to the lab.

The last shot is a double exposure - which is a ton of fun with film. You never know exactly how it's going to turn out until you see the negative. I need to practice that technique!

Sure wish I could spend more time on this.  I'm loving it so much!

Filmology

I'm ready to roll. With a roll or two of film, that is.

Just received my rolls of film this week. I've been staring at them on my desk with much anticipation! There are so many different kinds of film that it blew my mind deciding which to buy. So after some research on blogs and film boards, I decided on the rolls in the photo.

Let me introduce you to my little friends:
Nikon F100 (35mm)
Mamiya C220 (120 medium format and 220 large format)

I'm especially excited about the Mamiya because it uses 120mm medium and 220mm large format films (the box here contains 5 rolls of 120 film).

I actually have two Mamiya C220's to play with. A friend bought them both at a yard sale. I bought one from her, but will try shooting with both to see how well they work. Both Mamiyas are in great condition and I hope they both work so she has a usable one too (although she's not into film). The Mamiya weighs a ton - twice as heavy as the F100. I'll need a camera strap for this monster.

I downloaded the manuals for both cameras for FREE off the Internet! Gotta love that.

My plan for the next two days (besides the standard household chores, ew) is to pour though both of the manuals, load the films, and be ready to start shooting.

I was scheduled to attend a photo shoot tomorrow and wanted to take the F100, but the shoot was cancelled due to bad weather - we're suffering from rain and freezing roads around here for the next two days.

I was determined NOT to take my digital camera to the shoot - now that's a scary thought. I'm so comfortable with my D300 (love that camera) and the thought of deliberately leaving it behind when I head out to a shoot makes a little crazy. But I wanted only the F100 to get me through it.

I'm making film progress...yea!

Slowing Down with Film

It was easy for me to fall in love with DSLR technology. It's great to have the freedom to take as many shots as I need to get the image I have in mind. Snap Snap Snap Snap Snap. Five versions or more of the same scene taken at a slightly different angle and/or at a slightly different exposure. And then lather-rinse-repeat for the next idea. No worries - because I know I can sort it all out in Lightroom at the end of the day and get at least one keeper that expresses what I was looking for.

But lately I've been dissatisfied with that frenzied way of shooting. I'm tired of uploading hundreds of photos (or more) from a single photo walk and culling and post processing them endlessly. I'm tired of filling up my external hard drives with folders upon folders of photos. It's all so - time sucking and exhausting. And it keeps me from doing what I really love to do - just shoot creatively.

These days I'm also feeling that shooting with digital is no longer a challenge. I'm feeling the need to be more deliberate and contemplative when I shoot. I want a slower rhythm when I shoot. I want to take more time composing and getting my camera settings perfected and thinking about the one or two shots I have to take to get the image I want. I no longer want to photograph the same subject over and over and over just because I can.

So I've decided this is going to be my year of slowing down and learning how to shoot film again. I have three great film cameras, and I intend to use them all this year.

Three weeks ago I pulled my Nikon FM film SLR from my vintage camera bag. Seeing it brought back memories of the quiet darkroom, red lights illuminating the area, the smell of chemicals, slippery reels of film, the click-clack of rolling film onto film cartridges, enlargers, and slide projectors. The old Nikon still had the 50mm 1.8 lens attached that lived on it most of time back in the old days. All I had to do was replace the batteries and load film.

And so I did. That was the easy part.

I had to relearn the camera and it's quirky exposure and focusing (still doing that). This camera has the simplest of controls: ISO, Aperture, and Shutter. All exposure and focusing is set manually by the user. But I can no longer adjust ISO for each photo as with digital - the ISO stays the same for the entire roll of film. Needless to say that finding really good light is of the utmost importance under these circumstances.

Let me introduce you to my very first roll of film in forever. I feel like such a newby!!

These are all taken with expired color film (Kodak Gold 200) that was in my camera bag with the Nikon. I took the film to Walgreens for development - they had no idea how to work with expired film. So I hoped for the best, but wasn't really expecting it. Got the prints back today and the colors looked freakish - dark blue. And they are ultra grainy - no doubt because the film was so expired. Not blaming Walgreens - some of the fault is the old film and some of the fault is mine since I'm learning - I'm sure they do a great job on digital. I have a few professional labs that I plan to use that are really good at this stuff.

So I loaded the photos to Lightroom and either made a few white balance tweaks to get the blue out or turn them to B&W.  (One of my goals with film is to avoid post processing, hopefully.)

In my mind this is akin to eating take out or cooking a delicious meal at home. Both are good, but the latter is appreciated and savored for the effort put into the process and the delight at the outcome.

These were taken in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Happy hoppy Easter!

What a day!
Lots of visiting and eating.
We went to Mom's house for breakfast.
Came home and the hubs cooked a great dinner. Plus he mastered the Mai Tai.

We saw Safe House a few weeks ago at CineBistro. Danzel is one of my favorite actors. Movie was terrific.

I love taking two photos of the same scene, but making the focus points different.

Candle on reflective table.

Brenizer Bokeh Panorama

Have you ever heard of bokeh panoramas? It was popularized by photographer Ryan Brenizer.

Here's a description.  And another.  But here's an overview without going into detail....I don't explain it as well as the articles, so make sure you read them to get a better understanding, if you're interested.

Say you're shooting with a fast, telephoto lens - we all know you get a very narrow view of a scene with a telephoto lens.  And with a fast telephoto lens (apertures 1.2, 1.4, 1.8, 2.0. 2.8) you also get ridiculously outstanding bokeh.

Let's say you love the scene that you've got in front of you with the knockout bokeh, but want a wider view of it. To get a wider view of the scene you'd have to pop on your wide-angle lens or step far back with the telephoto.

The problem with a wide angle lens is that you can't get that delicious, buttery depth of field and bokeh that you can with a fast telephoto lens.  And if you back up with your telephoto lens to get more of the scene, you lose the bokeh. A dilemma!

What to do? You want a wider view, but you also want to keep the yummy bokeh all around the subject.

Bokeh Panorama to the rescue!

Take several shots of the scene with your telephoto while standing in the same spot and moving your camera around, and then stitch them together into one big panorama in Photoshop.

For this experiment I used a 35mm lens on my cropped sensor Nikon. On my cropped sensor the 35mm is more like a telephoto and it also produces the most lovely bokeh. And since it was the lens I had on my camera when I had the opportunity to practice this technique, I went with it.

The first photo is a straight-on shot of just the main subject with my 35mm at 2.5. No cropping.

The second image is a combination of the first shot plus 8 more shots taken all around it. Each shot was overlapped by about 1/2. All the images were then stitched together to make one large photo and then cropped in Photoshop.

See how by stitching together all the shots that I got a wider angle of the scene and didn't lose the bokeh?  I could have stepped back with my 35mm and attempted to get an image that looked similar in size to the second one, but I would have lost much of the bokeh.

Cool, huh?

This is my first attempt. I need a lot more practice. I want to try it again with my 85mm 1.4 - that seems to be the lens most folks use for this Bokeh Panorama technique. It seems they are all using that lens with a full frame camera, but I'll make do!

Abstraction

Went to a terrific workshop sponsored by the Camera Club of Richmond about using artificial light sources in abstract photography. We learned a bunch of things, and I ended up with a much better understanding of how to use a combination of shutter speed and aperture to get an abstract capture of the foreground light source while properly exposing the background - usually to black.

Here are the very basics per our instructor (see his amazing work here). There can be lots of variations here depending on your goal, but this is what I stuck with for most of the evening while I was trying to learn:
- Keep the ISO low.
- Set shutter speed at around 1 or 2 seconds to create a sense of movement.
- Use aperture to control the quantity of light and depth of field.
- Use a tripod.
- Wiggle the camera, wiggle the light source, or both at the same time.
- Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.

After setting my shutter speed, I fiddled with the aperture. Stop it down incrementally (f4.5, f8, f11, etc) and each time checked the image in the viewfinder to see how the overall exposure looked. Bright and sharp foreground light? Check. Black background? Check.

In the first image (which I LOVE just like it is!) the instructor is standing in front of a lighted presentation screen and swinging a long, blue light bar with his right hand: ISO 320, 38mm (using my 24-70 lens), f4.5, 1 second shutter speed.

The second image: ISO 320, 38mm, f10, 1 second shutter speed.

The instructor was in the same location and all camera settings, except for the aperture, were the same in both images. The wonderful streaks and trails of light were captured with the long shutter speed, while closing down the aperture from f4.5 to f10 blackened the background and gave an extended area of sharpness. Cool, huh?

Needless to say the possibilities are endless with this. I love experimental photography!