Pumpkin

Happy Halloween!

Maple Pods

Minolta A1
1/125
f5.0
ISO 100

Drops

Minolta A1
1/60
f6.3
ISO 100
tripod with delayed shutter release

I think this photo helped me finally realize how important using a tripod is, and the digital equivalent of a cable release is. I like the sharpness of the drops and the dusty miller leaves supporting them. I was originaly tempted to crop the photo down to reduce the amount of foreground out of focus dusty miller leaf but after some time I decided that I liked the overall composition of the original uncropped photo. Also I decided that I did not want to mess around with Neat Image noise reduction with this photo. For one thing noise filters tend to read dusty miller leaf coloration as noisy, and one ends up with an odd smoothness effect on the leaves. Another factor is that the noise in the background seems to emphasize the sharpness of the droplets.

Self Portrait

Minolta A1
2.5 sec
f3.2
ISO 800

I haven't posted any ISO 800 shots yet, but my eye was caught by the appearance of this mirror in a darkened room last night. The black and white appearance on the monitor of the A1 (by the way the screen switches to b/w in low light for better viewing) remineded me of some works by MC Escher, in particular one where he has a self portrait in a spherical mirror. That gave me the idea to include myself in the photo. The idea of a self portrait in which the subject is partially obscured - in this case by a combination of low light, high noise, dust on the mirror, and of course the camera, intrigued me. It was, as most of my photographic choices, unconscious. Did I want to hide myself mostly? Is this why psychiatrists wear beards?

Blue Door

Minolta A1
1/80
f5.6
ISO 100

Better in Black and White?

Opinions please.

Leaving Home

Minolta A1
1/60
f5.0
ISO 100

Yes, this is a real unaltered shot. But no, I did not have excellent timing. The straying seed was actually captured by a gossamer spider thread and suspended near the mother ship and I was able to compose the shot at my leisure.

Flower Farm

Minolta A1
1/160
f7.1
ISO 100

Red Thorn

Minolta A1
1/30
f3.5
ISO 200

I have donated a 10x14 in framed print of this photo to the Mary Rieke School Foundation Acution that will occur this coming November 4th. This will be one of two prints of this photo (I'm keeping one for myself.) The auction benefits a local public elementary school. For auction details call 503-916-5768.

Bumble Bee sRGB

Here is the sRGB version of the bumble bee photo from yesterday.

Color Make Over

Ok here is a version of the last photo that has been saved with sRGB color space management instead of regular RGB. What a difference. I've been adjusting my photo's color saturation up to try to cope with this problem, without much luck! Check out this link to an article from Nature Photographers Online Magazine that I found very helpful and that explains color management for posting photos to the web.

Bug on the Brink

Minolta A1
1/250
f7.1
ISO 100
Oversharpened with Neat Image

I'm not sure if the oversharpening shows up in this smaller jpeg version as much as the full size file, but I think this is a good example of the type of sloppy technique that I often have that really bugs old school purists (pun intended). I really should have been using a tripod (preferably a heavy one with one of those adjustable macro focus tracks for minute adjustments in close focus.) If I had a tripod I would have likely been able to nail the focus on this bug - instead the plane of focus seems to fall just a little behind him on the flower's petal. But I am lazy, and don't dedicate enough time to spend taking and setting up a tripod, and I'm cheap I don't own a really decent tripod let alone one with one of those macro focusing tracks. So instead I end up oversharpening an image in an attempt to get what I didn't in the field. But life is a compromise. I have the free time at night to work on images on the computer, and I generally have very limited time during daylight hours. Sort of a curse for a photographer. But of course this will not always be the case, and trully if I wanted to carve out the time I could. I think an ideal vacation for me right now would be to live in a simple hut (with electricity for my laptop of course) for a week and hike with my camera during the day, and process photos at night by the side of a crackling fire. Ahhhhh, dream on.

Green Between

Minolta A1
image altered in Adobe Photoshop Elements

I was visiting a friend's house and took time to photograph this moss that intrigued me between the bricks that was set off by the very bright light of the noon sun. I got a quizzical look from my friend of course when she saw me pointing the camera down at her patio, at macro distance - about a foot, and concentrating on getting the focus.

When I am interested in a particular subject visually I become so engrossed in looking at it and thinking about the various factors that might go into taking a photo that I become oblivious to other things going on around me. I've noticed this in others to - as an example a good friend who trully loves photography is often left way behind on hikes when he decides to take a photo and his family get tired of waiting for him.

Another humorous example of disregarding socially appropriate behavior for the sake of a photo happened to me a few weeks ago. While walking the dog, I had noticed some very beautiful japanese maple seed pods in a nearby front yard. I returned the next morning at about the same time to take a photo of them with the light transluminating the pods and I was there about 2 minutes trying to get a good shot when the owner of the home came out to inquire what I was doing. I had of course been hovering quietly behind her tree with a camera and must have seemed like a stalker! I apologized and explained what I was doing, but by the time I returned to the shot my camera battery had conveniently to died (I was using the old Nikon with 4 AAs as the Minolta was visiting Laredo.) I did not dare to return with fresh batteries for fear that I might have to explain myself to the police!

I think this aspect of losing oneself to the photo, the capacity to step out of one's usual sense of time, is very relaxing and hypnotic. I am pretty sure my pulse and blood pressure must drop when I can concentrate on a photo. The practice of giving myself, or perhaps my wife giving me, a protected segment of time to go and take photos has been very enjoyable and good for my mental health.

10/23 update - here is a link to an article in Nature Photographers Online Magazine by Guy Tal that eloquently describes the beauty of getting lost in a visual, or any experience, and how the creative process develops through the familiarity that comes with such experience.

Bumble

Minolta A1
1/250
f7.1
ISO 100

Orange Flower

Minolta A1
1/160
f6.3
ISO 100



With Neat Image filter

It was a perfect autumn day in Yakima with the smell of hops in the air, a bright blue sky, and a slight nip in the air. I spotted this small flower on my walk back to get the car (it seemed to be looking at me too!) The color of it, and the way it was glowing in the light captured how I was feeling at that moment. It makes an interesting contrast with the drenched black eyed susan below photographed just a few days before in Portland!

End of Summer

Minolta A1
1/80
f4.5
ISO 200
Neat Image noise filter

This is my first full example of the Neat Image Photoshop filter on a photo. I was able to get some shots of this Black Eyed Susan earlier in the day when the light was better, but then noticed that I had not nailed the focus on the foreground. When I came back later with a tripod the light had faded, and the image was very noisy before the filter.

10/26 update - I am donating a 10 x 14 in. print of this photo (one of two) to the Mary Rieke School Foundation Auction this coming Nov 4. For details see Red Thorn above.

Dusty Miller in the Rain

Minolta A1
1/125
f 5.6
ISO 200

It seems like the rainy season has begun here in Portland and so I expect that the bulk of my photo posts over the next 6 months or more will feature rain. I need to set up a ziplock bag to cover my camera when I run out during bright periods during the day to protect it from the drizzel. I thought this photo of my new favorite plant was interesting since it seemed to thrive this Summer with no water in an area that typically bakes in the sun.

Blue Window

Minolta A1 (It is back finally and looking good so far!)
1/60th
f 4.0
ISO 100

Bloom Blurs

Original unaltered photo from Nikon 3100




Ligthing/Lens variation added in Adobe Lightroom



Another lighting/lens effect added in Adobe Lightroom



Photoshop Elements smart-blur effects.




Bloom Scotoma
Central out of focus area accentuated with blur in Photoshop Elements

I took some time to play around with a photo I took several weeks ago with the Nikon point and shoot camera. I think that like many amateur photographers I have this sense that altering a photo with Lightroom or Adobe Elements is sort of cheating. I'm not sure this is a valid belief, since many different techniques similar to what can be done in these programs may be done in the darkroom too.

This series shows an original unaltered photo, a couple different fairly dramatic lighting changes, done in Lightroom, and then some progressively dramatic blur effects from Elements.

In the last image I thought I would try to blur the central area of the photo to accentuate the original image's out of focus area in the center area of the flower (something that usually I find very annoying). I thought that this would provide a somewhat annoyingly provocative image with a blurred central area and a periphery of the frame with sharply focused background that has also been accentuated by the earlier lighting effects that were added. In a way this image's alterations are driven out of the origial photo's shortcomings, and my frustration about not being able to improve them after the fact. (In particular I need to work on making sure that I get the FRONT of a subject fully within the depth of field when taking macro shots.) It sounds planned out when I explain the post photo alterations but I really just arrived at this last image by playing around with filters in Lightroom and Elements to find something that I would find interesting.

Starburst

Nikon E3100

Here is a relatively uninspired close up I took of some flowers I bought at the grocery store. It has been some time since I've posted anything. The Minolta should hopefully be back from Texas by Friday, and I'm hoping that will give me some new inspiration. I think one road block I've run into is that the type of photos I love - macro nature photos - are most of what I post here. But seeing so much of the same thing seems to be unexciting to me. I want to be more creative, but I have not recently had the energy or time to spend either developing (or altering) photos like the last post, or trying to "see" different interesting perspectives in unaltered photos. I have also been viewing many other photos online, and it is frustrating and inspiring at the same time to see how much better macro nature photography can be done.