recent snapshots

recent snapshots

May 29, 2013

Check out my  pals for their interpretations on this theme: Fishing Guy, Katney, Imac and Lew.  We are each doing our own thing this week, just showing recent snapshots.  Go see what my friends have been up to.

There was a lot of fun stuff going on as I have been exploring light in these shots.  The header was an experiment to see how well I could separate his dark hair from the black background, without washing out the details from his fair complexion.

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"Vadering."

 The trick shot where my daughter is using a force choke on my son, that was a combination of the right time of day (dusk) as the backlight, plus an over-head streetlight to give nice highlights in the hair, and on-camera flash for front fill.  He jumped from the concrete base of the streetlight (off-camera) to give the illusion that he had been lifted from the ground.  She is on her knees to exaggerate the height, and I shot the pic on my belly.

musician's promo pic

 A musician friend needed to put a promo package together real quick for a new project, so I tried to get an artsy kind of portrait that mixes warm, natural colors for her person, and cooler tones on the wall. She was very cooperative as we tried a bunch of "scenes" and lots of tries with different lights.

graduating from 8th grade

 My newest portrait is one that we needed for the graduates' bulletin board at church.  He's moving up from 8th grade.  This was taken with one off-camera flash high and to my left, and I held a second flash on the other side of the tree to illuminate the background.

odd shot or illusion

 odd shot or illusion

April 3, 2013

Lew chose "Odd Shot or Illusion" for this week's Headbanger's theme.  Check out my  pals for their interpretations on this theme: Fishing  Guy, Katney, Imac and Lew.

Some of these illusions (and odd shots) might be more obvious than others, but if you want to know how I did any, just ask.  I'll post any replies in the comment section.  The header shot is of Squirrel Man who never ceases to amaze people with exceptional skills and dexterity.  Here, he defies gravity as he crawls the walls.

night vision goggles

subterraneal perspective

fruity filter

a fly caught in mid-flight

clean and modest... but odd

driving deep

squashed selfie

emerging from baptism

let it snow

Header Challenge: Let It Snow!

January 3, 2013

 My wife and I like the snow.  She likes colder weather, period.  I prefer extreme cold over extreme heat, as long as I can dress for it properly.  Keep the shorts and sandals; I'm much more comfortable in a longsleeved flannel shirt or a hoodie.  Well, this winter has been unseasonably warm so far, and we've had negligible accumulation.  I needed to remind myself of where I live, so here are some let it snow pics.  This week's theme was my choice.  Check out my pals for their interpretations on the theme: Fishing Guy, Katney, Imac, Sandy and Lew.

My header is a close-up of a snow bump.  I lit it with a diffused flash.  There is a Christmas tree in the background, and the snowflakes were made by putting a sheet of construction paper with a snowflake cutout in front of the lens.  It's called a bokeh filter  It took some tinkering, but once I figured it out, it was easy.  I added a white vignette because I wanted it to look like we were looking outside a frosted window to a snowman in a blizzard.

This is similar to my header, but I added a faux window frame.

We love snow... lots of it!

...Except when the snow plow breaks my mailbox.

Just a simple snowman last time... but we have creative ideas for the next great snowfall!

Don'tcha love how the snow lays on the the trees in the park?  We have this one framed in my house.

red and green

Header Challenge: Red and Green

December 26, 2012

Tom selected red and green for this header challenge.   Check out my pals for their interpretations on the theme: Fishing Guy, Katney, Imac, Sandy and Lew.

This week's header shows a stretched version of a concept I was toying with last year.  The post was called Christmas lights, and in it, I explained how I drew that for the camera with a laser on a dark wall.

I love the way the light and focus draws us in to these berries.

From a neighbor's apple tree.  They thought I was strange.

From my own yard.  You know what? I think I'm strange, too.

From a craft display at Christkindl Market Downtown Chicago at Daley Plaza.

back to the future

NCC-1701-D at warp speed

Header Challenge: Back to the Future

November 28, 2012

This is my third of three promised installments as one of the Headbangers.  Please visit fellow Headbangers to see their take on this theme. Fishing Guy, Katney, Imac, Sandy and Lew.  They have been very gracious to welcome me into their circle, and if you think you would like to try it out, talk to Imac or Fishing Guy... tell them Craver sent you.

The Headbangers gave me the honor of selecting this week's theme, which is "Back to the Future."  I decided to post some futuristic space ships from an old television show that holds a special place in my heart.  Hopefully, I worded the theme in such a way as to provide some interpretive flexibility for my artistic photography pals.

I remember watching the original Star Trek series with my dad, wishing I could be like Spock and admiring Kirk.  It was so cool how he could beat the bad guys with Judo and steal a kiss from the pretty girls.  When Star Trek: The Next Generation aired, I was slow to get on board, but eventually, I got caught up in that series as well.

Has it already been two decades since that series went off the air?!  Well, since I found the whole franchise so intriguing, I collected some of the Micro Machines versions of these starships, and put them in a shadow box.  When I got my first digital camera, I was looking for something interesting to use as a subject for photography, so I dug up those starship models and created a few images.  These pics are all double exposures.

The NCC 1701 was laid upside down on a black shirt, so I could shoot the underbelly of the ship as if it were suspended in air.  The Klingon Battle Cruiser's star field was Christmas lights.  You may need to enlarge the photo in order to see the cloaked ship.  The selection for this week's header is the NCC 1701-D traveling at warp speed.  The blurring of the stars was made by panning Christmas lights.  When I created the composite, I blackened some of the "stars," otherwise the ship would look transparent.

NCC-1701 in orbit under the moon

cloaked Klingon Battle Cruiser

tricks and treats

I stayed home on Halloween and watched a movie with my kids instead of trick-or-treating.  When neighborhood children showed up at my door, I held out two bags from the freezer and offered the option of frozen broccoli or frozen green beans.  The stunned kids looked up in horror and mumbled "candy???"  My daughter pushed past me to save them with a big bowl of chocolate favorites.  As the giggling kids walked to the next house, I said goodbye and told them that if they come early enough next year, I might still have frozen brussel sprouts.  The tricked kids probably thought I was weird, but their parents got a good laugh out of it.  I'm sure my own kids wished they had thought of it first.

Brother Greg and S2 from 2009

While we're on the topic of tricks and treats, I have a new little toy.  It is a ring that screws on to the front of a lens, so that I can mount it backwards on my camera.  This backward lens trick is a neat way to boost your macro capabilities without buying a new lens.  I love it!  Here, you can see a closeup of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of a penny.  I should have looked for a penny that was not so worn, but I just didn't have the patience for that.

While I don't mind being labeled as a photography fanatic, I honestly try to exercise an appropriate balance with the rest of my life and responsibilities.  I saw an online video called The Calling of a Photographer by professional photographer David McLain.  In this video, he talks about the way photography passionately consumes him.  It is poetic and intriguing.  Nevertheless, I got the impression that some professionals might be absent too often from home, and that they're missing out on the greater glory, which is being a good husband and father.  Spooky, huh?

cheap wireless transmitter

 What is it about gadgets and gizmos that have such strong appeal?  You may recall that in recent posts, I only just figured out a way to activate a slave flash trigger ($11.99) by a homemade adaptor cable.  Then, I learned that someone claimed you can use a dark blue and red piece from a gel swatch book ($3.76) to filter out visible light and wirelessly activate that same optical trigger.  I tried it, but for some reason, I can't figure out how to make it work as reliably as the wired setup.  You can see that the camera's flash is still visible as a mild purplish light, but it doesn't reflect a significant amount of light from your subject. so that on those rare occasions that I can get this thing to work, this plastic shield that I taped to my popup flash functions as a wireless transmitter.  Cool!

Here's one of the tests that I did.  One of the failed attempts made me look like a ghost, and I posted that pic on Facebook.  Oh, and it was done on a Saturday, while I was grubby.  And yes, I know that I'm badly in need of a haircut.  But this is not about me being a model, okay?

using ropes and cables

 

Camp Timber-Lee has a High Ropes Course.  My sons climbed up there, while I took pictures from terra firma.  I wanted to show something with perspective, so instead of looking for an unobstructed view, I positioned myself so that a young person remained in the foreground.  I thought it would be easy because an overcast sky causes even lighting and reduces harsh shadows.  But that doesn't work so well when you're taking pics from below your subjects.  I used my new flash contraption to light up the girl on the left.

A couple posts ago I explained how "I took some non-functioning relics that used to be a wireless flash transmitter and receiver, stripped the guts, and hardwired it to make an extension cable from my camera's hot shoe to an external flash."  So for the shot above, I held the flash out with my left arm so we could see the details and color of her hair, backpack and jacket.  This is what my flash extension looks like:

 That was my first DSLR, by the way.  It doesn't work anymore, but I haven't pitched it.  Hey, do you want to see something fun?  Click on this last picture to have a good look at my son's expression as he looks down from the High Ropes.

Christmas lights

Three years ago, I took some pictures using a Christmas tree with lights to produce some special effects. This year, I tinkered with some special effects to produce a Christmas tree with lights. Here is how I did it:

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Using a tripod at night, I manually focused on a blank wall.

The camera was set to exposure priority, and the two shots varied between 5 and 13 seconds. Then, I turned out the lights.

My hand formed an upside-down "V," to mask the shape, as I drew a zig-zag on the wall with a cheap, pen laser. (Remove any reflective jewelry so you don't blind yourself!)

In post-editing, I changed the red lines to green.

The ornaments were done by guessing where the tree was, and just dotting inside the triangle with the same laser.

Then, I put the two images together as an overlapping collage.

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I tried combining more exposures to get a variety of ornament colors, but I liked the simplest one best. I wonder what else we can try with light.

candy and toys

To whom it may concern:

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I left half-a-bag of Peanut M&M's downstairs next to the remote control. When I returned the following night, I thought I might like to have the rest for a snack. The goodies were gone, but the litter was left behind. That goes beyond just plain wrong, it is downright cruel. Sleep with one eye open.

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And now, on to other things. The camera I used a couple of years ago has come out to play again. It is a Sony Mavica. The battery won't hold a charge, but it works if I plug it in.

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This image is a glass candy dish in the dark, illuminated only with an ultraviolet flashlight. I doubt this little flashlight will cause any harm, but I read somewhere, that UV light stimulates vitamin D production and that it may cause positive mood bursts. That is happy news for anyone who's M&M's have not been absconded.

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You know what else? I discovered that where Picasa's touch-up tool is not small enough, I can open the JPEG in Paint, and use that to color the pixels. That's how I removed the table's glare from under the bowl and my fingers that were pinching the top of the bowl. So easy!!!

i c i r... u c i r 2

Have you heard anything about infrared (IR) photography? Apparently, some cameras can "see" infrared light and others cannot. A simple way to test your camera's compatibility is shown in the photo above. Using your television remote control, snap one photo without pressing any of the remote's buttons, and another one holding down any one of the buttons on the remote. If your camera can see this light, it is capable of infrared photography!

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The next thing to do is to filter out all the rest of the visible spectrum, and that is done with a filter. I found one pretty cheap on ebay.

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If I read it correctly, Wikipedia says that when we measure bright sunlight, only forty four percent of that is visible light. A measly three percent of it is ultraviolet, and a whopping fifty two percent of that light is infrared!

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Here then is my first infrared picture. [ISO: 3200, f/5.6, 2.1 sec] That was taken on a warm, sunny day at at 5:30 PM. The original shot had a strong magenta tint to it, and when I pulled that color out, it left the image looking more like a black and white photo of snow, but believe me, there was no snow! Foliage reflects IR in a big way! I'll have to do some experimentation with this...

salt-n-peppa

A few days ago, we got to talking about ethnic diversity [different is good]. That spun off into an email conversation about photographing a lighter person and darker person together. My thought is that it could be much more challenging than when taking a family portrait where they're all nearly the same color. Kapish?

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I saw a photo of a couple of young people who were on opposite ends of the light spectrum. My nephews here, are not as extreme, but this is the best I've done yet with these two. It was purely by accident, but the general background was was kind of a neutral gray, light behind the darker nephew and dark behind the lighter one. I used flash for fill-in, and then edited the image to remove just a little of the color saturation, because that red shirt wanted to steal the show.

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What do you think? What kind of poses, lighting or other tips do you think might be helpful for creating a good photograph of a combo light and dark subject? Maybe you can even point to some good samples??

where credit is due

There's a funny story about this photo. We were on a ten-minute drive to visit our blogging buddy, Brother Greg. This view begged for a picture, so I pulled over and stood out in the middle of the street to get the shot. There isn't much traffic here, but every once in a while, my kids would shout out the warning: "Car!" It felt like a total role reversal.

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Thanks, Kids for keeping me safe.

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A photography tip: David says no matter what he's photographing, he always makes it a point to look around, to make sure he hasn't missed out on anything else [here's his post]. I have not made this a habit, but I should. On this particular day, I DID happen to look for a different shot, and caught this image only four minutes after the first. Maybe you already saw it a few days ago on the post called "A Sunset for Coco."

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Thanks Dave, for the good pics I will capture on account of your wisdom and experience.

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And thank you Lord, for the rising and setting of the sun. Amen

big and little

They call this strange little character a bee fly. It is approximately the size of a grain of rice. It was very interested in my bluegreen camera bag. Perhaps it was the color of the canvas tote that worked as a beacon to this cerulean striped fly. Yes, it's actually a fly; it only looks like a bee. The mimicry was designed so that we would think it's a bee and not take its lunch money.

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Hey, do you perchance use Picasa for your photos? The August issue of Popular Photography suggests a shortcut on page 108. To flip an image horizontally, press Ctrl + Shift + H. That nifty little trick should come in handy when attempting to decipher Russian signage.

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Anyhow, that made me wonder what other hidden secrets I might want to learn, so I googled "picasa shortcuts." Here are a couple more that I expect to find useful:

Ctrl + Shift + V flips it vertically

Hovering over a photo, Ctrl + Alt is a full-screen preview.

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Enjoy!

frankenstein's camera

Preliminary tests are in on my Franken-camera. (Thanks to Lime, for the nickname.) It is intimidating to me, especially when I add a white envelope high atop the stack for soft fill-in. I can only imagine what the subjects think when I point this enigmatic contraption at them. Naturally, I have lots to learn here. The very first picture I took with this external flash & slave trigger was a skunk at 10:30 PM. It was dark outside, but the photo lights up like the middle of the day.

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On the left, we have a sample of what happens when we leave the flash off. I could have spot-metered it, but what fun would that be? This was more dramatic.

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Compare that to this one below, bounced off the ceiling with strong backlight.

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(By the way, those are my beloved paternal units. Mom sets up a story with a poker face, while Dad's anticipation of the outcome telegraphs the ending... a subtlety we catch with Franken-flash.)

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All of this leaves me awestruck with wonder at the complicated workings of the human eye. I worship God for creating our eyes to automatically and freely process raw visual information without having to strap on a bazillion gadgets and gizmos.

far out

I have always enjoyed space exploration... as science fiction. [Wasting tons of money and resources to eventually find out that God created everything just like He said... that's another story. I digress.]

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[USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D at Warp Speed]

Cool space ships, laser/phaser/disruptor beams, transporters, photon torpedoes, energy shields, scanners, warp technology, dilithium crystals, beryllium spheres, all these class M planets teeming with intelligent life, and blatant disregard for the second law of thermodynamics! Ah, what's not to love!

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[Cloaked Klingon Battle Cruiser]

My limitations with a 2.1 megapixel camera, a tiny flip-up flash, shaky hands, etc., have not prevented me from boldly going where I haven't gone before. Micro Machines, post editing and double exposures... these are so much fun to play with! I feel safe -- like I can't make mistakes. Sure, I can always do better, but it would only be wrong if I didn't try anything at all. Please, please, please-- if you have any tips or ideas for how to do new things or improve on what I already have, I'm all ears. Well, not like a Firengi... you know what I mean.

special effects

Sci-fi can be so much fun. And it's amazing how far special effects have come! Last night I watched Hancock, and there were probably less than ten minutes of that movie that weren't filmed with special effects of some kind. No... five. Cumulative. The story was unique, the acting was superb, and the effects were absolutely stunning.

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Do you remember the special effects from the original Star Trek television episodes? When I first watched those as a kid, I didn't give any thought to how realistic the effects were, since there was no practical way they could make things more true-to-life. But today, technology, techniques and budgets have improved to produce a quality that I could not have dreamed of as I watched the old black & white tube, back in the late 60's & early 70's.

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This photo was my own, low budget, special effect. I placed a toy upside down on a black shirt, and then created a multi-exposure collage with a moon picture from my archives. Neat, huh?

vanishing act

As you can see, I'm learning how to make myself invisible. Now, before a silly person tries to explain how they THINK I did it, let me tell you that I did not take two separate shots without moving the camera, and I did not use the Picasa program's collage function to create a multiple exposure.

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No. My technique involves concentrating on something very, very dull and uninteresting. That, plus some pixie dust, and you can do the vanishing trick as well!

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The reason I want to be able to turn invisible, is so that people don't tense up when I approach them as photographic subjects. Plus, it's awkward when I take a long time to set up a shot. But if they never see me hovering with the camera, it doesn't matter, does it?

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I hope you don't mind that I am so casual and frank about telling you my thoughts on this. We have gotten to know each other a little bit, and I feel comfortable enough with you by now that I think I can be "transparent."

scope and sphere

My camera's viewscreen freezes from the moment the shutter button is pressed. The image remains frozen for several seconds. As for the intended photograph, the image capture takes place in some undiscernable moment between those five seconds (or years!). The more pics I have on that disc (yes, disc), the longer it takes. That makes it almost impossible to capture anything that is moving, like cars or birds, especially when using the zoom.

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So, from spare parts, I fabricated a simple scope. It's just a flash mount and hollowed-out shell from a mechanical pencil. There is a little wiggle in it, so it needs to be calibrated before I use it, but it came in handy last night.

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I was taking pictures of the moon for the next Sky Watch Friday. Everything was fine, until I got to the last picture. It was too dark to find the reddish moon in the camera's viewfinder! Click, I mounted the scope, aimed it at a floodlight for calibration, and voila! Now I could take a good aim in the dark.

a drop of water

Props to Snapdragon for an amazingly simple technique on how to capture the fall of a water droplet.

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My version is very simple, because of the plain felt background, but if you haven't done this yet, I recommend that you add something for proportion. Some people couldn't easily identify this as a falling drop of water.

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This weekend, I decided to add two items to my accessory bag.

1) A lint brush, and

2) A laminated UPC code.

The UPC code came in handy for setting the manual focus where I was expecting to photograph the drop of water.

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Is it just me, or are portraits and other people-shots much more difficult than still life?