Now That I Think About It

I think this is my favorite water lily photo I've ever taken. It actually might be my favorite flower photo I've ever taken.

Yesterday I ran over to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens after work, and to my pleasant surprise met ~Amabile~, whose work I've always admired and really loved. She ran out of card space and I ran out of battery, but it was really neat to watch her work.

As many of you know, flickr is one of three or so ways I attempt to improve my photography. I look at other images, and ask myself: "why does this stand out to me?" It occurred to me yesterday that in order to internalize what I'm learning, and replicate it in my work, I in some way have to be able to describe it. I have to be able to quantify a graphic art in words.

The way to be able to do that is to have vocabulary to describe photography. Words like crop factor, leading lines, hard light, soft light, harsh, gentle, saturated, monochrome... and many more like it. Sometimes, I sit there at an image I like and just come up with "tags" almost that describe the image. It sounds really stupid, but it really does help. As recently I'm obsessed with light, most of the time these days I'm drawn to very dramatic lighting, and I try to identify the light source, why it's so graphically powerful, and how I can replicate it in my work. Don't get me wrong... I'm not copying other people's art, but I am trying my hardest to learn from it.

You also have to move beyond the concrete nature of technique and identify message, emotion. How does this shot make you feel? Are you sad, nostalgic, joyous, morose, or angry? And almost more importantly, using that vocabulary, what aspects of this photo capture that feeling?

Anyway, just some thoughts, not really sorted out like they should be.

I have heard the argument on whether we as photographers create beauty, or simply capture it. I think it's just semantics.

Up to this point, I've only captured. I saw something in the world that I liked the way it looked, the way the light fell on it, and I carefully framed that, bottled it up and showed it to you as a series of ones and zeroes. If a subject's light wasn't perfect, I either over exposed and then burned out what didn't need to be there. This to me although a form of artistic expression, is sort of just capturing.

Strobist has set me free.

The power of small flashes is that I am not bound to the restrictions I once faced when it came to natural lighting... Shooting in broad daylight so that I can pull the aperture to a reasonable level, trying to barely contain the highlights as I seek to at least get the thing completely in focus. It brings a brand new set of challenges and complexities surely, but it's worth it in the long run. Now I'm creating.

For this shot, I saw a subject I wanted to capture, and a setting in which to put it. That's two out of the three needed components for a good photo. The third is light, and I luckily brought enough of that in my bag.

The two light setup I'm favoring these days is a mixture of what I've learned over the last few mistakes. I usually put a diffuser dome on the fill light (in this case a SB-600), and place it far back enough so that it in some way cancels out the shadow the key throws on the background. I've been shooting antiques, so I like the grime and character that the years have given the object. To really bring this out, I'll shoot with my SB-900 zoomed all the way to 200. For this shot, because of the glass pane's reflectivity, I shot the zoomed SB-900 through a diffuser which I held with one hand while I shot the camera using a remote. I did check, even though the light was shot through the diffuser, there was a slight change between zoomed to 200mm and zoomed out. I liked it zoomed in. As usual, I threw a gel on there, to change up the color a bit. I think no matter which color shift I choose in raw, adding a hot/cool contrast helps the feel of depth in the image. I then composed, and shot a few until I got one I liked. I then dodged and burned, and did my usual Aperture magic. I hope you like the result, please comment your thoughts.

Always Better Viewed Large On Black

(WARNING: I am too young and too inexperienced to truly speak about this topic, but that's never stopped me before has it? :D )

Vision is the quality that separates photography from photographic documentation. We sometimes commend it by saying "Good eye for [insert descriptive here]," or sometimes "Well seen." It's the part that takes the science and knowledge and turns it into art. For most of my life, I've sought to acquire and make this part of my brain better by looking at pictures, and studying what parts of them make them great. I pored over National Geographic, studied blog posts and books. I consume around 120 photos per day on flickr, asking myself the same question. "Why did I click on this thumbnail?" I want to know what draws the human eye. I'm going to try and break this idea down into different parts, and address different aspects of this in the next few posts. Feel free to chime in in the comments if you have some input or a good story.

Firstly: Using a film camera, a medium format, shooting blurry lurid street scenes with a holga, blasting out color in an HDR, or dropping photoshop actions like it's acid in the 70s does *NOT* constitute vision. I'm not dissing the use of any of these techniques or technologies. I know amaziing photographers that drop my jaw every time I see their work who shoot exclusively on Medium Format, B&W, and Holga. I don't hate HDR or photoshop actions. I hate using them so much that you dull the part of your brain that allows you to create something new.

I'm falling into that trap myself. I developed a nice little aperture setting that can make a dull photo look quite nice. And while I like the effect, I've been trying to avoid using it *all* the time. Not because I don't want to develop a set style, but because I don't want to prevent myself from discovering something that is equally or more fascinating.

And that's just in post pro.

I know I'm not qualified to speak on this topic. I'm a young shooter, my first pic was taken with a point and shoot on 11/29/04, only five years ago. I am told I have some sort of style/eye/sense of vision, and I've been working on it ever since. For me, much of the learning process is breaking down what makes my previous work successful, destroying it, and reincorporating the idea in a new way. Whether it's composition, post pro, subject matter, lighting... the beauty of digital is constant experimentation is free. Find a rule you have followed in your work, and break it on your next shoot. Deliberately do something you have never done before, and see where it takes you. You may be surprised.

I went to the botanical gardens yesterday. There were *so* many people there with cameras! It was fun anyway... and I really got to test out my backpack. It works so well... I changed lenses quickly and easily, whenever I needed to. It even holds my small tripod I use for flashes.

This shot was invisible until I walked right under it. The lighting was unexciting until you stood directly under the tree. I didn't see it, I was just browsing around when suddenly I glanced up because of a bird flying overhead and there was this blaze of orange. So I changed my 50 to my 300, and snapped off a few pics. I guess it pays to have your eye out of the lens every once in a while.

(And yes, my study of flashes and pursuit of old antique things will continue presently. :D )

A while back I discovered this adjustments setting in Aperture 2 that just blows me away every time I try it. I wish there was a way to save adjustments... I'm thinking about creating a special project to save my "presets" in as copies of the photo. I snapped this this morning before I left for work. I believe I used my new SB-900 off camera with a diffusion dome. I have barely had time to work with the new flash, but I'm very impressed so far. I'll shoot with it a few more weeks, and then I'll speak more about the advantages of the 900 over the 600.

As to other gear I've acquired, one item I'm very pleased with is the LensPen. It really is the neatest little gadget for cleaning your devices, I highly recommend it. My lenses have never looked better.

Today's exercise was two-fold. I wanted to experiment more with two flashes, especially with my new gels, and also I wanted to take a picture I was proud of with a lens other than my beloved 50mm 1.4.

My mom recommended I try my Dad's antique gumball machine yesterday after seeing my image of the storm lantern, so I spent much of yesterday trying to figure out where I would shoot it. I ended up taking this picture on the raw cement downstairs where we've had to rip up the floor due to the recent flooding. I set up pinball machine, positioned the camera like I liked it, and exposed for the background texture. I decided to try a technique where you set the camera white balance to something warmer than the actual light, which then blue-ifies the ambient light. I then started putting down my flashes, my SB-600 with a sto-fen diffuser on the right and on the left my SB-900 zoomed to 200mm and with the warmest gel I own. I experimented with using the diffuser, and moving the lights around. It was at this time I discovered the wonder and glory of the modeling light button. If you have it enabled on your flashes, when you push the aperture preview button on your body, the flashes light up for an extended period of time at a low power, showing you how they affect the model. Super cool. I don't think my SB-600 has this feature, as it didn't light up, but I'll dig into the manual and see what I can find.

If I could have changed one thing about this shoot, it would probably be the glare in the candy bowl. I tried removing them by putting my needlepoint grids in front of the flashes. It helped, but not much. So I just lived with it and kept shooting.

As always, thoughts and critiques are appreciated. Be sure and check out www.28thfloor.net, and consider contributing to it. Thanks!

Hello yet again!

I've once again reinvented what my blog is for. For several months I've enjoyed posting really long diatribes on photography on my flickr account. I've decided to start mirroring those articles here, and to post other interesting things here. In that idea, I've redesigned my blog to better display my photography, and just to update it's looks. Anyway, hang on, and enjoy.

This is a busy day, hence the late post. Early this morning I snuck out to test my new gear, and to get some shots to post.

The main goal of this shoot besides enjoying photography was to test my new camera bag. Up to this point I've been using a Lowepro Slingshot 200. It's been a good bag, but I've kind of outgrown it. The new bag, a Flipside 400 AW is a really great replacement. Like the Slingshot, I can swing it around to access the insides on the go, but it's a much better process. It is stable enough fully loaded to act as a sort of staging table for switching lenses and cleaning the body. It's also much better protection for my precious glass, both in padding, and in weatherproofing, and is a better organized bag. I really like it, and I look forward to my next hike. It's much more comfortable to wear. (I spent some time wearing it even when I didn't need to, the shoulder pads are very comfy. Even with 3 lenses and body and flash and all my gear I forget it's there.)

The bag is now filled with new light shaping tools as well. I've picked up a Sto-Fen Omni Bounce, and a Lumiquest Pro-Max System. Both are really neat.

For this shot, I set up the 300mm on the tripod and composed the shot. I exposed for the background and set the body to be remote trigger. I then held the diffuser in my 5 in 1 reflector with my teeth, (I'm seriously going to need a light stand or an assistant or something if I keep this up!) stuck my SB 600 behind it (using the omni bounce for extra softness,) and triggered the shutter with my right hand. I moved the light around, experimenting with different distances and angles. This was the best of the batch. I think the diffuser was fairly close to the lily, with the flash a couple of feet behind it. The ambient light was even and low, it was very cloudy and early in the morning, around 7 o clock, so it didn't interfere. I kept the light high to avoid casting hard shadows from petal to petal, I think it was nearly overhead, and a bit to the left.

View On Black

I love architecture. Especially this kind. Simple, elegant, and beautiful. Lots of light, windows, and bare spaces to be filled by other subjects or just silence.

This is a panorama using my 50mm 1.4. I had a short time and it was the lens I had on, so I just went with it anyway. I think it paid off.

When I shot this, I tried to think a lot about leading lines... but what I ended up with is a peaceful feeling all around instead of a clear subject. I'm looking at it now, and I like it a lot, but I feel like it has no subject. It's more of a landscape than anything else, with the foreground being the floor, the subject being the wall of windows and balustrades, and the background being the ceiling. I guess the focal point of the piece is the farthest window, because it has the highlight on the floor pointing towards it, the left wall balancing it, and all the lines leading toward it. I have discovered I tend to compose the whole scene rather than subjects... feeling of balance in large shapes rather than individual objects. I need to explore more specific subjects... I might discover a whole new way of seeing.

Last night the power went out. Just before dinner in fact, right as we were sitting down. Half of us sprang up, felling about for our flashlights, and the other half sat tight in place. It was very dark, you couldn't see your hand in front of your place anywhere in the house. We lit an Aladdin Lamp (actual brand name, look it up,) and ate our spaghetti in peace. It was actually very nice. Afterwards, we retired to the den where we sat and talked for hours, just reminiscing and listening to the crickets and frogs outside. It felt sort of like camping, only not damp. Suddenly the lights flashed on, and all of us winced at the brightness. We laughed at the expressions on each other's faces, and went to bed. It was a good night.