Macro

My first experience with the 100 f/2.8 macro has been amazing. I've only had it for a day, but I already am thrilled by the possibilities. There's a whole other world out there I haven't even begun to photograph...

Snapshots

These two photos are the very definition of "snapshots." During our last photoshoot, there were several instances where I saw something cool outside of of the portraits we were taking. So I adjusted my ISO, changed my shutter and aperture, focused, and shot one or two quick shots. And... well... I love them. The first one has an amazing amount of detail. The full resolution shot at the highest quality has detail I never knew existed in the safe before I zoomed in with Adobe Lightroom. The second shows how capable the 5D is with ISO 3200 selected.

Cool, fun stuff.

More Polarizer Magic...

The polarizer comes through again. I can't believe I didn't have this thing in my bag for years. It's definitely going with me everywhere I go, from this point on.
























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Polarizer

I recently got my $80 circular polarizer out, remembering how it used to darken the blues in the skies back in my film days. I'd mostly use it in black and whites to create some dramatic blacks in the sky, and I thought I'd put it to use on my 5D with some photos on a great, blue-sky day.

The two photos above are not adjusted in photoshop at all. The only difference between the two are a quick shift in the circular polarizer, deepening the blues. I'd forgotten how good of a job the polarizer does of it...

This one allowed me to get a great exposure on the statue's face, yet still keep a deep, dark blue in the sky.

In this one, the tombstone had a touching, heart-breaking photograph of an infant. Without the polarizer, there would have been a glossy sheen to the photograph inset, and the glare would have obscured detail. With the polarizer, a little turn takes it all away.

I'd forgotten how cool a polarizer could be, and I'll definitely be using it more soon.

Chicago

Tonight is the first time I really missed my friend Zach. He moved to Chicago recently, and while I wished him the best and knew he'd be successful at whatever he wanted to do, I didn't really miss him. I mean - Chicago is only six hours or so away - that's not too bad, right?

But tonight, while I was grilling chicken and steak in our amazing weather we're having, I had an urge to pick up the phone and invite him over. I had to stop and realize he wouldn't be able to do that.
For the first time, I felt bummed out.

















Here he is, at the top photo in his first art show (he had the coolest stuff, although he didn't sell anything). In the middle he's posing with his amazing girfriend, Emily, and at the bottom is Zach, immortalized, in one of my favorite all-time photos during a trip across Nebraska.

I know he'll always be my friend, and I can't wait to take the time to get out there and visit him and let him show me Chicago... but it's sad that he can't just stop by for a game of Magic, some dinner, and some great conversation about politics, science, and UFC.

He's in Chicago now, venturing to be a photographer.

Good luck, Zach. I have a feeling you'll amaze even yourself.

The Blizzard and the Element

So, I had a few hours to get out there and take some photos of the great "BLIZZARD OF 2007" - according to all the local news stations. We had a lot of snow - but I still wouldn't say it was a "blizzard." For me, a blizzard has to shut down a town for say, at least a week.

I had a few hours to spare, and thought I'd get out there and find some photos. I did find a few - but I didn't have the right shoes on. Amazingly, I forgot to put on my boots, so I had only my flimsy tennis shoes to protect me from the knee-high drifts. Therefore, what you see was taken from my vehicle's window.

And that brings me to the point of this post - the Honda Element ROCKS. Really - I was going down some roads I didn't even know where the road was. It just kept going. Not once did I ever feel like I was in trouble... unless you count the time when I couldn't see the road at all because of all the swirling snow... but we won't count that. That's driver error.

As a photographer, it's nice to have the Element, allowing me the confidence to get where I want to be. These shots wouldn't even have been possible without it, so they are dear to me regardless of their artistic merit.

Snowfall

With much deliberation I decided to get out and photograph downtown Omaha just after a snowfall. I just missed the heavy snow, but that's OK - it would have only made me wipe down my lens over and over again.

I was interested to see what I could do hand-holding the camera that late at night (around 11:00). It was bright downtown, the light bouncing between the snow and the sky - and the image stabilization helped me out too.

In this situation, though, there is a trade-off. I had to shoot at ISO1600 at some pretty extreme settings (always at maximum aperture and, at times, 1/5 of a second on the shutter), so the shots are all slightly grainy - some to the point where it's distracting.

It was fun, though. I just took the camera out and didn't really care about the specifics of how damaged the final print might be (after all, I did have my tripod with me - I just chose not to use it), and I just walked around the snowy landscape taking photos.

Drifting

It was so cold I could barely feel the shutter release button on my camera, I couldn't really focus because of all the snow dusting into my eyes, and I almost lost my hat. But it was fun, and it was worth it.

How did you...

People often ask me how I managed to create a certain photograph. "Did you use photoshop?" they ask, and when I tell them yes, they nod their head, a bit of the mystery of the photograph lost to them.

I don't think I'm going to really answer that anymore. What does it matter, anyway?

This photo, for instance - is beautiful. I love the colors, the composition, the depth-of-field. It's exactly how I pictured it when I triggered the shutter release- a photo that almost speaks of an imaginary place somewhere far away.

Little does anyone know it was taken on the side of a dirty, dusty road next to a busy highway - that the colors that morning really weren't spectacular - that the sun wasn't in the ideal position and the light was beginning to become very harsh. But I knew that, by using a large aperture, I'd shroud the tree in a blur - and add some mystery to the photo. I also knew that I could punch up the colors in photoshop later to make the final photograph more in line with what I had in mind when I first captured it.

Does it matter how I did it? Should it matter?

I hope not.

Before and After Part Two

This is another photo I found that needed something. Still does, really, but it was one of the first shots I ever took with the Canon 20D - quite a while after I had gained some experience with the 10D. The first photo wasn't exposed well, and didn't have any kind of punch. The second photo adds some grain to the color (grain can sometimes help slightly blurry photos look more focused), and creates some tension by adding a hard border. The color also gains some richness in the second, becoming more like the original scene - with the sun going down and lighting the landscape with warmer colors.

How to make a sucky image kind of cool

Archives

It seems like forever since my last post. Maybe it's because I haven't been feeling very creative lately, and I've been extremely focused on school and all the things we've been doing lately (open house, and yearbook deadlines).

My day is such a chaotic, wonderful mix of craziness and unexpected events, by the time I get home I'm pretty exhausted. I just want to play video games, read, or paint miniatures (yes, I'm a geek).

Since I don't have much new material, I took some time this morning to go back through the archives. This photo, taken in mid-2003 at 6:45 in the morning was a sort of awakening for me.

It was a morning of an amazing, thick fog that still couldn't hold back the radiant sunrise above it. The light was trying its best to fight through, sending amazing streaks of yellow through the trees all over the country landscape. I took several hundred photos that morning with an old 4 megapixel Nikon point-and-shoot. None of them really worked out, except this one. I was trying too hard to take pictures of the light coming through the fog, instead of using the fog and lighting to my advantage. This was the one - the photo that first, to me, made me say "wow." It wasn't perfect. This is the uncropped, in-camera version. The color is off, my perspective was hurried (I didn't really know at the time that this spot would be so cool), and even my focus was a bit off.

But... when I got home to check out my shots on the monitor, it was this photo that grabbed me and told me "this is what I need to be doing." It was one of the most exciting moments in my photographic life.

I've been out to this spot several times since - usually whenever I get a new camera - and I've gotten much better shots at this location since.

No matter what, though, I don't think I'll have quite the same "wow" moment again, and this little 4 megapixel digital capture will always be among my favorites.

New Year

A new year, same as the old year. Just the number at the end is different. Is that a bad thing? Not for me.
Can't say the same for everyone, though. As I sit here at Panera, drinking my coffee, the room is filled with business-types, busilly typing on their laptops, impeccably dressed, absorbed in their work. Sometimes that's me too - creating lesson plans or something for school.
Mostly, though, I can't help but feel that, for most of these people, what they do, what they are most absorbed in, doesn't really matter.
I sound like a nihilist here, maybe, but it's true.
Spreadsheets, financial analysis, work orders - all meaningless garbage.
We're all so busy in our lives,how often do we take time to step back and just think for a moment about how we spend our time?
I hope that, as this world spirals more and more out of control, 2007 is a year in which more people take a moment to ask "what am I doing here?"
I know I sound cheesy... hopelessly optimistic, but it's not too late to change things. It's never too late to make a difference, one day, one moment at a time.

Perspective

Sprinkle

Meet Sprinkle. She's the newest member of the household, found at the high school where I work. I guess I was tentative to put her on my blog because we weren't sure how she would get along with the other cats, and I wanted to make sure she was going to be living here. She's getting along fine, and she's now part of the household.

Things aren't perfect, though. She bolted out of the house yesterday for a minute (luckily she allowed herself to be scooped up quickly), she still doesn't know all the rules of the house (like don't mess with Casey's art stuff), and she hasn't completely warmed up to being held and loved by my wife.

While Sprinkle is definitely the "third" kitty here, Casey and I will give her all the love she could want, and probably more than she asks. She gently rests her head on my chest in the mornings, purring and squirming around (she doesn't quite know how she likes to be held yet), and has this gentle "squeek" she lets out to communicate with me.

I'm a sucker for animals, and I know I can't save them all, no matter how much I might like to. Sprinkle does remind me that it's worth it sometimes to take a chance. Her life, no matter how small and insignificant some might tell me it is, is meaningful and worthhile to me.

Roads to Nothing