These are a Few of My Favorite Things
I’ve been hearing the song a lot during the holiday season so for fun today I put this little diptych together. Merry Christmas!
Ready for Service
I decided to follow up on yesterday’s post with another black and white image of repetitive patterns.
Vortex
I was photographing an event recently where people raced through a mud obstacle course. Of course I was just as interested in the abstract patterns in the mud as I was in the racing action.
For Goodness Snake
This is from a portrait session in my studio this weekend. This is one of a few shots where I deviated from the portrait aspect of the shoot to get something more artistic in nature.
Hello Dali
I felt it wouldn’t be inappropriate to get “artistic” with this image that I took while I was outside the Salvador Dali Museum last week.
It’s Pizza Time
Another image from my archives. Just one of the countless random shots that I tend to make whenever I’m out and about with a camera at hand.
The Little Things
So even though I have been so busy that I have only been shooting for clients lately I still find things that catch my my artistic eye while I’m working. This is a detail of a kitchen countertop I photographed in a home this weekend.
Ramblin’ Man
Yesterday I talked about keeping a point and shoot camera handy in the vehicle. Sometimes though when I’m traveling and I know I’m likely to shoot while on the road I do prep a DSLR and keep it handy. The prep is the important part. I just want to grab and shoot, not fiddle with anything on the camera. First off that means considering the lens. No variable focal length lenses, that takes two hands to adjust and it could be tempting to try and adjust it. I use a 24mm prime lens. Its just right to show a full windshield view without catching too much interior. It’s also a manual focus lens and that has a few more benefits for quick shooting. If the selected focus point of an autofocus lens is positioned on empty sky valuable time can be lost while the lens hunts back and forth in search of detail to lock focus on. Just keeping an autofocus lens switched in manual mode has issues too. The moving parts in the lens are designed to move freely and quickly while being being driven by a very small motor. That also means that the slightest touch or vehicle vibration can move the focus meaning that pre-focusing the lens isn’t a viable option. A lens like the one I prefer that is manual focus only is deliberately designed to have a lot of friction in the focus mechanism with the intent of keeping it where you set it. When it comes to pre-focusing that type of lens there is also the added benefit of having a distance scale coupled with a depth-of-field scale, a combination that rarely exists in an autofocus lens. With my old-school prime lens I am able to choose a reasonable aperture, usually between f/5.6 and f/8 depending on conditions, and preset the focus at the hyperfocal point using the scales on the lens. With aperture and focus preset, the camera operating in aperture priority mode, EV compensation set to -1/2 to account for bright sky, and metering set to matrix mode, I essentially have a big, high quality point and shoot rig. I can pick it up, hold it up over the dashboard and push the button. The image above was taken with this exact setup.
Melissa
I was teaching a seminar this weekend and Melissa was the volunteer model. At 15 years of age she had no prior modeling experience whatsoever but turned out to be one of those people who light up in front of a camera and are a real pleasure to work with. Everyone really enjoyed photographing her during the session.
Artistic Inspiration
On the day I photographed this church in New Mexico the air was thick with smoke from a forest fire. I was inspired by the effect of the smoke to create this artistic vision from my photograph.
Tropical Storm
There’s an old saying about bad weather making good photographs. I have always agreed.
Stop and Shoot the Roses
My wife has a lot of roses around the house. I walk by them with a camera around my neck several times a day on my way to my truck and back and once in a while I take the time to shoot them when they catch my eye.
Intricate Mud
I figured I may as well make it 3 in a row for black and white posts here. I was totally fascinated with the details and texture created in this patch of mud by all the assorted tracks of insects and small animals. You wouldn’t believe the swarm of mosquitoes that I had to brave when I stopped to compose this shot though. Click this one to make it bigger and get a better appreciation of the texture.
Jammin’
I caught this roller-blade skater moving to the beat as he zipped by me on 7th Avenue the other day.
Simplicity
I saw this while working in my yard this weekend and had to stop what I was doing to grab a camera and make this image. Simple, stark, black and white compositions are something I really enjoy once in a while.
Blast From the Past
I ran across this image while digging through some old material for a project this past weekend and set it aside to post here. I haven’t processed many lightning images in black and white but this looked like it had the right inherent contrast to make it work.
Storms
It has been so long it has rained around here. Yesterday the skies finally clouded up and storms rolled through all day and night. As you probably know by now I love to shoot in the rain so I took some time for myself between appointments to do just that. I got totally drenched and enjoyed every minute of it.
At the Watering Hole
I was photographing an equestrian event this past weekend and I really liked this composition that came together out on the ranch.