1/1000 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 200, 32mm (EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS) I came home via the back entrance to my neighborhood today on the way from work. Right on the corner is this old office building which used to served as the sales office when the neighborhood was first built. I thought I could make an interesting photo with it as my subject. I really liked the look of the parking lot lamp, so I made sure to make it prominent in the photo.
I walked a circle around the building. Along the way I found some neat looking graffiti in the back and an odd circle of paved walkway in the back yard. What really confused me though were the moving shadows on the inside of building. After building up some courage to stick my head through the boarded doors, I saw that there were two ceiling fans which were running. The place was filled with filing cabinets, mechanical woodworking tools, and miscellaneous other stuff. This observation led me to ask, not only why are the fans on, but more importantly, why are my HOA dues going towards running fans on someone’s junk pile.
1/200 sec @ f/10, ISO 200, 116mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM) After not having much luck finding something to photograph around the house, I decided to knock out another July scavenger hunt photograph off of my list. The theme for this photo is “key or keys”. I wanted to freeze time while the keys were in the air.
To set up the shot I put my camera on the tripod across the room and focused on the wall. I set the flash up between the camera and the key throwing / landing area. The strobe was about about 1 foot from the “drop zone”. It flash was pointed straight up to the ceiling and not directly at the wall. I did this in order to feather the light (using the edge of the light coming from the source instead of head-on ) thereby eliminating harsh shadows.
Using the IR remote for the camera, I would toss the keys up and try to take a picture of them on the way up and the way down. Let me just say there were PLENTY of useless shots. Every once in a while I would review some of the pictures to see if anything needed to be adjusted. After zooming into the keys on the initial shots, I was not happy with the clarity of the keys. To get a better focus on them, I rigged up a spatula to the wall to hold the keys out to the approximate distance from the wall which they would be ascending and descending. I then refocused on them and took away the spatula.
Originally, I had not intended to have my hand in the picture. I was actually hoping to have the shadow of the keys in the picture instead. However, once I got the pictures onto the iMac, this one was my favorite. I may try to reproduce this shot one day with a bit more clarity in the keys and with a totally blacked out background.
1/200 sec @ f/16, ISO 400, 200mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM) Apparently my big brother has quite the green thumb. Not only can he grow zucchinis the size of rocket launchers, but he can brighten up his deck and the patio surrounding the pool with a wide range of flowers. This is only one of the many types of flowers contributing to the landscaping in the back yard. Once again, there was not much “wizardry” to making this photograph. A quick shutter speed allowed for a pretty sharp hand-held photo even when zoomed at 200mm. A macro lens is still calling my name….
1/1000 sec @ f/5.0, ISO 200, 127mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM) This morning I made a road trip back to my hometown of Hillsborough, NJ. I typically take the slightly longer, but more relaxing and consistent route via Route 15 through Gettysburg and Harrisburg instead of taking Route 495 and 95. My normal stop is at the Sheetz just before Harrisburg, PA. After grabbing a drink and a snack I unpacked the camera to take a very abbreviated photowalk down one of the side streets. I did not get very far before I noticed this green trike pulling into the Sheetz gas station. I waited for the owners to park it and head inside. I then snapped off a few photographs on my way back to my own car. This roadster was pretty interesting looking and so were the people who were riding it.
Not much photographic technique went into today’s picture. That is, unless you count the distorting of the license plate in Lightroom 2 using the clone tool.
1/200 sec @ f/7.1, ISO 100, 78mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM) After hitting the gym today I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few things for the pantry. I decided to buy my fiance some flowers while I was there. The nice thing about getting her flowers is that I get to take photos of them too.
I have been watching the Strobist Lighting DVD’s while doing cardio at the gym this past week. Because of this, I wanted to try some of the techniques that David Hobby talks about on the DVD’s. I set my XSi to its maximum shutter sync speed of 1/200th. I placed the flash on top of fridge soda can box, standing on its end so that the head of the flash was about as high as the flowers (a light stand would have been much better in this case). It was placed camera right somewhere between 45 and 70%. I do not remember what the flash power or zoom was set at. I wish these were captured by the camera.
There was only once flash at camera right, so I was getting some pretty dark shadows on the left hand side of the flowers. To try to reduce the shadows, I used the white back of a notebook as a bounce card to direct some of the light coming across back onto the flowers. This “bounce card” was held camera left, as close to the pink flower in the back as I could get it without seeing it in the frame. Without this bounce card there, the pink flower would not even be visible since no light from the strobe could hit it directly.
1/3200 sec @ f/9.0, ISO 200, 53mm (EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS)I was not very confident that I would have a picture that I liked enough for the project today after coming home from my shoot on the road. It actually took me three different stops in the car to feel remotely satisfied with my photographs. I always figured it would be easy to find something to photograph by jumping in the car and heading to a new parking lot somewhere in town. That was not the case today.
Luckily I was able to catch the sunset from a new location in Leesburg today. I decided to point my camera right at the light source today, even knowing what odd visual side effects could result from such a technique (See the 7-9: Moon Shine post).
I really like all the negative space in this photograph. My finance said you could even split the photograph in half and have two interesting photographs on their own. My only wish was that those darn telephone poles and lines were not in the way!
1/20 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 200, 150mm (EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM) Today’s photograph was taken from the balcony on the back of my house. The sun had set about 10 minutes prior and left the sky a brilliant orange. I set the camera up on the tripod and exposed for just the sky. I also tried setting the white balance to the different predefined modes on my XSi to see which one worked best for the shot. I settled on 6400K (according to the EXIF data). I do not recall what exact setting this is on the XSi though. These settings resulted in a beautiful silhouette of the town home down the row.
Post production in Lightroom 2 consisted of a small crop and treaks to the black levels, highlight levels, saturation, noise, brightness, and contrast.
1/200 sec at f/6.3, ISO 250, 200 mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM) After a quick stop at the Home Depot today after work, I pulled into the parking lot of a new building in one of the nearby shopping centers to do a mini photowalk. I was able to get a few good pictures during the 15 to 20 minutes I was there. Above, was my favorite.
As you can see on the placard screwed into the rusty grate, my subject was a stormwater treatment system. This grate was placed right on the curb. Picture a normal storm drain on the street with this large grate on the lawn instead of the short long one you would normally see. Also interesting was that a young plant was planted in this thing. I “love” how it takes a trained, “authorized” person to be able to prune a plant which gets its water from pavement run off!
I really like this picture. The color and texture of the rust on the grates is mesmerizing to me. The symmetry of the lines in the grates also helps the composition significantly.
Below, I have included two other pictures from my mini-photowalk. Click on them to be taken to Flickr and to see them larger.
1/60 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 200, 36mm (EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS) Today’s picture was taken outside of my company’s office. I needed to take a break from my work, so I grabbed my camera from the car and walked around the building looking for anything interesting to capture. I wound up finding this flowering bush. What made it more interesting was the four states of blooming it was undergoing:
- Budding
- Blossoming bud
- Bloomed
- Dried buds
You can see 1 though 3 of the above in the picture. In post processing, I wanted to draw the viewer’s attention to the blossoming buds. I tried several methods to do this, but finally settled on the desaturated / saturated method you see. To achieve this effect, I desaturated all of the colors except for the few which make up the flowers. Look closely on the upper left hand side of the image and you will see a bud being busted open by the blooming flower contained within it.
Starting today, I will be posting the full resolution images to Flickr. This means you now have access to view and link to the full size photograph hosted there. The jpg quality was kept at 70% though. I am reserving the super-duper full quality and full resolution images for sales to individuals and companies, as well as my own personal use.
1/1000 sec at f/4.0, ISO 200, 200 mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM) After enjoying some tasty all you can eat Kings Buffett, I stopped at Claude Moore Park in Sterling, VA to see what the park had to offer. Within five minutes of pulling up I was already taking pictures. The best pictures did not come until the tail end of my visit. Three quarters of the way around the two ponds in park, I stumbled upon a bird blind. It took me a second to figure out what the wall of decking planks with scattered 1 ft by 4 inch holes cut out of it was. While looking through one of the holes I saw the bird perched on the dead tree.
Research when I got home resulted in finding out that the bird was a green heron. I had no clue there were more types of herons other than the great blue heron. I was lucky enough to find a great blue heron in one of the ponds too (see the picture below). These pictures make we wish I had a longer lens to get tighter shots of the birds. I think I will be adding a Canon EF 1.4x II Extender to my wish list to extend the range of my 70-200mm just a bit more.
While I was in the park I tried shooting a bit with the circular polarizer on the 70-200mm. The few pictures which I took looked hazy on the back of the camera. When I pulled them into lightroom, they were hazy there too. I am not sure why this happened. I thought I correct in turning the polarizer to the proper rotation in order to eliminate the glare on the water. I will need to do some research on the proper way to use the circular polarizer to both eliminate glare and saturate the colors more heavily.
Did you noticed anything else in the picture today? That is okay if you did not. Once again, I did not see them until I had the picture in Lightroom. To be more exact, I saw one of them while I was out there. I sure as heck did not know that the one turtle I thought I was photographing was actually two turtles mating! Now that you know this, look back at the heron in the picture. It is as if he is asking me, “You Seein’ What I’m Seein’?”
A self-proclaimed tech-geek, I enjoy anything powered by batteries or electricity. I'm not happy until I understand the full potential of any new gadget I get my hands on....
