? @ ?, ISO ?, (iPhone 3G) Today’s picture was taken at sunset from the 6th floor of my client’s new building. This is the view right outside the cube of one of my coworkers. Dead center in the distance, you can see the Dulles Airport (IAD) control tower.
I took this picture with my iPhone 3G using an application called AutoStitch. After taking several pictures in the normal camera mode of the iPhone, AutoStitch allows you to select them from the filmstrip and stitch them together into a panorama. Today’s picture is made up of five or six individual pictures taken in the portrait orientation. It took about one minute for the AutoStitch application to piece them together and produce the image. Pretty impressive for an iPhone application!
1/125 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 100, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) I decided to take a stroll around outside of the client’s new building before heading to the gym tonight. There are several potential subjects in the area. The challenge today was the setting sun. It was a late afternoon, fall, setting sun. Its intensity and angle prevented taking several of the photographs I had in mind.
While moving from one area to the next, I decided to pull the camera up to my eye and briefly look around. It was at this time that I framed the above photograph. After taking the picture, I did not believe it would be my favorite of the day. But after coming home and doing some post-processing, it quickly moved to the top of my list.
Post-processing consisted of applying an antique present, sharpening, and vignetting.
1.0 sec @ f/10, ISO 100, 55 mm (EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS) Tonight felt like a Lego man night. I tried a few setups on and around the office iMac computer. I could only get one setup to come out the way I had intended. The other ideas I had will take a bit more time to figure out the proper lighting and composition to get them just the way I want.
This photograph was lit by both the light coming from the iMac screen and a hand help strobe attached to a PocketWizard. Working in close quarters within the 50mm range and hand holding the strobe allowed me to quickly change the position and angle of the flash. The only downside to this approach is repeatability. When I use a light stand and do not move it, I can pretty much guarantee the same lighting effect each time I snap a frame. However, no matter how hard I try while hand holding, the position of the flash will vary shot to shot. This is especially true when I am chimping between frames.
1/200 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 400, 106 mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM) Today’s picture is another two light setup. I used a shoot-through umbrella on a lowered light stand at camera right and placed a second bareheaded strobe on camera left. This resulted in nice criss-cross lighting pattern in the doorway separating the kitchen and dinning room area. I was able to lock in my strobe settings after only two attempts so it did not take much getting up and down to adjust the flashes. The right side of Mela’s face appears to be a bit bright when the photo is viewed against a dark background such as the one on this site. A slightly lowered power on the shoot-through umbrella flash probably would have eliminated this distraction.
Today marks one of the first photographs in the project that I paid extra attention to the sharpening step while post-processing. Sharpening has been a step I have mostly overlooked up until now. However, I have begun to notice that it is an important step in getting tack sharp images even when you are shooting with Canon L-series glass.
1/125 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 100, 4.6 mm (Panasonic DMC-FX30) This is a silly picture of my friend during our tailgate outside of the Virginia Tech versus Miami game this afternoon. I can always count on him when I want a silly facial expression. It rained pretty much the entire morning and afternoon. We were all soaked before the game started and were literally soaked to the bone by the end of the game. I thought this iPhone picture expressed the groups’ sentiment about the wet weather. But on the upside, I do believe the weather was a factor in the Hokies dominating the Hurricanes during the game.
3.2 sec @ f/1.8, ISO 200, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) Today I was on my way down to Blacksburg, VA to see the Virginia Tech Hokies play Miami in one of the biggest games of the season. A few minutes before reaching the Virginia Tech exit on Route 81, I pulled out my camera. Do not worry, I was not trying to take pictures at the same time that I was driving; I was a backseat passenger. Because it was already very dark outside I made sure to use my fastest lens so that I would not have to rely on a flash or too high of an ISO. The Canon XSi I shoot with gets very noisy at ISO 800 and above. I always try to shoot at ISO 100 or 200, at least until I decide to buy the new Canon 70D which has much better noise handling at higher ISO’s.
I was messing around with the camera settings getting ready to shoot the Virginia Tech exit sign when I pointed the camera at the center of the car’s dashboard and took a picture. The result that I got was not the above picture, but instead, was its inspiration. On that shot, I saw several colorful streaks of light dancing on the frame. The car must have hit a decent bump during the original exposure to cause the amount of shake seen in the photograph. I decided to take the idea and run with it. I switched over to Manual mode and increased the exposure time to let in more light and allow the vibrations to make the camera dance more. Today’s picture is one of the resulting images.
In post production I applied a slight crop and boosted the vibrancy.
1/500 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 100, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) I received an email the other day from one of the photography newsletters to which I subscribe. One of the inlaid pictures was of a portrait with a prominent shadow. Unfortunately, I did not remember which newsletter it was in. But that is where GMail search saved the day. The link in the newsletter was to a weekly challenge on the website forum.
I decided I wanted to play around with the same concept in a self-portrait. I figured that I would need two lights: one to create the shadow on the wall and light one side of my face, and another to fill in the shadows on the other side. It took a bit of playing around to find the right combination of light power and modification to achieve the desired result.
In the end, the setup consisted of a bare headed flash at camera left. It was positioned knee high and sat about 4 feet away from me. The second flash was positioned at camera right. It was set at the height of my eyes and was gridded. The grid was important to make sure that the light from the fill light only hit me and not the wall behind me. If it hit the wall behind me, a second shadow would have appeared on the wall.
I feel like I rushed this shoot. I really wanted to get the complete shadow in the picture with me, but I grew tired of taking a picture, walking back to the camera, studying the results, making an adjustment to the lights, taking another picture, etc. I feel like I am rushing more and more shots these days and not giving myself an adequate amount of time to get the results that I desire. I am going to try to recognize when I am doing this during a shoot and curtail it. I do not want this project to start to feel like a chore. Unfortunately, that is where it will head if I do not remind myself each day about why I am doing this and the progress I have made so far from all my hard work.
1/160 @ f/1.8, ISO 400, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) Today was a very busy day for me. With work, my fiancée’s birthday, and helping my friend run some ethernet wires in his new home, I was not left with much time for an elaborate photo shoot. However, what I was able to capture was the interesting lighting patterns coming off of the mylar birthday balloon that my fiancée got from her sister. I took the photograph using available light only. It is that same available light seen being refracted on the balloon’s shiny surface. I post-processed the image to bring out the colors as much as possible and eliminate as much background as possible.
1/500 sec @ f/9.0, ISO 200, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) I recently found another photographer’s 365 photo blog. The interesting thing is, his entire 365 project was devoted to Legos! What a great idea. Unfortunately, his project is over now. But you can still view the entire project at a LEGO a day…
It was from Dan’s a LEGO a day… project that I gained the inspiration for today’s photograph. On day 360 of his project, he photographed a LEGO man standing on his head with the caption “Look Ma, no hands!”.
To me, it looked like he was break dancing. I remember seeing many street performers in NYC break dancing during my time living and working in the NYC area. I decided to replicate a NYC street show using the city-scape LEGO set I purchased a few weeks back.
This shot was set up with two lights. The key light was placed at camera right and fired through a shoot-through umbrella. I used a snooted flash behind the scene on camera left to bring down the harshness of the shadows created by the key light.
If you get a chance, definitely check out Dan’s a LEGO a day… project. I find his photographs both comical and inspirational.
1/100 sec @ f/1.8, ISO 200, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) Today is my first day back at the client site after a break for the last two months. Since I was last staffed at this client, they have completed a move to a new building. As a result, there are tons of new potential subjects for the Project. I found this exit sign in the parking garage right above the space where I parked this morning. Instead of heading into the office immediately, I pulled out the camera and took several shots. This angle of looking almost straight up at the sign from the ground was my favorite.
In post processing I applied a gradient filter to the bottom of the image to tone down the spectral highlight on the sign. I played around with both colored versions and black and white versions. Ultimately, I chose the antique black and white edit because I felt the composition of the image became the focus more so than in the colorized version. It also looks like I applied a white vignette to this photograph when, in fact, I did not. This “artifact” became more apparent after the black and white conversion.
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....
