Chris' Photography Journey

Release Me!

2008-10-27T13:16:00.003-06:00

One of the online photography communities I really like is Fred Miranda. They have forums that discuss many different aspects of photography and the people are usually very friendly. It is a great place to post a photograph for constructive criticism because you will get honest feedback in a friendly way.
Fred Miranda has both a weekly assignment and a monthly assignment. These assignments throw out a theme, and photographers submit a photograph that represents their interpretation of that theme. The thing I really like is the photographer has to shoot the photograph during the week or month of the assignment. This keeps people from digging through their archives to find that one perfect photograph that will blow everyone else's out of the water. I find this a valuable tool for pushing my creative and photographic boundaries.
The assignment this month is "Low Key". For those who don't know, low key photography is a style where most of the photograph is dark, and the subject is usually partially or dimly lit. The opposite is high key where most of the photograph is brilliant white.
As I thought about the assignment, I decided I liked the idea of a face lunging toward the viewer from some dark opening, like from an alley or through a hole in a wall. The problem was that I could not think of any place that really fit that description. Even if I did find a suitable location, I would have to be able to control all aspects of the lighting, and that just did not seam feasible. Instead I decided to see what I could do in my studio (a.k.a. the basement in my house). I though about trying to construct something that looked like an alley or a hole in the wall, but I could not think of a way that did not involve actually building some walls. I decided instead that the shot might work if the subject were trying to reach through a set of bars and grab the viewer. I still had to build a prop, but it was a much smaller and more simple prop than building entire walls. I had some extra 2x4's lying around (doesn't everyone?) and used some metal bars that my work was going to throw away. The only thing I had to buy was some stain and some screws to attach the bars to the 2x4 frame.
After the prop was complete, I moved into the studio. I set up my dark gray backdrop, and set the prop on my modeling table. I took one 300W flourescent light and set it off to the right of where the camera would be. In order to focus the light I set the light inside a small box and used the box flaps as a poor man's set of barn doors. Then I put a piece of white nylon over the front of the box to act as a diffuser. I put my camera on a tripod and used my wireless infrared trigger. I decided to be my own model for this one. It took several attempts to position the prop and lighting the way I wanted them. Then, it took several more attempts as I tried out different poses and fine tuned the positioning of my hands and face. Here is the end result.

No one at Fred Miranda has commented on the photograph yet, so I am not sure what they think, but I am pleased with the result. My personal goal was to think of a unique interpretation on the theme, and then follow through with the steps required to turn the idea into a photograph. As always, I learned a lot from the project and had a little fun in the process.

Thanks for stopping by. Any comments, critiques or criticisms are welcome.

Checking In

2008-10-14T14:42:00.002-05:00

It has been a while since I posted an entry. For all three of you who follow this blog, I apologize. I have been involved in several photographic projects, and have honestly been working more on my craft than I have on keeping my blog current.

Here is a brief update on the various projects I have been working on. I spent quite a bit of time this summer taking macros, mostly of insects. It is easy to get sucked into this type of photography, and many people just find it gross, but I am fascinated by the endless detail of the natural world up close. You can see all the ones I shot on my Flickr account, but here is one I liked.

Another project I was involved in was the 2nd annual Nehemiah Fest, a Christian music festival. That was a lot of fun to shoot and very challenging as it was both night and day. Those photographs are also on my Flickr account, and here is one of the photographs I liked from that event.

I have been taking advantage of my spot on the sidelines during the local NFL football games to practice my sports photography.

But, mostly I have been working on my portrait skills. I still struggle with using my flash to get soft pleasing results while minimizing shadows. I have a long way to go in this area, so I am focusing my attention on portraits by volunteering my services to as many people as I can. I shot my daughters school photographs this year, and while I am not 100% pleased with the results, I like them better than the ones the school provided.

So, even though I have not been checking in as often, I am still shooting, and still making progress (albeit much more slowly). I have some other projects I will be shooting soon, so I will try to post information about them as I shoot them. Thanks for stopping by.

My Web Page

2008-07-10T16:25:00.003-05:00

I have been thinking about this for quite a while, but I finally set up my own web page. I have close to 1000 photographs on my Flickr account, and many of them are for specific projects, and are not very interesting to the average viewer. I wanted a way to showcase the best of my work without forcing people to weed through hundreds of photographs they did not care about. I also wanted a fixed URL to put on my business cards. Now, even if I change my blog address, or email address, or picture hosting service, my website URL will always be the same.

The website is very much still under construction, although much of the basic content is already there. You can check it out at Photography Journey.

Chris

Fireworks in Parkville

2008-07-07T11:33:00.002-05:00

2008 Parkville Fireworks 007
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

The family and I cruised down to Parkville, Missouri to see their show this year. We have been there several times before and they always put on a good show.
This is not my first year photographing fireworks, but it is my first year with a DSLR and a decent set of lenses. In one way, that actually worked against me. I started out with my Tamron 70-200, but because we were so close to the fireworks, 70mm was not wide enough. I quickly switched over to my Tamron 28-300, but that also did not prove wide enough. I finally settled on my Tamron 17-50, and this was wide enough for all the shots. I think it is better to be too wide, because you can crop in on the shots that are not tight enough, but you can't ever add to a photograph where part of the fireworks were cut off.

All shots were taken at ISO 100, f/16, and I used a bulb mode with a remote shutter release to take 3-5 second exposures. Next year I want to find someplace to shoot more landscape style shots. I would like some kind of background (maybe Royals Stadium) with the fireworks going off above.

Here are the best of the shots I got this year.

It's a small world after all

2008-07-02T09:29:00.004-05:00

Red and black beetle in yellow daffodil
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

We just came out of a LONG winter, and I grew so tired of photographing things that were man made, dead, or dormant. Now that life has returned to the world, I am even finding things interesting that I might have dismissed before. I have really been interested in macro photography lately, and have been investigating that super tiny world that we fail to notice most of the time. To me, macro photography is about capturing tiny objects and expanding them in a way that shows off their hidden details. It seems like flowers and bugs are the most common macro subjects, which I did not understand at first. There is so much more to the world, why focus on these? Well, one reason is that when you blow up man made items, for the most part, they become unrecognizable. Humans don't make super tiny items with a tremendous amount of detail because it is expensive, labor intensive, and no one will notice anyway. The world God created however, is filled with intricate details that continue as deep as we are capable of looking. It is just fascinating. I will be sitting on the ground looking for a subject, and I will see some tiny bug that is just a few mm long. With my human eye, this is little more than a moving speck of dust. As I bring the bug into focus with my camera, amazing and intricate details begin to appear. But even more amazing is when I see an even smaller bug near the original one that I would have never even known was there. I can see how people get lost in this super tiny world of never ending fascination. OK...enough talk. Here are some of my favorite macro posts over the last few weeks. You can click on any of these to get a larger version.

I found these ants moving these pupae around. I don't know if their colony got flooded, or if they were raiding another colony, but I thought it was interesting.

This assassin bug nymph was creeping around on my front porch. I have never seen one of these before, even though they have probably been nearby all my life. That single long fang under his chin looks especially wicked, which is probably why he is called an assassin bug.

I believe this is a male golden orb spider. I drive my truck so seldom in the summer this guy has been building his web in the wheel well each evening.

These are hoverflies. They are very tiny, maybe 5 or 6mm long and they hover in place just like a hummingbird.
These were my favorites so far. You can see all my current macro photographs on my Flickr account. Thanks for your visit to my blog. =)

Chris

Photo Challenge: Medicine

2008-06-24T09:44:00.001-05:00

Cured - Framed
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

Over at Fred Miranda's website (http://www.fredmiranda.com) they have weekly and a monthly challenge. They toss out a theme and photographers submit new photographs to represent that theme. The monthly challenge for June is medicine. My wife and I had very similar ideas on a concept for that theme, and this photograph is the end result.

The title is "Cured". The concept is a woman has chosen to commit suicide and no longer needs any medicine. This probably looks like a pretty straight forward shot, but my wife and I spent quite a bit of time composing it and getting all the elements in the right place. My wife was the model. Now, it is a WAY creepy experience asking your wife to write out a suicide note (which I shredded immediately after the shoot).

I set up my dark gray backdrop and borrowed my daughter's allergy medicine. I chose my Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 lens on my Canon XTi body. I used a Canon 430EX flash with an Gary Fong Lightsphere to diffuse the light. I also bounced the flash against the left wall. We took over 30 exposures before we were happy with the results.

One comment I have received several times is that there is too much medicine remaining. In hindsight, I agree. I should have left just a few pills with a mostly empty pill bottle.

This is a very dark shot of the horrible end that many people choose for their lives. I could only pull this off because my wife was completely understanding of what the goal was and was very supportive. Even so, I don't plan to take us back into such a dark concept shoot anytime in the near future.

Petroleum fire caused by lightning

2008-06-23T09:57:00.001-05:00

Magellan gasoline tank fire 002
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

I think most people who know me have seen this shot. I spent some time reworking it, however, and it seemed like a natural for a blog entry. On June 4, 2008, lightning sparked a fire at the Magellan fuel depot in Kansas City, Kansas. My wife called me upstairs when she saw the story on the news. I grabbed my camera gear and ran out the door, knowing this was a huge event. I believe this tank held about 1million gallons of petroleum. The fire was so large that the fire department could not put it out and decided to just let it burn out. This took about 18 hours before all the fuel burned.

The fire was sparked late in the afternoon, and by the time I headed out it was starting to get dark. As I headed toward the fire, I could see lightning in the sky, and I knew I wanted to get a shot that captured both the fire and a lightning strike in the same frame. I headed to some bluffs where 169 Highway intersected with 9 Highway. This location had an elevated view where I could very clearly see the fire across the river. Lightning storms were continuing to roll through about 10 miles to the South, but I was very fortunate not to have any serious weather where I was shooting from. I set up my tripod and took several test shots to figure out which settings would work best. I finally settled on 3.2 second exposures at ISO 200 and around f/11. I took over 400 exposures and captured several lighting strikes, but this was the best one.
I submitted this photograph to several local news stations who put it on their website. I also submitted this to CNN and they also put it on their website. This was very exciting for me because of the number of people their website reaches. You can see my photographs on CNN's website at http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/04/tanker.fire.irpt/index.html.

If you go look, you will see that this version is very different. I cleaned up some dust spots and adjusted the color balance to tone down the red and make the lightning more natural looking.

This is also the first photograph that people have approached me about purchasing. Several people have said they wanted to turn this into a wall size poster or framed photograph. I am toying with the idea of making a limited edition print of say 100 copies (including certificates of authenticity) and selling them. The question is how to market them.

To the best of my knowledge, no one was killed or injured. While the event was a disaster in terms of financial loss to the folks at Magellan, I was very glad to have the opportunity to document it in pictures.

Monopod to the rescue

2008-05-20T11:00:00.002-05:00

I recently purchased a new lens, the Tamron 70-200 f/2.8. I will post a review later after I am finished learning the ins and outs. One thing I am becoming very aware of, however, is the need for fast shutter speeds when zoomed out to 200mm. General rule of thumb for a crop sensor camera is to multiply the focal length times 1.6 for the minimum shutter speed to get a sharp photograph (e.g., 200mm x 1.6 = minimum shutter of 1/320). This is for shooting hand held and varies greatly by how stable an individual photographer is. Some can shoot much slower and still get great shots. Others are very unsteady and need to add to this. I find I can usually go somewhat slower, but not by much, and the results will be unpredictable.

I find my new Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 is very unforgiving in this area, probably because it is a much larger and heavier lens than any of my other lenses. If anything, I need to add to the shutter speed, so I try to keep it at 1/320 or faster when zoomed out to 200mm.

Several nights ago we had a racoon on our back porch, and I was able to get several photographs before he moved on. I got very poor results, which I traced back to a shutter speed that was too slow. Last night, there was a cat lounging on my back porch. Low light shooting is one of the main reasons I purchased this lens, so this seemed like an excellent opportunity to test my new lens and see if I could improve on the dismal results I got from photographing the racoon. I have a fairly bright floodlight, so I was anticipating some good shots. Unfortunately, even with the ISO at 1600 and the aperture set to f/2.8, I needed a shutter speed of 1/10 to get a properly exposed photograph. Obviously there is a HUGE difference between 1/10 and the 1/320 I need for a sharp photograph.

Now, most of the time, wild critters don't linger on my deck long. For a static object I would not hesitate to grab the tripod and set it up, but I did not think I would have that much time. In desperation I grabbed my monopod and snapped it on the bottom of my camera. My setup is nothing fancy. I have a Dynex monopod purchased at Bestbuy and I am using a Induro SA12 ballhead mount on top. I have not been using a monopod for very long, so I needed the practice with it anyway. I was fairly satisfied with the results.

The results are still a little soft and at ISO1600 there is going to be some noise, but this is the difference between getting a shot or not. The camera and lens were already at their limits for the available lighting. Using a flash would have scared the cat away. I was also shooting through glass, which makes using the flash impractical because of the inevitable reflection. My only other choice was a tripod (which I would have done if the shot was REALLY important). A monopod is much more convenient to carry around and allows the photographer much more freedom to move as necessary. I would guess that with practice I can gain at least two stops of light with a monopod, reducing my need for 1/320 shutter speed to 1/80, or allowing me to increase my aperture from f/2.8 to f/5.6. These are very significant gains and afford the photographer many more opportunities to "get the shot" in challenging lighting conditions.

If you often find yourself in challenging lighting conditions, consider adding a monopod to your gear. It may be the key you need for a successful shot.

Portraits with the Canon 50mm f/1.8

2008-05-14T16:05:00.004-05:00

Wow! A month since my last post? Where does time go. Fortunately, I have been busy taking lots of photographs. I am so glad the weather is getting nice again. I find so many more opportunities for photographs when I am not hiding in my house from the cold.
This last weekend the family and I were visiting a local farm that is almost like a zoo. We spent no more than 20 minutes there before lightning forced the officials to declare the park closed. We spent the next 45 minutes hiding under an open-air porch with nothing else to do, so, we took pictures! I had recently been reminded about the benefits of using shallow depth of field (DOF) to really isolate a subject, and I happened to have my Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens with me. The lighting was very interesting as it was very light outside the porch, but very dark underneath it. Combine this lighting with a shallow DOF (f/1.8) and you get something like this:

This is my oldest daughter. I had her stay under the porch with one side of her face toward the light and other toward the inside of the porch. I believe this type of lighting is also referred to as Rembrandt lighting. Either way, I really like the effect.

This is one of my lovely wife:

For this shot I had her lean on the porch railing with face to the light. I really love how all details of the porch behind her are completely lost so nothing is there to distract you from the subject.

The other way to do this is to deliberately blow out the background like in this shot:

This was taken with their back to the light and I was under the porch. By properly exposing their faces, the background is almost completely blown out. However, there are still some details which keeps it from looking like they are floating, which I feel looks unnatural. The shallow DOF bit me a little bit here. My youngest daughter's face is tack sharp, but my wife, who is slightly behind the focal plane is just a tad out of focus. I applied some minor sharpening to her eyes, but they are still not as sharp as my daughter's. I still think the shot is a success, however.

Like anything else, DOF is a tool and it is not right for every type of photograph. When you really want to isolate a subject, however, it can be extremely effective.

I will try to post again very soon. I just bought a Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 and I am very eager to put it through the paces. Be watching for my report.

Chris

Viva Las Vegas - Days 2 and 3

2008-04-09T17:40:00.002-05:00

I had originally planned on a new entry each day, but each day was not interesting enough on its own. I spent about 3 hours on Monday night on the strip photographing the lights. I wanted a slow shutter to get light trails from the traffic, so I used f/22 for my aperture. The one thing I forgot is that past f/16 you start to get diffraction which leads to softer, fuzzier photographs. I did not realize this until I was post processing the photographs and they were not as sharp as I would have liked.

I used my tripod for almost all the shots, and this caused problems with the elevated ones. I was shooting from walkways and I could feel the bouncing as people walked past. During a 6-8 second exposure this vibration really shows up. In hindsight, I should have used the tripod less and depended on the vibration reduction of the lens. I might have had more noise, but the photographs would have been sharper. Even so, for my first time shooting on the strip at night, I am fairly pleased with the results.

This was shot from the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay.

I shot these two from an overpass designed for foot traffic.

The first time I saw the MGM lion, I dismissed it. The more I walk around it and the surrounding statues, however, the more I intriguing I find it. I really like this shot of it at night.

I think it is interesting that Las Vegas tries to be like other places, such as New York and Paris. It does makes for interesting photographs. I have never been to the real Statue of Liberty or the real Eiffel Tower, so it is interesting to see the representations of them in Las Vegas.

One of the most impressive sights on the strip is the water show in front of the Bellagio. I don't know how high this fountain shoots up, but it must be 50 ft. or more and it has to be thousands of feet long.

I shot this from the opposite side of the Paris balloon and I really like the composition. I met a fellow photographer at this point who was very nice. His name is John Harris who was visiting from Alaska. We had a very nice talk and shot a few photographs together. Meeting John is one of the things that makes a trip special. We forget the things we see over time, but the chance encounters we have with people can stick with us for a lifetime.

My last photograph of the evening was a gentleman panhandling for his next drink. It is an honest sign, but still a sad representation of where some people end up.

The next thing I would like to do is get off the strip and find the less glamorous side of Las Vegas (besides the homeless people panhandling on the strip). This is easier said than done, however. The strip is very strategically designed to KEEP you on the strip, at least if you are on foot. There is a freeway on one side and the other side quickly disappears into what appears to be an industrial area. The South end of the strip appears to degrade very quickly once you get past Circus Circus. With a second or third shooter I would be more eager to explore this area, but on my own that is probably not the best idea. I am going to see what I can find tonight that is safe enough to explore, but not quite as glossy as the strip itself. I may not find anything, but I have to at least try.

Viva Las Vegas - Day 1

2008-04-06T16:31:00.004-05:00

There are rules in blogging. If you want a reasonable sized audience you are supposed to have good content, keep each entry about the same length, and post on a consistent basis (daily, weekly, etc). So, here I am, having not posted anything of substance in over a month, and now I am going to slam you with several entries back-to-back. Oh, and this post is long also. Did I mention I was never very good with the whole rules thing?

***warning*** This entry is for adults. I doubt any children follow my blog anyway, and there is no nudity, but it does deal with the things I actually see while I am here, and some of the content is mature in nature.

I am currently "on location" in Las Vegas (on location is a fancy photographer term meaning I am actually here, as opposed to a sound stage in Hollywood). I am actually here on a business conference, but I have a fair amount of down time also, so I have lots of opportunities to shoot photographs.

My fist day was very interesting. I got up at 5:30am so I could catch my 8:30am flight. I always arrive several hours early when flying in case I have any security problems. I never do have any security problems, so I always end up with a LOT of time to sit...and....wait. While waiting I was fortunate enough to see the sun rise. The light from the rising sun shone through the waiting room and made some very interesting silhouettes on the frosted glass where I was sitting.

Before I boarded the plane I met an interesting older man who was returning home to Montana (or Wyoming, I can't remember for sure). He had been in Kansas City taking a class to learn how to make artistic engravings on firearms and jewelry. He has actually had the opportunity to meet Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott through his contacts in the firearms industry.

On the plane from Kansas City to Salt Lake City (the longest leg of my journey) I sat next to a woman named Margi (with a hard G). She was in her mid-fifties and we had a very interesting conversation on a variety of topics including the smoking ban on the ballot in Kansas City this next week, scooters/motorcycles (we both ride), and how to teach our children to become independent thinkers. The most interesting part for me was Margi's destination and why she was going there. Margi was on her way to Hawaii on vacation. Many years ago, Margi's sister was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. Before she died, she wanted to make a return visit to Hawaii. She finally did this, but it was very late in her illness and she ended up dying while she was there. At the time, Margi was unable to go to Hawaii and retrieve her sister, so she had to leave this to others, and she was quite upset about it. Now, many years later, Margi is headed to the spot where her sister died to honor her sister's memory.

On the plane between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, I sat next to a gentleman who worked for SUNY (the State University of New York). His job is to manage the card readers that control all the doors, electronic equipment, and even washing machines on campus. Ok, no big deal, right? Well, there are hundreds (thousands?) of these readers and there are 15,000 people with cards spread out over five campuses. Sounds like a pretty big job to me. This is one of those jobs no one ever thinks about, but are vital to the way our world works today.

Once in Las Vegas, I checked in as fast as I could, grabbed my camera, and headed out to walk the strip. It was still early afternoon, so there were not very many lights on, but I wanted to get some photographs while everything was still fresh and new to me. I walked the entire length of the strip and had to take the bus back. I grabbed some of the traditional tourist shots first.

To me these represent the sanitized verison of Las Vegas you see on the promotional literature. I like them, but they only tell part of the story.

Within 30 minutes of walking on the strip my senses were completely overloaded and I had difficulty focusing on any thing in detail. Everything is so big and bright and loud that your attention is always being pulled in a new direction. It is so difficult to take everything in that my mind just started blocking out large chunks.

There is also a very big culture for someone coming from the midwest. The Las Vegas "anything goes" attitude is pervasive and dominates everything. In Kansas City you have an occasional billboard advertising for a strip club. In Las Vegas you have video displays the size of buildings with full motion video, billboards on trucks that drive up and down the strip non-stop, and people pushing business cards and flyers at you every 20 feet offering to deliver girls to your room.

Another thing that was very unusual to me was watching people walk around on the street with beer and mixed drinks. There in no public drinking allowed in Kansas City, so I found this surprising.

Of course, there were street performers everywhere and the only place I have not seen a slot machine (yet) is in the bathroom. At about 8pm I returned to my room completely exhausted. I closed the curtains, processed the photos from the day, and crashed hard.

Tomorrow I am going to try to get more night shots of the strip.

In a down cycle

2008-03-16T18:42:00.002-06:00

Hi, everyone! I just wanted to drop a note and let you know I have not disappeared. I have just been very busy with some other things and I have not had time to take very many photographs.

I am am also lacking in photographic inspiration. After four months of cold, snow, and ice, I need the view to change. Once things start to green up and outside activities start up again, I have no doubt I will be shooting more. My wife wants me to shoot some black and white shots of her and her with the girls. She has been looking at a variety of photographs and collecting ones she likes, so I think this will be a fun project.

It may be a few weeks before my next post. Talk to you soon.

Keep it real!

2008-02-26T12:09:00.003-06:00

This is the age of digital photography; digital meaning electronic, bits and bytes, zeroes and ones. These images only have meaning when taken as a whole and represented to us in a way that looks like a photograph. They don’t actually become photographs until they are printed. Until then they can be easily changed, and in fact, most digital images go through some type of transformation before they are shared with anyone. Typical post processing of digital images includes adjusting the white balance so the colors look correct, sharpening to make the photograph look more crisp, and straightening to correct a horizon that is not level. None of this changes the basic nature of the image. In fact, each of these steps is taken to make the resulting photograph do a better job of representing what the photographer actually saw. We do this so the images we share will accurately communicate what we want to the viewer.

You don’t have to stop here, however. Is there a telephone pole in the photograph that is distracting? It can be removed. Remember that great shot of the bird you took last year? Maybe this photograph would look better if we copied that bird and pasted it into our new photograph. We can brighten teeth, remove wrinkles, erase stray hairs, change the color of people’s clothes, replace the background, and add or remove elements until the photograph looks exactly the way we want. Then we can print it and share it with the world. The problem is this…is it real?

You are probably asking yourself, “So what?” If you are happy with the result and other people like it, what does it matter if you made a few small changes or even several major changes? The answer to that lies in who the intended audience is, and how the photograph will be used. A very famous Chinese photographer is finding out how important that can be right now. One of Liu Weiqiang’s photographs was recognized as one of the top ten news photographs of the year. Here is a copy of that photograph.

It shows a very nice scene of antelope running near a train that is passing by. As it turns out, this image is the result of combining at least two separate photographs. The train is in one photograph and the antelope are in another, but they were never anywhere near each other. In the news world this is called fraud. You can read about the whole incident on the ZonaEuropa website and at China Daily.

You and I can make any level of changes to our photographs that we want because we are not representing them as news photographs. We are not using our photographs to tell the world, “This is what happened!”. If we are, we need to be aware of how important accurate photographs are. The AP forbids their photographers from making any significant changes to their photographs. Is there a mailbox in the foreground of that great photograph of the President? Too bad. The image must stand on its own. AP photographers even need to be careful how they crop their photographs. It is possible to change the way a photograph communicates by simply cropping out certain elements. News photographs need to be as honest as possible. They must visually tell the story. We must be able to trust them or how can we trust the articles that they support?

Unfortunately, the Chinese government used this photograph to show that the high speed train was not bothering the antelope (which is a breed on the endangered species list). The train may or may not bother the antelope. I have no idea. That is not the point. What is important is that the photograph is a lie. What you see did not really happen. This would not be a big deal if the photographer was honest about it and simply communicated the details of how this photograph was produced. In that case it becomes a piece of art and the artist can change it any way he wants. Make the antelopes purple with green dots if you want. But, never say the image is real unless it is. The photographer has resigned in shame and will have a cloud over his work for a long time, maybe even forever. His editor also lost his job.

As we progress as photographers, it is a good idea to stop and ask ourselves how our photographs are going to be used. We have some wonderful and powerful tools at our disposal, and I have seen them used to create fantastic images. We can share these with the world as long as we are honest about how we created them. When the intent of the photograph changes and is designed to document what really happened, make sure you keep that idea firmly in your mind. There is no such thing as too much honesty with news photographs. Keep the original image. Document any changes you made. That way when you share these with the world you can say, “I was there, and this is how it really happened.”

Newest member of the family

2008-02-21T20:28:00.008-06:00

We have a new family member in my household. My oldest daughter has been saving her money and has purchased a White's tree frog which she named Saturn. Now, we have not traditionally had good luck with pets in my house. My oldest is allergic to everything with fur, so that rules out all of the conventional pets, like a cat or a dog. We have also tried a few alternative pets, with the most recent being a hedgehog, which my wife ended up being allergic to. So, I was not terribly excited about the idea of trying another pet.
So far he has been a very good and easy pet, so my fears were probably unfounded.
In honor of the event I borrowed a Canon 100mm macro lens from my friend (What? Doesn't everyone have a friend that will let them borrow a $600 lens?) This lens has a great reputation and my experience with it was no exception. This is a true 1:1 macro lens and allows you to easily capture the most intricate details of your subject. It is also a fast f/2.8 lens, so it is awesome even in low light. For this shoot I had my daughter hold her frog near our sliding glass window. The shoot was kind of tricky, because even though this frog is not overly active, he still kept turning out of the light. In order to compensate I had to keep repositioning myself around the frog.

One of the keys to photographing animals is to keep their eyes in focus. Other body parts can be out of focus and people will not really notice, but if the eyes are out of focus the photograph is ruined. In order to take full advantage of the natural light I had to use a very wide aperture (f/2.8-f/4.0). Since this makes the depth of field very shallow and since I was constantly moving around the frog it was surprisingly difficult to get shots that were focused the way I wanted. Even so, I was happy with several of the shots .

A word of warning...never borrow a nice lens like this from a friend as you will not want to return it. He said I could borrow it anytime, however, so that made it a LITTLE easier to return. The reality is that this is a fairly specialized lens, so I honestly would not use it that much. But, when you need close up shots with lots of detail this lens is very hard to beat.

The never-ending quest for better flash photographs

2008-02-07T10:40:00.002-06:00

When the topic of flash photography comes up online someone will eventually link to the information at The Strobist. This guy has forgotten more than I will ever know about flash photography. He has a ton of useful information and it will probably require several readings to absorb much of it, especially if you are new to flash photography. One of the setups he uses a LOT is a single umbrella on a stand with a Speedlight flash (or other brand) controlled by wireless triggers. I love the results he has been able to achieve with this so I invested in a similar set up.

Now, I cheaped out on the wireless flash triggers. The industry standard for wireless flash triggers is a product called Pocket Wizard. Each one of these beauties costs about $175 and you need two at a minimum (one for the camera and one for the flash). GadgetInfinity sells a competing product that sells for about $36 and includes both a transmitter and receiver. Needless to say, I went with this cheaper option. However, I did encounter some shortcomings right away. With my shutter speed set to 1/125th I had several initial exposures that were either completely dark or half dark.

This is caused by sync problems between when the flash ignites and when the shutter opens. 1/125th is well within the product specs which should sync up to 1/200th. This may be due to some interference in my house. The trigger can use four different channels. By switching to a different channel I may see better results. More likely, however is that the battery that came with the unit was weak. After using it on a shoot for my church, the trigger stopped working completely. After replacing the battery the triggers began working perfectly. I knew this product was not 100% reliable when I purchased it. If you want 100% reliability you spend the money for the Pocket Wizards. For the cost savings I am going to try to live with intermittent sync problem.

When the sync did work, I was really excited about the results. The lighting was very soft and diffuse and I now have the ability to light my subjects from different directions to achieve different effects.

This new equipment opens the door for me to experiment with some new techniques such as side-lighting for a Rembrandt effect. Moving the flash off-shoe and off to the side does a lot to minimize flash shadows (which I have come to hate.) Also, notice no reflection in the glasses. The softer light from the umbrella reflection is more pleasing and uniform and creates a more natural looking photograph. Buying new equipment does not ensure better photographs, however. Now it is time to start learning how to use this new gear and see if the results I can achieve are better than what I have done in the past.

Sometimes, you get what you pay for.

2008-02-04T14:03:00.001-06:00

I posted an entry not long ago about a homemade backdrop stand, and how sometimes you don’t have to spend the big bucks to get the job done. I still believe that is true, but I did run into some problems with my backdrop stand. It filled my immediate need for a shoot with a client, but when I purchased some larger backdrops, the stand just was not strong enough. I will also say that even though the homemade stand can be taken apart, some of the pieces are still six feet long (or more) which makes it difficult to transport. I shoot on location most of the time so having items that are easy to transport is a huge issue for me.
All of that is to say, I broke down and bought a real backdrop stand. Even so, it was not that expensive. I found one at a local photography store for about $160.00. The kit includes two tripod supports which fold down to be very nice and compact. The crossbar that supports the backdrop comes in four sections allowing widths from 3 feet to about 12 feet. It also came with a black cordura case that holds everything in a surprisingly small and easy to carry package. The tripod ends are rock solid and they adjust to more than 8 feet tall. The great thing is I can set up the supports (which start around 4 feet high), and then put the cross bar in place. Then I easily raise the supports to the desired height with no ladder required. The homemade stand required that I put the end supports up, and then set the crossbar on top, which was quite tricky.

I purchased two pieces of muslin from a local fabric store. One is naturally a light tan color which I left. The second I purchased in white and died it black, but it came out dark grey which I am satisfied with for now. Both are 7.5 feet wide and over 12 feet long. I did my first shoot with a client using this muslin and the new backdrop stand and it was great. I was able to move the client about 5 feet in front of the backdrop. I used a cable to move the flash off-shoe and hand-held it about 3 feet to my left. I also used the Gary Fong Lightsphere on the flash. The end result was a nice uniform backdrop, soft lighting and no distracting shadows.I really did try to find a cheaper solution, but they key to the whole backdrop stand is the two supports with tripod feet. I was not able to find any other solution that even came close to the $160.00 for the kit that was designed for this purpose. Does everything related to photography

Protest in Kansas City

2008-02-02T20:18:00.001-06:00

MM Protest 015
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

The Minutemen Civil Defense Corp held a recruitment rally in Kansas City on February 1, 2008. I have been wanting to photograph a protest for months and there were several groups who decided to protest against the Minutemen. I have always appreciated the photographs of significant historical events and even though this particular protest might not be that significant, I felt it needed to be photographed.
I am not going to get into my views as they relate to the Minutemen and immigration. This blog is not a political one, but rather one focused on my passion for photography. I do have very strong opinions about this subject, but they may not be what you think.The meeting was scheduled for 7pm. I left my house around 5:15pm so I could find a place to park and ensure I was in position early enough. I almost missed it! By the time I parked and approached the Uptown Theater where the event was being held, the protest rally was in full swing.

The leaders of the protest were speaking through a bullhorn to their followers. Within 15 minutes, they finished and all marched past the theater and back to a church where they finished their rally. Very few protesters remained and everything seemed very uneventful, so I almost went home. However, there was almost one hour left before the Minutemen meeting started so I decided to hang around and see if any other protesters showed up. I was not disappointed.
There were a group of young people who did not seem to be part of the original protest. They were all dressed similarly and several wore bandannas over their faces, which they said was due to the cold. The original group of protesters was very organized and the leaders were controlling the participants to avoid any kind of conflict. This group of young people was completely the opposite and had very foul mouths. Even so, they seemed interested in avoiding any kind of physical conflict.At this point you are probably wondering, "What about the Minutemen?" Well, their side of the event was pretty boring. There was one lady outside with a homemade sign, and one other man with a printed sign. Most of their activities were focused on the meeting which started at 7pm. I am not omitting them on purpose, there just was not much to show.Toward the end of my time there, three more young people showed up dressed in costume. The costume that caught my attention most was of a white knight of the KKK.The atmosphere of the entire event was tense with strong emotions on both sides. But, there was no violence and everyone seemed pretty well behaved. In all, it was an example of free speech in action where everyone can speak their mind.

Too cold to photograph? Post process instead!

2008-01-29T18:59:00.000-06:00

I don't know how it is where you live, but here in Kansas City it is way cold! It has been that way for months now and I have had my fill of going out in the cold and shooting snowy scenes. I am also burned out on studio work right now. So...what to do?
One of the weakest parts of my overall photography skills is post processing. Taking photographs is fun...looking at photographs is fun...processing photographs is work and is boring! Well, not always, but in general I don't like the post processing phase nearly as much as I like taking photographs. Since I was trapped inside and was burned out on taking pictures, it seemed like a good opportunity to revisit this important area of photography. I have been working on my photography for about a year now and I have a pretty good supply of photographs to work on. It has always been my goal to get as much right as possible when taking the photograph so the need to post process would be minimized. Even so, I had no trouble finding several photographs that were good candidates that needed some pretty serious correction.
I shoot in RAW most of the time so all of my shots get a base level of processing using Canon's Digital Photo Professional (white balance adjustment, base sharpening, and basic contrast . For more serious correction I then move to GIMP because it is free. I recently picked up a graphics tablet and it came with a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 so I have two very nice packages for manipulating digital images. What I don't have is much skill with using them.
This photograph is one that immediately drew my attention. I was no happy at all when I took it. This my brother-in-law with Jimmy Bratcher. My BIL is a big fan of Jimmy so I was glad I got to take a photograph of them together. However, I had about 10 seconds to adjust my camera, get in position, and take the shot. The results were not very good.The overall scene is too dark. My BIL has stains on his shirt from dinner a few minutes earlier (which were not his fault BTW), and there are no shortage of distracting elements (click on the image to bring up a larger version and you can see what I mean).
The first thing to do was lighten the overall image. PSE has a smart adjustment tool that did a great job for that part. The next thing was the stains on my BIL's shirt. I used the clone tool to carefully clone out as many of these as I could without losing the texture of the shirt which would have made the shirt look flat. I also cropped in closer on the subjects to remove as much distraction as possible from the edges of the photograph. My wife's hand on the left of the image was all that was left of her after the crop and I found it distracting, so I cloned that out also. There are two flash reflections in the upper right of the photograph that I did not like. I started using the dodge and burn tool but I was not happy with the results. These areas were completely blown out so I turned to the clone tool again to repair the blown out parts. Here is the end result.

It is still a hack job, but in my opinion it is much better. We will probably never have a chance to retake this photograph so making this photograph as good as I can for my BIL is important to me. My BIL is so gracious and was happy with the original photograph, but I am glad I will get to present him with this improved version.

A second photograph I found to work on was of my daughters in a carnival ride. I did not realize it at the time, but the flash reflection in between the girls is really distracting.
Again, this area is blown out completely so there is no detail to restore. I thought the burn tool might help here, but I was not getting the results I wanted. I thought about using the clone tool, but that did not seem like the right tool for this job. Instead I turned to the spray brush tool. I sampled the brown of the background and slowly began painting in the blown out highlights. It was not my intent to completely replace this area, but rather to keep it more natural looking in which case this area would still be be lit a little more. This is the result:I am pretty happy with the result, but what do you think? If you did not know how it looked before, would this appear natural to you? Or, does it look hopelessly photoshopped?

The hard thing about post processing is knowing when to stop. Once you start making changes it is easy to just keep going. The risk is that the image will not look natural anymore. I like the way these turned out, but even if they are not masterpieces, I learned a lot more about how Photoshop works, and that was the goal of the exercise.

The missed shot...photographer or participant?

2008-01-28T15:59:00.000-06:00

There is no photograph for this entry. That is because I missed the shot I wanted. We were at church and a spontaneous event happened when the worship leader had the entire church gather around our senior pastor and pray for him. Our senior pastor, Pastor John, was fighting off a sore throat and possible laryngitis. Unfortunately, Pastor John was also scheduled to speak for three days at a Ministry Leadership Conference for the next three days, and laryngitis would make this especially difficult. As we were all gathering around Pastor John it dawned on me how unusual an even this was, and I thought this would make a wonderful photograph (or at least it had the potential for one). However, I also realized that meant I had to shift very quickly from being a participant in the service, and more specifically, this opportunity to minister to the man who so regularly ministers to me, and roll into photographer mode. Decisions...decisions.
In the end I decided to stay and participate. I would have made a horrible photojournalist. I don't transition quickly enough between participating in and event and photographing it. In fact, I find I need to psyche myself up for most of my photoshoots. Conversely, if I go to an event as a photographer I participate very little and am constantly scanning for good shots. I am very compartmental this way.
So, is this just the way photography works? Are most photographer's this way? Or, are there those that can flow quickly between both modes without even thinking about it? Does this just come with experience? This is more of a curiosity to me than anything else. I am sorry I missed the shot I wanted, but it was a fair exchange for the opportunity to pray for Pastor John in his hour of need.

Does all photography stuff have to be expensive???

2008-01-16T21:16:00.001-06:00

Anyone who has been a photographer for long knows that photography equipment is expensive. There is always something else to buy and anything that is labeled for photography seems to instantly double or triple in price. So, do you HAVE to spend tons of cash to get great results? Well, maybe not for everything.

I needed a backdrop frame for a job. It needed to be portable so I could transport it to the shoot location. Professional portable backdrop frames cost hundreds of dollars and usually come without backdrops. The backdrops alone can run several hundred more for EACH additional backdrop. Now, hundreds of dollars is something I don't mind investing in high quality lenses or maybe a new camera body, but on backdrops? Come on!

So, off to the Internet I went. Surely someone out there had already designed a cheap and portable backdrop frame. It did not take me long to find a design I liked. I found one at Kenrick Parrish's website that looked exactly what I needed.

All the instructions for building this are detailed at his site, so I won't go into that here, but the important part is I was able to put the entire package together for around $50. The other nice thing about this stand is it is easy to change out backdrops. If you keep your eyes out for sales at the fabric stores, you can secure some very nice, heavy backdrops for $30-$50. Then you can use this system to roll them up when they are not in use which keeps the wrinkles out. If you are looking for a backdrop stand on the cheap, I encourage you to check out this system.

Now, having said how much I like this system, I still am not thrilled with my portrait results. I get better each time, and I keep learning more and more, but I have a long way to go. There are still way too many visible shadows (as you can see on the top photograph and in the one of my daughter below). These would probably be less noticeable on a backdrop that was not pure white, but I want to minimize them as much as possible regardless of the backdrop color. (Just a reminder, you can click on the photographs to see a larger version. The don't seem to render very well in my blog for some reason.)

I am working on moving my flash off to the side with a wireless trigger and umbrella stand, but again, that all costs money. I have also been told to move my models farther out from the backdrop, but my current backdrop is too narrow and when I move them out, you can see the edge of the backdrop in the photographs. But, the important thing is I was able to use this system to meet the specific goals of this shoot without breaking the bank.

Oh, and my daughter loves to "peace out" in front of it. That alone makes it worth the price, right?

Christmas Play and my new lens

2008-01-01T11:56:00.001-06:00

Velveteen rabbit 008
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

When I started shooting with my DSLR, I never imagined how much shooting I would do inside. Shooting indoors brings a host of challenging lighting issues with it. When people are considering a new lens, I always encourage them to buy the fastest lens they can (F/2.8 or better throughout the focal range) so they will get better results when shooting in challenging lighting. This same advice was given to me, and the more I shoot, the more I see the wisdom in it. I recently photographed my church's Christmas play, which came in two parts, one performed by children and the second performed by adults. My wife bought me a Tamron 17-50 F/2.8 lens for Christmas and this is the lens I used.
These types of events are fun, challenging, and frustrating all at the same time. The light range was tremendous. Sometimes the stage was barely lit at all and other times a blinding white spot light was employed. I was constantly scrambling to adjust my settings. I have shot photographs in this venue several times before (all of the Jimmy Bratcher shots were shot here), but in previous events the lighting has been very consistent. The upside is that when the brighter lights were employed I was able to up my ISO to 800 for slightly less noise. I hate noise in my photographs, but I have not figured out a way to shoot at higher ISOs in this setting, so I have to rely on noise reduction software to assist in the post processing phase.
My new lens performed very well. I wish it had been longer for certain shots, but that is my only complaint, and I was well aware of the range limitations when I purchased it. I had often heard people describe the results from this lens as "creamy" and I never understood what them meant until I began using it. The color quality from this lens is far superior to the Canon kit lens I was using.
The white spotlight posed the most problems for me. It was very difficult to keep from blowing the highlights. The white light was also very unnatural, however. This shot of the Velveteen rabbit and other nursery room toys illustrates that. This is actually how that looked. In my opinion they should have used some kind of filter to soften the effect or give it a slightly yellow cast. I was able to change some of those shots in post by playing with the white balance and forcing it to something that looked more natural.

I need to consider using my flash more in events like this. I usually don't because I don't want the flash to distract the audience and the performers. I think I am overly sensitive to this, however. Towards the end of the performance I realized many others were using their flash and I had not noticed myself. There is a difference between the flash on a point and shoot, however, and the flash from my 430EX which is much more powerful. I also don't like the results from using a flash for this type of performace because it lights up too much of the background. The angel shot above is a great illustration. In this shot (taken without a flash) the background becomes almost completely black which hides the instruments, microphone standes and other distractions.

In this shot of the dancers I used a flash which lit the entire scene evenly so the background distractions were lit just as much as the dancers themselves. There was very little stage light used during this scene with the dancers, so without the flash I would not have gotten the shot, but the end result is not one I like with all the distracting items visible.

I keep shooting...I keep learning. Nine months ago my photographs would have been much worse. There is an art to learning when to use natural/ambient light and when to use the flash. I can see that with more experience, I am better able to make decisions on when I should use each.

Here are a few of the shots I liked best.

Family Christmas Photographs

2007-12-26T10:02:00.000-06:00

Did you have a good Christmas? I did. I got to spend time with family and eat a lot of good food (now I have to get back to the gym). For a photographer, Christmas is filled with lots of opportunities to take photographs. There is a tendency to try to photograph everything, which I think is a mistake. The subjects in our photographs can become irritated if they are constantly being photographed. There are also several events that are very fun to participate in, but are not much fun to look at later. I put opening presents in this category. I have looked at lots of pictures of people opening presents and I find them boring. I also find the rushed nature of opening presents often yields photographs that are blurry, or poorly composed, or poorly exposed, or a horrible combination of all three. The subjects are seldom caught at their best either. The one exception to this might be children opening their presents, but even then one should be careful not to overdo it or you end up with lots of photographs that are all basically the same.

Keeping that in mind, I went out of my way to deliberately take only high quality photographs of the family members this year. We spent Christmas Eve with my wife's family. There was another photographer there who was taking photographs and we all worked with her to get some group portraits. She was doing a fine job, and I saw no reason to take photographs myself at this event, so I left the camera in the bag for the most part.

On Christmas Day we were at my Father's house and everyone was interested in a family portrait, so we spent some time choosing a location and I set up my tripod and began taking test shots. The background we chose had two windows in it. What typically happens is that I expose for the lighting indoors and the highlights in the windows get blown out completely. I was very conscious of this and metered for the windows instead. I love the look of a photograph where the subject are properly lit, but you can also see what is outside the windows as it just looks more natural.

Metering on the windows meant the indoor part was going to be very dark, so I had to use the flash to properly light the subjects. I played with bouncing the flash off a few different walls, but ultimately settled on bouncing it off the ceiling as the best choice. I also used the "better bounce card" to throw some of the light forward. I settled on ISO400, 1/125th shutter, and F/9 with +1/3 flash exposure. By putting the camera on the tripod I was able to use my remote shutter release and this made being in the photograph myself very easy. We took about 8 exposures and reviewed them each time making changes to where people stood, how they held their arms, etc. The photograph at the top is the culmination of our efforts. The size presented here does not give the best viewing results, so I encourage you to click on it and look at a larger version. It is not perfect, but I was pretty happy with the results.

The number one thing wrong with this photograph?...the bright flash reflection in the picture behind the subjects. I knew this was going to be a problem, but I got caught up in all the other details, and never changed the position of the camera. I probably could have moved the camera 5 feet left or right and eliminated (or at least reduced) the flash reflection. This is the kind of thing that I may be able to fix in the post processing stage as I learn more about PhotoShop and similar programs. For now, I am just going to have to live with it and hope the family is not too disappointed.

The bottom line is that we spent maybe 20 minutes on photographs, and then I simply enjoyed the rest of the day. I also don't have a ton of boring photographs that no one will care about looking at later. A few of the other family members used their point and shoots to take a few photographs, but they also kept their exposures to a minimum and only took specific shots they were interested in. Now, don't get me wrong. I like to take LOTS of photographs, and I frequently overshoot a subject, especially when I am experimenting with lighting, composition, etc. This is an excellent way to learn. I just feel family events call for a more measured and calculating approach so the subjects don't get burned out, the photographer can participate and have fun, and the end results will be something everyone wants to see.

The best of 2007

2007-12-21T20:54:00.000-06:00

Someone over at dpreview started a thread on their best photographs of the year. I thought this sounded like an excellent idea and decided to look back through my own photographs. My Flickr account now has over 400 photographs which were all taken in the last 12 months. I figured they couldn't ALL be bad, and a careful review found a few gems I am actually quite proud of.

This first photograph is from one of my first studio sessions. I envisioned it being used in an article dealing with violence and weapons at school. Alas, no one else was interested in it, but I quite like it.

This next shot was a barn fire I photographed this summer. I had been working on a Saturday and when I walked out of the office I saw this plume of smoke nearby. I beat the fire department there by just a few minutes and was able to get into a pretty good position without getting in their way. The barn was filled with hay and it burned very quickly. No one was hurt, but the barn was a total loss.

I was on the way home one night when I saw quite a few emergency vehicles nearby. I arrived on the scene in time to photograph this roll-over accident. No one was seriously injured, but the driver that caused the accident was arrested for drunk driving.

We recently had a pretty strong ice storm roll through. While it was devastating for many in the local community, it also made for some very interesting photographs. This is my favorite photograph of the entire year.
I have a long way to go as a photographer, but I have learned a LOT this year. Keeping this blog has helped keep me on track. I am also very glad I started my portfolio on Flickr. This has been an excellent tool for storing my best photographs, sharing them with others, and having a record of my progress. I can't wait to see where I end up next year.

If you are reading this, thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a wonderful and happy Christmas season. I pray God will bless you and your family with health, happiness and prosperity.

Chris

Gingerbread Manger Scene

2007-12-17T10:01:00.001-06:00

Gingerbread Manger scene 001
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

I went to church this Sunday and they were auctioning off a very nice manger scene made of gingerbread. I was very impressed with the quality and detail, so I spent some time photographing it. I especially like the toasted coconut used for hay. Very creative.

I used my 50mm f/18 (the plastic fantastic) and the ambient lighting in the foyer. I had to bump the ISO to 800 and jumped back and forth between f/2.8 and f/4. I like the bokeh on this first shot, but working with such a shallow depth of field really shows how everything in the manger scene is set at different distances from the lens. It was difficult to keep everything in focus and I did not bring my tripod.

Even so, it was nice to capture this work of art before it was eaten and lost forever. Kudos to the artist, whom I do not know.

Breaking Free

2007-12-13T16:31:00.001-06:00

Tree locked in ice
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

I felt your moist and gentle touch
cool and refreshing on my skin so rough.

But a simple touch was not enough
and slowly your embrace
became a cold and heavy burden
from which I could not escape.

The darkness grows
my body aches.
You will not relent
so I bow...and wait...

The light falls upon my skin
I feel the warmth of day again.
You cry out! Your voice cracks.
I begin to feel your grip relax.

Slowly...I am able...
to reach...for the light.

Your glassy grip
I begin to shake.
You forced me to bow
but I did not break.

Your cruel love
is not for me
and the time is short
when I will break free.

Time flies!

2007-12-12T22:04:00.000-06:00

Wow! Where does time go? I did not realize how long it had been since I updated my blog. I haul the equipment for the NFL football teams in Kansas City, so my weekends from August through December are very busy. My blog clearly reflects this through its neglect.

In spite of this, I have actually been pretty active photographically. Most of it has been for my church providing photographs for our web designer. I don't feel at liberty to post most of these shots publicly on my Flickr account, so they don't make very good blog material. I have also been busy shooting lots of technical photographs at work (detailed shots of servers and other computer equipment), but I don't feel comfortable sharing those either because I would not want to inadvertently reveal anything confidential.

The last few weeks have given me some interesting photographic material, however. So, this seems like the perfect opportunity to bring my blog up to date.

We are recovering from an ice storm right now. I love this shot of the crabapples trapped in the ice. You can see how thick the ice is on the tree limbs.

I have also been experimenting with black and white quite a bit. It is not always easy to tell what will look good, but it is always interesting to convert an image with unusual lighting, one that has very little color anyway, or one with lots of contrast. This is one I took of the ceiling in Union Station in Kansas City. I like how the light from the window comes in from the bottom. The line from the bottom or the chandelier to the circle on the ceiling pulls the eye into the photograph.

I have added quite a few other photographs to my Flickr account. Now that football season is winding up, I hope to begin adding a post each week to continue chronicling my progress. Thanks for checking in.

Piggie races and bunnies

2007-09-22T12:47:00.000-05:00

There was an event in Kansas City this weekend called Oktoberfest (yes, I know it is still September, but someone forgot to tell the promoters). This was at Crown Center in the Downtown area. There were lots of activities all happening at the same time including several different stages where musicians were performing. They had a chainsaw artist that was carving all kinds of very cool pieces including tortoises, eagles, and bears. We had just missed his performance at 7pm when we got there and my plan was to shoot some photographs at 9pm when he was going to perform again.

In the meantime, we headed over to the piggie races! Yep, you heard me right, piggie races. They have a half round track where people can gather around and watch these little porkers race to the finish line where the winner gets a prize. Now, what do you suppose would motivate a little piggie to race his peers in an all-out effort to be the first one at the finish line? Nothing less than one single Oreo cookie. It turns out pigs love Oreos. Who would have thought? Getting this shot was tricky. It was already dark and they were relying on the street lights in the area to provide enough light to see. The street lights were not very close so the ambient light was very minimal. The second problem was the pigs moved too fast during the race to get an accurate focus. So, I pre-focused on one of the flags near the gate. I used the hotshoe flash with a Stofen cup and snapped the photograph as the gate was opened. In the post processing stage I cropped the photograph to remove the uninteresting parts, brightened it, adjusted the white balance a little and applied a little sharpening. The focus was not spot on, but considering the conditions, I was fairly pleased.

Very near to the piggie races was a carnival with rides and games. One of the games was called the Bunny Toss. Now, I thought tossing bunnies sounded like all kinds of fun and decided to investigate this game more closely. Unfortunately, the game only involved tossing tiny plastic bunnies into glass bowls as they floated by. They did have real live bunnies though and they were VERY cute. If you won the game, you had the option to take one of these cute little buggers home. This game was surrounded by some fairly bright tungsten lights. The bottom photograph was taken using no flash. The top two bunny shots were taken using the hot shoe flash and I thought they came out very sharp. The more experience I get with my flash, the more I like it. The secret is knowing when to use it and when not to. All of my subjects last night were close enough for the flash to be very effective.

At this point it began to rain. At first it was just a steady drizzle, but it soon became a very steady rain. After about 20 minutes we were all completely soaked and we figured it was not going to let up. I really wanted to photograph the chainsaw artist, but everything was closing due to the rain, and we decided to head home. It was a fun event anyway. It was also cheap. Admission was $5 for adults and children under 12 were free. That admission price covered the whole weekend, so we may still go back. I might get photographs of that chainsaw artist yet. =)

Jimmie Bratcher Live

2007-09-13T20:16:00.000-05:00

I was privileged to see Jimmie Bratcher in concert at our church last night. For those who don't know, Jimmie Bratcher is a blues guitarist and singer. He is also a preacher who travels and shares his message in many places that are unusual, like blues bars around the country.

I have been looking for an opportunity to photograph a performer in action, so I grabbed the camera and decided to see if I could get any good shots. I started out using the external flash, but the venue was so large and so dark that all I got was properly exposed people with very dark backgrounds.

I was not at all happy with the photographs I was getting, so I put away the flash and switched over the nifty-fifty (50mm f/1.8 II) and set it on f/2.8. I had to adjust the ISO to 1600 in order to properly expose the photographs which made me very nervous. I have had very poor results with ISO 1600 in the past. The photographs were not sharp and were very noisy, and I always felt they were unusable. However, I heard another photographer say he routinely used ISO 1600 when shooting weddings and the key was not to underexpose the photographs. So, I payed special attention to exposure and even started by overexposing the shots by +1. These looked like they were coming out a little bright on the LCD. It is tough to use this to judge by because I find photographs are usually a little darker than what the display shows. The histogram looked OK and none of the highlights were blown out, but I still felt the shots were a little overexposed so I dropped it back down to zero exposure. These felt like they were coming out just about right. I shot about 70 exposures. When I got home and began processing them, I was kind of nervous. I was really expecting grainy, noisy photographs, but I was pleasantly surprised. I did use the Canon DPP software to perform some luminance noise reduction, and this also seemed to work very well. These may not be perfect, but considering the challenging conditions and the fact I was using a lens that costs less than $100, I am very happy with how they turned out. Lesson learned...good shots can be achieved with high ISO under the right conditions.

WaterFire 2007 in Kansas City

2007-09-09T16:10:00.000-05:00

My blog does not reflect it, but this has been a busy week or so for me from a photographic standpoint. So busy in fact, I could probably have made 3 blog entries, but I chose to shoot instead. =)

I spent a couple of hours in the studio doing some more microstock work. I submitted 11 new photographs, and Fotolia accepted 7 of them, which brings my count up to 13 active photographs with them. I would like to be up to 50 by the end of the year. I have not heard back from BigStockPhoto or Dreamstime yet.

I also spent last weekend shooting photographs for a project on http://www.morguefile.com/ called The 11th Hour. For three days, photographers from around the world shot photographs of whatever they were doing at 11am and 11pm Greenwich Mean Time. For me that was 6, and since I was sleeping at 6am each day I only took photographs during the 6pm hours. This was a fun project to be involved in and it forced me to look at my everyday surroundings with a new eye so I could try to get some interesting photographs.

I also spent some time on Sunday with my daughters as models trying to get some "back to school" and other concept shots. They were thrilled with being models until they found out they could not wear whatever they wanted or pose however they wanted. I had a very specific set of shots in mind and I think that sucked the fun right out of it for them. Combine that with 90+ degrees in the sun, reflectors that were shining in their eyes, and a photographer who has never worked with models before and you will not be surprised no useable photographs came out of the shoot. Still, I learned a few things, so it was not a total loss.

Last night there was a new event in Kansas City called WaterFire. This has been done elsewhere before with great success, and I was excited about the opportunity to photograph it.WaterFire is an event where they put 80 giant braziers in Brush Creek near the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, filled them with wood and kept them burning all night. The effect of the fire combined with the water was quite impressive. TONS of people turned out for this. As you can see in the top photograph they also had fire juggles, fire breathers, and various other dancers and performers. It was a very cool event.
I am hosting a photograph contest on http://www.morguefile.com/ called DANGER! The idea is to take photographs of anything that shows danger, signs about danger, or people doing dangerous things. When I saw the fire breather I was thrilled and tried my best to get near him for a photograph. At first he was across the river from me. Then he was on a bridge two blocks away. I chased this guy through the crowd all night, but by the time I caught up with him, they were done performing for the night. I was SO bummed. Fire breathing is one of the most dangerous things you can do as the risk of accidentally inhaling the flames or fuel is tremendous and the damage that can cause instantly is horrific. If they said they were done, I was not about to push them. I did manage to get photographs of one of the fire jugglers, so that is some consolation.

It has been a great week. I hope next week provides as many opportunities for photographs as this one did.

2007 Lunar Eclipse

2007-09-01T13:08:00.000-05:00

I was very excited to find out there was going to be a lunar eclipse visible from my area. I have tried to see numerous comets, eclipses, and meteor showers in the past, only to have clouds and weather make visibility impossible. This year was different. The weather was almost 80 degrees and the skies were totally clear. I could not believe my good fortune.

My attempts to photograph the moon in the past had been failures because I could not figure out the exposure time. Fortunately, I found a guide on the Internet that shows approximate exposure times for a given ISO and aperature combination. This was a tremendous help. For my ISO and aperture I needed a 1/60 shutter which blew me away. I figured you needed a much longer shutter to capture the moon. The other thing I never thought about was that I needed to slow the shutter as the moon moved further into eclipse because it was returning less light. At 75% eclipse I needed to slow down to 1/30. At 50% I needed to slow down to 1/15 and so on. This was a tremendous help and helped me capture pretty consistent photographs through each phase. The chart I used is at this link:

http://www.mreclipse.com/LEphoto/LEphoto.html

The thing this guide neglected to mention, or that I overlooked, is that the moon moves WAY FAST! As the moon moved into full eclipse I dropped my shutter speed way down just as the chart recommended so I could get a nicely exposed shot. Below you can see what happens when you photograph the moon with a 60 second exposure. Being the brilliant photographer I am, I reviewed this shot and realized 60 seconds was a tad too long. I spent the next hour taking several shots at exposures between 5 and 15 seconds. I had been concerned about the focus all night because I had a weird angle on my tripod and could not get a very good idea on whether the autofocus was working or not (I think it did pretty well). So, when I previewed the full exclipse shots zoomed in on the camera's LCD, I figured I was doing something wrong. I could tell they were still blurry, but I thought the tripod was moving or I was not getting the focus set properly. The next day I was reading about the experience of some other photographers and discoved a sad truth. Any exposure longer that 1/2 second is not going to be sharp. That meant ALL of my full eclipse shots were ruined. =(

This was the best of the full eclipse shots in the umbral phase. The moon was going to set in my area long before the eclipse was over, so at this point I packed everything up and headed home. Overall this was a great experience. Just watching the eclipse was cool. I can understand how primitive civilizations thought something dramatic or magical was happening. I also learned a lot about what I will do different the next time, including having multiple setups for different types of shots. Now I want to get out and shoot some star trails.

2007 Kansas City Airshow

2007-08-25T23:42:00.001-05:00

I received a lot of postive feedback in response to my last post about being in a funk. Thank you very much to all who offered ideas. I have resumed my medication and I am feeling much better now. =)

The air show was in town this weekend, so I grabbed the camera and headed out to take some photographs. For two reasons I did not go to the airport to watch the show. The first reason is that you have to shuttle in and once you get there, you are stuck until the show is over. They don't have any buses leaving until the show is over. The second reason is...I am cheap! I originally stopped at an area of town that is on a hill but it was too far away to get any good photographs.

There is another area of town called Quality Hill that looks down on the airport. I was on my way there, but on the way I passed an area of town that seemed to provide an equally good view. I was maybe a quarter mile from the airport which is pretty good considering I did not buy a ticket.

I chose the 70-300 lens as it is the longest one I have. I know from past experience this lens gets very soft past 250 so I tried to stay around 200mm. Now, a quarter mile does not sound that far, especially when you consider how much ground an air show covers. But, most of the action is designed to happen directly over the air field and even with a 300mm lens, a quarter mile is a long ways away. All of my shots had a LOT of sky in them. I cropped pretty heavy to get these shots and some of them show it. This was my first opportunity to film an air show, however, so I was happy just to be there. I did get a few opportunities when planes flew very close to us, like this shot of the Golden Knights jump plane.

I spent about 3 hours shooting photographs and went through two 1GB cards. These are my favorites out of the bunch, but there are a few others that I also liked and I put all of these up on my Flickr account.

I am eager to get a better telephoto lens. The poor quality of this lens is evident in the softness of some of these photographs. I also have to take into account the distance, however. I am not sure how hard you can push even an "L" series lens from that distance. In reality, I may just need to shell out the cash for a real ticket next year.

In a funk!

2007-08-21T12:42:00.000-05:00

Lately, I find myself in a photographic funk. What is a photograph funk? I am glad you asked!

I hate every photograph I shoot. Nothing seems worthy of being photographed, and I can barely stand the thought of pressing the shutter release on another photograph, only to be disappointed with how it will look. My studio lighting system is driving me nuts. All my photographs seem soft and fuzzy. I spend hours setting up and shooting stills only to find flaws in my backgrounds. I have several ideas for shots written down, but either my studio (aka whatever room in the house I set up in) is inadequate for the shot, I can't find the right natural background, or I don't have the right equipment (flash guns, umbrellas, soft boxes, macro lens, etc.) For many of my ideas I need models, but I have no idea how to work with models, and without the right equipment I would just end up wasting their time for shots I will still hate.

Add to all that the amount of information bouncing around in my head that I still don't fully understand. Every potential shot now presents me with what feels like 100 different questions, each of which must be answered correctly, or the shot is a failure. Which lens should I use? What settings should I choose? Shallow depth of field or deep DOF? Zoom in or go wide? How should I frame the shot? Flash or no flash. If I use the flash, do I bounce it off a wall, use a bounce card, or diffuse with a cup? What about the flash exposure compensation, move it up or down? What ISO? Which is more important, to freeze action or risk noise? Where is the natural light (if any) coming from? How will this impact the photograph? I mostly understand each of these concepts separately, but putting them all together in a way that works requires experience I don't yet have.

I am in a funk!

OK. Enough whining. Every photograph is work right now, and that is not going to cut it. One of the great things about photography is how fun it can be. I need some of that back. I really do want to be successful in stock photgraphy, but the reality is most of my shots will have no commercial value at all. If I maintain that as a standard, I will continue to hate my own work until I have no confidence in my abilities at all (I am almost there now).

I think I am going to spend the next week or two just taking tons of photographs with no expectations on them at all. Maybe they will all flop, but maybe there will be a few that are keepers. Either way, I hope that gets me back in the saddle. Experience only comes from doing something a LOT, and I clearly need the experience that comes from shooting a LOT more photographs.

Microstock Photography

2007-08-19T20:19:00.000-05:00

I took my first faltering steps into the world of microstock photography this last week. For those of you not familiar with stock photography, this is the arena where photographers sell photographs commercially through an intermediary. Stock photographs usually sell for $10 - $200 or more. Obviously, these need to be some really good photographs. The catch is that a photographer may submit hundreds of photographs, and only a few are purchased at any given time. Still, these photographs usually don't go out of date and any given photograph may continue to sell for years providing a nice income over time.
Microstock photography is the same concept, but the photographs sell for much less and they are royalty free. Microstock photographs sell for a few dollars or even less. There are many sites online that sell microstock photos. A few of them are:
www.istockphoto.com
www.shutterstock.com
www.dreamstime.com
www.bigstockphoto.com
www.fotolia.com

Each of these sites has slightly different criteria for the photographs they accept. Some are more picky than others. I have read that istockphoto and shutterstock are more picky than some of the others, so I started with dreamstime, bigstockphoto and fotolia. I chose 9 photographs and submitted them to each of these three sites. The results were mixed. Fotolia accepted all but one. Dreamstime rejected them all as having low commercial potential. Bigstockphoto has not reviewed my submissions yet making them the slowest of the three sites to review photographs.

Still, I am excited about this. For me, this is the acid test of my photography skills. When I can consistently shoot photographs with good commercial value, I will know I am making genuine progress. I have many ideas of photographs I want to shoot and submit. Now I just need to discipline myself into doing the work of setting up the photographs and actually taking them. This no small task in itself as several require models and careful background selection. I will share some of these in future blog entries as I build up my portfolio of stock photographs.

On Scene at a Barn Fire

2007-08-11T18:51:00.000-05:00

I was on my way home after spending some time at work this morning, when I saw this huge plume of black smoke off in the distance. In this area farmers often burn trash or brush, so a plume of smoke on the horizon is not unusual. However, the weather has been very hot lately and the conditions are pretty dry, so burning anything is not a good idea. I twisted the throttle on my bike and headed off in that general direction to investigate. As I crested the hill, my heart jumped in my throat a little as I saw the thick black smoke was coming from behind a small white house. My first thought was that someone's house was burning down which would obviously be disastrous for them. This was back on a country road with no shoulder so I could not pull off immediately to investigate further. As I rode past the house I could see the house itself was not on fire but the barn behind it was completely engulfed in flames. I could already hear the fire trucks in the distance so there was no need to call 911. I pulled off the road at the nearest driveway, grabbed my camera, and ran along the road toward the house.

A million thoughts are going through my head...do I use the polarizer?...ISO100 or 400?...stick with the kit lens or switch to the zoom?...how close can I get without getting in the way?...did I forget any key settings?...The first fire truck pulled up just as I got to the house. The house is on private property, and I did not want to be in the way, so I made sure to stay as close to the road as possible. Even so, I moved along the length of the property several times looking for the best places to shoot. I started out with the kit lens and the polarizer. The sun was straight up, and I like having the polarizer on to keep from blowing out any parts of the sky. I took several shots, but quickly realized I was not getting as close as I wanted to. I fell back behind the firetrucks and switched to the zoom lens. In the interest of time, I did not move the polarized filter from the kit lens, which I think worked out OK. More firetrucks were arriving and there were at least 10 firemen on the scene by now. I was very careful to stay out of their way and they did not bother me at all.

I saw several intersted bystanders and one lady even had a video camera. But, this one lady came up and I could tell she was obviously distressed. I asked if that was her house, but fortunately she said no. She also confirmed no one was inside or in danger. She and her husband leased the barn which they were using to store hay. They had almost 300 bales of hay in the barn along with their hay elevator. Now, this may not sound like a huge loss, but hay is in short supply this year and is selling for an abnormally high price of about $4.50 per bale. That is easily a loss of several thousand dollars in hay and equipment. Mrs. Suiter was very kind and gracious in the midst of her crisis and we talked for quite a while. I gave her one of my business cards and told her if the insurance company or anyone else could use any of the photographs for any reason I would be happy to provide them.

The police began arriving on scene at this point and one officer said I needed to move down past the last firetruck. This was down the hill and about 500 yards from the scene. There was no way I was going to get any more photographs from there, so I was pretty much done at this point. The temperature was 100 degrees. Combine this with no lunch, nothing to drink, and the adrenaline starting to fade and I decided it was time to be finished anyway.

I did several things right this time. I remembered to get all the information at the scene this time, and even worked up the courage to speak to the victim, which really was not that hard. I also made sure to park a pretty good distance away so I was not in the way of any of the emergency equipment. I fumbled through my camera settings and lenses OK, but I can see how important it is to spend time practicing with all the settings. In a pressure situation like this you fall back completely on how you have trained. The brain can only concentrate on so many things at once, and with everything else going on at the scene, working the math on specific camera settings was not going to happen. I can see how an experienced photographer will "feel" his way through a situation like this and adjust his camera to the conditions based on what has worked in the past. One of the things that was new to me was the need to switch to manual focus for several of the shots. The autofocus kept focusing on the wrong things, and it was faster to switch to manual.

The good news is no one was hurt. The barn was completely destroyed, but the white house on the property seems to have escaped any damage and Mrs. Suiter believes her insurance will cover all of their losses on this.

Studio session with light tent

2007-08-04T21:48:00.000-05:00

My last studio session with the flash left me very frustrated and disappointed. I submitted a few photos to my peers for critique and Bosela from the Morgue File suggested using a light tent. The Strobist has an excellent article on how to build one of these very cheap and useful tools. I was very impressed with the photographs on the Strobist's website, and built one of my own. I used a much larger box that was almost 2 ft. cubed. I purchased some tracing paper that was 14 in. x 17 in. and used four sheets on each side and on the top. For a background I started out with some poster board as per the Strobist's recommendations, but since my box was so much larger, the poster board was not big enough. Instead I purchased a roll of banner paper and cut a section that was 22 in. wide x 48 in. long. This worked perfectly. If you would like more information about building one of these, you can read the article at http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html.

I grabbed my work lights from the garage and placed one set on each side. This is what the setup looked like in my studio (aka my living room).

In order to get a good baseline, I used some of the subjects from my last studio session, the model carriage and the old book with the antique glasses. The results were much better! The shadows were almost completely eliminated and the light from the light tent was very soft and even. The paper background worked great and did not compete with the subjects at all.

I was very happy with the way these turned out, but my favorites from the session were the bottle of cherry vinegar at the top of this entry and this one.

This technique does a great job of isolating the subject and makes it especially easy to for publishers to paste into their layouts. Special thanks go out to Bosela and the Strobist for sharing this technique with me.

Studio work with hot shoe flash - First session

2007-07-28T22:52:00.000-05:00

I invested in an external flash, the Canon 480EX, and decided to do a little studio work on some still subjects. Now, if anyone thinks there is a steep learning curve when starting to use a DSLR camera, just wait until you add an external flash. If you just put the flash on, and point it at the subject to light it, and start shooting, your subjects will definitely be lit, but they will look horrible. Straight on flash is too bright, causes horrible reflections in glasses and skin oils, and just looks horrible. The short answer to this is to bounce the flash off the ceiling, or a wall, or a bounce card. There is something called the Better Bounce card (see the link in my Photography Links section) that is also used to help tame the hotshoe flash. I built one of these to use with my new 480EX. Even so, there are many other factors to take into account such as how much flash exposure to use, what to bounce the flash off, and how to balance the flash against existing ambient light. All of that is in addition to choosing the proper settings on the camera. In short, it can be very complex.

I started by erecting a quick makeshift studio. I bought a white polyester cloth from a fabric store, taped two corners to a wall and let the rest drape over a card table. I wanted to isolate the objects I was shooting so they did not compete with a more complex background. I set up my camera so the external flash was pointing straight up with a better bounce card on the back. I started by leaving the bounce card pointed directly at the subject, but was immediately unhappy with the distinct shadow I got behind the subject.

I needed to get more light behind the subject and balance that against the light being directed on the top and front of the subject. I took two pieces of aluminum foil and glued them to a piece of cardboard to build a reflector. I put the reflector on the right-hand side of the subject and directed the flash at the reflector. I also bumped the flash exposure up to +3. Now, ideally I would have multiple soft boxes and multiple off-camera flashes to work with, but I don't. I have one hotshoe flash, so I have to make due for right now.

I am fairly happy with the results, but even so, there are a few other issues I encountered. The first is the wrinkles in the fabric. You can see them very clearly in the top image. For the more obvious ones, I cloned them out, but I did not remove all of them. I need to find a way to smooth out my background more.

I also realized every subject I chose needed to be cleaned first. Every little bit of missed dirt, dust, or fuzz will show up in the photograph. For the photographs of the books and glasses I had several places where dust bunnies had followed the books to my clean white background, but I did not notice them until I was reviewing the photographs. I cloned these spots out, but I will be watching for this in the future so I can save myself some post processing time.

The carriage I used for a subject required a quite detailed cleaning. It has been sitting on a shelf for several years, and the top has been dusted, but nothing else. I had to get a q-tip and clean the leaf springs, axles, wheel spokes, and all inside the carriage. I am not very happy with the way these turned out, however. The photographs were not very crisp. I applied an unsharp mask in post processing that helped, but I still feel like the detail did not turn out as well as I would have liked. I took several shots from different angles but never found one I was really happy with.

This was a good exercise for me and I learned a lot. Mostly I learned that I still have a LOT more to learn. I will be searching for more objects to photograph. I also want to purchase a black velvet background for light colored objects.

If anyone is interested in seeing full size versions of these photographs you can see them on my Flickr account. The link to this is on the right-hand side of this page under "Photography Links". You can see all the EXIF data there also.

Now, go take some pictures!

Photographing my first accident scene

2007-07-21T12:31:00.000-05:00

On the way home from shooting the Harry Potter book release, I noticed one of the roads was blocked off by flares. I immediately changed lanes and headed off in the general direction of where I was seeing lights from a police car. When I got to the scene, I found this vehicle surrounded by firemen. The police had blocked off the road and one man was handcuffed and sitting on the median. I thought the lighting in the bookstore was challenging, but that was nothing compared to shooting in the middle of the road at 11:30pm under an orange street light.
I was very hesitent to cross the street at first as I was afraid the firemen and police would tell me I had to leave. But, I could not get any shots from where I was standing as it was too far away. I noticed a pedestrian on the far side who was walking toward the accident, and no one was stopping him, so I decided to take a chance and move closer to the accident. I figured the worst that could happen was they would chase me off and maybe I could get a few shots before that happened. To my great surprise, no one said anything. In fact, I was largely ignored. Gradually I moved in ever closer until I was right on top of the scene. If they were gonna let me shoot, I decided to make the most of it and took as many photographs as I could think of.

I approached the firemen to see if anyone had been seriously injured and to try to guage the emotional level of the scene. They said everyone was pretty much OK, for which I was relieved. I don't know if I am ready to photograph a fatality yet (how one gets ready for that, I have no idea).

My photographic approach was pretty simple; try everything I could think of and pray some of them worked. The flash worked, but only up close. More than 10 feet away and the scene got to dark. Using the ambient light from the street light was the only way to capture the wider shots showing the firetruck. I liked the wider spots better because I felt they gave more perspective the situation. This required a slow shutter, however, and guess what I did not have with me...a tripod. So, what I did instead was lay flat on the ground and brace the camera on the curb. This allowed me to keep the camera steady enough to get the shots with just the streetlight.

After shooting the photographs, I had the presence of mind to approach the police and get as much information as I could. My thought was to get enough information to be able to present this as a news story to the local paper. I did call them and left a message, but I have not heard back from them. Once I got home I began processing the photographs, and even though they did not all turn out, I was quite pleased with a few of them. I converted this last one to black and white, and to me, it feels like accident photographs I have seen in the paper before.

I am never glad someone had an accident, but I am glad I was there to shoot this scene. I had one guy ask me which paper I worked for. Just looking like you know what you are doing counts for a lot in a situation like this. I plan to continue looking for opportunities to document these types of scenes as I encounter them.

Harry Potter Book Release

2007-07-21T11:39:00.001-05:00

Harry_Potter_2007_004
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

The final book in the Harry Potter series was released this morning at 12:01. I figured people would be lined up and wearing costumes, which translates into a photo opportunity. I went to two of the local bookstores, Borders and Barnes and Noble. The great thing about events like this is everyone is eager to have their photograph taken. I asked permission several times, but just as often I did not ask for permission. More than once I was told, "Oh, you have to take a picture of my child also." The crowd was very easy to interact with and the general mood of the crowd was upbeat and pleasant.

The challenge was the lighting. I used the flash for most shots, but the ceilings were constantly changing heights and the lighting changed constantly depending on where people were in the stores. This was a good exercise because it forced me to deal very quickly with these changing conditions. I am not completely happy with these photographs, and there is a lot of room for improvement. I was much more comfortable being "the photographer", however, and it was much easier working the crowd and interacting with the people.

The top photograph is one of the winners of the costume contest during the moment he found out he won. I was excited to catch his reaction in this photograph.

This was one of the volunteers helping out. She put a lot of time and effort into her costume, and I thought the result was great.

This little girl was the hit of the event. Everywhere she went people were ooohhhhing and aaahhhing. She won the costume event for infant to four years.

There were LOTS of people dressed up like Harry, but this boy was one of the ones that stood out to me. I was impressed with the detail and quality of the costumes everyone was wearing.

This was a great event from a photographic point of view, and I definitely plan to attend more of these types of events to continue developing my skills.

Art deco, rainstorms, and Splash Cove

2007-07-16T01:00:00.001-05:00

City_Hall-001
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

This week my "History of Kansas City" class explored many of the buildings built during the 20's that illustrate art deco design. The City Hall of Kansas City is an excellent example of art deco construction. There is a large park connecting City Hall to the Federal Court House which is where I took this photograph. Other good examples of art deco construction are the Jackson County Court House and the Kansas City Police Station which are all in the same area. I took several photographs of each of these as well, but I was not happy with any of them.

We had a very strong, although brief, rainstorm on Saturday. As I finished mowing the raindrops started falling. After the storm I caught this shot of the rainwater on the leaves.

Sunday we went to Splash Cove for a birthday party. They have this huge bucket that fills up with water and then dumps it every 3 minutes or so. I got lots of shots of the water in various stages of dumping, which I found fascinating to watch. This also gave me a good opportunity to experiment with my longer zoom lens (the Canon 75-300). I stopped down the aperture to about f8 for most of these shots and kept the zoom to 200 or less. I think most of them turned out pretty good. Here is another one showing one of my daughters and her friend playing.

Using the longer zoom kept my camera safe from splashing water, but still allowed me to take several interesting shots. As I experiment more, I am figuring out how and when to use the different lenses. I definitely want to invest in a better zoom at some point, as I like the ability to reach out to 200mm. The difference between 200mm and 300mm did not seem like very much to me today, so I would be happy with a lens that only zoomed to 200mm as long as it did not get soft when zoomed all the way out. I may be better investing in another lens that goes to 300mm if it keeps the picture sharp at 200mm. Oh, well. All additional lens purchases are quite a ways off. An external flash is probably higher on the priority list.

I am reading another book about photography called John Hedgecoe's Complete Guide to Photography. Each chapter is very brief, yet still packs in a lot of information. It is also filled with excellent photographs that serve as illustrations for the topics discussed. There is SO much to learn, but I am hoping that just a few of the important concepts stick for right now.

For our class this week, we are going to historic downtown Parkville, Missouri. I hope to get some good photographs for my next entry.

Chris

Photography Lesson from the Morgue File - Lesson 3

2007-07-08T13:58:00.001-05:00

Lesson 3 - focus on near object
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

It has taken me far too long to work on this lesson because I kept looking for an interesting subject. I am not completely happy with this subject either, but I think I was able to use it to complete the lesson. For this exercise I packed up my gear and headed to the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri. This is the only national World War I Memorial in the country. Pictures cannot do it justice, so if you are ever in Kansas City, put this on your must see list.

This first photograph (the one at the very top) is taken keeping the object in the foreground in focus. This was taken in bright sunlight, and I used a polarized filter for most of the shots. I used the f1.8/50mm for this series, however, and I don't have a filter that fits that lens, so the sky is kind of washed out. I wanted a very noticeable difference between what was in focus and what was not, so I used the fastest lens I had. I am fairly happy with the way this one turned out.

This one, I hate. This is supposed to be the exact same scene with the background in focus and the foreground not in focus. The 50mm lens really let me down here. I don't remember there being a lot of haze which might have obscured the object so far away, but for some reason it is still very fuzzy. I had the autofocus point set right on the tower, and I took several shots to make sure the focus was correct, but it still looks terrible. This may have been a poor choice of lens by myself as the f1.8/50mm is usually a very good lens. If I had realized how bad this was going to turn out, I would have put the kit lens back on and captured a few more photographs for comparison.

This was the second part of the lesson, which was to compose a scene with something both far and near. In this first photograph I captured both subjects with a wide lens. I also stopped down the aperture quite a bit to get both objects in focus. I am relatively pleased with the results, but there is obvious room for improvement.

In this photograph, I pushed the zoom out to 300mm and captured just the top of the tower. This begins my love/hate relationship with the Canon 75-300mm lens. I can't believe how sharp this lens can be up close, and how soft it can be when I push it out to 300mm. I have never captured a sharp photograph with this lens at 300mm. I used to think it was just me pushing the lens too hard, not using a stable tripod, not enough light, etc. It is not just me. This lens is terrible when zoomed in. Back down around 75-200 I really like it. I routinely use it for portraits that come out looking very sharp. Let me give you another example. I moved in MUCH closer by walking a LONG way and got this next photograph.

This was taken with the same lens, polarized filter, tripod, etc. Identical to the 300mm shot. I think this turned out very crisp and provides very good detail. It is 217 ft. to the top of the Liberty Memorial tower where this statue is, so this is no less than 300 ft. away from the subject. The difference is the focal length is only 180mm.

This is my favorite photograph of the day. I used the rule of thirds (more or less) for the horizon, but putting the tower at the center made this photograph look much better than when it was offset. The polarized filter really made the sky look great, and the details of the monument itself are not dark. This is not really part of this particular lesson, but I was happy with it, so I wanted to share it.

Two hours later, I packed up my gear and headed for home. I feel like I learned a lot both about the lesson itself, and about my gear. The one thing I forgot was water. The temp was around 94 degrees, and after 2 hours in the sun, I was very dehydrated. Next time, I am throwing a bottle of water in my bag.

Book Review - The Complete Guide to Canon’s Digital Rebels

2007-06-28T15:08:00.000-05:00

Recently, I purchased a Canon XT Digital SLR. I began taking photographs with great eagerness expecting to instantly take professional quality photographs that the world would rave about. My experience with a point and shoot camera had shown me how easy photography could be, so surely if I was armed with this much more expensive camera, I could take much better photographs, right? Well, I took the camera out of the box and was immediately overwhelmed with the sheer number of buttons, menus, features, lens options, etc., etc. Even worse, my first pictures with this expensive camera looked worse than with my point and shoot camera. Reluctantly, I opened the owner’s manual and began to actually read and learn how the camera worked. This helped some, but the manual only provided the barest of information on how the individual functions worked, and not how to use it to take great pictures.

Enter, The Complete Guide to Canon’s Digital Rebels by Gary Friedman. I found this book through the message forums on DPreview.com (http://www.dpreview.com/) and was privileged enough to be one of the final proof readers. Now, I am not a big fan of ebooks as I find them difficult to read and I usually resort to printing a hard copy. This is NOT the case with Gary’s book. I found it very easy to read this book on my computer screen and did not have a desire to print any of the pages. This is good, as the book is over 400 pages long and printing it could get pricey.

In this book, Gary takes on all facets of using this camera and explains in detail how each mode works. He also takes all the confusing jargon associated with photography and explains what it actually means. He does this in a way that makes the book easy to understand and enjoyable to read. Gary includes real world examples, personal anecdotes, and lots of color-illustrations to thoroughly explain each topic. Sprinkled throughout the book are many tips and undocumented features that the average photographer would only learn after years of using this camera.

This book is not just for the beginning photographer, however. Gary covers topics such as lighting, composition, and flash photography in sufficient depth and detail that even veteran photographers are bound to learn something new (or at least be reminded of something they forgot). Gary also walks the reader through each and every menu and explains what every option does and why it is important. One of my favorite parts is where Gary shows the specific settings he uses for a variety of difficult shots (such as capturing photographs of lightening, fireworks, or Christmas lights.) This was not the first book I purchased to help me with this camera, but no other book I have seen comes close to the depth of information Gary presents. And they certainly don’t do it in the easy going and relaxed manner Gary uses. I highly recommend this book to anyone using the Canon XT/XTi series of cameras who wants to take better photographs.

So, you probably get the idea I like this book, and I do. But my endorsement of this book is legitimate. Gary did not pay me anything and did not ask me to write this review. I did receive a free copy of his book as a thank you for proof reading it for him, however, I also spent 10-15 hours on proof reading and submitting corrections to Gary so that just seems fair to me. If you are new to this camera, or if there are functions you don’t understand, this book will help you. You can buy a copy of The Complete Guide to Canon’s Digital Rebels at Gary’s website (http://www.friedmanarchives.com/). The link is also in the Photography Links section of my blog on the right-hand side of the page. If you buy a copy, let me know what you think and if it helped you as much as it helped me.

Kansas City History Class - Week 2

2007-06-24T21:30:00.001-05:00

City Market Bull Mural
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

This has been the best history class I have ever taken, and that comes from someone who has actually enjoyed most of his history classes. I have never had a class, however, where we toured the areas discussed and that has been really interesting. This week we toured the City Market area in downtown Kansas City. This is where Kansas City actually started approximately 150 years ago as the City of Kansa (named after the Kansa indians). Many of the original buildings still exist, although many of them have been torn down also. One of the most interesting things about this area are the murals and paintings on the sides of the buildings. It was difficult to photograph some of them because they are so large and there is no good angle without a street sign blocking some part of it.
We also walked out onto a river overlook point where we could see the Hannibal bridge. The Hannibal bridge was the first bridge to span the Missouri river in this region allowing the railroad to cross the river. Four towns were competing for this bridge (Atchison, St. Joseph and Leavenworth) but Kansas City won out. This is the single most important reason Kansas City is the largest city in this region as opposed to the other three. In fact, at the time this bridge was built both St. Joseph and Leavenworth were almost three times larger than Kansas City.
Here are some photographs of the other murals in this area. Enjoy.

My first self portraits

2007-06-22T19:06:00.001-05:00

Self Portrait 003 6-22-2007
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

I have been avoiding this for quite some time, but one of the exercises was to take a self portrait you would share with others. I set up the tripod and shot some pics in the backyard today. Now, I'm not exactly the poster child for all things happy and joyful, but, I'm also not quite as severe as this top picture makes me look. I do have a more melancholy personality, however, and I think this comes across in the photographs. I spent quite a bit of time post processing these, and while I am not completely satisfied with these, I don't hate them either. If I wait for the perfect set, I will never post any of them, so, maybe they will be better next time.
I used my tripod, remote shutter control, and the f1.8/50mm prime.
I kind of like how many portraits look in black and white, so I experimented with converting a few of them and included one in the batch. Let me know what you think.

Drywall Repair Project

2007-06-21T20:24:00.001-05:00

Wall Repair 001
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

I needed to do a little home repair and I decided to use my camera to document the project. See, there is this tiny little hole in my wall. Now, I know one of you smart-alecks is asking how I got this hole in my wall. It has nothing to do with my daughters fighting with each other, for the NINTH time in just 3 hours. It also has nothing to do with them completely ignoring my repeated requests for them to stop and my desire to find a new way to get their attention. The fact that the hole is approximately the same size as my hand when placed flat against the wall is entirely coincidental (honest!). So, how did the hole get there? I see no need to sully this blog entry with such petty details.
Moving on with the project. The first thing I did was look behind the wall for electrical connections. As it turns out, there is a light switch on the opposite wall of the part I need to cut out. If you ever perform any similar type of repair, please remember to check for electrical connections. As you can see in this first picture, I drew lines showing the part I plan to remove. I am removing a section quite a bit larger than the actual hole because the patch I bought at the store is 2 ft. square. By removing a piece that is 2 ft. high, I only need to make one cut to get a replacement piece that is the correct size.
I used a RotoZip tool to remove the old drywall. A manual push saw could have been used also, but the RotoZip makes this part of the project very quick and easy.

Next I put two pieces of wood behind the old drywall at the top and bottom of the enlarged hole. I secured those in place by using drywall screws. The new piece of drywall will be secured to these pieces of wood. In retrospect, I should have put a third piece of wood in the middle and secured the new drywall there also, as the new drywall bowed out slightly. In order to make the pieces of wood more visible, I drew X's on them and used a piece of chalk to color them green. That is just to make them easier to see in the photograph.

Once the new piece of drywall was cut, I secured it to the wood with drywall screws. Now, you may notice that I actually had to use two pieces of drywall to patch this hole. That is because the master craftsman (me, of course) measured wrong and I cut the new piece too narrow. So, I had to cut two pieces that would fit instead.

This photograph came out blurry because I had to switch to manual focus. There was not enough contrast to for the autofocus to work. What I should have done was stop down the aperture for more depth of field to work with. Unfortunately, I could not go back and reshoot because the repair was completed already.
The final step is to use drywall mud to fill in the screw holes, and then tape the seams and mud them. I used fiberglass mesh tape which is sticky on one side and I was careful not to overlap the tape anywhere. This last photograph shows the final repair waiting for the last coat of mud. All that is left now is to sand the mud when it is dry, prime the wall, and paint to match.

Ethics in photography - When should we not take the picture?

2007-06-17T00:51:00.001-05:00

Paramedics in Westport002
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

Lately, I carry my camera everywhere. Often that means I am the only photographer onsite when something interesting happens. On the way to my class in Westport, I saw a man who was stumbling around and speaking to himself. This is not especially odd behavior for this area as it is inner city, and it is not uncommon to see people that are either drunk, on drugs, or with some other mental or physical condition that causes such behavior.
Someone thought this was unusual enough to call an ambulance, however, so when the paramedics stopped a block away, I grabbed the camera and went to investigate. I was not surprised they were working on the same man I had seen and decided to see what kind of photographs I could get.
Taking candid photographs of people I don't know in a public setting is still something I am getting used to. I had to do a fair amount of research to figure out where the legal lines were so I could decide when I could and could not take photographs. From a legal standpoint I found I can pretty much photograph anything in public as long as I don't plan to use it commercially (such as in advertising). However, taking legal photographs is not always the same as taking ethical photographs. There is a time not to take a photograph and this entry has more to do with whether a photograph is ethical rather than legal.
For instance, I had no ethical qualms about photographing this scene as the paramedics were already onsite and treating the victim. Had I come across a car accident where people needed help and no ambulance had been called, I would have to be crazy to pull out the camera and start taking photographs. But if help was already there, and the people were being treated, I would probably begin taking photographs. "Why?", you ask? Because it is news worthy. When I open a newspaper and I see photographs of an accident from yesterday, I feel the photograph adds to the story and is therefore important. I don't even think to ask if the photographer who took the photograph should have done it or not?
Now, this is the first opportunity I have had to take this kind of photograph so I forgot to do some important things. I probably could have turned this into a news story if I had remembered to speak to the people and get the specifics about what happened and who the people were. It has been difficult for me to get over the shyness of taking photographs of strangers and speaking to them in a tense situation is even more difficult, so I am taking this in steps. The first step is to get used to taking the "hard" photographs. Next time I hope I can work up the courage to speak to those involved.

Touring Westport

2007-06-17T00:20:00.001-05:00

Garage door sign in Westport
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

I am taking a class, "Kansas City History", which is very interesting. Each week we meet in a different part of Kansas City for a walking tour of the topic we are currently studying. This week we toured Westport which was the community that preceded Kansas City, and was eventually enveloped as Kansas City grew. This community has preserved much of its history and older buildings. Westport has also become a very eclectic and unusual area in terms of culture. It is very "artsy" by day and a party town by night. Much of it is run down, and there are areas where spray painting signs on garage doors are tolerated (although I love the message).

Other parts have been restored and are very nice looking. There is an entire section of older houses that were purchased by a local mortgage company and instead of tearing them down, he had them restored and now leases them to different companies. He used period colors which are loud and bright and I think they look fantastic.

We also toured the Kansas City Vietnam Memorial which is in Westport. There is a very nice fountain and a wall with the names of all the Kansas City soldiers who died in Vietnam. However, there is also a little monument set off to the side that kind of summed it all up for me.

It was a very enjoyable and educational tour and this is one of the best classes I have had. I look forward to next week and the photographic opportunities this class presents.

"G" Day

2007-06-13T23:48:00.001-05:00

Gloves on motorcycle tank
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

I needed something different, so today was "G" day (just a letter chosen at random). I promised myself I would take at least 5 pictures (it started as 10) of anything that started with G, was shaped like G, etc. This was harder than it sounds, but it did stretch me to think about my subjects differently.
The nice thing about this exercise it is gets me out of the mode of judging which subjects are photo worthy, and encourages me to shoot subjects I normally would overlook. The picture of my motorcycle gloves are a great example. I use these gloves every day, yet it never occurred to me to take pictures of them. I like how they turned out on the tank, however, so I am glad I did this.
I doubled up this creative exercise with one of the technical exercises from my previous blog entry. I used an f1.8/50mm prime so all zooming had to be done with my feet. This definitely takes some getting used to and forced me to move around and find the right angle and the right distance for each shot. This can be especially challenging with a 50mm lens as I found I need to get a long way away from my subjects. In some cases I simply could not get far enough away and wished I had brought my kit lens for its wide angle ability. However, I think it is also important to learn to operate within the parameters of the equipment I have on hand, so technically this exercise was also a success.

Learning to use the camera

2007-06-12T16:04:00.000-05:00

One of the places I hang out quite frequently is http://www.dpreview.com/. The forums there are some of the most extensive I have found and there are tons of photographers ready to answer questions and provide photographic criticism. A commonly asked question in these forums is, "I am buying a new camera. I heard the kit lens is no good. Which lens should I buy." One of the other photographers at this website prepared an excellent response which can be viewed here:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1031&message=16309636

The synopsis of his reply is that the photographer, not the lens, is responsible for taking good pictures. He provides a long list of things every beginning photographer should do with the kit lens before worrying about buying a better one. I think he was right on and I have been working my way through this list. I still have the following items I want to do:
6. Intentionally underexpose or overexpose an image to create a feeling that you want to convey to the viewer of your picture.
7. Experiment with bokeh and use it in a creative manner. Yes, the kit lens is capable of bokeh!
8. Set your lens to a zoom level and leave it there all day long. Practice zooming with your legs.
9. Spend an entire day with the lens set on manual focus. Learn how to focus without relying upon the automatic focus feature.
12. Take pictures in the bulb mode. Star trails, automobile taillights, ghost images, and fireworks are all great opportunities to create an image you would be proud to share with others. Yes, the kit lens can do all this too.
13. Capture an image of a lightening bolt.
14. Take a picture of the moon. Not a close up of the moon, but a landscape picture which includes the moon.
15. Try panning. Fast moving vehicles or an athlete at a sporting event are great subjects to practice the technique of panning.
16. Take some pictures of water drops until you get one that you want to print.
17. Take some portraits of your friends.
18. Take some candids of your friends.
19. Ask 10 strangers if you can take their picture.
20. Take some self-portraits of yourself. Find one that you would like to share with others.
22. Go downtown at night and take some exposures without the flash. Learn to use the available light.
26. Make someone laugh with a picture you took.
27. Make someone pause and reflect with a picture you took.
29. Visit someone else’s online photo gallery. Find an image you like and see how close you can imitate it.
30. Look through a magazine. Find a picture you like and see if you can imitate it as well.

My knowledge of photography and the functions of my camera cannot help but improve by completing these exercises. Plus, these kind of exercises help keep me from falling into a rut. Periodically I will add a new entry to my blog that focuses on one of these items. I hope to complete all of these items by the end of the year.
Now, stop reading my blog and go take some pictures! =P

More portrait photography fun

2007-06-11T12:58:00.000-05:00

I completed two more assignments for my church, which were taking portraits. I had much better results with the exposure. I still used the coffee filter diffuser but I upped the exposure +1 and the flash compensation +1. Shooting in RAW saved me again because the white balance was all messed up, but I was able to fix this easily in post processing. I also took several practice shots ahead of time and tweaked the adjustments until the histogram looked right.
I got some good feedback from the person requesting the photographs. She is using them for the church website and for the couples she really needs the heads to be at the same height. She also would like to see their heads closer together. Next time I do this I will make sure to have the people sit on stools to adjust their height and I will take a few poses with them spooning to get their faces closer and looking in the same direction.
Quite to my surprise, I enjoyed taking these portraits. It was fun interacting with the people and joking with them to get them to smile and relax.

Challenging indoor shoot

2007-06-07T09:15:00.000-05:00

I spent last night working on another assignment from my church. We have a dinner before church every Wednesday night and they wanted some photographs for the website. My challenge was to find a shot that tells the story of Wednesday night dinner on its own, as they will probably only use 1 or 2 of the photographs on the website. The other challenge was the lighting. One half of the dining hall has a huge stained glass wall making for challenging WB conditions but provides enough light at sunset to shoot at 400 ISO. The other half of the hall (where most of the people are) is very dark and 1600 ISO barely pulls the shots out. Even when it does, the noise level is very high. All I have right now is the onboard flash, but even with an external flash I can't see it filling any significant portion of this dining hall. I used my kit lens for this shoot which is f/3.5 on the fast end.
So, what should I do? I can try to get closeups of people with the flash, and see if they can live with the dark background. I can try to only take photographs on the bright side of the dining hall and adjust the white balance in the post processing. I can also try to save up and get the f/1.8 50mm lens that only costs about $75. With the increased speed of this lens I might be able to get the shots on the darker side of the dining hall at a lower ISO. The only problem with that solution is I am not sure it will work. One other idea that I almost forgot about is to shoot these photographs in the second dining hall. I never eat down there, so I forgot they serve dinner in two different places, and the second one has much better lighting.
I am going to get some samples of the ones I took last night to the people requesting them so they can give me some ideas on composition. Hopefully I get the shots they are looking for next week.

Headshots

2007-06-04T09:19:00.000-05:00

I am helping my church as the assistant photographer. My first assignment was to shoot some headshots of various people for the website. These are not typical thumbnail shots as they wanted high detail photographs they could manipulate and use as the page header for each respective ministry. To say this was a learning experience is an understatement. I spent some time on the day before practicing on my daughter in the living room. Lighting was the big challenge. I don't have an external flash and I hate the harsh appearance I get when using the onboard flash for portraits. I used a coffee filter to diffuse the light which worked fairly well in my living room. Unfortunately, this did not work nearly as well at the church even though the background was almost identical. The shots came out very dark even though they looked properly exposed on the LCD and the histograms looked OK (EDIT - A second look at the histograms shows they do NOT look OK. I can see a large spike in the middle and a smaller spike on the left with nothing on the right. Clearly underexposed. This is something I need to remember when I set up my practice shots next time.) All I can say is thank heavens for RAW. I was easily able to correct the brightness level and the Canon software did a good job of balancing the skin colors.
Besides purchasing an external flash (which I cannot afford right now), I am not sure what I would do different next time. I definitely would shoot RAW+JPG for important items like this. That was a life saver. I might overexpose by at least +1 and maybe even +2 next time if I used the diffuser. I don't want to go to far as it is easier to pull detail out of a dark photo. If I overexpose too much and blow out the highlights, there is no saving the detail from that.
I am also deliberating on whether I made the best lens choice. My kit lens is faster than my zoom, so I might get better results from the lighting. I try to avoid shooting with the kit lens at 55mm as I think images are a little soft (I have not done tests to prove this though). Benefits to using this lens would be that it lets in more light and the flash would have been closer to the subject. Drawbacks would be somewhat less depth of field than using the 75-300. I need to think about this some more. It might be time to make the homemade softboxes from the photography lessons on www.morguefile.com and use those instead.

Fun at a local carnival

2007-06-02T15:45:00.001-05:00

Girl playing bottle game (PP)
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

We had a fun time at a local carnival today. The sky was overcast which provided for some nice lighting. Even so I had to change the white balance back and forth between shady and cloudy depending if the subject was under a tent or out in the open. There were lots of opportunities to catch people doing fun and interesting things. Even better, I was able to get several photographs of people in relaxed and unposed positions. The Kansas City Police Department had some of their best stuff at the carnival such as a couple of race cars, their bomb robot and their SWAT vehicle. Overall, it was a great opportunity to take photographs of things as they happened. This required me to change my settings on the fly and adjust to changing conditions which can only help me become more familiar with my camera.

Here are a few of the photographs I liked best. There are more on my Flickr portfolio (see the link on the right).

Photographing a subect from multiple perspectives

2007-05-31T20:43:00.001-05:00

Loader001
Originally uploaded by Chris in KC

I found a good photography course online at www.morguefile.com. I started the class several months ago with my Kodak Z612, but I kind of fizzled out because I ran into limitations with the camera's settings. I figured it would be good to revisit these lessons with my Canon XT. Lesson one has two assignments: take an abstract photograph, and shoot a subject from multiple perspectives. I already did the abstract lesson a second time and this is my effort to get multiple different perspectives of a subject.
In the past I have spent a lot of time searching for just the right subject, which often meant I did not around to actually doing the lesson because I never found the right subject. This time I left my office with the thought that I WOULD find a subject before I got home. As I walked out of my office I saw this CASE loader that has been sitting in our parking lot for several months. In spite of the big pile of dirt around this, the loader is actually smack dab in the middle of an asphalt parking lot. We don't always get to choose the subject we are shooting, so I tried to make the best of what I had and shoot it in an interesting way.

As an added element, I used my 75-300mm zoom so I could get some practice with it. Even 70mm is way up close and personal. For several of these shots I had to be 100ft away or more. I was hoping for more bokeh in some of them, but I guess I can work on that technique later on.

Here are the rest of the photographs from this series. The full size versions can be seen by clicking on the photos below:

Introduction

2007-05-31T08:57:00.000-05:00

I have decided to become a better photographer. Unfortunately, just deciding something does not make it true. The pictures I have taken over the years are only snapshot quality and are mostly of family events or vacation landmarks. Granted, the family snapshots are of interest to the family members and many may become treasured over the years for the sentimental/historical value.
I now desire, however, to appeal to a broader audience. I hope to learn how to take photographs that will be appreciated by a viewer who does not know me at all. I also hope to find some way to earn some money on the side with photography. I have no desire to become a full time photographer (that would make it too much work). I don't want to open a studio for portrait photography and I don't really want to shoot weddings. These are all fine uses of a photographer's skills, but they don't exactly mesh up with my interests in photography. I do like the idea of becoming a stock photographer and selling pictures that way. I also have a romantic idea about taking "art" quality pictures that I can sell at art shows.
All of this is pie-in-the-sky thinking at the moment because my current level of photographic skill is no where good enough for me to sell pictures to anyone. I have been reading books, investing in some basic equipment, and above all, shooting lots of pictures. But, my current approach feels very choatic and unorganized. It is difficult for me to track my progress and above all, it is difficult to get feedback from anyone else as most of these pictures just sit on my PC or on a CD.
So, this blog has two purposes initially. The first is to help me organize my journey into better photography and be able to see my progress as I improve (hopefully). The second is the scariest part, which is to put my work into the public forum where others can see it and criticize it. I am extremely critical of my own work, and I almost never take a picture I am happy with. This makes me very hesitent to show my work to anyone else. But, I also recognize that I need input from other people on how my photographs can be improved, so I am throwing caution to the wind and taking this blog public.
Input from everyone is welcome, even if you have never held a camera in your life. Good photographs are appreciated by everyone, even if they don't know why. And usually people can tell why they don't like a photograph. So, criticize away (but try to be nice, eh?) and let the journey begin.