Dance Art

Last photo from this year's dance recital...I think...

As the girls get older they tend to increase their synchronization greatly, and it makes capturing artistic moments like this a lot easier.  I also enjoy how good lighting by the stage crew can make this red/green one moment and red/white the next. So you might get a chance to have two or three versions of a frame provided for you mere seconds apart.  One will usually work better for your mission of making than another.

If you can shoot your photos at the rehearsal I highly encourage you take advantage of the opportunity.  It lets you just take in the moment as designed on the big night and does not bother other guests enjoying the show.

-ehw

Photog Delight

Took a walk through Scenic Roswell, Georgia today with my wife and stopped by a very interesting store called Bilthouse.  It was very well designed, well from a photographers frame of mind.  The light was fantastic in there as well...

One of the displays held watches and trinkets galore.  So while my wife bought a gift for her parents (babysitting at home and giving us some date time), I just had to start photographing these little trinkets until I got one I liked!

Downtown Roswell is like this, lots of fancy little boutique stores.  So over time don't be surprised if you see some more captures downtown!

-ehw

Emotion in the Motion

Putting dance into a still photo almost sounds sinful.  Dance is the art of moving one's body, and that of others to create visually pleasing sights though motion.  So it definitely sounds nuts to capture the soul of dance in a single frame.

This capture is one of the better ones from the night.  Beautiful motion frozen with just a tinge of motion in the dresses, hands and feet.  Then I caught some excellent emotion in the dancers faces conveying joy in the act of dancing.  It was that emotion that really set this photo apart from a similar one take a few seconds later.

To achieve this I had to be careful with the shutter speed and experiment...the variable of course is also that the speed of dancer motion which of course varies greatly in any one routine.  Since this shoot occurred only with available light, and no flash, the experimentation was critical to know my gear's capability and the type of scene I could reasonably expect to capture with some quality.

So experiment...be thoughtful and look for the emotion in the motion to sculpt a wonderful photo.

-ehw

Dance!

It is that time of year to enjoy the wonders of dance in my house!

My daughter's dance company just put on their annual production, and it was quite nice.  Since our family moved last year before her recital in Virginia, its been two years since I was able to see her really perform.  One trick she learned this year from her teachers was to have confidence and smile while dancing.  It really made her start to glow up on stage, and display the fun she has performing.

I learned a lot this year while shooting dance.  After shooting several years at my daughter's old studio I discovered the different challenges that come from choreography styles.  In the old studio I could easily predict when a worthy frame was coming because I knew the style.  They also used a smaller stage, so formations were tighter.  Here the stage is larger, and the staff uses it.  So it looks just as nice, but as a photographer I needed more zoom than I had to get the proper elements for a good frame.  If you are going to shoot dance I will always recommend you attend a rehearsal or multiple shows before you have to get the captures you want to keep.  This way you can know your subject, lighting and the choreographers style before the big dance.  It just makes your subject and you look so much better in the end product.

That brings me to another point, lens choices for a concert or dance.  I recently sold my 50-135 f2.8 zoom.  On a crop it is a 75-203 zoom with a depth of field around 4-5.6.  For this show it would be perfect.    Since I had not replaced it yet, I was stuck with my excellent 60-250 F4, a 16-50 F2.8 and a set of primes.  The F4 would not give me enough light to capture at the proper speed to blend motion and frozen faces I like.  The 16-50 would not get me close enough this year.  Some of my best photos in previous years came from my 50-135 and my 43...one was not there and the other would not get me close enough this year because of my location choice.  So I shot with....a 100mm F2.8 macro!  Great lens, but I was really out of my mind shooting dance with it.

A few more lessons to post this week...

-ehw

When I'm a Big Girl

"Daddy when I'm a big girl..I'll play with them!"

I can only imagine what she is thinking, but I know I'm right.

I enjoy taking the advice of Scott Bourne who said shoot like a five year old...my twist is that I am looking at life like a one year old.

-ehw

Music through the looking Glass

Last night we attended the Joyful Noise Spring Orchestral Concert.  Joyful Noise is a music organization serving the musical education needs of over 300 home and charter school students in bands, orchestral, vocal, guitar and marching band. The ministry is supported gracefully by Sandy Springs Baptist Church, and is a Christ focused music organization.

While walking the halls with my one year old before the concert I was able to capture this photo.  I am fascinated by the play of glass on my image.  In this case the children of the beginning band were tuning up in the cry room, and the glass captured the reflection of the busy sanctuary where people were waiting, music stands awaited a musician.  Our children's teacher was helping another child with the tuning of their violin...and I tried to capture that whole story in the frame.

I hope you like it!

For you techies....F6.3 to get some depth in the photo, 1/50 sec @ ISO 1600.  I used a 35mm Macro so 1/50 was the slowest I could go to prevent shake on a Pentax K-5 APSC sensor. Post processed in OnOne Perfect Suite.

-ehw

Brotherly Love

Part of life if getting up after falling on our fourth point of contact....(your posterior for non-army airborne types).

I just love to remember that helping hands, no matter how small, go a long way to making life that much nicer as we recover from the falls.

-ehw

PS Just a little cell phone capture....still getting the handle on it but it was what I had on me when the moment arose!

Airport Survival

This is how one can keep a happy face after getting up at 4AM make a 7:10 flight...only to find it cancelled and you get rewarded with a five hour delay going home...

Free refills helps the attitude as well!

Well back to enjoying my friends as they compete for higher scores on some new game called Freeflow...some good graces come out of everything!

PS. This is not fancy coffee just the regular joe type stuff...no burn't beans here thank goodness!

-ehw

Scrub Up Sunshine!

Start your week off with a smile!  I know I'll try to!

I was just avoiding a little bit of post dinner cleaning for a few more minutes by playing with my camera...

Everything is spick and span now.  I'm in good graces with the wife and she thinks I'm a bit crazy...but says she'll keep me another week!

If I scrub up myself up that is...

PS Techies...just a simple shot using my X20 in one of the filers called dramatic tone. I think it has its uses.

-ehw

Friday Night Lights!

 

Here is Friday Night Lights as I am living out right now....

My son was out in right field, and it was a long night of walks...17 of them in fact.  So the only action all night long were the throws between the pitcher and the catcher.

Making the best of it I got a high vantage point in the parking lot, went as high ISO as I dared on my Pentax K-5 and shot away.  I was at 1600 here and at F4.0 on my long telezoom.    Pretty much convinced me that one are two artsy type shots were all I'd get last night.  This would be the one reason I'd like a fancy full frame sensor...but I don't have the extra five thousand to get the body...not to mention more to get the right lenses.

When you got what you got, you just need to work that gear to the max...work your technique and make art with the scene God gave you.

Amazing how everything in photography is a microcosm of life!

-ehw

Saturday Morning Glory!

A week after I bought these flowers for my lovely wife, they are entering their full bloom.  So I just had to share a quick photo of them outside in the lovely morning light.

This week my devotional had many references to the Glory of God...his rising and the message of hope he brings precisely because he is now risen and on the unstoppable road to full glory in heaven with the father.

I must admit that after many weeks of Lent, and very contemplative devotionals this is quite a drastic change.  Lent forced me to be introspective, and  contemplate my weaknesses which could prevent me from reaching full communion with Christ.  So the celebration this week still has me wondering if I can meet the challenges ahead.  Can I obtain this rather incredible reward Christ offers us all?

These flowers though can teach a lesson about natural law we are all called to follow.

Even in the ground attached to their roots, these flowers were destined to die.  Once cut their death will be accelerated.  But if cared for with nutrients and sunlight they to can go out achieving their mission of full bloom pollination.  How does this relate to us?  We are all destined to die.  All of us walk off the path of goodness from time to time...and that hurts our growth.  Christ's gift to us in this Easter is that if we look back to his word, pay our penance, and move back to the living water we can still reach heaven.

I'll pray today that we all can find the living water we need to make the goodness grow to full potential in each of us.

-ehw

Easter Child in Motion

Easter is not a static event.  One must cover the sport as well as you do the church events!

Tracking motion is hard.  I need more practice.  The basics are to set the shutter speed lower than freezing the major motion.  In this case I went down to 1/80 of a second.

You then have to track the subject, and capture the part you want to see in focus because it is moving inside that focus plane.

With the number of kids floating around here you'd think I'd be in better practice!

-ehw

Big Kid Now

In the joys of everyday life...keeping a camera on hand lets you turn a moment into a memory.

Here is my youngest playing in the big kid area for the first time.  For all she concerned she is flying to the second star to the left and on 'till dawn.

Yep..that is something I don't want to miss.

As for cameras...I will attempt to write a review about this little Fujifilm X20.  After a few days getting to know this little guy, I learned there were a few things I needed to take control of.  Well now I am really happy with it's results as a large P&S.  This is a shot with in-camera B&W with a crop and minor tweak in lightroom.

No DSLR replacement or large sensor replacement...but really capable and if you take control of the camera.

-ehw

He is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

 

After watching the altar stripped and made bare on Thursday, it was so refreshing to come back and see it set to celebrate his rising!

The contrast between Thursday's post and today's could not be greater.  As a photographer, much of my mind is constantly searching the world in front of me for a composition.  Something in the daily course of life that tells a story.

Friday while at Stations of the Cross, with the bare sanctuary I remembered the lessons of black and white photography.  In B&W you strip something normal from the picture, in this case color.  This absence of color subconsciously forces the viewer to look for patters, form, contrast changes and ask why something familiar looks different.  Good B&W artwork lets you appreciate the world in a way you never could before because of the forced re-examination of the "normal."

For three days I forced myself see the world differently and I heard it in my devotional.  I took home lessons I was not ready to receive at different points in my life...and have a new set of challenges I hear Christ calling me to rise myself up to.

I hope you have a good Easter celebration today, and accept whatever challenges God has set before you to come closer to him and his people.

-ehw

Prayers for Jack Please!

I'd like to ask a great favor from everyone who sees this blog over the weekend.  It involves prayers for a very good man and his wife.

We honored WWII veteran Jack at our little Cub Scout Veteran's Day ceremony back in November.  He's 90 now, but in this photo you see 17 year old Jack in the US Navy at the end of World War II on his Destroyer Escort.  A very little tin can that floated all over the Atlantic Ocean protecting troopships and the merchant marine from submarine attacks.

Jack sits right behind us at church every week with his lovely wife Ann....and he got charmed by my toddler every week for the past year until about five weeks ago.

Concerned that I had not seen him or his wife, I found his number an called this week to make sure everything was ok.  Unfortunately Jack fell, and was in the hospital for 11 days.  Now he is in a rehab facility trying to get out and home.

His wife is exhausted, but she shared with me that she could tell people like myself were praying for them when they were not at church.  She felt the prayers were what was giving her the strength to keep up her care for Jack in the long days since his fall.

To help with get some extra prayer support please say a prayer and "like" this page.  On Easter Monday I would like to give Jack and Ann a simple present.  A long list of people who are praying to God for their continued strength as they continue their loving example as a married couple working through the challenges of life.

Thank You for a even a moment of prayer for this good family to help them keep living out their faith.

-ehw

Fun Work!

I had a chance to have some fun today while doing a quick job for a friend.

My friend's wife runs probably the most awesome seconds store I've ever seen, and they needed some photos made up for their new website.

So after taking photos of the store i got some environmental shots, and this cool red animal just stuck itself out at me wanting its photo taken.  It was also saying. "Take me home to Kevin."  I was able to satisfy the photo craving without adding to the extensive at home stuffie collection.

I'm still not sold on Lightroom as the be all, end all of photo organizing.  It certainly has a lot of rough edges left, and need for speed improvements in other areas where Aperture still shines (yep that Aperture).  It does however have one killer tool everyone should try....CLARITY.  It helps with sharpening and contrast.  It is just awesome.

So that is what I'd like to share tonight...try clarity!

PS:  If you need seconds for children in Roswell go to Ladybugs and Lizards in historic Roswell!

-ehw

Published on Bill Fortney!

 

Hey Hey!

My friend Bill Fortney just published one of my HDR photos to illustrate how you can use various types of tripods to get "surprising" shots.

To check it out please go here!   http://billfortney.com/?p=7863

In this photo I wanted to try and see what motion would look like in an HDR photo.  In my first attempt the exposures were way to long, and the trains actually disappeared.  So unlike my other HDR where I kept the ISO down at 80, these are way up at 1600.

And in my final photo of the day I wanted you to see what it looks like when a group photo is requested...and you get a lonely tripod field of dreams...

If you get a chance do attend a His Light Workshop!  It is so much more than the photos!

-ehw

Field of Dreams

Went out to test a new camera tonight....a Fujifilm X20.  Out of the box, with no manual read yet...all I can say is that for a point and shoot I am amazed.  Almost able to do sports photography AT NIGHT!

I picked up this camera as a go everywhere camera.  I really enjoyed the X10, but this new camera has a viewfinder which actually works.  I can read focus point and other information inside the viewfinder.

There are a lot of other little improvements I still have to learn, but so far so great.

For this photo I shot it in color, and converted it to B&W in Perfect Suite's B&W.  I used a full dynamic range B&W conversion, and loved what I saw on the big screen in terms of available range and detail.

So far highly recommended....just too tired tonight to write or think any harder.

-ehw

Game on!

T-Ball season is on!  I've been moving up the baseball chain with my older son, and now its time for my younger son to join in the games.

This is a typical early season sight...multiple players creating a scrum for the baseball...oh that's a rugby term?  Well it might as well be rugby for the first few weeks.

By the end they will start actually making a few plays..that is just the way it is.

So the challenge for the photographer is finding the scene which captures the love of this new game...with the innocence of youth springing forth in boundless energy.

In all, it is a wonderful journey to take frame by frame.

Because in a blink of an eye they will be....ready to fly away.

-ehw

Self Portrait

Just had such a fun time this weekend, that I also snapped a quick one of me that actually came out alright...

I will not make self portraits a habit, but for a change up I wanted to toss it in.

-ehw