Buick at Peace

A lovely day to shoot in Northern Georgia..Day Two of His Light's Old Car City HDR Workshop.

Check out www.billfortney.com to see what it is all about...It is heaven sent for photos and the soul.

More later..in class now!

-ehw

Day One at Old Car City

Heading back into the evening class...put wanted to post something from this morning.  Six miles of trails and seventy years of cars to photograph!  I only covered two small yards so far, and they are full of fun shapes and images just crying to be photographed.  I am of course the only Pentax shooter here!  So my stuff does not get borrowed much for some reason.

Getting ready for critiques tonight and learning from what I've done and failed to do...

More tomorrow!

-ehw

Old Car City

I arrived and met the gang of His Light Photographers...

This weekend will primarily be an HDR photograph weekend.  That means multiple exposures with the same aperture which over and under expose the image.  This batch of photos becomes data for combination into a single image.  A program will merge the images, taking the best exposed parts of each exposure and make them one photo.

Why do this?  Well a camera, even the best camera built, still cannot see what your eye sees in one frame.  So to replicate what your eye sees you need merge a few frames and make and HDR to capture the dynamic range of light that is actually right in front of you...if you look hard enough.

If you want to know what is going on, and the program...I'll fill you in a bit over the next few days.  Until then check out

www.billfortney.com  and see what it is all about.

-ehw

On Freedom's Wings Pt 1

Driving to work today I swung by the airfield to see Memphis Belle on her annual visit to Atlanta.

She will fly over my office a few times during her visit, and the roar is tremendous.  I cannot image the site of a 1,000 plane raid, with hundreds of fighters darting around guarding the flock.

This aircraft was also the first plastic model I ever built, with my Dad after my first communion.  It hung over my bed for years with doors open  suspended by fishing line.

I'll post a few variations of the photo to show the effects of creating a black and white from this image...but today I just wanted to imagine walking out to the flight line on a cold English morning and getting ready to risk my life fighting for freedom in the skies  of Europe.

-ehw

Spring's a coming!

Signs of Spring are popping out here in Atlanta.  Just about one year ago we saw out current home for the first time.  It was the third of forty homes we would see...and I knew it was "the one".

If I get to shoot it again I'll try for the hyperfocal effect..but for now the hint of Spring color on a warm later winter day will have to do!  In this shot I wanted the heavy bokeh and got it instead of hyperfocal.

Techies...K-5 with 60-250 set at 153mm ( 229mm in 35mm terms), F4.5 and 1/400 @ ISO200.

-ehw

Pool Shark

My son plays his first game of pool...while doing a Cub Scout achievement no less!

To capture a moment of timeless contemplation what else to do other than get a nice photo finished as sepia?

I am really starting to enjoy environmental portraiture.  To photograph people in their element makes catching a glimpse of their soul so much easier!

For you camera geeks like me...shot with a Pentax K-5, Sigma 17-50 F2.8 OS with reflection coming off the pool table itself actually giving me some fill light!  Fantastic combo of camera and lens.  Post was completed in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.

-ehw

Winter Holds On

Winter is holding on for another weekend here in Roswell, GA.

This was an experiment to capture the feeling of being in the woods on a cold day with a "small" sun fighting through the trees.

The lens is at 68mm (102mm equivalent) and then closed down the shutter to F29.  I went to B&W in Silver Efex Pro 2, and then added a hint of contrast and structure to enhance the star burst a bit.

Please let me know if I got the effect I wanted!

-ehw

Valentines Day with Four...

Even with four little ones, and a crazy week of family trials we had a great night!  I hope you did as well!

I really did not know how my wife did it, but she pulled it all off.  Candlelight dinner for six...Pork Tenderloin, Roasted Potatoes, and Squash for the toddler.

Just a quick snap with my little X10 and some photo fun in my current favorite editing app Perfect Effects 7.1. Both have a light HDR effect added to enhance the dynamic range of the photos.

-EHW

Do you capture or create?

When you say, "Lets go out and take a photo!" do you usually record a scene or create a scene?

This is important for us to all examine if we want to improve our photography.  Why?  Well if you are a creator you might miss the elements in front of you in your haste to make your creation.  If you are a recorder you may forget that you can enhance the scene with a new element added by you.

What got me thinking of this was this photo.  I was walking by the grotto at church, when I saw all these elements (frame, ground light, sunlight, perspective and golden rule potential) create a possible composition in the morning light.  I then asked myself..but could I build this photo myself?

So this is setting me on a little path of needed enlightenment.  Now I have to not only look at scenes for what they are, but evaluate what they could be if I develop my creativity as well as my recording skills.

So what are you?  And what does that say about what you need to develop to meet your full potential?

-ehw

Bright Light in the house!

For this little challenge I wanted to do two things: Study a high contrast light environment in post and see what type of results my little Fujifilm X10 can make in this harsh environment.

I took several pictures, but this one looking up and into light gave me the photo with the highest contrast between highlights and complete darkness.

I like the color range and detail rendered despite the bright light attempting to overpower both.  To prevent radical blowout of highlights, and the edge areas between them, I used the camera's EXR mode with a -1.33 exposure.  I ran it through Perfect Effects to help bring out some details, and extend the dynamic range with some HDR effects.

This little camera had a ton of data for the Perfect Effects to work with (much more than I anticipated).  Remember, the best software in the world can do nothing if you and the camera give it bad data to work with.  What you see is the result of my two minute and done rule in post.

So the moral of this story is to push the limits of a scene by taking enough shots to find one which will get the effect you want, and remember to use post processing to pull all the data out of the photo possible to give you the best image possible.  A corollary to running through many perspectives is to work with other settings such as exposure compensation in each camera position to observe its effects on dynamic range and composition.

-ehw

Edge to your photos

I just had to try this...

My lovely daughter was enjoying her book in the warm afternoon sun, and I wanted to see what effect camera tilt would have on the scene.

When you are taking a photograph most of the time you want the horizon to be perfectly straight.  That way the viewers mind does not have distractions.  The scene looks like it "should."

If you tilt your camera just a little, you make the viewer have to search and make sense of the photo.  Sometimes being off horizontal can also give the photographer a "this is real life in motion" feeling.

If you do this every once in a while ok...but do it for an entire photo album?  Sorry not for me.  I'd bee sea sick and ready to head for steady shores.

-ehw

Friendly Surprise

When you lay on your back to photograph a flower always remember to keep an eye on your surroundings.

I turned and looked up to find this guy about to breathe on my face...luckily with a snap shot I caught him looking pretty cool inches from my nose.

This was a surprise...why?

I don't own a cat.

I was in my own yard.

I'm allergic to cats.

My favorite cats are the neighborhood mouser and snake eaters...all others need to keep a respectful distance.

My five year old (child 3 of 4) and wife...well they love cats.  They'd have one if I was eaten by this one.

Well luckily this guy did not lick my face.  He works very well as a good mouser and snake eater.  He belongs to a neighbor who rescues cats.  She has four or five that roam the neighborhood.

Two of them work shifts in my yard.  Every once in a while they pose for me after they get happy petting visit from my cat loving son.

Ok so the moral of the story is?  Just keep your eyes on more than the pretty picture.  Especially if you want to visit Africa, Brazil, Los Angeles, Chicago, downtown Atlanta...there are dangerous cats that might visit you not so nicely if you forget to monitor your surroundings.

-ehw

Scouting Growth

I often don't get to travel and grab majestic photos of the grad highlights of the world outside of work travel.  Usually the reason is that I am helping nurture the greatest treasures we all have...our children.  Whether it is my family, or my extended scout family, it is the focus of what we do all the time.

This photo shows three of my cub scouts doing one of our projects.  They are completing a diorama.  I showed them how to mark off an area where they would put the "fort" and now they had to place the catapult, trees, soldiers, earthworks and catapult projectiles.  We'd then glue everything down and be ready to show it off at the pack meeting.

This is all part of an 18 month project to get them ready for Boy Scouts where they will set the agenda and execute it.  In little steps they are learning to draw out plans on a board, identify materials required to make the project, identify who has the skill to do the job, and then think through spacial relationships to make it all come together.

It is an awesome adventure for both them and us parents.  Thankfully I have good parents who are fully involved the program, and we've resolved we are not going to make this play time....we're making it focused character growth time.  Things like launching playdoh bombs from a working model catapult..well that is just tactile reinforcement of a job well done!

-ehw

Study in Light

I was testing out a new camera and I observed these lights in the dining room.  I wanted to see how the sensor would handle the bright filament.  Would it totally destroy the photo?

Well...it did not.  Instead I got a very nice study in light my naked eye could not see!  The study I enjoyed the most was the "bent" light coming from the glass around the filament.  I enjoyed the curves above and below the lights, and the built in vignette coming from my focus on the bight light at the heart of the photo.

So the moral of the story here is to remember that glass is a very helpful element in a photo, but sometimes you just have to take the shot and adjust based on the elements composing your photo.

-ehw