The Tree Between Them [Canon 5D] 2.5 seconds
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San Francisco, 9:35pm...
I was walking,
they were walking,
sharpness is overrated.
More thoughts on this theme coming in the days ahead.
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Upcoming Workshops:
Digital Black & White
Jan 29 – Feb 2, 2007
The Lepp Institue for Digital Imaging, Los Osos, California
Click here for a class description and more info
River of Words [d-SLR]
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I made this photograph last week near the river not far from my house. I had been envisioning this shot for several months and it felt good to actually go out and work with the idea. The actual reason for going out at 7am (had to be there before the sun got too high and ruined the wonderful even light in the river canyon) was to run the first roll of film through my new ZeroImage 6x9 pinhole camera. Stay tuned for those test shots in the near future.
**NOTE: The typewriter did not survive the process of resizing to web dimensions and sharpening as well as I would have liked. It is nice and sharp, however, in the original 36mb Canon 5D file. (And yes, I really did lug the typewriter down to the river for these shots. No Photoshop compositing here). I used a 3-stop solid Neutral Density filter and an aperturte of f/16 to slow the shutter speed down to 2.5 seconds to create the blur in the rushing water.
Bookstore Reverie [d-SLR]
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This was taken last October when I was teaching at the Maine Photographic Workshops. It was the last night and I was heading out for a late dinner with a group of students from the class. I passed by this bookstore in Camden and really wanted to go in and browse but they had just closed. Since I couldn't lose myself in the books, I took a photo of the display window instead. This is a slow exposure (0.3 seconds) and the lens was zoomed while the shutter was open. You can see another image that was made with this same zooming effect here.
Autumn Road
0.4 seconds at f/8
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This was taken last Fall in upstate New York (Columbia County) while driving down a sleepy single lane country road. I took a series of shots on this road using slow shutter speeds, but this turned out the best.
For the safety-conscious in the audience, a few pertinent points:
1.) No other cars were on the road;
2.) I was not driving as fast as the blur in the photo makes it seem (my speed was almost pokey);
3.) I was perfectly safe and in control of the vehicle at all times (I didn't even look through the viewfinder...just held the camera up and took the shot).
Passing Through, Ghent, New York
Boat Ramp, Port Clyde, Maine
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This was taken later the same evening as yesterday's image of Marshall Point Lighthouse. I was wandering back to my car after having a hot bowl of clam chowder at a tiny restaurant on the pier (complete with a bathtub o' lobsters outside the door), when I saw this location and knew that it would be perfect for a night photo.
Geeky technical details: 4 seconds at f/5.0, 200 ISO.
Rockport Marine Building, Rockport, Maine
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Taken 2 nights ago when I took the class out for a night photography session. The exposure was 30 seconds at f/4.5. The painting of the sailing ship and the darker wall were painted with a flashlight during the exposure.
Nymphalidae in Motion; Mylau, Germany
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The same subject as yesterday with the same exposure (f/5 at 1/6th of a second, ISO 400). The difference is that the lens was zoomed towards the subject during the exposure.
This technique is typically not something you do alot, since, as with all such techniques,it can become old and gimicky after a while. A colleague of mine refers to this type of technique as being very "Pop Photo" (as in Popular Photography, the photo magazine). Still, for some subjects,it can create an interesting effect and I was pleased with how it turned out in this instance. I sometimes use this approach, as well as rotating the camera while taking the shot, to deal with interior situations where the light levels are very low and I do not have a tripod or other means to stabilize the camera. I figure if the light is so dim that I cannot expect a decent shot with sharp focus, I might as well have some fun with the situation.
Nymphalidae at Rest; Mylau, Germany
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In terms of photographic subject matter, I have always had a weakness for old display cases of flora and fauna. I found this one the other day in a castle museum in the town of Mylau in the eastern part of Germany. The low light levels in the room meant that I had to use a shutter speed of 1/6th of a second for this shot (with an image-stabilized lens). This was at ISO 400; I rarely like to go over ISO 400 on my camera if I can avoid it, since that is when the noise starts to become more noticeable. Another, very different interpretation of this same subject using the same shutter speed will be posted tomorrow.
Carousel Horse, Germany
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This was shot at 1/25th of a second and the camera was panned to follow the moving carousel horse during the exposure. There was plenty of light to use a faster shutter speed; the slower speed was chosen expressly for the purpose of creating this effect. The nature of this method means that there is some amount of luck and serendipity to it, so if you want to try it out, be prepared to shoot several frames of the same subject. The easiest way to do this is to use the shutter priority mode on your camera and adjust the shutter speed to a slower speed until you get the right amount of motion/panning blur vs. partial focus. Another exploration of using slow shutter speed for creative effect will be posted in a couple of days.
