PIXelations 23

Olympic Dreaming

by fotofinish , 11-11-2008 at 03:34 PM (390 Views)

On the last day before Jayne and I left Whistler to return to Vancouver for the flight back home, we set out to find one of the Olympic sites for the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics to be held in Whistler, British Columbia. We found what is called the Sliding Center which is used for the Luge, Skeleton, and the bobsled. The people at the information building told us to return at 5pm. The Canadian national bobsled teams were going to be having three training runs!

There is an open area in front of the last turn before the sleds hit the finish line. This curve is also where the fastest bobsled speeds are reached: nearly 140kph! This open area we were told will eventually hold seating for 12,000 people. Right now, there is only clover and bear-droppings, since, apparently, bear come down the mountain to feed upon. The personnel are trying to discourage the bear from doing this, for obvious reasons.

We were able to stand as close as three feet from the railing of the refrigerated chutes where the sleds were running. I opted to shoot from three locations. Here is a shot at the final turn:

This next one was shot as they were just about to exit the tunnel:

And this one is from when they are done and trying to slow down:

Here is part of the Canadian team:

You can view the rest of this gallery here….

Using grads…

by fotofinish , 11-17-2008 at 05:25 PM (330 Views)

Some time ago I bought Singh Ray graduated neutral density filters for use especially with my hiking landscape shots. I bought one 2-stop and one 3-stop 4×6 inch soft step filters. I also bought the Lee holder system which has the holder and the 77mm adapter ring which will fit any of my three main lenses. I actually attached these to my circular polarizer. I think going forward, I will buy a polarizer which can be used in my holder system.

I used these for the first time in British Columbia during our hike to Lake Garibaldi. I instantly fell in love with them. Their ability to bring out cloud detail while holding back the sky light from under exposing the mountain and foreground detail was amazing. Up until now, I had used local image adjustments in Lightroom 2.0 and Photoshop, specifically a shadow/highlight adjustment layer, to mimic the filters. I never was completely happy with the results. With these filters I am better able to capture the final image as I wanted.

I did a lot of reading in the past about the value of these grads. Reading those words without having a mental image of what my pictures would look like prevented me from truly understand their value to my work. Although I have used a polarizer, I felt that the use of the grads would be more trouble than they were actually worth, especially since I could mimic the effect in post processing. Yes, these were expensive, and yes, it was extra work and inconvenient, especially after a strenuous two-hour hike up a mountain. But the result is something you have to see and prove to yourself with your pictures to understand the benefit.

Outta my mind…

by fotofinish , 11-29-2008 at 01:57 PM (488 Views)

I must be out of my mind to participate in an arts and crafts show because of the expense, but I am committed now. The company where I work has an annual Christmas arts and crafts show for its employees by its employee artisans. It costs $50 for a six foot table for the displays; no floor displays allowed. Plus, 10% of the proceeds go to the United Way. A couple of my coworkers have been encouraging me to try it, so I am on for December 16.

The problem is my cost. At this point, I am over $1000. I selected 15 “pretty” pictures that I thought the average person might be interested in buying. I am making 15 prints mated to 16×20 (11×14 opening), one of each of the 15 selections. Then I am making 3 copies of each selection mated to 11×14 (8×10 opening). All 60 prints are printed onto Ilford Gold Fiber Silk (photo black ink) paper and mated with Nielsen Bainbridge archival mats. I put each print into a clear plastic archival bag with resealable flap. I’ll sell the 11×14’s for $40, and the the 16×20’s for $60 a piece. My reasoning was that I want to get my name out there in case I do this again; I am unknown so I can’t claim the prices that my teacher, Mallorie Ostrowitz, can command.

I’m not expecting much in sales, but it would sure be nice to recoop some of the expense.

You can see my selections here.
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by fotofinish , 11-29-2008 at 01:57 PM (488 Views)
I must be out of my mind to participate in an arts and crafts show because of the expense, but I am committed now. The company where I work has an annual Christmas arts and crafts show for its employees by its employee artisans. It costs $50 for a six foot table for the displays; no floor displays allowed. Plus, 10% of the proceeds go to the United Way. A couple of my coworkers have been encouraging me to try it, so I am on for December 16.

I’m not expecting much in sales, but it would sure be nice to recoop some of the expense.

You can see my selections here.

Art Showing

by fotofinish , 12-19-2008 at 02:57 PM (378 Views)

I had never participated in an Arts and Crafts show before, until this past Tuesday. The company I work for hosts an annual Crafts fair before Christmas. $50 a table with 10% of the sales going to the United Way. The show is open to mostly employees and is attended by only the employees. It is not open to the general public. The vendors were restricted to displaying only on the top of a six foot by three foot table.

I displayed fifteen 16×20 mated pictures (11×14 opening) in clear plastic sleeves. I had stocks of three of each of the fifteen 11×14 mated pictures (8×10 opening) also in clear plastic sleeves. I therefore made a total of 60 prints. I sold the 16×20’s for $50 each, and the 11×14’s for $30 each. I also had a stack of business cards on the table as well. The 60 prints cost me $1000. I was there from 7:30am to 3pm.

I only sold 4 prints: 1 large and 3 small, barely enough to cover my table and United Way percentage, and certainly not even close to my $1000 costs. The other vendors did not do much better. There was another photographer there who only sold 3 pieces. The other vendors complained that the show was too late before Christmas so their sales were down from the previous year when it was held a week earlier.

I sold three of the photo below (1 large and 2 small):

I also sold one small version of this photo:

My display looked like this:

On the back of each photo I put a label with the following information:

You can see the rest of my offerings here.

Was it worth it? No. Not from a sales/profitability/effort perspective. Did it get my name out there? Yes. Will this be productive for the future? Who knows…time will tell…

Have a great holiday!

Sheltered eyes

by fotofinish , 12-27-2008 at 04:33 PM (353 Views)

So what can you do with the images from a shoot that did not quite work out? Dump them? Back them up, remove them from your drive, and forget about them? I have hundreds of CDs/DVDs in my basement from past shoots that are just collecting dust and fading away. There must be something I can do with them…

One thought I had was to create montages based on some pre-defined theme. If nothing else, this will serve as a way to improve my photoshop skills.

You can see my failed shoot here. My original attempt was to somehow produce a series of images that show how the magnificent cats at Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida, are cared for. This didn’t work for me since the pictures were shot on an overcast, dark afternoon. The cats were also not as active as I would have wanted. Rather than bury the series, I chose to create a seven-picture montage as a tribute to the caring folk at this wonderful shelter. Many of these lions and tigers either were retired from animal entertainment acts, or they were used as pets till they out grew their homes. Sometimes they were abused.

I used the panther eyes as the 16×16 inch background for the montage. I cropped just the eyes showing through a border of a cell of the fence grid, the shelter part. On top of this background, I then used the marquee tool with a 25 pixel feather to crop six more sheltered eyes from various other kinds of lions and tigers. I positioned the eyes to form wedges at times, being mindful of the patterns created by positioning the eyes. I also selected these eyes to show off the patterned colors and spots on their hides.

I used the blur tool on luminosity to blur the edges of each eye cutout so that the placement would merge properly into the background. I used several curve layers and hue and saturation layers to ensure a more unified appearance to the montage.

Since I wanted the panther eyes to be the most prominent in the picture, the rest of the shelterd eyes had to be just as dark. This would also keep with the theme of neglect and abuse these cats once endured. The etching of the fence is there to symbolize that they are being protected now. I used the brush tool to selectively enhance the brightness in the eyes to show off their spirit.

Although the overall look of the montage shows a hint of sadness in those eyes, the sheltering they now receive allows them to once again maintain their sense of being a Big Cat.

Here is the end result:
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Over the course of the winter months, I will scan through my archives for any other montage themes.

1/1/2009: changed the image to include the partial fencing around the panther eyes as well…happy new year!

Salvaged?

by fotofinish , 01-04-2009 at 03:03 PM (628 Views)

I went on a shoot with a friend of mine last week to Rt272 outside of Torrington to this one marsh area I had shot during the autumn. I wanted to get the distant dead trees in the water on the opposite shore. We walked as far as we could, but I was still forced to put my 1.4 extender onto my 100-400mm lens. I took a series of pictures I thought would be respectable. I shot on my tripod with mirror lockup at a higher shutter speed 1/50th. I had image stabilization engaged, but the winds were really howling. I tried to hold onto the lens for better stability, but at 470mm the pictures still were not crisp. What to do: ditch the pics or try to salvage them. I tried to salvage them.

I converted them to black and white since this is winter and the pictures were not about the color. I played up the contrast of the sun just beginning to hit the trees as it came up over the ridge. But since the images were not sharp, I decided to play up the dream-like atmosphere of the scene and reversed the clarity slider into the negatives with Lightroom 2.2.

Out of 40+ pictures, these were about the best I could do:

I like the way they came out, sort of pictorialist flavor. I don’t know if it works for anybody else. I don’t think it is important to always have a crisp image if the effect supports the overall theme of the picture…

Longshots

by fotofinish , 01-11-2009 at 03:17 PM (340 Views)

This week, I am going to enter the annual Connecticut Audubon Society photo contest. This will be my third year entering. Last year I got an Honorable Mention for this photo:

Since this is my third year, I know what kind of photos will win. It is always the really razor sharp, pretty picture, or the razor sharp animal/bird action photo. But last year my abstractish photo was awarded. Since there are not many on this artistic approach, I’ve decided to try my luck with two artistic, and one cute:

I don’t really have much else to enter. None of my nature scenes are “wow” pictures. I’ll find out what the judges thought in a few weeks.

Wolftalk

by fotofinish , 01-18-2009 at 01:12 PM (377 Views)

Saturday I went with my photography club on a shoot at the Wolftalk animal shelter in Gardner, MA. The day started off -10 degrees, but by the time we arrived at the shelter, the temperature warmed up to the mid teens. We were all dressed for it.

Michael is in charge of about 9 wolves and has been involved with the wolves since 1978. One of the wolves, Denahee, he domesticated. He brings this one to elementary schools and other shows since this animal is used to people.

After we arrived, Michael took us out with Denahee into the woods where we were able to take pictures of Denahee in action. Out there I used my 70-200mm L IS USm lens. We then returned to the main compound where Michael then brought out some roadkill deer the state police bring him to feed the wild wolves. We stood on top of a hill and shot down into the fenced compound while this action took place. I used my 100-400mm L IS lens.

I shot at iso 2000 knowing that the light would frequently change. I also wanted to be sure I would be using a fast shutter speed. I used an aperture-priority of F8 in AI Servo mode with center point focus. I switched back to using the shutter button to set both aperature and exposure instead of using the star button to focus and recompose. Although the pictures were nothing special, I was very satisfied with the results. Here are a few:

I can’t say enough about the love and dedication that Michael has for these endangered animals. His passion to teach the youth and anyone who will listen is clear whenever you talk with him. I am grateful for people like him in the world.

You can see the rest of my selections here.

Inspirational

by fotofinish , 01-24-2009 at 04:00 PM (366 Views)

In the depths of a cold winter in January, when the icy wind and snow numb the creative soul, here is an article by photographer and teacher Chris Orwig that is sure to arouse your photographer’s muse and is found here. Take a few moments to visit his website as well. It is just as good as he sounds in his article. Enjoy and stay warm!

Good stuff

by fotofinish , 02-08-2009 at 10:20 AM (355 Views)

I stumbled upon a great site from a great photographer, Darwin Wiggett. His pictures and most importantly his articles, have challenged the way I have approached photography to this point.

Darwin’s article on using wide agle lenses effectively has made me finally realize the true value to wide angle lenses.

In another article going slowly in photography, his words about slowing down when taking pictures seemed like it was written just for me.

I have always wondered why it seems that most landscape photography looks the same. In this article, Darwin explains why.

There are times, like now for me, when every photographer questions why we do what we do. His article about shooting from the heart seems so appropriate.

And finally, ever wonder why some pictures sell better than others? In Darwin’s article here he tells us his opinion why.

I guess I’m in one of those rare times when I have actually stopped and am ready to truly listen to the words of someone who has been through all of this. The concepts and tips are not all that new. But the way Darwin tells it, makes it feel like it is something new to listen to. Don’t just read the words…

On another topic, as noted in my previous blog entry “Longshots”, I picked up another Honorable Mention at this year’s local annual Audubon Society’s photo contest for the image below:

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