Random Musings and Nicknacks

The story is written, and it is coming. I just need to do some editing. This is a teaser

Focal Length 18mm @ f/5.6

What I’ve long taught at workshops is this: the wider the lens you use, the closer you probably should be to the nearest thing in your scene. And there should be a nearest thing in your scene!

–Thom Hogan, Lens Week

I’m still working on my “back to basics” and thinking about the art of photography. The above quote has been sticking in my head lately, along with some other points in the article – namely that “zooming” closer to an image flattens your feeling of depth, whereas zooming out then walking into the image enhances it. If you want depth in an image, go wide angle and get close.

The above image is my first real attempt at doing this – rather than shooting at 70 mm from a comfortable distance like I normally would have, I put the lens at 18mm, then moved into my minimum focus distance. The result really is interesting – rather than a flower in front of a pylon, I ended up with a field of flowers leading to a pylon.

I think I’m going to have to experiment with this more – rather than thinking of wide angle / telephoto as magnification, think of it as flattening or deepening an image.

P.S. I’m still using manual focus for everything, and I swear my images are sharper because of it.

Lunchtime Walk
Taken and processed on the iPhone

The camera capabilities of the iPhone have a lot of attention, especially considering it is a lower resolution camera compared to is competition, and yet it seems to outperform those better cameras.

This photo, which I took while out for a lunchtime walk, is a perfect example of why. White swans against a dark river is a classic nightmare exposure, and look at how the iPhone handled it. If you look you will notice the body of the right swan is blown out, but the rocks are as dark as they can without losing all the detail – this seems about the perfect exposure for this dynamic range.

Too many cameras would have lost the swans entirely.

Misty Days
Nikon D80 + 50mm f/1.8
Exposure: Aperture Priority
Shutter Speed: 1/60
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50mm
Flash: Off
ISO: 180

Riding home through the fog the other day, I was struck by a beautiful view over last lagoon — the fountain had a wire Christmas tree on it, the lagoon itself was still mostly frozen over, and there was a mist / fog just hanging around the bottom of the fountain. It would make a great picture except, of course, I didn’t have my camera with me.
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I’ve been experimenting with street photography again, preparing for our trip. This strikes me as a sad photo, but how many families are in this kind of situation? I just can’t imagine sitting with my grandfather (I assume) like this, totally ignoring him.
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Coming back from Dim Sum with Felix, we discovered that the park in our neighbourhood had been overrun! Apparently the migrating snow geese were tired of the Rifel Sanctuary. There was no way I could get a true picture of this … sure I’m at 18mm focal length but what you can’t see is that I am standing in the middle of the gaggle.

I sent Sam (a Collie cross) running into the middle of this, and they basically told her “you’re allowed to retrieve the ball, but don’t start anything.” A gaggle this size doesn’t seem to be afraid of much.

The honking woke me up from my afternoon nap, and woke me up at 7:30 Sunday morning. A day later we could still hear them leaving.

Two weeks later, when you look at the sidewalk, you can still tell they were here, if you know what I mean…

This size doesn’t really do the view justice, you really need to look at the large version.

Today I am very tired. I got up at 5:30 this morning (after barely sleeping last night; amazing what a bit of concern about how much you *really* know will keep you awake) to drive to Bellevue and tell our new DBA’s everything I know. Left the house at 6:00 and arrived in Seatlle at 10:20. I also love Seattle traffic. I don’t mind a Grand Prix (my rental car) but it drives nowhere near as sporty as it looks…

I ended up talking for 6 hours straight. After being worried about not having enough to talk about, we only got through 2 slides, this is going to take more than two days to hand off. I’m hoping to be home by 7:00 Friday night because I have a video to catch (“Little Miss Sunshine”?)

I got into the hotel room, and unpacked; knowing that I had travelled light. Very light. I do wonder though, do men and women pack differently? I brought only the bare essentials: 2 cell phones, 2 laptops, a camera, 3 lenses, an external drive (for pictures), and one change of clothes.

I’m sure Paris Hilton would have done the same.

P.S. I’m sorry if this is not the most lucid post I have ever made; did I mention I’m really tired?

Aperture: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 800
Focal Length: 38mm
Shooting time: 7/29/200 5:30pm PDT

Aperture: f5.6
Shutter: 1/250
ISO: 200
Shooting time: 1:37 PM on 10/14/2007
Tripod was used.

It was a beautiful Sunday day. Chris kicked me out of the house so I could forget about my work for a while, enjoy the beauty of the nature and have fun with the magic of the camera…

I remember I was standing there and stunned by the colors I saw. Watching the golden leaves falling in the wind, my heart was filled with full of gratitude. Suddenly a song is rising in my head singing the beauty of the autumn…