A Moment of EnLitenment » color

One = enough

Andrew — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:18:30 +0000

Life is full of options -too many sometimes. It’s hard to find balance. We have so much more than we used to, and still, not quite as much as we’d like. Sometimes it even gets hard to do things we like -there’s not enough time, we don’t have what we ~~need~~ want, and it’s a cold and ugly Midwest winter. That was my excuse for photography anyway. I noticed though, somehow others still find the time, ignore the cold, and crank out great images regardless of where they are and what they have. So today I gave myself a little challenge… well it was more like a mandate. I gave myself one hour, on one bike, with one camera, and one lens. No zoom, no tripod, no flash, no bag, no backup, and in the overcast, Midwest, midwinter light. The only requirement was that I took pictures of something -and got a little exercise.

I found myself downtown… at rush hour.

But I found pictures. They actually were always there if I’d taken the time to look.

My only confession… it took me an hour and a half.

Get over it -what you have is enough… even in the big city.

Falling

Andrew — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:02:23 +0000

It started as a cool, cloudy, wet day in this big mid-westernish city. But leaves were falling and I couldn’t resist. I hit the woods but my luck was limited at best. I did find a fire lookout tower that provided a bit of a view…

Boring I know -but hey this is Ohio. Nothing like a mountain when you’re looking… Actually I should have done better -but at the moment I was standing, if you want to call it that, on a 2×3 foot platform 80 feet in the air with 40mph winds threatening to blow everything I owned over the side. Let’s just say I was thinking a good bit more about holding on than I was about taking the picture. I did get this.

Oh well, I tried. Things got a little better when I found Cedar Falls.

Not bad, but it would have been better with less beach. It does crop to a 4×5 format nicely though. Notice that overhanging rock -I brought it out of the black by a little flick of light from my sb-800.

This turned out ok too… lucky for me. Many of them didn’t. There was this other little issue of falling things -precipitation. Not that I mind really -it helped clear out the swarms of people and my camera doesn’t mind a few drops. But my lens… for some reason I didn’t notice the drops.

I lost dozens of images to the spots. Oops. Guess next time I will pay more attention.

When “right” is “wrong”

Andrew — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:03:19 +0000

As a photographer there are always those times when you sit at your desk staring at your screen wondering exactly what happened. Somewhere between pushing the stutter release and you monitor display bad things must surely must have occurred. That’s what I was thinking when I saw this rock.

Not so bad you may say… if I took it at sunset. Unfortunately, as I recall the color of the rock was much closer to gray when I was standing before it. It was an overcast day and as I almost always leave my white balance set to “cloudy” on my D1x I figured all would be well. -Well, forget that.

Ok, there we go -much better. But wait a minute; I’m in “florescent” white balance. I could be wrong but no book I ever read said anything about using “florescent” white balance outdoors. Not to mention, last time I checked, overcast daylight was not the same color temperature as cool white florescent bulbs… Oh well, it works for me. It just goes to show you that many times the perfectly “right” picture may be absolutely “wrong” for you. In photography it doesn’t hurt to break all the “rules” and see things in a little different -light.

As it turns out the black and white version isn’t too bad either and it avoids the color issue altogether. So many choices… Not sure which one is -right?