Photo Blog

Photography and assorted thoughts

Jul
1

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Eagle in infrared

Category: Black and White, Nature, Workshops | Leave a Comment

Got up this morning, and went out with the Mike’s Camera and Hawkquest to take pictures of raptors.

Here I was spending some time with my infrared work. Just doing the channel swap resulted in a picture that seemed a bit otherworldly. Which might be a good look for Comiccon, but not for wildlife. So I did a bit of work on this picture with NIK filters by DXO. I applied a slight green filter in the software to pop the eagle out from the trees in the background.
Kin and his folks did their usual unobtrusive job, finding ways to get us good shots. And the Mike’s Camera folks were around to help us with getting the best shots. I was the only one doing infrared, so that’s what I wanted to share.
Eagles have two fovea in their eyes so they can see better than we can, but they can’t see in infrared any more that we can.

Jun
18

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Fort Point – San Francisco

Category: Workshops | Leave a Comment

In 1853 the Army started construction of Fort Point in San Francisco.

It was fascinating to see something built before the civil war so well preserved. I was intrigued by the staircases. If you might be coming under fire, I can see where you want everything to be nicely protected.

While it may have been useful to have a tilt shift lens for this series of pictures, the Nikon 14-24 on the D850 worked well.
I took these pictures when I was taking the Photographer’s Breakthrough Process Like a Pro course. I never showed Tim these pictures since we working on pictures that needed Lightroom or Photoshop work.

Jun
9

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Civil Twilight shooting on Hawk Hill

Category: Night Photography, Workshops | 1 Comment

We were out shooting on Hawk Hill a few nights ago with a class from Photographer’s Breakthrough. The class was more of a processing class, but when we weren’t in the meeting room, we did spend some time taking pictures.

There are times when you’re trying to find a picture that describes how many people see a particular locale. San Francisco has so many things that identify it so here’s a single picture.
This picture was taken at F/8 and exposed for 64 seconds.

Jun
4

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Point Reyes

Category: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

You’ve got to admire the folks who ran lighthouses.
Typically when you need them most the weather is the worst. Considering that this lighthouse was in service it started out with an oil lamp, you couldn’t sleep through the night. So the folks who maintained it were truly shift workers.

May
31

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Edges of the day

Category: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

I was out about 6 months ago with Catherine Etherton, and she was saying that you get your best photos on the edges of the day.

This was one of those evenings where I felt compelled to get the camera out and take pictures. To paraphrase Jay Maisel, you should always carry a camera with you. One of the advantages of the little Fuji X-100T is that it makes it easy. For those of you who keep track, this was underexposed by 1 stop to bring the colors out.

May
29

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Using filters

Category: Black and White | Leave a Comment

These days most photography instructors will tell you that the only filter you need is a polarizing filter. That’s true as long as you aren’t shooting film. Since I was shooting black and white film last month, I was experimenting with a slight yellow filter, k2, on the Colorado State capital.

I think my next experiment will be with a red filter. The yellow filter did darken the sky slightly but not enough to notice.
The film I used here, Fuji Acros 100, was more for night photography, but I like the grain size in this shot.

Apr
29

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Night black and white darkroom work

Category: Black and White, Night Photography, Street Photography | Leave a Comment

I’ve been off exploring the black and white side of the world with the folks from the Colorado Photographic Arts Center.

Here I’ve started to meld my night work with my black and white darkroom work. Many thanks as well to Michael Snively, who instead of asking me why I tilt at windmills, assists me in my madness.
Earlier today, I pointed out the Fujifilm rep that they had discontinued the film that would have helped in this. He pointed out that this was .5% of the market. But that percentage is probably where I want to be.

Feb
26

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Classic Aviation

Category: Black and White, Meetup Photos | Leave a Comment

Saturday I was wandering Wings over the Rockies with a group of photographers, and I started looking at B-18 under restoration, and speculated about airplanes designed in the late 30s.

This particular aircraft wasn’t capable of going up against the German BF-109 but found a role searching for German U-Boats. But I was intrigued by the look of this rotary engine. It had such repetition. In the days that this aircraft flew, it had a reliability much better than the world war one aircraft. But nothing like today’s jet engines.

Jan
31

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Being brilliant in 1/1000 of a second

Category: Nature | 1 Comment

There’s an expression that some photographers use that all they have to be brilliant at, is just for 1/125 second. Which works pretty good at normal speeds. Those of us who are night photographers, might say 30 seconds or in some cases 5 minutes. This weekend I went out to Music Meadows Horse Ranch, to take pictures of horses with the American Photo Treks guys. So I was trying to be brilliant at 1/1000 of a second.

The folks at the the ranch, Elin and George were wonderful with the horses, getting them to gallop down the path we asked for, so that all of us who were learning to photograph horses had a chance to learn what we were doing. So these horses were moving and they all avoided these photographers who concentrating more on their settings than avoiding horses. And the American Photo Treks guys were there to assist whenever we had questions.
These folks work the ranch also offer guest rooms if you don’t want to find a place in town. They also offer winter riding which isn’t very available in this area. During the season they also raise beef. Their tag line is Music Meadows – Home of Sangres Best. Which is an apt description.
They were kind to me, and let me wander their barn, so I could see some of the behind the scenes feel.

For those of you who wonder, the Nikon 3D AF mode, works very well to track the horses in motion. The horses had enough different colors so that it was able to lock on to the subject.

Dec
4

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Pikes Peak

Category: Landscape | Leave a Comment

This weekend I went to Colorado Springs to get a new view of Garden of the Gods.

Here we get to see a view of Pikes Peak through the keyhole in the Siamese Twins formation. It was one of those severe clear days you get in late fall in Colorado, so no interesting clouds that day. I still liked the picture, and enjoyed shooting with prime lens. Since this was a 20 mm lens, I kept thinking about all those photo instructors teaching me about hyperfocal distance.
We were out Saturday morning with the folks from American Photo Treks who were going to great pains to make sure that everyone got their shots.

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