Ride to work

I've been trying to ride my bike to work on Friday's because it is a great way to get a couple workouts in and save a little gas at the same time.  So I get my happy ass up at 3:30 am and try to hit the road by 4:00.  It is a 33 mile ride that usually takes me about 2 hours.  I've really enjoyed the experience and I look forward to getting to do more of them (at least until the weather gets too cold.)

Anyway, it took me a little while to decide to ride the entire distance from home to work (I had previously been driving to a location and then riding the remaining distance) but after I made the big decision I haven't looked back.  On my first full ride I was riding along and got to a particular bridge in Des Moines and happened to notice the Des Moines skyline.  It was beautiful.  I had caught that time of morning where the sky was a stunning, deep blue.  So I pulled my camera out of my backpack and took several shots using the bridge handrail to steady the camera.  I was pretty excited.  When I got to work I downloaded all the pictures and every one of them was blurry.  DAMMIT!!  I decided to try again the next week (weather permitting) but I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.  I purchased the Pedco Ultrapod II from Amazon and carried it and a remote shutter release with me the next week.  The next week was also a great morning so when I got to the bridge I had my shot all planned out.  I was going to use Auto Exposure Bracketing to attempt an HDR image and I would also attempt to just get it right in-camera.  I was determined to get a good shot.  I also realized that part of the problem the last week was that I had underestimated how much the bridge shakes when cars drive over it.  So I had to time my exposures till there wasn't a car in sight.  I turned on my mirror lock-up and also used my LCD screen to focus (since it can zoom and my viewfinder can't.)  This time when I got the pictures downloaded they were awesome.  After attempting to HDR the images I couldn't get them to align perfectly and the HDR image was simply too soft to consider using.  Then I played around in Paint Shop Pro X4 a little while with a single RAW image and I was ecstatic with the results I got.  I immediately sent it to Costco for large scale printing (12 x 18) and after receiving the print I loved it.  I hope you like it as much as I do.

Street Photography

So I'm really wondering if I have it in me to try street photography.  I've always been told I have a natural ability to talk to anybody and it's true, I really can talk to just about anyone.  I don't know how I do it necessarily but I think I just pick out something about them to mention and then try to start a conversation built on that.  It could also just simply be an "excuse me, do you mind if I sit here?" and from there talk about whatever I see.  Anyway, I'm wondering if I have the chutzpah to pull it off.  Talking to someone and then asking them to let me take their photo is two entirely different things.  I remember watching a video of Jimmy Hickey regarding how to start doing street photography and it got me interested.  So now I just need to find a way to translate my "gift of gab" into "just shoot."  Stay tuned....

Quick Post

I just wanted to put this picture out here.  I took it this morning on my way to work.  I propped my camera on the window sill of the car to steady the shot.  After a little post processing and a little cropping, this is what I got.  I kinda like it.

Food Photography

So a natural area of photography is food photography.  I've got an amazing wife that loves to cook.  I've also got an amazing appetite and I love to eat so why not blend these two areas of my life into one.  This spring my brother discovered an enormous black raspberry patch on the outskirts of town and decided it was too much for just his small family and disclosed the location to our parents and me.  To skip most of the details, Kim and I picked for a total of about 11 hours and got a ton of raspberries and quite a few scratches.  Afterwards Kim decided she wanted to macerate some of the berries and eat them almost immediately.  I told her I wanted to photograph them and these are the two best photos.

This first one is the picture she wanted.  The traditional "cookbook" type of photo from above.

This picture is the more "artistic" photo that I really wanted.

I honestly love them both and the best part is that they are both straight out of the camera with no post processing.  =)

52 week project Week 2 - Sound

This weeks topic was a pretty easy one (sarcasm) - sound.  When I showed the list of topics to Kim, she immediately looked at me and said "sound?"  As in, how the hell are you going to photograph sound.  Well, when I told her that it needed to be an image that invoked the thought of sound then she understood a bit more.

Anyway, I'd had some ideas and I tried a couple of them but they weren't really all that successful.  We've got a beautiful grand piano and an even more impressive organ at our church but after attempting to photograph our sanctuary and other items in our church, I have yet to find a really great way to capture the grandure of either.  I  really feel we have a great looking church and when you walk into it in the afternoon with the sunlight coming through the stained glass windows and shining onto the beautiful wooden pews, it really is beautiful.  But for the life of me, I can't figure out how to capture that beauty with a camera!  DANG IT!!

Back to the weekly project - so I realized I had a great opportunity for "sound" last Friday night when Indianola was having their monthly Bike Night.  Motorcycles from all over the state (and some surrounding states) converge on Indianola for about 4-5 hours and make ALOT OF NOISE!  You can only imagine how loud it gets with a couple thousand Harley Davidson, Honda, Victory (and even crotch rockets) all gathered around a simple town square.  It may not even be legitimate to compare this to Sturgis but it's pretty impressive nonetheless.

So Kim, Elena and I walked the 3 blocks to the square to see what we could find.  I told Kim that if she thought she saw a good picture, then she should let me know because I'm definitely open to suggestions.  I took a couple dozen pictures trying to get pictures that show the size of the group, showing bikes in a line, individual bikes that were super original and everything in between.  Nothing really felt quite right.  Finally after we decided to start heading out, Kim spotted one last interesting bike.  It wasn't really an original bike (paint job, construction, etc) but it did have lots of chrome with some interesting light.  I took a few pictures of it trying to get something original and usable and this is what I got.  I think this works pretty well for sound, what do you think?

52 week project Week 1 - Water

Recently I've seen on some of my favorite blogs, discussions about doing 365 day, 52 week or 30 day projects.  The concept is pretty simple.  You pick a project duration and then pick a format.  Some people will do one topic (like self portraits) for an entire month.  That would help them experiment with new techniques and styles to attempt to expand their knowledge.  Or they could pick a different topic for each individual day.

I have decided to do a 52 week project.  I have already come up with all 52 topics and I decided to start it this week.  The gist of my project and each topic is to take a picture that is either literal or invokes the thought of the topic.  I must, however, include the topic in the picture somehow.  For instance, this week is water.  I might take a picture of a bridge but there must be some water in the picture somewhere.  Or I could take a picture of geese in flight as long as there is some water involved then it works for me.

I will be posting all of my (decent) qualifying pictures here because I don't want to stop thinking about the weekly topic just because I got one decent shot.  I would rather have three entirely different attempts with three flops than only one attempt with an acceptable picture.  The purpose of this project is multifaceted.  1) To learn as much of the actual process of photography in a real world setting.  2) To get out of my comfort zone and look at things differently and to look at different things.  3) To learn if my equipment is sufficient for my needs or if upgrading is a logical next step for me.

One of my biggest hurdles is to get real experience behind the camera.  I've spent so much time reading about photography but only a fraction of that time has been spent actually taking photos.  I mean, how successful would I be if I knew every nuance of a golf swing but had never actually swung a club.  I know the exposure triangle of ISO, aperture and shutter speed but when I get out into the real world it still takes me a few test shots to figure out how my camera should be set up.  I also have a few lessons to learn about camera preparedness.  I would like to get into the habit of always resetting my camera to 400 ISO, Program mode and Auto White Balance whenever I get done taking pictures.  It only takes a few seconds and those couple of steps could be the saving grace I need to capture those quick shots of Elena instead of missing them entirely.

With all of that in mind, my first attempt is a shot I took this morning on my way to work.  I stopped at Summerset State park to see if I could get some shots of the fog on the water.  I was not disappointed and I think I got a couple of good ones.

Skateboarder

One of the things I had discussed with my instructor when she asked me what I was interested in was photojournalism.  I like the idea of taking pictures at football/basketball/baseball/softball games or track meets, golf tournaments and almost any sporting event.  I could also see myself taking pictures after a natural disaster to document the recovery effort and the emotions, pain and strife that has been caused.  All of those things interest me as a way to make a difference.  So Elena and I were out for a walk yesterday and as I passed by one of our local parks I could hear the scraping of skateboards coming from the skate park.  I decided to go check it out.  Elena was absolutely mesmerized by all the action.  I don't think she made a sound the entire time we were there.  She just watched and pointed at all the skaters.  The following picture is the best one I got while we were there.  What I really love is the total contradiction created by an Iowa farm boy in cowboy boots and non-saggy jeans doing an entirely urban activity (and doing it well.)