Still life with pinhole

Posted on 26 April, 2010 by Eric

So yesterday, April 25, was Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day — I thought I’d contribute a shot using my Lensbaby Composer and its pinhole / zone plate optic:

This is a shot of some flowers on our dining room table — the exposure took forever (OK, 20 seconds) since the pinhole has an effective aperture of f/177. It also needed some serious noise filtering, since sensor artifacts really start showing up on long exposures like this. Still, I like the dreamy, abstract sort of look that it gives the shot.

Just for fun, I also used the zone plate (f/19) function of the optic on the same scene — far dreamier:

So which do you like better?

BTW, once it’s been reviewed by the powers-that-be, my pinhole submission will be on display as part of the WWPD 2010 gallery here.

All we need now is the president…

Posted on 24 April, 2010 by Eric

A few days ago, we got back from a quick family vacation to the Washington D.C. area — in part driven by the lucky acquisition of tickets to this spring’s White House garden tour. Those words probably make the thing sound more exclusive than it is in reality — it’s more like the world’s longest conga line, just you and a few thousand of your closest new friends shuffling through the White House grounds between ropes.

Still, it’s as close as most of us will ever get to the place (particularly with a camera!)…

This shot came from right in front of the White House, looking across the rose garden (just tulips in bloom…) toward the steps outside of the Oval Office. I think leaving the building out of focus and mostly out of frame gives the shot a sort of expectant look, as though a big event is about to take place. Of course, the President was out of town at the time, so only some miscellaneous staffers appeared when we were there.

Smooth sailing ahead

Posted on 22 April, 2010 by Eric

The last time I visited Seattle’s Center for Wooden Boats, I managed to get there pretty early in the morning — before Lake Union had time to get choppy from the day’s breezes.

Lucky me — it made for some nice reflections!

Hanging out…

Posted on 15 April, 2010 by Eric

On the way back to our car from Boulder’s Pearl St. Mall, I happened to spot this little piece of yard decoration:

The potted plant is long past being merely dead, so believe me — this looks much better in sepia.

So many don’ts

Posted on 10 April, 2010 by Eric

About a year ago, a business trip gave me the opportunity to wander around a bit in Seattle. I was particularly lucky to have a little free time on a beautifully sunny day — and spent a chunk of it in Gasworks Park, a reclaimed industrial area.

But as you can see from the sign, reclamation can only do so much. So while the scenery behind the camera was green and pretty, this particular spot for contemplation bears a reminder of the site’s less beautiful legacy. The shot looks cluttered in color, but I think black & white is a good fit for it…

Just waiting for my human to come…

Posted on 7 April, 2010 by Eric

So this weekend we had the opportunity to wander around on Boulder’s Pearl Street mall for a bit (it’s a nice pedestrian mall in downtown Boulder). I took some gear along, just on the off chance something interesting would come up — as luck would have it, I found a very cooperative portrait subject:

Funny how most dogs I’ve photographed are very relaxed about the whole thing, this little guy was just waiting for his human(s) to be done shopping.

Playing for change

Posted on 2 April, 2010 by Eric

On a recent trip to Seattle, I spotted this busker with an accordion just up the block from the Pike Place Market:

Pity I didn’t see the little sign at her feet at the time. We were, though, hustling up the street to get somewhere — I only had time to take this shot because we were waiting for the light to change so we could cross the street. If I hadn’t had a longish lens on my camera at the time, I wouldn’t even have been able to capture this scene.

FWIW, she didn’t play a note the whole time — just stood there with her accordion. Maybe a tip would have prompted some music?

Turning in to Hobby

Posted on 28 March, 2010 by Eric

A few months back, I saw a neat long-exposure shot taken out the window of a landing aircraft. The idea was that the city lights silhouetted the aircraft’s wing in a nice, abstract sort of smear.

On a recent trip, I was flying in to Houston’s Hobby Airport at night and happened to have a window seat. So I figured — what the heck, might as well try it myself. Here’s the best of about a dozen shots I took:

Pretty decent, but as you can see, the light streaks are pretty wiggly — I had only my hands to brace the camera (my omnipresent P&S) against the window. I’ll have to get in the habit of carrying a cheap little table tripod too. Just a slight improvement in the rigidity of my “mount” would likely have resulted in a nicer shot (a word to the wise).

Racing

Posted on 27 March, 2010 by Eric

This is my first decent attempt at a shot using a lot of motion blur

On our trip to the Canadian Maritimes last summer, one stop was at New Brunswick’s Hopewell Rocks. The setup is pretty handy — there’s a big parking lot, a nice visitor center, and a trail down to the shoreline. But let’s say the weather’s wet and cold (as it was for us), and some members of your party don’t want to walk all the way back to the car (ditto).

Well, they have a shuttle service (costs a few dollars) that will take you back and forth in a little train of cars. But as luck had it, the shuttle wasn’t running too frequently when we visited — so we hitched a ride on the back of a ranger’s vehicle. Sort of a cross between an ATV and a golf cart, it got up to maybe 25 miles/hour on the dirt service road. We were hanging on for dear life, my 7 year old was laughing hysterically the whole way, and I got this shot looking back down the road.

Fun!

Hilo patina

Posted on 23 March, 2010 by Eric

If you’ve been following my Flickr stream, you’ve likely noticed that I’ve started a habit / tradition of uploading textures on Tuesdays — since I’ve used other peoples’ “free” (Creative Commons Licensed) textures for tinkering with layers in Photoshop, it’s my way of giving back to the community.

Anyway, I normally upload quite a few more shots to Flickr than to this blog — the idea being that blog images are the ones with more interesting stories behind them.

I haven’t really uploaded a texture shot with a good story before, so this is the first time I’ve put texture images on the blog (click on an image in this post to get to the respective full-size version on Flickr if you’d like to download one).

As you’ve likely guessed from the post title, these shots come from Hilo, Hawaii. True enough. You might also recall the old advise that if you’re looking for a different perspective with a shot, or looking for something interesting that might surprise you, you need to look up and down? That’s precisely how I found these. Here: