Bubbles in the grass

Posted on 19 October, 2011 by Eric

Another quick reminder to be open to images even when / where you weren’t expecting them:

I caught this image when my daughter and I were walking around looking at the balloons at this year’s Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. One of the trinkets on sale at the fiesta’s concession booths was a battery-powered bubble blower. Here, a kid had just run past blowing bubbles — thanks to an overnight rain, the grass was still wet, so the bubbles didn’t pop on contact with the ground.

The technicolor reflections make for a fun (semi-abstract) shadow self-portrait…

The start of a new tradition

Posted on 3 April, 2011 by Eric

Once upon a time, I thought an “easy” way to sell some of my photography would be by way of iPad and iPhone wallpaper. But it turns out I really don’t have a lot of time to devote to learning how to program for the iPad, and besides there are a lot of free wallpapers out there.

And it’s hard to compete with free.

So my current plan is to find some other way to help pay for my photographic equipment, and just give away iPad and iPhone wallpaper. I’m going to give away one piece of wallpaper each week — and it’s free both as in beer (no cost) and as in speech (do what you want with it, within Creative Commons limits).

Here’s the first free wallpaper (click on it to get to the Flickr page where you can download the full-size image). It’s a backlit shot of a glass block (part of an art installation) at a local light rail station.

From out the gaping maw

Posted on 20 March, 2011 by Eric

Should you ever manage to visit Antelope Canyon in Arizona, don’t forget (from time to time) to look up:

By the way, this is a 3-image HDR composite, with the original images being shot 1 stop apart. Even then, the sky is nearly blown out.

It’s a tricky place to work, that’s for sure.

Rhapsody in blue

Posted on 13 July, 2010 by Eric

Another “keeper” from my experimentation with smoke photography:

We just returned from a 10-day family road trip (no ‘net access on most of it) — so I’ll be catching up with everybody’s blogs and tweets over the next few days. Meanwhile, get ready for some cool pictures from Glacier National Park and the Canadian Rocky Mountains!

Sculptural

Posted on 18 June, 2010 by Eric

Another geological abstract shot from lower Antelope Canyon in Arizona:

If you’re planning a trip to Antelope Canyon and you’re taking a DSLR, you should give some thought in advance to just what lens(es) you should put on your camera body(ies). Fortunately, you’ve got a strong ally in this effort — namely, Flickr.

Before the trip, scan through Antelope Canyon shots that other people have posted to Flickr to find ones you particularly like. Then, when EXIF data is available for the shots, take note of the focal lengths used for the images — this will give you a very good idea of what you want to be taking along on your trip.

In my case, the images I liked best seemed to be taken with focal lengths around 20-30mm (35mm equiv.). So since I have Olympus four-thirds camera bodies (2x crop factor), I aimed for 10-20mm focal lengths in my lenses. So I had a 7-14mm lens on my E-3 body (primary camera) and 14-54mm lens on my E-520 body (backup). Whichever camera wasn’t being used at the time rested in a padded torso pack (ThinkTank Change Up) to protect it from accidental dings. Meanwhile, both camera bodies were outfitted with quick-release plates for my tripod so I could switch back and forth quickly.

Oh, and both camera bodies have lanyards — so whichever one was in use was tethered to my wrist at all times. Particularly important when there’s nothing soft for a camera to land on if you drop it.

Passageway

Posted on 11 June, 2010 by Eric

Another shot from lower Antelope Canyon:

And some more travel trips to go with it

Our visit to the canyon was on Memorial Day (a U.S. holiday held on the last Monday in May), and the trip through the canyon was dry as a bone. Some fellow travelers, though, told us they’ve gone through in winter and found spots chest deep in mud. So if you’re not traveling in summer months, make sure you have a change of clothing you’re willing to sacrifice to the hike — the pink mud permanently stains whatever you’re wearing.
It wasn’t terribly hot when we visited, but remember that you can’t exactly get out in the middle of the canyon to get that water bottle out of your car — take a bottle with you on your hike.
I’d been told before that a flashlight was a necessary thing to take on a trip through the canyon, but we never used ours. Maybe this is another winter (or early morning / late afternoon) thing?
Dust — there’s lots of it in the canyon. I’d recommend picking one lens for your camera(s) before you head in, then leaving it on. Swapping lenses in a dusty environment like this one is likely to get a lot of gunk into your camera. My solution: I have two camera bodies, I put complimentary lenses on the two of them and left them there.

I’ll talk more about photo gear in my next Antelope Canyon post…

Dancing with fire

Posted on 10 June, 2010 by Eric

Another shot from my recent smoke experiments:

I thought this looks somewhat like a ghostly person dancing with red flames, thus the name. As before, this is the smoke off a single incense stick; most of the color comes from tweaks to curves in Aperture.

Getting to Antelope Canyon

Posted on 6 June, 2010 by Eric

If you’re at all into outdoor photography, you’ve likely seen shots from Antelope Canyon in Arizona — even if you didn’t know it at the time. This is the first in the series of posts I’ll be writing about a little detour we took to the canyon on a recent trip to see relatives in Arizona.

Antelope Canyon is actually a series of “slot canyons” in the drainages leading to Lake Powell in northern Arizona. Should you decide you want to see it, you’ll first have to get comfortable with a lot of driving, then you’ll have to decide which of two sections you’d like to see. Upper Antelope Canyon is somewhat more photogenic — but it’s been “discovered,” and so (I’ve heard) can be swamped by people being shuffled through it by the tightly-scheduled truckload.

Since ours was a family trip, we opted for Lower Antelope Canyon, instead. Much less crowded, not at all hectic, you can wander through at nearly your own pace (up to an hour as part of a “group,” up to 4 hours if you spend a few dollars extra for a “photographer pass”), and still very beautiful. Oh, and if you go this route, make sure to swing by an ATM first. When we went it cost $28 per adult and $16 per child (12-18), and payment is by cash only. We opted for a group outing (vs. photo pass) since I doubted our 8 year old would really be interested in spending 4 hours underground.

Anyway, when it comes to getting there, the biggest nearby city is Flagstaff — so let’s just say for the sake of argument that it’s your jumping-off point. From there, you drive about 2 hours north to an intersection just south of Page, then turn east on Highway 98. Once you pass the turnoff for Lechee, the road you want is the first left onto a paved drive, then take another left on a dirt road down to the parking lot. If you make it to one of the power plant roads (can’t miss this, it’s HUGE), you’ve gone too far and need to turn around.

Antelope Canyon from Page

Once you pay your fees, your guide takes you out to the entrance to the lower canyon, which is basically a hole in the ground — hardly looks wide enough from a distance, but it’s straightforward if you’re not carrying too much extra weight (either bodily, or in the form of camera gear).

This gal spoke German (and I only know a few words of it), but I have to think at the time she was saying something along the lines of “you’ve GOT to be kidding me!”

Access to this section of the canyon has improved dramatically since the addition of metal ladders bolted into the stone here and there. Mind you, some years back a group of people died here in a flash flood — it was raining far upstream, the local guides told them to get out, but the tourists’ stubbornness and the (then-used) rope ladders out combined to thwart their escape.

Anyway, if you’re reasonably good shape, you’ll have no problem getting down into the canyon (or out again). And make sure you pay attention to what the guides tell you to do.

Once you’re into the canyon, things get easier — more elbow room, although there are still some tight spots here and there. One thing you’ll need to contend with, though, is a wide range of lighting — something like a 10 stop difference between light and shadow. I’d recommend you do some multi-exposure HDR work if you want to wind up with a good shot — otherwise, you’ll have to content yourself with some really low contrast shots. This advice is particularly relevant if you get any sky in your image, like this one:

This, BTW, is an HDR image (3 shots 1 stop apart, with a bit of noise cleanup afterward). More to come…

Coiled

Posted on 4 June, 2010 by Eric

I’ve seen a lot of good smoke pictures by other photographers, so I thought it was about time that I tried my hand at it as well. Here’s one result of my first go at this:

This image took a LOT of cleanup in post-processing (as will its brethern) — due largely to a physical set-up that I’ll do better with next time. Meanwhile, the image is growing on me…

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: