May 31, 2011 | Photography
With only the lighting on the exhibits available and with no way to move them, we (Kevin & I) worked the subjects. I wanted more then just a rust shot of some piece of equipment. I needed to show place, time and scale. Place was the easy of the three, equipment on rock says mine. Time is in a sense said with the rust and rust says old. So does the nature of the subjects, a rail car instantly says to some as being old. Scale, now that was the challenge. I wondered around and around the lit exhibits looking for other places in the particular shaft I was in that might be lit so you could see down into that shaft. While I did find some, the problem is they are so small that by the time I created the thumbnail for the blog, they disappear. I could have shot down there just like I was doing, handholding, using available light, for days but didn’t have days so made the best of it moving fast.
Photos captured by D3x, 24f1.4AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
May 31, 2011 | Photography
So where do you go in Kansas for entertainment? Underground would not have been my first answer until I did it at the Kansas Underground Salt Museum. There is a seam of salt that extends from MN to TX running through KS and back in the 1850, it was discovered and has been mined ever since. Because of the rarefied air in them, those that have been mined and are “closed” are now used to storage of everything from papers to Hollywood props and costumes. It was an amazing couple of hours as we explored this natural and man made wonder. Here’s the photographic challenge. How do you bring this 650′ deep world come to life in your images?
The first challenge is light…there’s no sun at 650′ below the ground in a salt mine. You might be saying, “How about a flash?” We are talking at TWO mile section in just the one we were in. Don’t think flash is an option so that really only leaves ISO as an option. Well I didn’t bring a D3s, I only brought the D3x but had the 24f1.4AFS so then like a moth (which doesn’t live in the mines) I seeked the light. In this case, the lighting for the displays was our only lighting source. So armed with ISO 400 / 800 at 1/25 I went shooting and had a ball!
Photos captured by D3x, 24f1.4AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
May 27, 2011 | Photography
The patterns look so great from the sky, I can spend hours looking out the window watching them go by. But by the time I see them, put the camera to my eye and go click, they suck! I kinda like the bottom one, kinda but man, I simply need to practice way more. Ever find that you in your photography? I sure do mine! At least it’s a ton of fun!
Photos captured by D3x 24-120VR on Lexar UDMA digital film
May 27, 2011 | Photography
Only to fly with this guy would I leave my house at 01:30am so we could fly with him from Witchita to Ponca just for lunch. This is my good bud and shooting partner for the last 25yrs Kevin Dobler and he’s in his element. Behind the yolk of his Cessna 206 and playing with the Garmin he loves to do almost as much as shooting.
And the top image is a handheld HDR shot. Why HDR? Look out that window, look at the dash, look at the light range! It’s all about light, tame it and the photo is yours!
Photo captured by D3x, 16Fish on Lexar UDMA digital film
May 26, 2011 | Landscape Photography
I was watching the news coverage of the tornadic activity in the Midwest. The iPhone chimed, a text from my dear friend in OK. All I see on the iPhone sitting next to me is a photo of a flattened home! Dread instantly grabs me as I lunge for the phone and quickly touch the photo to see the text message. No words, just another photo of a house, half gone! I text back quickly, I knew it wasn’t his home but wanted to know what was up. The Falcon Lake tornado that took a couple of lives is just a hop and skip from his house and he was there as a first responder. Our heart goes out to all those folks who have had their lives devastated by this amazing act of nature! While none live there now, Sharon’s family come from Joplin and tornadoes have come up in conversation more then once in the last three decades. It is a scary part of life in Tornado Alley.
In 2007, my dear friend Kalebra Kelby said, “I’m going storm chasing.” Without hesitation I said, “I’ll go with you!” There was no hesitation and by the next day I was all set for a May, 2008 storm chase out of OK. I wanted to see a tornado first hand and man, did we seeing 11 the first day! I will never forget standing on that ridge watching as CNN reported live, “A hog farm was just vaporized” as we watched hogs fly. That was my first tornado to ever see and its power though barely a EF1 was jaw dropping! Even so, it didn’t prepare me for what I was about to see a few days later in NE.
Kearney, NE, 29 May, 2008. Rail cars were picked up and dropped like match sticks as the tornado touched down in the middle of town and did what tornadoes do. No one was killed but it was the scariest beauty I’ve even seen in my life! It was very surreal, we’re racing towards the wall cloud hovering over Kearney (strangely, a town I now frequent while working with Sandhill Cranes) like some alien craft from Independence Day while residence are racing in the opposite direction. I was looking and shooting out the van window as we drove northeast along the dry line (the top photo is from that moment) and I could see the terror, fright and absolute fear in the faces passing us. I thought as we drove past this home, “Will it be here next time I drive by?” You can’t witness such an event without it leaving its mark. There isn’t a tornado I hear about to this day when those faces don’t come rushing to the front of my consciousness. And at the same time, being a photographer, I was so pulled into the magical world of light the tornado produces. That’s why I wanted to storm chase in the first place, the light and the photography but it soon became very obvious that it was the human element that brings the importance of storm chasing to the forefront. That’s because those chasers while out for the video coverage are the eyes on the ground letting the world know where that tornado has touched down. That’s still a critical element not detected by our technology. That knowledge does save lives.
I’m in KS now, I’m not storm chasing but I will be watching the skies. I’m am completely sucked in to the power and beauty of nature in all of its forms which includes weather. I dedicated a whole issue of the BT Journal to storm chasing and if you’re looking for even more info and to see some incredible storm photography, I highly recommend you chech out Jim Reed, an amazing person and photographer! All of those who have had their lives changed by this beast, our prayers go out to you. Having seen this first hand, I realize there is little if nothing I can do and while it seems so trivial I can only relay the one thought I always have. The sun will rise tomorrow.
May 25, 2011 | Landscape Photography
Don’t get too excited, this top image is the before image. Now that you can breath again, continue on reading. There was a time when I use to go after cactus like I do birds and mammals. For the life of me I can’t remember what got me so excited about them originally, but I do have all of California Cacti in my files. The funny thing, I had only one in digital until my last trip to the Alabama Hills. While once I had all of these species committed to memory, sadly that knowledge has slipped away. But when I saw this gorgeous example in the morning light, I just had to take its pic. And it’s a perfect example of one of my favorite techniques for shooting a smallish subject while showing where it lives all in one click.
I’m shooting with the 14-24AFS at 14mm at f2.8. The top image is what I see many photographers do when trying to photograph a smallish subject while recording its surroundings. Now there is nothing wrong with that top photo, but I feel it can be improved. Let’s start with lens selection. I went wide so I could bring in more elements into the frame. With the goal being to eliminate elements you don’t want while including those you want, with a wide lens getting closer to the subject is a great technique. In this case, the unwanted element was our dog Benson who wanted to water my subject. Now if you just bent over, the top photo is what you would end up with. By eliminating the horizon in the photo, the expanse of the landscape, the loneliness of the cactus in the landscape is lost. How do you get that horizon line back in? You go down to almost bug level and then get close again to emphasize its size, shape and more importantly, its world. But just getting low isn’t enough, we can do better.
What I like to do is go down low but then come up a little bit and tilt the lens to shoot OVER the top of the subject. You could almost say the film plane is at a 45 degree to the subject. This angle permits you to get a little bit closer, minimize how much you see above the horizon and my favorite, minimize your DOF while still capturing a lot even at f/2.8. How can that be? The subject is kinda round, not square. By moving in very small increments, an inch or two, one way or the other, even at 14mm you can make big changes in what you include or exclude. You can see this technique in lots of my images because while I might have forgotten the names of cactus, I’ve not forgotten this favorite technique of mine.
Photos captured by D3x, 14-24AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
