Wallace Koopmans Artlog

Here is another example of using multiple exposures to extend the effect of time.  I had set my ISO to the lowest value available (100 ISO) and had stopped the lens down as far as I wanted to without having to compromise image quality, so this put me in a position where I had a shutter speed of 1/2 a second.  This is certainly enough to blur the fast moving water but not enough to give it that soft gossamer look I wanted.  So I set my Pentax K-7 to do 9 exposures with auto EV adjustment.  I also used mirror up and remote triggering to limit any camera movement.

K-7  70mm, f11, 0.5 sec

K-7 70mm, f11, total exposure time 0.6 seconds from nine individual exposures.

I really liked the background colours in this image from today and the contrasting droplet.  It’s difficult to take macro shots like this by hand as even the slight swaying back and forth that happens as you stand effects what is in focus.  By persisting though you can eventually get one that works.

I like the term Contre-jour it sounds more sophisticated than “Back lit” but really it does refer to photographs taken where the primary light source is behind the subject but not necessarily directly behind it as I have done here.

These images have me thinking about how often I use this technique, so I have just gone through some of my images to find other examples.  This is by no means all of them but based on the number of images I had to look through to find them I can safely say I’m not being repititious when I do take an image like this.

UPDATE:  Ok I found another one that I really like.  It’s funny because until I looked at it again I had forgotten how a friend and I had  rushed ahead so that I could capture this and we would still be able to make it back before dark.  Based on the date this was 19 years ago.

When I recently saw stacks of logs waiting to be processed I knew that I wanted to create an image that linked the raw materials together.  These two images are merely an intermediate state for these trees and it is for the viewer to envisage a time before and after for them.  Either as trees or the end products that surround us.

Like many people I love repeating patterns and am awed by things where scale is outside the norm.  I noticed this log sorting yard while driving past on the highway but it wasn’t until I drove around on some back roads that the scale of it became clear.

It was raining quite heavily and I had limited time but I hope the images convey some of the scale.

Living Room Zoom

Here is another attempt at dealing with images that require a scale greater than what a web browser generally affords.  By clicking on the thumbnail you can navagate into the image and pan and zoom.

This was taken with my Yashica setup to create the distortion. http://wkoopmans.ca/notebook/?p=200

The imagery I think is clear even if the image isn’t.  The steps in the cemetery look like a ladder which seems to be there to help achieve some form of ascension, even a tree has been removed to clear the  path.

I haven’t had the time to do much photography lately and my studio isn’t ready for me to paint in yet so I thought I would take a moment to look at some older images that haven’t been published yet.

In order to see the world  in new ways, well for me at least that is a desirable thing, it’s necessary to look at little things.  This can mean going back to look closer at something as happened with this image.  It would have been very easy to ignore this but the contrast of colour caught my eye and by careful framing with my Nokia N95 I was able to produce an image I like that is both about something and about the design of the image at the same time.

A quick search on Flickr  using “Flowers Backlit” gives up over 9000 results.  So if it’s already been done to such a degree and this is true of almost all photographs taken today then why do we continue.  Well for me a portion of it is the act of creation, I enjoy the time that goes into creating an image as much or more than the image itself.  I will be the first to admit these are average images that don’t inspire much of a response but they are my images and they may be a step that leads towards the creation of something that is better.