I thought it was interesting how this image came to be posted. I took a Polaroid of this sign and because my main computer and scanner are still in boxes as I write this I took a picture of the picture with my camera phone and then uploaded it to Flickr so that it would be automatically re-sized. I then copied the resulting image to my children’s laptop where I now sit typing on it’s tiny keyboard and uploading the image to this blog.
I have been very busy lately and the reason is that I have moved and will need to set up my new studio space. This picture is from the brief period of time before all the disorder of delivery. I’m really looking forward to getting it set up to my liking but there will be many pressures that will take away from my creative time.
There was a tree that I wanted to take a picture of and I knew it was going to be just too big to capture in one image at the sort of resolution that I wanted. So I took multiple high resolution images with the intent of stitching them together in the computer. This leaves me with a new dilemma though, how to convey the size of the tree to a viewer on the Internet. I could have attempted to include something in the frame to give scale “Here Bessy, here Bessy…” but cows are notoriously bad at taking directions and even then I’m not sure the impact could still be carried through with a small image. So I’ve essentially taken control of the viewing experience and am presenting the picture in the form of a video.
And just to prove my point about impact here is a small web friendly version of the image.
One of the great things about taking pictures of dance is that there is always a lot going on. This is especially true behind the scenes where there are dancers waiting to go on and stage directors helping coordinate the entire process. I’ve been fortunate to be able to document some of this and it has provided me with a tremendous opportunity to create images.
While I would never compare myself to Cartier-Bresson he has certainly influenced this image, this is such a brief instant where each of the elements came together. It’s only by being in a state of constant observation that it is possible to see and capture these moments. Beyond that I should probably let the image speak for itself.
As far as I’m aware there were very few wide angle capable point and shoot cameras ever made. Ricoh made several including the R1s that I own, but most point and shoots started around 35mm at the wide end. And then there is the Pentax Espio 24Ew. The EW stands for ‘extra wide’, it’s lens goes from 24mm to 105mm. This camera was released in 2003 right in the middle of the digital camera explosion. I have to admit I only paid about 1% of it’s original cost making the film inside it more expensive than it is. When you first start this camera up the lens is at a position somewhere greater than it’s widest so in order to get it where I want it I have to hit the zoom out button. The lens does some amazing contortions to fit within the cameras 1 1/2 inch depth which then expands to a ridiculous 4 1/2 inches at 105mm. So how was it? It does an admiral job, There is definitely softness at the edges at 24mm, which is really the only focal length of this camera I’m interested in and also vignetting depending on the aperture which it selects and you have no way of knowing what it is. These limitations aside and considering the difficulty and finding anything this wide in a film point and shoot it does a pretty good job.
The Grand theatre is now closed and gone, replaced by a gym. Right about where the “6” and “THEATERS” is is now a window so that you can look out over the parking lot as you sweat. This is not an image about nostalgia or the loss of culturally significant landmarks, it was a theatre it’s now a gym.
The full image is 4″x6″ so you can see that each individual cut is very small and it takes thousands of them to reveal the white. After all that is the act of relief printing, you leave behind what will print as black, and remove what will be white. This is a working proof , but is mostly done, and just needs more care during printing.
The technique of joining two images together to create a larger view is mainly associated with digital photography but it can also be used with film that has been scanned into the computer. If the intention is to provide multiple viewpoints simultaneously as in a David Hockney photo collage then using stitching software isn’t necessary. If you want to create a seamless view however then you need some way to adjust perspective and join the images. Here I wasn’t able to get in all of the view so I just took two pictures with the intention of stitching them later.
Now I have an image that I was unable to capture within a single frame. I’ve used this technique in more extreme situations such as when I wanted to take a reference photo of a scene behind a construction fence. I blindly took images while holding the camera over the fence and then later pulled them all together into a single scene which will be the basis of a painting.
It’s difficult to convey a sense of time photographically, the very nature of a photograph is the capturing of an instant. You can use techniques such as using a slow shutter speed to allow moving objects to blur evoking a sense of motion and time or multiple exposures. But the best way is through a series. This example is two images that were taken more than two years apart. I’ve also purposely placed the most recent image on the left to distort time as most viewers will read this image left to right. Great care was taken to frame the scene the same, this was aided by using live view on my Pentax K-7 DSLR. It allows you to see in real time the framing on the rear LCD of the camera. I also used a photograph of the original scene for comparison.
I wanted to evaluate the noise reduction abilities of the upcoming Lightroom 3 release and to create profiles for my Pentax K-7. So I set up a small scene to photograph and used an AF540FGZ flash in wireless mode to light it. I increased the ISO from 200 to 6400 in one stop increments while adjusting the flash output. There was some variation in illumination however this is more of a preliminary test and I adjusted levels in Lightroom to somewhat compensate. You can click on an individual thumbnail to see the full resolution jpeg generated through Lightroom, however the files are limited to 2Mb.
ISO 200
ISO 400
ISO 800
ISO 1600
ISO 3200
ISO 6400
I make no claims about any of the products used but am merely sharing my own testing.
