Kelsey Around the Farm
May 13th, 2016
Before the moonrise Kelsey Dylan and I wandered around the farm for a while and did some random photos. This is a lovely old farm with lots of interesting stuff. See for yourself.
As you can see in this next photo, it was nice and sunny…but that didn’t mean the moon was visible when it rose.
And, what kind of farm would it be if it didn’t have a resident dog? This reminded me of a series of photos I did back in the 1970s, all called “Straw Hat.” I would shoot one every year and enter it in the fashion category of the Ohio News Photographers Association annual photo competition. I won first place a few times and always placed in the top 3 every time I did that. Guess they liked straw hats.
Moonrise Over Pat’s Farm
May 10th, 2016
I like to take photos of the rising full moon. I’m always looking for a good location where I can get a good distance from a subject…a tree, a building or, especially, a model. I noticed that my friend Pat’s farm might be a good candidate for a moonrise photo. Using The Photographer’s Ephemeris I was able to determine where the moon would rise and where I should stand to get a photo.
Pat said, as usual, that I was welcome to come to the farm and do photos. So I asked the wonderful model, Kelsey Dylan, to go the farm with me to try from some moon shots.
Of course, if you want to photograph the real moon rising over a real scene, there are going to be problems. I’ve had people suggest that I just photoshop a moon into the photos. That isn’t the same thing. I enjoy the challenge of doing it the old-fashioned way. Sure, you can fake it if you want, but is the result really a photograph?
On this occasion, as usual, the moon was being uncooperative. The moon can be shy. We were watching for the moonrise and knew that the time had come, but there was no moon. And it was a clear evening, so the clouds that often cause trouble were not a factor. After a while we finally spotted the moon well above the horizon. There was enough haze and enough light from the setting sun that the moon had been obscured for the first minutes of its rising. That meant that the photos I wanted, with a long telephoto lens, were not going to be possible. The moon was too far from the subjects I intended to include to get the full telephoto effect.
But I was still able to get a few photos, as you can see. Kelsey did her usual fine job. So this part of the shoot was not a total success, but not a total loss either. That’s how it is when you photograph nature. You take what you get and do the best you can with it.
But, since we made the trip to the farm and had to wait around for the moon to arrive, we spent the afternoon doing some other photos around Pat’s lovely farm. I’ll be posting those photos next.
For those who care, these photos were done with a Nikon D7000 with an 80-200 f/2.8 and with a Panasonic G5 with a 100-300.
Art In Architecture
May 4th, 2016
This photograph was selected for inclusion in the show, “Art in Architecture” at the Darkroom Gallery in Essex Junction, Vermont. I took this photo from our hotel balcony during a trip to Hawaii. The show opens on May 26 and runs until June 19. It looks to be an interesting show. Check it out in person if you are in the Burlington, Vermont, area, or you can see the show on line at the link above.
More Pinhole Kelsey
May 1st, 2016
Just a few more of Kelsey shot with the pinhole.
This last one may end up being my favorite from this shoot.
Kelsey Through A Pinhole
April 29th, 2016
While playing around getting my pinhole stuff ready for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day I heard from my old friend and model, Kelsey Dylan, that she was in town and wanted to get together. Kelsey is a full-time traveling model these days which means I don’t get to work with her nearly as often as I would like. She didn’t have time for a real shoot, so we just met to chat for a few minutes.
But I brought along one of my micro 4/3 cameras and a new pinhole that I had just made the old fashioned way, by poking a hole in a piece of metal with a pin. I needed to try it out and Kelsey was happy to be my subject.
We found a spot with some nice window light, Kelsey dropped her clothes, and I started shooting.
I had mounted the new pinhole on my oldest micro 4/3 camera, an old Olympus E-PL1. It’s the old 12 mp sensor which doesn’t have the greatest dynamic range or high ISO quality. But I wasn’t exactly looking for the highest technical quality possible with this set-up.
I set the camera at ISO 1600…that’s as high as I like to go with that sensor…and used aperture priority for automatic exposure. I have an accessory viewfinder on that camera and was able to use it to compose the photos. Even indoors with window light I was able to get a shutter speed fast enough to let me hand-hold the camera.
I’m pretty happy with these photos. It’s hard to take a bad photo of Kelsey, but I think the pinhole did a pretty good job here. At least, I got what I was after. This pinhole turned out a little too large for most things, meaning that it is softer than a smaller pinhole would have been. But I’m liking what it does. I’ll be mounting this pinhole on one of my newer cameras soon. The better sensor will let me use higher ISOs and that means an even faster shutter speed. And better dynamic range. The next shoot with it will be outdoors in full daylight.
But, in the meantime I have even more of these to share here in future posts. Thanks Kelsey, you are amazing.
Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day
April 25th, 2016
Yesterday was Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. I spent part of the afternoon running around with some friends taking pinhole photos. The one above is the one I chose to upload to the WPPD website. You can see it on the site here. You can also go ahead and browse the gallery to see what pinhole photographers did around the world yesterday. Or you can search the gallery by location or the name of a photographer. It’s a fun place to poke around.
I saw this photo on the street in Yellow Springs. Not sure what it’s about, but the mannequin was pretty neat looking.
This year I used three cameras with three different pinholes.
Left to right there’s my Olympus E-PL1 equipped with a home-made pinhole. I just poked a hole in a piece of soft metal using a needle and a hammer. Then I taped it to a Leica adapter designed to allow me to use Leitz lenses on my micro 4/3 cameras. That adapter placed the pinhole at a distance from the sensor that was close to a “normal” lens. Next is my trusty Panasonic G5 that has been my travel camera and primary pinhole camera for some time. It has a Pinwide wide-angle commercially made pinhole. And on the right is my newer Panasonic GF7 wearing a new commercially made pinhole. The photo I chose for the website was shot with the G5 and the Pinwide pinhole.
My wife, Emily, also shot a few pinhole photos yesterday. Above is the one she uploaded to the site. It was also shot with the G5 and the Pinwide pinhole.
And here are a few other snaps from the day:
A bicycling cow at Young’s Jersey Dairy.
Decorative grain bins at Young’s
Some barns.
And my friend Ayn and her kids who were also shooting pinhole photos. This was taken at the Clifton Mill.
I like using the micro 4/3 cameras with their electronic viewfinders with pinholes. The electronic viewfinders are actually usable, so it is possible to see what the composition looks like. Auto exposure also works, so you can use the camera’s meter to set the correct exposure by adjusting the shutter speed. And, with the high ISOs available in these cameras, it’s possible to just hand-hold the camera. All of these photos were taken without a tripod, once considered essential for pinhole photography.
Angie in Blue
April 21st, 2016
Still working through shoots from 2014. This is one I did with the lovely Angie. The theme for the shoot was blue, so we worked with whatever was handy and blue.
Angie did her usual amazing job of modeling, creating a variety of moods.
And, of course, we had to shoot a few sort-of nudes while we were at it.
Don’t forget Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day this Sunday, April 24.
Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day is Near
April 18th, 2016
This coming Sunday is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. I really enjoy fooling around with pinhole cameras and try to always participate in this day of pinhole photography. I’ll be running around Sunday with several pinhole-equipped digital cameras. I have a couple commercially made pinholes that mount on my Micro 4/3 cameras, and I plan to make a new one myself to try out on this day.
I think Micro 4/3 cameras are perfect for pinhole work. Really any camera with a good sensor that can do 3200 ISO or higher, and that has an electronic viewfinder, can make pinhole photography pretty easy. I find that with those cameras I can even hand hold some photos out in bright sunlight at the high ISO. Of course, you can also use a tripod and lower ISO if you prefer, but I find the “low-res” results from a pinhole seem to work just fine with the noise from high ISOs.
The electronic viewfinder is the key. With my Panasonic and Olympus cameras I can see and compose using the viewfinder. I set the cameras on Aperture Priority or Manual and adjust the shutter speed or just use exposure compensation and watch as the brightness of the image changes in the viewfinder. A far cry from working with film and having to guess about everything. I don’t like guessing. I like to control what is happening with the exposure and composition. I know that flies in the face of what a lot of people like about pinhole photography…but that’s just the way I am about photography. Another way of doing this with some digital cameras that have optical viewfinders is to use live view, if that feature is available.
The deal with WPPD is that you take pinhole photos on the designated day, April 24 this year. It’s always the last Sunday in April. Then you select your best photo and upload it to the WPPD website. Only one photo per person. Although, as you know, I shoot mostly nude figure work, I don’t upload nudes for this event (although the pinhole camera can be an excellent tool for nude photography) because this is an event that involves many young people around the world, so nudity isn’t really appropriate for their web site.
That’s really all there is to it, though if you like group activities there is a link on the WPPD website where you can search for workshops and group shoots near you. Many of the workshops involve making a pinhole camera and some also include basic darkroom instruction. That could be a great way to introduce young folks to the magic of chemical-based photography.
But you never know what might happen after you upload your pinhole photo. A few years ago I was surprised a day or so after uploading by photo when I received a request from the Washington Post for permission to publish my photo from the site. The newspaper was doing a story on WPPD and wanted to use my photo to illustrate the story. I, of course, agreed.
This is the photo the Washington Post published. I happened to be driving home to Ohio from Chicago on the day that year and stopped at the large windmill farm along the interstate to do a few pinhole photos. This was shot with my Panasonic G5 and a commercially made wide-angle pinhole. (That’s another advantage of mirrorless cameras. The pinhole can be placed close to the sensor. The “focal length” of a pinhole is solely determined by its distance from the sensor/film. The closer you place the pinhole to the sensor, the wider the angle of view. Most SLR cameras, as a result, produce somewhat “telescopic” images because the pinhole has to be placed far enough from the sensor to not interfere with the mirror.)
Kelsey at Rockbridge
April 11th, 2016
Continuing my efforts to work my way through the huge backlog of shoots that I have yet to post here, I’ve come today to a great shoot with a great model from the summer of 2014.
That’s the amazing, beautiful Kelsey Dylan posing at a little park in Ohio known as Rockbridge. This was a pretty quick shoot and we were dealing with some bright sunlight, although it was pretty shaded down under the natural rock bridge.
Kelsey, of course, did her usual wonderful job of posing and working with the environment we found there to make some nice photos. It’s always a pleasure to work with a great model and Kelsey is one of the truly great ones.
Some Instants Before
April 5th, 2016
Before Areia and I went to Matthiessen State Park to shoot we took a bit of time and did some instant photos using my Speed Graphic and some of the last of Fuji’s 3000 speed black and white film. I’m going to really miss that film. It has a tonal quality that is unique.
These are quick and dirty scans from the original instant prints. You can’t really appreciate the richness of the tones from a scan that is reduced and presented on the web. It’s a shame. But, I guess in this digital age this film is really an artifact of photo history. There clearly was no place for it in the future of photography.
But I did manage to catch a bit of the sparkle that Areia brings to the world.
And she, of course, also brings lots of beauty and charm. Thanks Areia. I still have just a few packs of Fuji 3000 to shoot…and there are other photos I did with it after these. So you will be seeing more of it on here soon.
