Soft Kelsey
May 16th, 2014
I often take models to my favorite, most beautiful locations for our shoots. But for these photos Kelsey took me to one of her favorite places, a preserve in southeast Ohio. This was more than a year ago, in the spring of 2013. Kelsey knows many great places because she spends a lot of her time in the great outdoors studying plants.
Unfortunately, on the day we had to work at this great spot it was very sunny. What I call “challenging light.” There are a lot of ways to deal with this kind of contrasty light. One of them is to use a soft lens. I happen to own an old, single-element soft focus lens…an optical design like many lenses of a century and a half ago…in a mount for my Nikons. I decided to put it on for a few shots this day.
One of the things about this lens that makes it fun for sunny days is the way it treats highlights. It blurs them into the surrounding tones in a way that can’t really be duplicated by any other method. This gives photos a lovely glow.
Because of this characteristic of the lens it is sometimes fun to take it a little further and overexpose in order to blow out the highlights and magnify the effect. That’s what I did in this last photo.
Of course, I also did some photos with my regular lens. I’ll post a few of those next time.
Ayn Indoors
May 13th, 2014
In my on-going effort to catch up with my backlog of editing, here are a few photos of Ayn from more than a year ago. Ayn came by the studio last April to help do some lighting tests. It’s been so long I don’t really remember now what it was I was testing for. But we got some fun photos anyway and here they are for you to enjoy.
By the way, Ayn has recently updated her Model Mayhem page and added some new photos, so you might want to click that link and go check it out.
Ayn All Wet
May 10th, 2014
I keep trying to catch up on all the shoots that I haven’t edited. I’m more than a year behind now. And I’ll get back to work on the backlog soon. But, yesterday I did a shoot with Ayn at a couple of my favorite local waterfalls. It went so well that I couldn’t resist going ahead and showing them now.
Ayn had been bugging me for a while to shoot her at some waterfalls. Of course we did the frozen waterfalls back in the winter, but she wanted some photos with the waterfalls actually flowing. Well, Spring is the time for that. And I do love it when a model bugs me to do a shoot.
So, we picked a day and really lucked out with the weather for a change. It was overcast with rain forecast. In other words, great light. The rain didn’t start until after we had finished. And the waterfalls were flowing well. In a month one of these waterfalls will be dry except right after a big rain. And it was nicely warm, so Ayn didn’t suffer too much, even when she insisted on getting into the waterfall. The water was cold, but the air was pretty comfortable.
Ayn as usual did a great job. She’s become a good friend as well as a great model. I really enjoy working with her. I think you can see why.
Finding Vivian Maier
May 5th, 2014
I saw the documentary film, “Finding Vivian Maier” this weekend. I highly recommend the movie. If you are at all interested in photography it is important to learn about Vivian Maier. She was one of the best photographers of the 20th Century and was totally unknown until after her death. Her story is a fascinating mystery that will never be solved. But she left behind an incredible collection of wonderful photographs.
Her work is now owned by two different people/organizations…whatever…it’s split into two groups with both groups producing books and movies. I recommend getting one or more of the books of her work as well as seeing the movies. You can see some of her work on these web sites:
Check out the fantastic photography of Vivian Maier. And, really, see the film, “Finding Vivian Maier.”
The photo with this post is a self-portrait by Vivian Maier. It’s the “cover photo” for the movie. She took many self-portraits. One of the books that has been published of her work is all self-portraits. I own that book and it is wonderful.
Another Show
May 2nd, 2014
This has been a very good week for my work getting some attention. This photo of Kelsey in my studio window was chosen by the juror for the show, Hue, at the Darkroom Gallery in Essex Junction, Vermont. You can see the entire show at the link. And if you are in Vermont you should go by and see the show in person. Darkroom Gallery is a great place. I love their shows.
Thanks Kelsey!
Pinhole Fame
April 29th, 2014
That pinhole picture I took Sunday and uploaded to the Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day site was chosen by the Nick Kirkpatrick of the Washington Post as one of the illustrations for a story he did on the WPPD.
Needless to say, I’m quite pleased.
Planets, Pencils, and Pasties
April 28th, 2014
I’ve just returned from a trip to Chicago. I went up there to attend an opening at the gallery there that represents me, Gallery Provocateur. That’s gallery owner Veronika standing in the middle of her lovely gallery in the calm before the opening turned into the spectacular event that her openings always are. Veronika had asked me to do a photo of her and the gallery with my fisheye lens, so I took it along and did a few shots for her.
And here’s the gallery from the other direction and Veronika with her partner, Simon.
This is what it looks like after things get going:
The entertainment for the evening included performances by a burlesque troupe:
I was pleased to be able to meet Michael O at the opening. His work was my favorite in this show. Really strong, beautiful work using PhotoShop to drastically alter photographs. The work has strong emotional content and clear purpose and message. It was also nice that he included the original photographs that he started his work from on the info cards for his pictures. That was fun to see. Here he is with his work on the wall behind him:
I didn’t have any of my work in this show, but Veronika did have one of my calendars hanging in the gallery where everyone could see it, so I went around pointing that out to everyone I talked to.
Here’s another photo of the lovely Veronika talking with guests at the opening:
And it wouldn’t be an opening at Gallery Provocateur without this famous Chicago photographer, Joe Weinshenker, documenting the event with…yes, children, that’s right…a Nikon F2 and that funny smelling stuff known in the olden days as film. He keeps telling me that he is going to buy an Nikon D800, but he is always there with that venerable F2.
Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day
April 27th, 2014
Today is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. There’s still time for you to go out and take a pinhole photo. You can then upload it to the WPPD site. I just uploaded mine. That’s it above. Once again, nothing great. I was traveling home from Chicago today, so I stopped and did this shot of windmills along I-65 in Indiana. One of these years I’ll actually be able to set up something interesting for this day.
I used my Panasonic G5 with my Pinwide brand wide-angle pinhole. I cropped the image a bit to help the composition. I couldn’t get close enough to the windmills to take full advantage of the wide-angle effect of this pinhole. I did get reminded of something I already knew. The pinhole is an opening. Unlike a regular lens, it doesn’t provide a seal to protect the sensor from dust. And it was very windy out there today. As a result of those two factors, the wind pushed a considerable amount of dust through that tiny pinhole and onto my camera’s sensor. I had to clean up a bunch of dust spots in this photo. I’m hoping the camera’s built-in sensor cleaning will take care of the problem. We’ll soon see.
One nice thing about using a pinhole on a micro 4/3 camera is that thanks to the electronic viewfinder, it’s actually possible to see what you are getting while you are taking the photo. A regular DSLR optical viewfinder is useless with a pinhole…you can’t see a thing. Also, the meter worked just fine, giving me a perfect exposure just by following the built-in meter. I like this. I was never a fan of the inability to have any idea what was going to happen with a conventional pinhole camera and film. It can take weeks to figure out exposure and composition with those contraptions. I like to see what I’m getting and know that I have the right exposure. I know others enjoy the “mystery” of working with all those unknowns. I’m not one of them.
Here’s the link to my photo on the WPPD site: http://www.pinholeday.org/gallery/2014/index.php?id=606
Start Your Pinholes
April 25th, 2014
Today’s post is just a brief public service announcement. Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day is this Sunday, April 27. So dust off your pinholes and take a photo with one on Sunday and upload it to the WPPD site. I’m going to. I’ve been practicing with my Panasonic G5 and the wide-angle pinhole I have for it. Practicing can be fun.
Above is the amazing Natalya Sadici.
And below we have a dynamic duo, Claudine and Kelsey Dylan.
I’ll be doing a non-nude pinhole photo on Sunday for my upload since nudes are frowned upon for this event.
More Macaroni
April 19th, 2014
Since tomorrow is Easter I thought I’d go ahead and post the rest of the photos from my shoot with the incredible MissMacaroni. She did a wonderful job of scampering around and posing on the cold, hard rocks of Cantwell Cliffs.
I guess you can file most of these under “dot in the landscape” but I don’t mind. I like this approach to showing these great cliffs and waterfalls and letting a lovely human figure give a sense of scale and add a beautiful form to complement the natural beauty of nature.
So, enjoy the beauty of nature and Macaroni. Back to our regular schedule next week. Thank you MissMacaroni for being such a wonderful, beautiful, brave model. Hope to work with you again soon and often.
