In the Woods with Ayn
July 20th, 2012
I’m actually getting caught up a bit with my editing. These photos of Ayn were shot just last month. We went out one morning to one of my favorite local spots to see what we could come up with. And it was a good shoot, as you can see. I hope to be working with Ayn a lot more in the future. She’s just wonderful.
And, on a photo geek technical note, I’ve once again changed the software I’m using to process my photos. I finally broke down and bought the upgrade to PhotoShop CS6. I installed it and used it to process the RAW files from this shoot as my first test of how it works. I know I’ve only scratched the surface of the capabilities of this program, but I have to say that I’m impressed. It lets me do everything that Nikon View NX2 does, but without the clunkiness of that awful program. It even lets me apply Nikon’s different profiles to the images. I have to grudgingly acknowledge that Adobe has a product here that is unmatched by anything else out there. I’m so pleased that I might even break down and get Lightroom and join all the rest of the photo world in using it. We’ll see. Maybe.
Really all I used to work on these files was Camera Raw, which has lots of capability that I’d never used before, and then a couple minor adjustments using levels in CS6. I’m going to keep working with it and exploring what’s new, so I’ll let you know what I think as I work through the next few shoots I need to edit.
In The Studio with Sugar Dumpling
July 17th, 2012
Sugar Dumpling was good enough to come by the studio so I could play around with a bunch of lenses on the Olympus. Of course, being the totally organized person that I am, I failed to take notes on which lens I was using for which photos, and since there is no lens data in the EXIF data when using the lenses on the adapters, I now have no real idea which lens I used for which photos.
But this wasn’t intended to be a serious test. I was just trying a bunch of lenses on the camera and seeing what happened. What happened was nice. In the studio with a model I didn’t have the issues with subject movement that Jake and Elwood presented. Models are pretty good at following orders when you tell them to hold still. So the percentage of sharp files was much higher. And the camera worked very well. I kept it on Aperture Priority and made no exposure adjustments. It does a great job of nailing the right exposure, even when presented with a high-contrast situation like this one. With most of my cameras I know I’d be making an adjustment to the indicated exposure to get a good file from this scene. Didn’t need to with the Olympus.
On that same day I also played around with some old Polaroid film that had been stashed in a corner in the studio for years. It was way out of date. I had some black and white, but when I tried to use it I couldn’t even get it to pull through the rollers…it just tore apart. So I tossed it. But the old color packs seemed to work ok. The colors are pretty far off, though in an interesting way. Here’s an example:
I haven’t quite decided what to do with this old film yet. I’m not really that into what it’s doing with the color, so I might just give it to someone who will make better use of it than I would. I shot this with my old Speed Graphic using a 90mm lens. This is pack film. I have a pack film holder that goes into the 4×5 back of the Speed Graphic. I even have the original overlay on the ground glass that shows the image area of the pack holder.
In other news, I finally broke down and ordered the upgrade to PhotoShop CS6. It arrived today, so I went ahead and installed it and used it to do the editing on both of these photos. It worked fine. I haven’t noticed much difference from CS4, but I assume there will be some things that will be better. I didn’t really do much to the files. Just an auto contrast adjustment on the Olympus file and some despeckling along with auto contrast on the Polaroid. Then smart sharpening on both files.
Of course, I’ll be getting into more work with CS6 soon and I’ll let you know what I think of it. With the way Adobe is going with their products and upgrade policies I’m thinking it’s likely this will be the last time I upgrade PhotoShop. We’ll see…
Jake and Elwood
July 14th, 2012
A little change of pace. Last night Jake and Elwood were playing in the park near my house. I stuck the old 85mm f/1.8 on the Olympus E-PL1 to see what I could do with it. Despite forgetting to go put out chairs at 6 a.m., I was still able to find some good spots for the folding chairs when I went down to the park around noon. They had good craft beer and Chicago hot dogs in the concession stands. I opted for Italian Sausage and a soft pretzel. The weather was perfect. And the band backing these clowns up was excellent.
With the the 85 on this camera the 2x crop factor makes it effectively a 170mm…and with f/1.8, that’s a pretty powerful lens. I love that old 85. I shot a lot of photos with it back in the day. It’s manual focus, of course. And it’s made out of metal. Big chunks of solid metal. You can use this lens for a hockey puck between shoots and never notice any difference. Of course, that makes it heavy and it was a little over-balanced on the little Olympus. And made it a lot heavier to hang around my neck for the evening. I’d guess this lens must weigh at least 3 times as much as the Olympus body. But I just took it off and hung it on the arm of my chair when I wasn’t shooting.
I set the Olympus to auto ISO, limited to 800 on the top end. I used aperture priority and varied the lens aperture between f/4 and f/1.8. Best results were around f/2.8 which gave me a shutter speed around 1/125 and a bit of depth of field to make up for the unavoidable focus errors. I focused by zooming in with the magnifier on the rear lcd screen. That let me get good, accurate focus…but then Jake and Elwood would move around, so there are a lot of slightly out of focus frames. Not the best system for this kind of subject, yet I was still able to get a few decent shots.
Obviously these are cropped a bit…but not all that much. And they were lightly edited in ACDSee Pro 5. Just a little bit of auto levels, actually. No sharpening, no noise reduction. The auto ISO selected by the camera ranged from 200 to 800. I didn’t use any exposure compensation, so the exposures were what the camera chose, and they are pretty much dead on.
I’m going to another concert tonight. An Eagles tribute band, Hotel California. I’m going despite not being much of an Eagles fan and actually seriously hating the song that the band chose for their name. But, what the heck, these concerts are free and fun. I thought about mounting my 200mm f/4 on the Olympus for tonight, but checked the camera bag and saw that it is locked up in the equipment locker at the studio, and it’s not worth the drive to the studio to get it today. I’ll save that experiment for another concert…or maybe a moon rise photo.
A Favorite Waterfall with a New Model
July 11th, 2012
I’m slowly getting caught up with editing shoots. I’ve finally made it into work I did in May. This was my first shoot with a new model for me, Sugar Dumpling. I’d been looking for some new models to work with since several of my favorites had moved away or were not available for other reasons. Sugar D sent me a message on Model Mayhem after I’d sent her a friend request there and it was clear from the very start that we were going to enjoy working together.
When our schedules meshed it turned out to be a great day to shoot outdoors, so I took Sugar D to a favorite local waterfall to see what we could do. She was a real trooper, hiking through the woods to the location and then getting all cold and wet and dirty so we could make these photos. It all worked out pretty well. This kind of work was a new experience for Sugar D…but I think she’ll be getting a good bit more experienced with it before I’m done with her.
We’ve already done two more shoots since this one, so you’ll be seeing lots more of Sugar D in the near future.
And More from Savannah
July 7th, 2012
Find a semi-horizontal tree limb over some quiet water in a shady spot in the early morning light. Add a beautiful, talented nude model. How could you go wrong? Thanks to Sarah, this time it worked out better than usual.
Of course, every once in a while, after working with me for a while, one of the models feels the need to make a break for it. Or maybe Dyaphanye was just enjoying the morning light and color. She is a wonderfully free spirit.
There’s an Empty Place in my Life Tonight
July 3rd, 2012
That’s a very old photo of a very old friend at his very old house. It’s a bad scan of a print from the 1970s. Actually, I don’t think it’s a scan…I think I just shot a photo of the print with a digital camera. The digital file has been around a long time, so I don’t really remember anything about how it came to be.
But I remember John. I’ll always remember John Allee. One of my oldest and best friends. I took this photo shortly after John bought that house. He lived in it from then on. I lived in it for a time. My room was upstairs. I went in and out through that “porch” on the side of the house. I helped John restore that place. Part of it is log. There’s a date…I think it was 1820…carved in one of the logs. It’s a special house. Many thought he should just tear it down and start over after he bought it, but John wouldn’t have ever even considered doing that. He wanted to restore and preserve the place. And I was honored to be able to help with that project.
We all (I hope) have friends. Some of us have many friends. But, if we are lucky we have a few special friends who will always be part of the fabric of our lives. Friends who have made us who we are because of their friendship.
This morning I lost one of my special friends. John and I worked together at the newspaper where I got my first job as a photographer back in…well, a long, long time ago. He taught me pretty much everything that matters that I know about photography. Much more than I learned in the years I studied it in college. And he taught me a lot about life as well.
I lived with John in his almost pre-historic log house for a while. I was living with him when he was dating Judith, who became his wife, and who lost her beloved husband today. I was his best man at their wedding. John was my best man…twice.
John was a good man. He was also a great photographer. He was wise and witty. He made my life richer. He made the world a better place just by being in it.
John had been very sick for a long time. I went to visit him today, but he died this morning before I got there. But I’d had other recent visits…and nearly a lifetime of the pleasure of his friendship. I miss him. I’ll always miss him.
Fun With Tree Roots
July 2nd, 2012
Uprooted trees can provide great places to pose the female figure. We found a good one when Antoine and I were shooting Sarah and Dyaphanye in Savannah.
The sun was coming up fast and bright and hot, so we were dealing with that challenge while working on these.
As always, it really helps to have a beautiful location and lovely, talented models who understand what we are trying to do. Thank you Sarah and Dyaphanye!
Savannah Dawn
June 28th, 2012
After my shoot with Dyaphanye I got up the next morning before dawn to meet her and Antoine again for an early morning shoot outdoors. And that morning we were joined by another wonderful, beautiful model, Sarah. I’d worked with Sarah before on my last trip to Savannah, so I knew we were going to have a great shoot.
Of course, it would have been easier work if there had been some clouds to soften the light. But that was not to be, so it was a morning of dealing with strong Georgia sun and trying to control contrast. Challenging light. But with great models and a beautiful setting, it’s worth the effort…and the effort is rewarded.
I’ll have more to show you from this shoot in the next couple posts.
And the Light had Stripes
June 23rd, 2012
Here are some more photos of Dyaphanye from our first day of shooting in Savannah. The striped light has, of course, been done many, many times. Nothing new there. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still fun to play around with. So we did. And fun it was.
These were processed in ACDSee Pro 5, just for kicks. I’m finding I like using the exposure band adjustments in that program. It’s an easy way to fine tune the tones at different points in the tonal scale.
One other fun thing about this shoot that I haven’t mentioned yet is that an old friend was also there. I met Antoine De Villiars when she lived near Dayton. Then she moved to Savannah. We’ve tried without success to get together on past trips I’ve made down there, but this time we worked it out. Although Antoine is primarily a painter, she also does some photography. So she brought her camera and joined Dyaphanye and me for the shoot at Dyaphanye’s apartment. It was a fun shoot for all of us.
More From Savannah and the Big Apple
June 19th, 2012
Sorry to go so long without a new post. That was not my intention. But I was traveling and was surprised to find that there was no internet and no cell service where I was staying. Now that I’m back to civilization I’ll try to pick up the pace a bit.
This is more of Dyaphanye from our shoot in Savannah. You can get some idea of what a dedicated model she is from the fact that she had emptied a room in her apartment to give us a good space to work in. That room had some interesting things going on with the light coming through the windows, so we played with that for a bit. I’m pleased with the results.
There’s more to come from my work with Dyaphanye. She was great to work with. I’m looking forward to shooting with her again this summer.
I actually wasn’t in the hinterlands the entire time I’ve been away. I also spent a little time in New York City. But while I was there I was far too busy to find time for blogging. You’ll be seeing the results from a wonderful shoot I did with two fantastic NYC models, Venus de Milo and Erica Jay. My old friend Dave Rudin was along for that shoot too. It was a great day in the woods. Dave has already posted a few photos from the shoot on his blog, so you can check them out now at his link.
I also got to meet up with some other friends, both old and new, while I was in the city. I was able to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the company of two lovely models, Venus from the shoot and Claudia of Museworthy fame. Claudia is a full-time professional artist’s model in NYC and knows everything about art, so it was wonderful to wander around the Met with her. In particular I was interested in seeing the current nude show, “Naked before the Camera,” that is up at the Met. Claudia has blogged about it already here. If you are in NYC and have any interest in nude photography, you should not miss this show.
