Bonding
August 31, 2010 by Kivus · Leave a Comment
I was standing on a bridge in Maine, looking at out the coast lines. There were the rocky coasts, waves crashing against the rocks, and a few boats slowing crossing over the horizon. I took my camera off my eye for a minute to take a break and saw this father, walking with his daughter, down to the water. The father was holding his daughter’s hand and his daughter was wearing a little pink backpack, as they walked down to the edge of the water. To be honest, I was so busy, watching and smiling, that I almost forgot to bring my camera back up to take a picture.
The lens on my Nikon P6000 isn’t so great, so you only end up barely seeing the girl, and barely seeing her pink backpack. But, frankly, I don’t care, this picture just makes me feel good. (Oh, and yeah, I have no idea if it was really father / daughter, but in my story, that’s what they are.)
All Aboard the Appledore
August 29, 2010 by Kivus · Leave a Comment
Since coming back from Maine, with hundreds of images on multiple memory cards, it has been a struggle not to just throw up all the images I took. I’d say that I have 3-4 that are portfolio worthy, another 50-60 that will eventually be put up as Snapshots. Some people, like Thomas Hawk, take so many photos that they can put up 20-30 a day on Flickr. I just don’t have that kind of picture volume even if I try to take at least a few pictures every day. I wouldn’t mind getting to that level, but for now, I’ve pretty much settled into a photo every other day pace.
In addition to editing photos, I’ve been sending a decent about of time on some new site features. The one new section that I’ve completed is reviews, which consolidates all the reviews I’ve done to date.
Site and HDR News and Notes
August 28, 2010 by Kivus · Leave a Comment
Just some assorted news and notes about the site and some HDR developments:
- I’ve settled into a bi-daily photo posting schedule (the every two days bi-daily, not the twice a day bi-daily). I think I’ve now got enough of a backlog of photos that even if I didn’t take pictures for a while, I should be able to keep that up. My writings, reviews, process documents, etc…won’t count towards this. It will be exclusively front page images and snapshots that will be on the bi-daily schedule.
- Speaking of writings, I’ve added two new tabs to the top navigation: reviews and process. The review page will lead to all of my reviews (some of which I forgot I had even written). The process page will be an examination of how I create certain images, blog postings, and other item. Currently, I’ve got one in the works for my Worldwide Photo Walk submission and one about how I prepare an image for printing using Aperture, Genuine Fractals, and Nik’s Sharpener Pro.
- I made two major HDR related purchases recently: (1) Nik Software’s new HDR plugin, HDR Efex Pro and (2) Trey Ratcliff’s new HDR instructional DVD. HDR Efex Pro became a no-brainer when I learned that if you already had the Nik Complete Collection, you got the new HDR software for $99. As far as the DVD goes, I feel that Trey is the master of HDR, and since there is no way I’d be able to get to one of his workshops, I figured the HDR would be the next best thing. I have pretty high expectations for the DVD and I will be doing a review as soon as I have received my copy and had time to really sit down and process it.
The Girl Who had Hair Like This
August 27, 2010 by Kivus · 2 Comments
The Scott Pilgrim comic series by Bryan Lee O’Malley is on the short list of my favorite comic series of all time. When it was announced they were making a movie out of the books, I was both excited and nervous.
At this point, the movie has been out for a couple of weeks, and there are number of stories about it’s particularly low box office (Vanity Fair even has a plea that you go see it this weekend). Personally, I don’t really care, since one of my favorite comic series was made into an unbelievably awesome movie.
The above picture is re-enactment of the party where Scott first meets Ramona, done with the newly available Scott and Ramona plushies.
Stand Up
August 25, 2010 by Kivus · Leave a Comment
One of the major drawbacks of shooting with my Nikon P6000 is the speed at which I can take shots. It takes a bit to focus and then it takes about 5 seconds inbetween shots (when shooting in RAW) in order to get ready for the next shot. This means that I frequently have to anticipate what is going to happen. If it’s sports photography, it means I pre-focus on an area that I think something is going to happen in (which usually isn’t too hard since I’m pretty familiar with the flow of games). In this case, I saw a horse rolling around on the ground, looking ready to stand up. I focused my camera and waited. About 2 second later, I took this picture.
Quiet Night at the Clubhouse
August 21, 2010 by Kivus · Leave a Comment
It was a quiet one night when I was walking by the Brier Creek clubhouse, and since there was still a decent amount of light out, I set down my tripod and took an HDR. They say photography is about compromises, and this is a perfect example. Photomatix handles lights in these kind of HDR shots better than any other program I’ve tried, but the Photomatix Aperture plugin’s ghosting correct is not up to par with Photoshop’s HDR Pro. So do I go for the cool lights with the ghosty flag or get the flag right and have slightly less than ideal lights? I decided the lights were more important in this shot.
Just Ask to Take the Picture
August 20, 2010 by Kivus · Leave a Comment
Blindfolded Eating
If you have listed to Rick Sammon for any length of time, you will have heard him tell the story of how he asked a local firehouse if he could take some portraits. He explains that he asked to take portraits of the firefighters in exchange for providing them with some 8”x10” prints of the photos he took. Though I had never tried anything similar to this, I would pretty much give the advice “just ask” whenever someone said they wished they could take a picture of something.
In the past few weeks, Elyssa and I have driven past Cedarwoods Arabians a number of times, and each time Elyssa would stare out the window at the horses. I figured, with her birthday approaching, what better time to test out Rick’s theory about asking. Not surprisingly, the process was quite easy. I went to the horse farm one afternoon and talked to the girl at the front desk. She gave me the owner’s card, and a phone call later, I had my permission to take photos. It was a pretty painless process.
One thing that Rick commonly points out, and that I will emphasize, is to make sure you deliver on your promises of prints. I made sure to go through my photos as soon as I got back home, picked out a couple that I wanted to process for prints, and prepped them for sending to WHCC. Not only is this important for your credibility, but it’s also important to establishing credibility for photographers generally. How would you feel if you went and asked someone to take photos and they said no because the last person who promised him/her prints did not deliver?
So, once again, what is the lesson to learn from Rick Sammon? If there’s something, or someone, you really want to take a photo of, just ask.
Three's a Crowd
Enter at your Own Risk
August 19, 2010 by Kivus · Leave a Comment
The main reason for this snapshot posting is because I’m trying out the new Twitter Tools authentication system. Instead of standard username / password setup, it now uses full developer API integration. I guess that’s good if I ever decide I want to write my own twitter client on my website?
This particular photo comes from a trip I took to the Duke Gardens back during International HDR day. I thought this looked like some place that you’d walk into in a video game and then a cut scene would start and a boss battle would happen. Sadly, no one challenged me when I walked through it.
Outsourcing
August 17, 2010 by Kivus · Leave a Comment
I’ve got major stuff on my plate from work and I’ve got a really cool photo spot that I’m taking Elyssa later this evening. Since I’m not sure I’ll have time to do any blog posting today, I decided to outsource those efforts.
Recent Photos
