One more from yesterday morning’s sculpture shoot. This is looking straight up from inside the structure but I like how it also looks like an alien tree-creature walking into a root-y cave.
Maybe it’s just me.
Have a happy and safe New Year’s everyone!
Ever since moving back to Lawrence, I’ve been meaning to take some photos of this sculpture on the KU campus. It’s a structure built of woven branches that surrounds a tree so that the living branches grow through its walls (I’ll have to get the name of it and the artist after the big pile of snow melts that’s currently covering the plaque). I have some ideas for a night shot but just haven’t managed to make the 2 mile trek over some evening to do it. The local shots are always the hardest, aren’t they? I suppose it’s because you can do them anytime so why bother now. Maybe the light will be better tomorrow night, etc. etc.
Another light snow last night — maybe two or three inches — and I decided to check out my sculpture and see if the snow added anything. As it turned out, it didn’t stick as well to the branches as I’d hoped, but it was still a good opportunity to scope the site out for my later return for a night shot. What I’d had in mind isn’t exactly going to work, but I now have some new ideas. The night shot doesn’t require snow, though, so I think I’ll wait for it to warm up a bit.
Here’s a shot I did like from this morning, though. It’s taken from inside the sculpture (yes — it’s big enough to have a small party in there) looking out at the Natural History Museum. I toned it with a color overlay layer in Photoshop to give it a little eerie coolness. It’s a shame that I’m limited to 500 pixels in width here because it has a great texture when you see it really large.
One more from my Puerto Vallarta beach session. I was beginning to feel like I was shooting greeting cards — sunset over ocean surf, footprints in the sand, etc. — so I decided to play a little. Call it a game of “don’t drop your camera in the water”. As the waves would pull back from the beach, I would follow them out. Then, as they came rolling back in, I would hold the D700 down almost to the sand and run backward in front of the waves firing off exposures all the way. I wanted to capture some motion and convey the feeling of the waves coming in. I experimented with several shutter speeds — this was f/6.3 at 1/13th of a second. Strong sharpening in Photoshop helped bring out some interesting texture in the distant wave. Technically, I doubt there is much that’s “right” about this photo but I do feel that it captures the moment better than a static shot. At least that part of the moment that I was shooting for. In the end, whether it’s a success is up to the viewer.
Just down the beach from (and a couple of minutes after) the last shot, I spotted this couple walking along the surf. The two figures added a sense of scale to the landscape — just imagine this shot without them and the beach would seem much smaller. Here it looks endless and as though the two have the entire coastline to themselves. Even with my Nikon’s white balance set to cloudy for more warmth, I ended up adding a warming filter to this image in Photoshop to create a more dramatic, monochromatic look.
On our third night in Puerto Vallarta we were treated to a dinner at the incredible Dreams Resort & Spa. The sun was setting as we toured the grounds so I took every opportunity to take advantage of the light. The rugged coastline, a wedding party dining on the beach, a band on stage overlooking the ocean… it was a productive few minutes that I truly appreciated after spending a fair amount of time in meetings for the past two days. Here’s one from that evening. More to follow.
I returned from Mexico wednesday night to temperatures in the 30s. It was in the upper 90s and humid in Puerto Vallarta. Needless to say, it’s not been an easy transition.
I flew down on Sunday the 4th in three legs: Kansas City to Dallas, Dallas to Mexico City, Mexico City to Puerto Vallarta. With layovers of several hours at each airport I didn’t arrive in Puerto Vallarta until long after dark. The photo above is my third frame of the trip – a 30 second exposure made from my balcony just before sunrise, as I was getting my first glimpse of the Pacific and the beautiful Barcelo La Jolla de Mismaloya resort that was hosting the Society of American Travel Writers Board meeting for the next three days.
The Board meeting preceded the SATW Annual Convention in Guadalajara. I attended the Board meeting as an observer since I would be joining the Board at the close of the Guadalajara meeting as the new Chair of the SATW Freelance Council. It was a great opportunity to get to know the other Board members and incoming Board members – I’ll be serving with a great group of people for the next two years.
With all the meetings, shooting time was limited but I made the most of free moments and some incredible outings that were arranged for our dinners. I’ll share more over the coming days as I begin post-processing.
On our way to the farmers’ market on Saturday mornings, I turn onto 15th street and see this view toward the campus of the University of Kansas. It’s always just around sunrise and the big orange ball of the sun is rising behind the twin towers of Frazier Hall. Last Saturday it was a particularly good sky — slightly overcast so that you could look right at the blood red sun. It was rising just to the left (north) of Frazier and I decided that I would start walking up to that spot in the mornings to see if I could get a photo when the sun appeared directly between the towers.
Six days later, I finally managed to have a clear-ish sky and the time available to make that walk. It was a nice morning — not quite as interesting as last Saturday — but I figure I’ll do this somewhat regularly to try the same scene in different qualities of light.
Above is a shot from just before sunrise this morning. I was initially surprised that, when the sun came up, it was already to the right of the towers. Then I remembered my lunch with a photographer friend yesterday who was telling me about his recent project of shooting prehistoric solstice markers. He was in town because he had just finished shooting a couple of them earlier in the week.
Duh. The Fall equinox was last Tuesday. 15th Street, being an east-west street, would be aligned to the sun on the equinox. I was three days late. Thinking back, Tuesday morning was dreary and rainy so I didn’t miss anything. Still… another thing to add to my shoot calendar for the Spring equinox next year.
Getting back into my walking schedule, I headed out into fog once again this morning. Other than a good thunderstorm, I think fog is my favorite weather. Scenes are simplified, colors muted, and it’s so quiet. A lot safer to be out shooting in than a thunderstorm, too.
Here’s one more from this morning that I tried a little texture experiment on:
Today I am officially caught up with my post-processing. The image above is one of the last I shot during June’s trip to the Black Hills. Now I’ll turn my attention back to uploading to stock agencies and keywording my Alamy files. I don’t have long before the travel season picks up for me again so I’ll have to make the most of these last couple of weeks in the office.
Several trips are already lined up for the next few months and I might try and squeeze in some Fall color shooting for my stock files if the season looks good. I have some locations in mind but it will just depend on when the peak color hits and if I’m available. The Black Hills is one of those spots I’d like to return to. We’ll see what happens. I have my leaf spies out and they’ll tell me when things start to look good.
I also spent part of last week preparing my entry into the SATW Bill Muster Photo Showcase (here is a slide show of some previous winners). Time was tight this year and I didn’t get to put as much thought into my entry as I have in the past. Maybe that’s good, though. With competitions it’s easy to over-think things. Afterall, it all comes down to the judges opinions — not mine. It’d be great if it were based on my opinion, wouldn’t it? Heh. Results won’t be announced until October so I have some time to sweat it out. I’ll let you know.
Now that I have some time back in the office, I’m hitting the files hard — trying to get caught up on post-processing. I’m not too far behind but it can get out of hand quickly. The last couple of days I’ve been working on images from my trip to New Mexico earlier this year. The one above was taken during a hike at Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. I’m using Lightroom for my initial post-processing work now — moving to Photoshop for more detailed work. Even though I know the tools in Lightroom and ACR are pretty much identical, I find that there is a luminous quality to the images I get out of Lightroom. Maybe it’s just psychological due to the darker interface in LR but I like it. This image displays that characteristic in the bounced light coming through the slot canyon at the top.