Category Archives: photography

Hittin’ the Trail

Here’s a shot from last summer’s trip to St. Joseph, Missouri, that I’ve been intending to post for weeks and it never seemed to happen. It’s the old sign for the Trail Theater. I love old signage and I love typography so I’m always drawn to things like this. Somehow it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if it were all shiny and new. I think the patina of time is the real subject of these shots. Between this and my recent Bowling Alley post, I think you can see a trend developing.

It’s been a busy few months around here. Unfortunately, much of the assignment work that I’ve been doing has to stay under wraps until the stories run. I have so much that I’d like to post, but it will have to wait a little while. The title of this post is timely, though, as I’m beginning to prepare for my next international trip to New Zealand. Between now and departure day, I’ll try and get caught up with some more images from the last couple of months and keep you all posted on some changes to my gear for this trip. No huge changes, but some little tweaks that I’m hoping will make big differences.

Architecture

On the way home from an assignment this weekend, I found myself passing through Kansas City just as the light was getting nice. There’s been a lot going on in KC the last few years and I’ve been needing to update my stock images. This seemed like a good time to make a dent in that task.

Probably the most noticeable addition to the Kansas City skyline in recent years is the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. It’s a beautiful structure and I’m sure it’s one I’m going to return to time and time again to photograph. There is so much to work with — the shapes, the materials — absolute eye-candy. So, here is one of my first attempts. I’ll be interested to see what other photographers’ see as they also approach this building over the coming months and years. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of it and some really creative shots.

Here are a couple more straightforward shots to give you some idea of the scale of this thing:

Resurfacing

After a tough few weeks, I’m returning to a somewhat normal schedule. Some would argue whether I ever operate on a “normal” schedule, but at least things are becoming more normal by my own warped standards. One part of what I like to think of passing as a routine is my morning walk. They’ve been few and far between lately, but the weather — and life — has been cooperating recently and I’m trying to reawaken the habit.

I sometimes build additional purpose into these walks by taking a camera along to experiment with a new lens or technique. On this particular recent walk, I limited myself to my Lensbaby Composer and my D700. The shot at the top of this post was created by swinging the camera downward during a .6 second exposure. I wanted to abstract the scene of grass and tree trunks to its essence and I’m pretty happy with the result. It took more than one try, but this is actually pretty close to what I was looking for.

The shot of the tree was pretty straightforward until I applied some textures in post using Photoshop CS5. And here’s one more Lensbaby shot that sums up the serenity of a pre-dawn stroll:

Battle of Black Jack

Today’s shoot comes from a reenactment held this morning of the 1856 Battle of Black Jack, where John Brown began his war on slavery near what is now Baldwin City, Kansas — then just a camp along the Santa Fe Trail. I’ll leave it to the battlefield’s website to give the history. For me it was just a great morning of shooting (no pun intended). I’ve just had a couple of hours to begin sorting through the take, but here are a few I like so far…







Hocking Hills State Park, Ohio

I’m back from a week of shooting in the Midwest — mostly Ohio and Indiana. It’s always bothered me, that name “Midwest”. I live very near the center of the U.S. and the Midwest is east of me. Seems like “Midwest” ought to be Utah — halfway between the center and the west coast. Shouldn’t Ohio be “Mideast”? But I digress…

Most of the work I was doing on this trip was on assignment and, unfortunately, I can’t share it prior to publication. I did squeeze in a quick trip to Hocking Hills State Park for my own stock, however. I’d visited before about a year and a half ago, but lack of water made for no waterfalls to shoot. This time was much different. Parts of the park were closed due to flooding but the parts that were open were stunning. I got absolutely soaked by the on-and-off rain, but enjoyed the heck out of it. I know I’ve just come from Fiji — many people’s dream location — but it’s really these dark, misty, craggy, rocky places that I love the most. I’m not sure what that says about me.

I should also mention that I found two pieces of equipment essential for the Hocking Hills shoot. First, a tripod was an absolute must. Without long exposures, the water didn’t have nearly as much movement or mood. The other thing that aided in the long exposures was my 8 stop neutral density filter. It adds no color to the scene (thus the name “neutral”) but it cuts the light down so that I can get much longer exposures than even my lowest ISO and smallest aperture will allow. NDs and polarizers are the only filters I carry any more because they both have abilities that I can’t mimic later in Photoshop or Lightroom. When I reeeally want to cut the light down — say, for a long exposure in full daylight to show clouds streaking across the sky — I’ll stack up all of my NDs and polarizers to the point that it’s hard to see anything through the viewfinder.

More from this shoot and Fiji in the coming days.

Fire dance

The coming week is going to be busy and there’s a good chance that I won’t have an opportunity to post anything so I’ll leave you with a fun shot today, just in case you end up having to stare at it all week. This one’s from an evening spent photographing fire dancers on the beach in Fiji. Not really an evening as much as a few minutes. There’s a brief period when the sky is dark enough but not too dark to balance with the fire and the light being cast by the fire. It’s fast and exhilarating — made more so by the bits of flaming material that occasionally gets flung in your direction. These guys and gals were amazing and put on quite a show.

For those of you interested in technical stuff, this was f/5.3 at 1/6th of a second. It was shot at 6:28. The entire shoot lasting from 6:17 until 6:37. 400 shots in 20 minutes (I’m glad I wasn’t having to change film). There are plenty more fun ones from this series which I’ll share in the coming weeks.

Palm trees, two ways

This is the idyllic view that I had from my hotel room for most of my time in Fiji. Abstracted to just palm fronds, trunks and ocean, it tells the story of a perfect vacation spot. I shot this view several times over the course of my stay, taking advantage of different lighting, clouds, etc., but perhaps my favorite version of it was the first one I shot, and in the most imperfect situation:

It was hot in Fiji. And humid. And when I checked in to my room, the air conditioning was cranked to the point that water was condensing on the sliding patio door to my balcony. It was also a bit cloudy that first day which, in combination with the “rain” on the glass, painted a very different picture. As a stock image, I like the way this shot says “the vacation that wasn’t”, “rained out”, etc.

When traveling — and certainly when on vacation — I would much rather have the first scene be the one outside my window, but I’m very much hoping that some photo editors out there are in need of the second version.

Back from Fiji

The Society of American Travel Writers Freelance Council (which I currently chair) held its Spring meeting in Fiji last week. In between business meetings, professional development sessions, and some spectacular events put on by our hosts, there were a few hours left to squeeze full of all manner of touring and photo opportunities. Caving, cruising, fire dancing — you name it. Quite a week indeed.

This was my first outing with the Nikon D7000 and my new Think Tank Photo sling bag. Both performed admirably. The sling was a bit less comfortable than my old backpack on long airport treks between gates (anyone dashed the several blocks between LAX’s terminal one and the international terminal lately?) but it more than made up for it when it came to accessing gear. It’s really nice to be able to swing it around and open it up from the top, regardless of which shoulder you’re wearing it on. Nice work Think Tank! The smaller size made it super easy to get into overhead compartments, too.

The D7000 and I had a few issues at first but we’re working them out. The focus seems a bit quirky to me but I probably just need to explore the various settings a bit more. The really odd thing to me is that I always have to refocus when shooting video. I tend to take a still first to test exposure, but when I then switch on live view it’s out of focus and requires another half-press of the shutter release — which is kind of counter-intuitive given that you have a separate button on the back for video. I don’t know what’s up with that. I also had some trouble early on getting my exposure to match my manual settings for stills but then realized there is a menu setting where you can turn on “manual movie settings”. It’s off by default, evidently. I guess I should have devoted a bit more time to reading the manual before I left. Oh, well.

Anyway… more on all of this soon. The mad rush to get these images catalogued before the next trip is on. As usual, I’ll share a few shots as I make my way through the shoot.