Not much in the way of photography lately. Nothing really this year at all. The painful process of becoming “less employed” leading to the more painful process of losing our home has lead to the process of extending the lifespan of my camera. I’ve needed to step back and review my whole lifestyle for some time now, I just wish it were on my own terms. Either way it’s happening. Downsizing, or becoming more focused and less burdened with possessions can be considered one of the positive results of having not been properly prepared for the economic downturn. I’m looking for the bigger silver lining. I hope I can find it soon.
A couple of the casualties of our current fate are our dogs Nester and Duffy, a cute little cocker spaniel and a wonderful golden retriever.
They are living their last weeks in their spacious yard that soon will be on the auction block. We’ve had to relocate to a much smaller space, about 1/3 what we had before, and without a place for our fuzzy friends (well at least the bigger ones, the cats and the pomeranian will still find a small corner in the new place).
So this post is more an adoption announcement than a photo-info-thingy post. Duffy, the retriever, has a pretty good chance locally for a new home. There seems to be plenty of people who would be willing to make room for such a wonderful creature. Nester on the other hand needs a special person with a bigger heart. Nester is getting old. We took him in from the street over 15 years ago and we’re not sure how old he was then. He is pretty lively in spite of his limp and deafness and he loves all the attention he can get. I don’t know how long the average life-span of a cocker is but I don’t want to be the one to decide that for him. Most of the animal rescue places here are full and the shelters don’t exactly guarantee much in the way of a long life.
If anyone, living near San Bernardino, Ca, has a place in their home and heart for Nester please contact me. We’ve given him a home for 15 years and we’re hoping to find a kind person to give him one for, hopefully, a couple more.
*Update for 8-8-10: Duffy and Nester went to a Golden Retriever rescue ranch in Sacremento, Ca and Duffy has already been adopted. Nester is having a great time up there chasing other dogs and running around, acting half his age. Looks like he might be adopted soon. I miss them. :(
Every year in mid-September the city of San Bernardino, California hosts the annual Route 66 Rendevous. It is a gathering of classic cars and enthusiasts in the closed-off streets of downtown for 4 days and evenings. Within the barricades a “cruise” route is established and car owners are free to ride the loop and show-off their customized or restored street machines.
For the past 3 years I’ve taken my camera downtown during an evening cruise to capture some of these beauties. I fell in love with the look I got the first time I tried to capture the cars using the panning technique. Since then I’ve tried different lenses and cameras to attempt to improve the look. This year’s images turned out pretty well. I’ve been wanting to make a calendar with them but so far I have settled with this little video.
Many of the shots I attempt just don’t come out well at all (some would say that none came out well :-) ) because of such a slow shutter speed. In order to blur out the background I have to use at least 1/2 sec – 1 sec shutters. In spite of the appearance, the cars are barely moving. Most of the pedestrians are walking faster. I use an aperture between f4 and f8 and the lowest iso on the camera. To me, low noise is key to getting the most pleasant looking blurs. Camera is set on manual and lens on manual focus as well. With everything moving so slowly you really don’t need to make many adjustments. Just play around with the shutter and aperture settings a click up or down until you like the exposure. I shoot by setting the focus on a car directly in front of me, where I want the car when I make the exposure, then swing over to an approaching car and start to line up the shot. I get a firm grip with both hands on the camera and pull both my elbows tight against my chest to help steady the camera. Once I have matched the pace of the car with the camera I start shooting, and try to get at least one shot directly where I preset the focus.
Ok, so this isn’t as smooth as it could be. I think my table might be lop-sided. This is a looping .gif of 24 images. It looks like there might be a frame missing, or maybe two transposed frames in there somewhere…mmm. I’m ok with it for now. This is my first one and I’ve learned a few things. Much of the work is done in photoshop although it did take some time to get the turn-table set up for the first time.
For the turn-table I used some cabinet hardware normally used for a pull-out swiveling tv shelf. I just mounted a white board to it. Part of the problem with the shaky horizon is due to the board being too small and therefore not perfectly round. I marked off the board in 24 15-degree increments and shot an image at each mark. Read the rest of this entry »
Site update: I’ve done some work with the look of this blog today. The best part is the new logo, which was designed by Doug of Bonfx. I really like the simple design. I didn’t want some overdone style used by photographers which included some part of a camera or lens aperture. This is really nice. One thing I noticed though is that my initials are the same a those for “black and white”. I don’t suppose it would hurt any, just wondering if it would affect first impressions.
That was the option with the latest DPChallenge theme.
I wanted to continue working on small studio setups and lighting so this challenge was great practice. It’s hard to get the lighting right and everything to come together like it is in my mind. This one came close. I initially planned to have a bottle and a glass together but I didn’t have a bottle I liked (though I did go out and buy about $15 worth in beer and sodas for this.)
After many, many various arrangements I finally came up with one I liked. For this final set-up I used a black posterboard on the table, covered with a very clean piece of plexiglass. I use glass cleaner on everything. Black posterboard seems to reflect better than white. About 5-6 feet behind the glass I put a paper screen. If I put the paper too close sometimes I can see flaws in the paper or even it’s texture. By holding it back enough it falls beyond the field of focus.
