Sun in the Afternoon

Nothing better than a sunburst to brighten your day. I was feeling a little uninspired, had actually decided to put off shooting for a while and just organize my archives instead. But I walked home instead of taking the bus, and I saw some cool light, one thing led to another, and this is the result.

And then I went on a shooting trip to the beach for the blue hour. But I haven't processed those images yet, so this one will have to do. I was actually thinking I might do some kind of SF architecture inspired project, so I shot a bunch of garage doors, and windows, and different colored Victorian houses. Then I saw the sun, and it was all over after that. I hope I don't go permanently blind from all the staring into the sun that I do, trying to find just the right composition.

Also, I have been seeing this lovely reflected light all over the city. I have only one person to thank for turning me on to this kind of light, I might have never seen it and continued to be totally oblivious, but I recently started reading Eli Reinholdtsen's blog, and she has recently shown some beautiful photos using this kind of light. Take a gander.

(Not sure how I did this? Check out my sunstar tutorial here.)

I'm really enjoying....

My tendency is to make these lists too long. So in the spirit of restraint....

Macro journey by Angie Seckinger. It might, just might have something to do with my recent foray into macro photography. She does it much better, of course.

Sean Duggan, principally his pinhole images. Like a trip back in time, if going back in time made you feel pensive and as if everything was new and interesting again and time had slowed down to a murmur.

Voyages Etraordinaires. Amazing photoshopped collages. For those who think Photoshop destroys creativity, let them see this. I'll give you a tip: zoom in.

And below, a photo that I want no one to take seriously as I did it mostly as a sort of experiment in compositing. What I learned is that this didn't turn out as well as I would have liked it to - still, it's a little fun.

Some mornings it's exactly what I feel like doing, that's for sure.

Unzipped

I still long for a dedicated macro, but I'm finding that with practice (and enough light) the Lensbaby macro filters do a fairly decent job. And this photo celebrates finally being finished with the Souvenir Foto School Alphabet challenge. If you're interested you can view the whole set from A to Z here. I'm not totally in love with all of the photos, sometimes the quality was not so high as other times, but in general I feel that it was worth doing and I learned some new photographic techniques, specifically how to use the stuff I already own to do some macro work. And I'm pleased at the level of detail I was able to obtain in this one shot.

Morning Dew - Two Months Ago

Two months ago I was in New York. We had just taken the bus from Boston, a four hour bus ride leaving Boston at 2 am and arriving in Chinatown at 6 am. Another hour on the subway + bus to get to Queens, and we were stumbling back to our room when I saw this little flower and I knew I had to have it. On any other day I might have knelt down in the dew for a more interesting angle; on this particular morning running on only a few hours of sleep I didn't have it in me. But I finally found it in my archives and decided to brush it up with a little processing and stick it on the blog. We all know how much I love early morning light, and this photo is no exception.

I'm experimenting with text overlay on my photos, let me know what you think about it. I'm not totally convinced by this one.

Journey Through Java, a Review

From time to time, I sing the praises of David duChemin (even if I do think he pronounces his last name incorrectly - he makes it sound like douche-man, as opposed to the more Frenchified version my hoity-toity ears would prefer - but I love ya, David, I really do, no harm meant). And so the time to sing praises has come again. But actually, this time it's not David but one of his colleagues/friends/fellow photographers who has earned the accolades.

I've been following the work of Mitchell Kanashkevich for a while, maybe about a year or slightly longer. He has published two ebooks, one on using available light and one on post-processing in Lightroom which have been very well received, although I can't completely speak for them as I didn't purchase them myself. I have seen the samples, however, and I think they would be well worth the investment for anyone not completely familiar with Lightroom or seeing the light.

But the new Craft and Vision ebook by Mitchell is worth reading for any photography enthusiast. It's called Journey Through Java, and it's part of their The Print and the Process series. The basic format is to take a selection of images all captured over a fairly short time period in one rather exotic location, and then tell the story of the making of the images, and the thoughts and techniques behind them.

The Images
The images come first without any explanation. I really love that about this series. First we are given the opportunity to make our own judgments about the images before we are told what to think about them. I've never been to Java, but I found myself frequently flashing back to our time in Thailand while looking at them. There's something about the Southeast Asian light that is instantly recognizable for me now.

Mitchell has a good eye. His images use color contrast, simple composition, diagonals and leading lines to draw you in. And once you're in, he tells you the stories. Of sitting round the fire at night, or spending your days hauling backbreaking amounts of sulfur from a volcano, or porting baskets from the ocean writhing with fish. He creates a balance between the beautiful or desolate countryside and the very human people within it. And he knows how to photograph in challenging but beautiful low light situations.

The Process
And then once you've formed your own judgments he gives you his side of the story. And he talks about the light. I love the way he talks about the light. It could be me speaking there, but he tells it all much more articulately than I ever could. Most of his images use natural light, but from time to time he uses an appropriately gelled flash to make the capture possible.

He also covers equipment, his preparation for the trip (he learned some Bahasa Indonesia - hats off to him), getting around once on location (he rented a motorbike) and other practicalities. At the end of the book he goes through each image in detail, the thought process behind it, the time of day it was taken, getting permission from the subjects, anything you could want to know about it all.

So?
If you've got five bucks, half an hour to read it, a few more days to let the information sink in, and you have any kind of hunger for photographic knowledge at all, plus if you like gorgeous images, you should buy it. I'm just saying. You'd be doing yourself a favor. Click here to visit Craft And Vision, if you feel so inclined. If you purchase before midnight today and use the code JAVA4 you can get the book for $4 instead of $5. And if you buy more than 5 books you can use the code JAVA20 and get them all for $4 each.

Das Boot!

And a happy Oktoberfest to you, too!

Edit: Thanks to my eagle eyed readers. Unsurprisingly, boot does not translate directly into German. My mistake! Apparently, the title of this post should read 'Der Stiefel.' But that just doesn't seem as fun to me.