Friday, September 28, 2012

Free Texture Friday - Light Blue Streaks


This week's free texture is light blue patterns.

You can download the full-res version below.

This photograph was captured at Bush Park in Salem, Oregon.












Download Full Res

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Drive-by Photography

Farm Life
Old Country School
A few weeks ago I was able to get out of the house for several hours with my good friend, and fellow photographer Nathan Smith.

We drove around the countryside, like we do, just not frequently enough, just looking at things in new places, talking about our families, photography and making each other laugh constantly; in case you didn't know, Nathan is a funny guy.

We stopped at this old school house and snapped a few frames. It is a classic country school architecture that appears to still be in use, just not as a school any more.
Still in Use
Across the street is an old run down building that appears to still be use as a form of storage.

I simply loved the lines of the scene and the blinking red lights indicating a four-way stop. You don't see many of these lights any more.

Old School

Decay

Pigs in the Road

Morning Bacon

Nathan getting Pork

Babe

Such and interesting wall
Window

Mexico circa 1928
I turned back to the school for a few more frames.

The hard angles of the corner of the roof combined with the round, old school light fixture protruding into the sky really caught my eye.

I loved the rust of the light fixture itself, combined with the rustic wiring that fell out of code compliance with the still functioning light bulb.
Nathan in HDR

More Decay
Caboose





I turned my attention to the old rustic building once again.

The detail in the old wood was simply stunning to my eye.

In addition to the wood, the ground cover and the window and doorway were attention grabbers.

All in all this was a great first stop.







Then we drove on into Marion, Oregon. A small unassuming town of about 15 people, and two pigs.

We take a random turn to head up a dead end road at the top of Marion Hill.

We drove past an old man walking his dog, uphill.

We come around a corner and there are two pigs standing in the middle of the road. Random. Two pigs, middle of nowhere, in the middle of the road.

Nathan and I get out of the car and start shooting and laughing about the absurd randomness of the situation.


The pigs were very friendly.

They walked up on us like we had been feeding every day of their lives.

They sniffed us, rubbed up against us.

A man drove by in his truck, obviously amused at seeing two grown men with cameras in their hands laughing about the pigs in the road.

He stopped long enough to chuckle, "Careful, them pigs might eat ya." And he drove off.





I had to get the obligatory photo of a photographer taking a photo.

So to the right, Nathan crouched down, keeping his distance, and captured his photo of morning pork.

We were both a little leery of the pigs at first. My exposure to pigs has been limited in my life, so I don't know their behavior well and I have been left with what I have seen in television shows at my pork-knowledge-base, which has been pigs being used to devour dead bodies.

Part of me actually thought, "I wonder if they ate their owners and that is why they are free."



But after some time, I got comfortable with them, and they with me.

Pigs are pretty cool animals. They allowed me to pet them, they sniffed me, tried to nibble at my clothes and for the most part didn't care that we were in their turf.

Neither charged like wild boars.

Neither actually ate into our flesh.

They were just hanging out and stopped in to say hello when we go out of the car.



We then jumped in the car and didn't stop until we arrived in Scio, Oregon.

Well, there was one stop or two stops; a garage sale and a cemetary in Jefferson.

One of the first things Nathan did upon our arrival in Scio was take a photo of a wall.


I know, what you might be thinking. A wall? There was some really cool textures on that wall.

This is much of what many of Nathan and my outings are like. Just random findings along the roadways of Oregon.

We don't always find gold, but we can almost always find a texture or two.

After photographing Nathan photographing a wall, I turned to the architecture of the building.

Very cool windows, doors, chimneys and odds spaces full of decay and debris.

The photo to the right is of some of the debris. It was a random little room that has long since been abandoned.

Add caption
Below is more photos of the little town of Scio. A quaint little town with some fantastic and fun photo opportunities.
Nothing New















Gettin' is Gone

Friday, September 21, 2012

Free Texture Friday - Light Blue Paint Splatters

This week's free texture is light-blue and green patterns.

You can download the full-res version below.

This photograph was captured at Bush Park in Salem, Oregon.






Download Full Res

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

A little splash of fruit

Splash of Orange
Last weekend my friend and fellow photographer came over with a prop and a concept; a fish tank and food coloring.

She wanted to shoot some ink drop and waterdrop shots.

I was excited about the idea, but then I flashed on something I have wanted to do forever; dropping large things into water.

So I suggested that before we started using the food coloring we drop some fruit into the water. She agreed. Using two shop lights, one with a 200 watt bulb and one with a 150 watt bulb we started started dropping fruit, splashing water everywhere.

I have seen this done many times before, mostly with stark white backgrounds, but I wanted something a little different. I wanted the elements of the tank to be present.

Splash of Red
Tomato Splash
Splash of Green

The difference I was going for was the effect of having an actual background to highlight the air bubble created in the vacuum created by the fruit so the bubbles didn't get lost in in the sheer white of the image. I am happy with the results.

Thanks Liz for including me on this fun adventure.

I am offering a limited number of these images for sale in my store. Each image is a 5x5 inch print and only cost $15 each plus S&H. The images are available individually or as a framed and matted collection. See the sample below. The 25x25" framed and matted collection is $120 plus S&H charges.

Splash of Fruit

Friday, September 14, 2012

Free Texture Friday - Light Blue Chaos


This week's free texture is dark sand patterns.

You can download the full-res version below.

This photograph was captured at Bush Park in Salem, Oregon.






Download full res

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

The Challenges of Panning



Panning is a fun way to abstract


Red Rider Coming In For A Rest
Panning provides many challenges not only for the photographer, but for the subject as well including; speed, stability, perception and expectations.

A couple of weeks back my friends at the Salem Digital Photo Group got together for a shoot in which we had someone drive, safely, around a parking while a bunch of us photographed him.

Our subject in this case was Paul and his Honda Goldwing appropriately named Red Rider. Another member, John, took over the driving duties in his Mini-Cooper when the brakes started getting warm on Red Rider.

The goal of panning is to blur the background while keeping your subject relatively in focus. Panning creates the illusion of super-speed even if the subject is moving at a moderate pace.


Stability is important with panning. You have to be able to avoid vertical shifts (the camera swinging up and down) while panning horizontally.

And no, you really can't use most tripods successfully for panning. A really expensive tripod might be able to pull this off, but most consumer tripods are not going to allow you to pan effectively and will likely get in the way of a smooth horizontal pan.




Stability comes with practice. 
Speed is another important factor. The subject doesn't need to be flying at 100 mph for a good panning result. What is important is having a constant speed for the subject if you want a smooth pan. 

In the photo of Paul and Red Rider above, you see that while they aren't tack sharp subjects, they are uniform making for a good pan. 

In the photo of John and his Mini, right, notice the deformity of the rear wheel? That is a result of John switching from accelerating to decelerating, while the shutter was open, the speed wasn't constant. The deformity is cool, but was an accidental byproduct of the shifts in speed while the shutter was open.

To prove my point, John above was reaching speeds of about 30 mph. To the left, Paul was reaching speeds of about 5 mph.

This points to the illusion of speed I mentioned above. Paul, on foot, is doing roughly 1/6 the speed of the mini-cooper, but the panning makes it seem like he is flying. And I am sure that in his mind he was flying.

One last thing to keep in mind is to keep your expectations realistic. What I mean by this is that your subject is moving and you are dragging your shutter, therefore your subject isn't going to be tack sharp and you shouldn't expect that the subject would be. Just remember, tack sharp is not required for a photograph to be cool.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Free Texture Friday - Vertical Patterns


This week's free texture is natural light patterns from camera panning..

You can download the full-res version below.

This photograph was captured at Bush Pasture Park in Salem Oregon.






Download Full Res Version Here:

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

As Summer Rolls Away

Haunted World
Oh.... Can you feel it in the air? The untimely of demise of summer? Could it be? Could fall be quickly approaching with all of its glorious colors and cooler weather?

While I am not ready for the sun to disappear behind the gray veil of nature's soft box, I am ready to embrace colors other than green and blue.

A couple of weeks ago I spent the morning with a local painter, James McDonald and his upcoming artistic daughter. I observed their techniques and styles as well as their approach to capturing a scene. It is refreshing to see how another not only interprets a scene, but also how they translate that interpretation to the canvas.

Swinging in the Past
 As my daughter swung on a swing at the park, I watched her and how her body interacted with the light. I have hundreds of photos of my kids in swings, so I wanted to look for something else.

What I found was her shadow on the ground. The curvature of her feet in relation to the relative symmetry of her hands, arms and torso. I found it intriguing.

I am often drawn to the shadows and usually love what I find there.
 The next two photos are fun additions to my world of abstracts.

In the right photograph I have captured the greens and yellows of the tree tops.

The bottom image is the vertical shift while focusing on the lush landscape. A slow shift of the lens allows some detail to remain throughout the shift.