Inspired by my pals Duane and Kris‘ recent photographic efforts online, I decided to rebuild my photography section on this site which previously was just a plugin that pulled in my Flickr stream.
I’ve decided to make it a daily photo kind of site. Using a new theme (Duotone) which changes the screen colours based on the photo being presented, I’ll post a new photo each day from my favorites.
Feel free to leave a comment on any photo if you’re so inclined. I’m going to try to mix in some older photos and some newer ones that have never been published before.
The first photos of the year are already up if you’d care to visit. I’ll see if I can find a slick way of pulling these daily thumbnails into the sidebar here in the near future.
Last summer, during the photoshoot at the morgue, I came up with the idea of doing another shoot with Charles & Barbara on the beach. They had mentioned while we were shooting that they spun fire and I thought that would be a pretty cool project for us to work on.
So after a few months of trying to get things to come together, the scheduling/location and weather gods smiled on us and we were able to get together this weekend at Ambleside Park for the shoot.
While we were waiting for just the right light, we also were able to shoot some portrait shots:
Here’s a short video of Barbara spinning:
I love the sound the fire makes as it spins around. It was quite a challenge to capture things just right with so many variables including the spinning fire, the darkness making it difficult to set focus, the incoming tide, and the cold & wind you get for being on the beach in October – once the sun went down, Barbara was wearing two coats between shots.
Thanks to Charles and Barbara for being such great sports, braving the cold to do this shoot and doing amazing stuff with fire. Also thanks to Matthew Schubert for doing hair for the shoot and being on location with us. You can view my full set of photos on Flickr…I’m still going through the shots so more should pop up soon.
Update: The shots that Scott and Peter took are all up on Flickr now too. I’ve also added about 30 more shots to my set as well:
Inspired by something Peter told me about that Moose Peterson mentions in his videos, I wanted to find a way to mount another camera on top of my Nikon D90 with the goal being to capture the process of shooting photos sort of through my eyes. Moose calls it his MooseCam but I couldn’t actually find a photo of his setup so I had to figure it out myself.
Ideally the top camera could be pointed down at the D90’s top LCD screen so you could see some of the settings and/or my hands adjusting the lens, etc. The trouble was finding a reliable way of connecting one camera to another so they could shooting in unison – one shooting video and the other (most likely the DSLR) shooting the stills.
Using the tripod connector from a mini-gorillapod, I realized it could easily fit my Nikon P6000 onto my D90 via the hot shoe. It’s almost a perfect fit! It doesn’t tilt but it’s a solid connection.
So, while capturing this photo:
I shot this (goofy) video:
I can see all kinds of applications for this kind of dual camera coverage: timelapse photowalks, model shoots, event photography, party photos, etc.
Of course, there is also the HD version thanks to the Kodak Zx1: BiehlerCam HD.
While this may not work so well when I actually need to use the hotshoe for a flash (or a remote trigger), it should be a fun way to capture a few different things under the right conditions.
Stay tuned for some hopefully more interesting BiehlerCam videos…I’ll even adjust the white balance!
This is some pretty slick software, called Shape Collage, available for Mac/PC/Linux and it’s FREE!
I pointed the application to a few hundred iPhone photos (most of them from SXSW) on my computer (it can also traverse web url’s for photos or even my local Aperture library), then hand drew a cactus shape and it then arranged all the photos in the shape I drew:
You should view this larger to see the detail. There is (of course) a group on Flickr for these as well.
Pretty amazing and cool with endless possibilities.
This past weekend I attended one day of the ImageQuest Professional Photographers Convention in Richmond. I kept waiting for someone to ask me to leave since I don’t consider myself a professional photographer.
The only reason I wanted to attend was in order to see Joe McNally’s session. I’ve seen a number of videos he’s done and followed his blog for awhile. I missed out on the Strobist Meetup late last year where he just showed up (which led to me joining the Vancouver Strobist group and attending their next meetup).
For those that don’t know the name, he’s been in the business for 30 years and has shot some very well known photos for National Geographic, Life and many other publications. It would be hard to believe you haven’t seen at least some of his work somewhere because he is so prolific. He also bears a striking resemblance to Robert Redford…I wonder if he’s ever photographed him.
Even with having seen much of his work online and in print, it was still great to hear him tell some of the stories behind the images and some of the challenges he’s worked through being a pro for such a long time. He’s a very interesting guy and I found him very entertaining in his presentation…you know the kind of presentation where you haven’t looked at your watch and you don’t want to end? Unfortunately it was only 3 1/2 hours long – we did go a little over duing the workshop phase – nobody but the organizers seemed to mind.
He’s got a new book coming out later this month that I look forward to getting after getting a sneak peak this past weekend.
Interestingly enough, he uses Apple’s Aperture for photo management and does very little post processing.
coming out later this month that I look forward to getting after getting a sneak peak this past weekend.
