photography Archives - Page 8 of 25

July 13, 2016July 13, 2016

Unforgiving

This is another image I took with my Sony 70-400mm G lens fully extended. I almost didn’t bring the lens on the trip because of its size and weight but I’m glad I did. It was key in getting perspectives I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Of course, having a tripod to mount it on was key.

The features of the landscapes like this are amazing and, for me, a little terrifying. The elements are entirely unforgiving. When I look at this my mind projects me onto the slopes and once there I consider my prospects dire. There is no easy way up or down and survival is anything but assured. I’m a problem solver by nature, but when I look at this there are no easy options.

portfolio

Why I do that in my head I don’t know. Why is it that when looking at images like this my heart races? Yet despite my reservations, if given a chance I would probably climb. I would be terrified and on life’s thin edge yet continue nonetheless. Perhaps that’s why I get terrified when I look at this, because I’m already working out the route and know that this mountain is in fact, unforgiving.

July 12, 2016July 13, 2016

Reflection Study

I drive by this pond quite a lot and this morning I happen to have my camera. As I passed I thought to turn around and get a picture. I’ve taken this before but no two days are alike and indeed it came out quite different.

This is a continuation of a study of reflections I’ve been doing. The study is to capture or produce reflections to add interest to an image.

I never get tired of reflections. In some cases they can be more compelling from than their source, at the very least they enhance it. Reflections resonate with us for reasons we can only guess. Perhaps it is a hint to how we perceive world.

more reflections

I used another photo of clouds and combined it for the sky. This is an example of using textures to enhance the flat section of an image.

I’ll continue posting these them in the days and weeks ahead as I continue to explore both real and artificial reflections in my images.

July 11, 2016July 11, 2016

Arc of the Sun

I took this in Venice Florida when I came down to take pictures at sunset. This is a fun place to visit and if you like photography you’ll appreciate it even more. I always leave with some great shots in my camera. Mind you, I take a lot of bad shots but that’s not the fault of the scenery.

In this case I used a telephoto lens fully extended at 240mm. When you extend a telephoto lens it has the effect of compressing distances. So in this case the sailboat and the sun are more or less equal actors in the scene.

Speaking of the sun, I just returned from Alaska and up there I noticed a big difference in how the sun looks. First, it has a low arc in the sky as opposed to Florida where the arc is high. Second, in Florida it’s dark about 45 minutes after sunset whereas Alaska seems to have perpetual dusk during summer, I never once saw it completely dark.

more sunset photos

Anyway, I always like it when I can include the sun in my photos. Something about it just amps up a scene.

July 10, 2016

Eldred Rock Lighthouse

The Eldred Rock Lighthouse is somewhere outside of Skagway Alaska. On our cruise I spent a lot of time on the balcony just watching the scenery and taking pictures of peaks and land features. For this I used a Sony 70-400mm G fully extended and mounted on a tripod. Thanks to image stabilization this was possible despite the vibrations of the ship.

One of the best things we did was to bring a set of binoculars which helped in a couple of ways. First we could see things along the shore up close, but perhaps more important, they helped provide a sense of scale. In Alaska everything is so large you easily loose all sense of perspective. The landscape tricks you into thinking things are not so large on account of the immense spaces. Upon closer examination with the binoculars the impossible size of slopes, cliffs, waterfalls and peaks become apparent.

favorite photos from the gallery

Like anyone else I’ve seen Alaska in pictures and television yet was still surprised at what I saw. Images will never do justice to Alaska’s landscape. Nevertheless it’s still fun to take them if for no other reason than to remind myself of the experience.

June 30, 2016June 30, 2016

Waterway Panorama

Lately I’ve been taking panoramas of places near home. This is from the bridge to Anna Maria Island and is four images taken side-by-side and then stitched together. Actually I took six images but the full length is too long for social media.

The images are taken in portrait mode meaning I held the camera on its side. The result is that there is a lot of detail, so much that you can zoom in to see a little things you wouldn’t normally see in a photo. The main reason for doing this is because the print resolution is so good.

I love looking at panoramas displayed on walls. It invites you to get right up close and experience the image in a more personal way. But it is a physical medium, not necessarily a good fit for social media.

full gallery

All that aside, as you can see this was near sunset on a cloudy day and all kinds of strange things happened with the light and how it played out on the water. Funny thing is, had it not been a panorama I might not have even noticed all that detail.

June 27, 2016

Water Pier Cloud

This is the pier in Venice Florida on a cloudy afternoon. It’s the best pier around so when I come here I shoot it from as many angles. In most cases I have the pier pointing out to sea from the left or right of the frame. In this case I’ve take a more direct angle by having it bisect the water and clouds. This is an angle I like very much, especially when shot with a telephoto lens. As you can see I’m not exactly head on, rather I’m on the beach angling out, but the perspective of the telephoto lens has it appearing rather flat.

Piers and bridges are a major source of inspiration for me. I have no idea why that is. Maybe it’s because they are objects that interact with bodies of water. If I lived in the mountains I’d be shooting waterfalls and lakes but in Florida it’s rivers, ponds and seasides.

Images from Venice Florida

The final toning of this image was created with a Trey Ratcliff Lightroom preset called “She Finally Awoke”. I’m a big fan of Trey’s presets which I use for inspiration when starting an image. But in this case I used it when finishing and I didn’t change the preset one bit. That’s unusual for me but in this case it worked exactly the way I wanted it to. Anyway, that’s a little behind the scenes info on some of the aspects of how I created the image. There is a lot more but for now that’s the short version.

June 26, 2016

Leffis Key Dune

There is nothing higher than a palm tree in central Florida. As a result there aren’t may places you can go to get a perspective of the landscape other than a bridge or lookout tower. Leffis Key however contains a dune covered with vegetation that provides just barely enough elevation to look out onto the inter-coastal waterway. In this image the sun is rising over the fishing village of Cortez. Whenever visitors ask me where to get fresh fish I always recommend Cortez.

This is a single image HDR. That just means I didn’t use multiple exposures to balance the highlights with the darker areas. The sensor in the Sony A7R2 camera captures an very wide range of light so that images like this are possible. That wasn’t the case just a couple years ago unless we combined multiple images using HDR.

anna maria island

There was a breeze blowing so that the grasses swayed from side to side. Using traditional HDR, I would have taken three shots and combined them, however that normally causes problems with ghosting of the grass as it moves between each frame. Those problems are eliminated with a single frame and so it makes possible compositions like this. The technology in cameras is getting better every year and it makes me wonder what we’ll be able to do in another year or two. It’s is an exciting time for photography and geeks like me.

June 9, 2016June 9, 2016

Lady in Repose

Another perspective the Ringling bridge from last weekend. I was in another section of the city taking photos and headed home. But then I had one last idea and stopped near the theater for this perspective. I have a collection of images of this bridge in the gallery. I suppose the same would be true of the Golden Gate if I lived in the San Francisco area. For me it’s this bridge in Sarasota.

You never know how a picture will turn out when you first take it. I have two distinct personalities when it comes to photography. One loves to take photos and gets carried away when I’m out shooting, I can a ton of bad shots. The other is a little more thoughtful and comes to the forefront when I download the images onto my computer. He basically filters out all the shots that don’t make the grade. All that said, I almost cut this one but decided to work with it a little, this is the result. So my two photographic personalities are not at all cut-and-dry, there’s a lot of give-and-take.

more images of the Ringling Bridge in Sarasota from the gallery

Selecting photos I’ve shot is very subjective. Someone else might select entirely different images, and to tell the truth I might also depending on my mood. In any case, this image is all about the shape of the bridge and the monochrome treatment is all about accentuating that shape. My idea for this image of the bridge is like a lovely lady in repose.

June 5, 2016

The Last Pass

Yesterday I went to Sarasota to look for some scenery around dusk. The place in mind was closed so I drove on and pulled over here. From the time I got out of my car I probably had only four minutes before the sun went down but it just worked out anyway. I parked, noticed the skimmers plying their trade, grabbed my camera and sat down on the seawall to take some pictures. I kept watching out of the corner of my eye to see when they were coming and quickly tried to snap a shot as they were directly in front. I have a lot that didn’t work so well but this little bird just nailed his mark. Awesome-possum.

The other place I was planning on going to was closed because they were filming. They had actors, lights and cameras. That little detour costs me about ten precious minutes as the sun was falling. But in the end it all turned out good. I may be naive but I like to think that I ended up where I was supposed to be regardless of my plans.

visit the gallery here

I don’t know what it is about these skimmer birds, but as soon as the sun went down they stopped skimming. In a way, they were just as rushed as I was, trying to get in every last pass as they scooped up little fish for dinner. As soon as the sun went down they were back to the nest or wherever it is that they go. So maybe the sun going down creates a kind of last minute panic to those who depend on it. Whatever the case, we each made our last catch.

June 3, 2016June 3, 2016

A Place to Daydream

I just had a conversation with a fellow photographer and while we have differences in how we approach our craft, we’re both working to bring more simplicity to our images. That’s easier said that done. Any direction we turn there are dozens of things to fill up our field of vision. How often would we describe our surroundings as an aesthetic of simplicity; for most of us, rarely if ever.

So I look for vignettes of simplicity within a frame of my surrounding. A vignette is a subset of my field of view, the whole scene broke into little rectangles. That’s how I find simplicity. Another way to put it is we just need to keep reducing our scope until simplicity emerges from the clutter.

other fine art images from the gallery

So when we simplify something, it becomes more accessible as an idea. It becomes an archetype of sorts and then our imaginations can begin to fill in. For me this is the essence of art, to hold attention and evoke imagination. When we look at a scene and we are drawn in, we are daydreaming inside that scene. And what better way to appreciate something than to daydream inside of it.