Inspiration – Page 8 – JWNPhoto.com

Category: Inspiration

Super Full Moon 2011

Last night at sunset, the Perigee Moon rose in the east. This is the largest full moon since March of 1993 I gathered up family, friends, and neighbors to head over to the Morris Island side of Folly Beach to watch the sunset and moonrise.

Taking moon photos at the beach is not an easy task, as I quickly learned. I usually weigh down my tripod with my camera bag, but the wind at the beach made it less stable with the weight than without! Paired with the rapidly decreasing light, long exposures, and quickly moving orb in the sky, it was quite a challenge to get a decent photo of the moon. The other major challenge was the haze – it was quite difficult to focus clearly through it when the moon first appeared. By the time it cleared the haze, it looked no bigger or brighter than any other full moon. No big deal though, as I had the image on the top of this post envisioned when I set out. I wanted a simple graphic image of the scene and I got just what I wanted! I also wanted a moonlight reflection on a soft long-exposed ocean, which I got in the second shot – so I’m quite happy with what I accomplished. I would have liked to have made a shot from behind the trees, but most of the other photogs were getting that shot and I’m sure some of them got some really good results from there.

I was able to grab a couple of shots of the sunset when I arrived, and I think these fulfilled my “through the trees” shot aspirations anyway:

Robert Donovan was on hand as well and we got a chance to talk about photography while waiting for the big show. In fact, there were a lot of photogs there – I thought it looked like a photo studio when we crossed over the dunes onto the beach!

Here’s a shot of my daughter Mac at twilight. I think this was the only split second she wasn’t running around with the other dozen or so kids on hand.

There were plenty of kids running around and having fun, and this girl playing in the sand was the subject of my favorite photo of the evening:

Monotone SC Wetlands

1/200th of a sec | f/9.0 | 65mm | ISO 200

I was out at a private plantation in Goose Creek, SC this morning and on the way out I took some shots along the road of the forest. The shot above is one that I always want to shoot when I’m driving and see the woods cut abruptly short at the edge of a road. The sight of the wall of the edge of a forest is daunting to me.

1/100th of a sec | f/9.0 | 55mm | ISO 200

The cypress trees always make for interesting pictures because they grow out of still swamp water and sometimes have a very graphical interaction with their shadows and reflections.

1/15th of a sec | f/16.0 | 35mm | ISO 320

This shot is an oak tree alongside a marsh in James Island, SC taken in 2009 with my D40. I like the relationship between the curves of the water and the curves of the tree limbs.

Here are some more cypress trees at Cypress Gardens in Moncks Corner, SC. This shot was taken in 2007 with my D40 and converted into a single image HDR photograph.

1/1600th of a sec | f/4.2 | 26mm | ISO 200

Finally, we arrive at Botany Bay Plantation in Edisto Island, SC. This photo was also taken in 2009 with my D40 (that camera is a fantastic little DSLR). The beach at Botany Bay is like something out of a dream; shell covered beaches, trees in the surf, and teaming with shorebirds and wildlife.

Water & Western North Carolina

A few weeks ago my family went to the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina for a weekend getaway in a tiny little cabin on the side of a river in a town called Bat Cave. We did some hiking, checked out waterfalls such as the one above at Pearson’s Falls, spent a day at the Biltmore Estate, visited Chimney Rock (pictured below), and of course shopped at all the touristy shops.

I also took some time to try and teach the kids a little bit about photography. The kids love when I let them shoot with my D40! This shot below is of my son on the side of Hooker Falls sporting the greatest little DSLR ever made.

I used this shot below as a lesson on using long exposures to shoot running water. I showed them that if you set the aperture to a really small setting (which means larger f number), then you are able to set a really long exposure time which gives the running water a glassy and smooth effect. This was shot at f/22 for 1/2 a second. I used the guard rail on the edge of the trail to brace the camera since we were sans tripod on the hike.

I like hiking in the mountains, everything just seems so photogenic. Maybe it’s the change of scenery from living near the coast, or maybe it’s the way things are designed to compliment the environment such as these steps on a mountain trail.

There are times when we’re driving through the hills and I scream “pull over now!” so I can capture scenes such as this:

I’m sure when people come to the beach, the plantations, the city, or swamps of the low country, they get the same kind of excitement. Physically taking yourself out of your comfort zone can be a very inspiring act. It’s quite true that the spark of inspiration is easily lit by doing something different. The struggle is finding the new inspiration in your own backyard!

This is my family on the last day of our adventure – what a rag-tag bunch we were after a few days in the back woods! Gotta love that ML L3 Remote in my right hand – I was over 50 feet away from the camera outdoors, and it worked like a champ.

Biltmore Estate in the Winter

A couple of weeks ago we spent the extended weekend in western North Carolina. One of the days was spent at Asheville’s Biltmore Estate. How do you shoot a touristy estate that forbids photography inside and is littered with pixel peepers on the outside?

Well, one answer is to get in close and get the detail. Try and isolate a subject and create a graphical image of it in its surroundings.

The property is littered with great statues – most of them with a major subject and a minor subject interacting. The challenge is positioning yourself in a way that incorporates the background in a non-distracting way. The image directly below uses the lines of the staircase to draw you into the figure of the cherub, while the bushes behind provide contrast.

Getting in physically closer, but zooming out shows how a similar composition can look completely different! I had to depend on color to get the right contrast to isolate the statue here.

And this photo of a statue works best by getting low and letting the blown-out cloudy sky act as a white background.

During the winter months, some people wouldn’t see much value in a landscape devoid of lush vegetation. I tend to enjoy the look of the barren trees and yellowed grass mixed within the evergreens.

Finally, capturing a moment is one of the most exciting things to do when shooting in a place like this. It’s like a little gift when you have an amazing background and a subject to place within it. The couple was enjoying the view when I happened upon them (from the stairs in the pictures above).

That’s how I attack a situation like this – by getting closer, moving around, and seeking out moments. What’s your method?

Machine Shop

One of the perks of my other job is that I get access to all sorts of interesting places here in the Charleston, SC area. Today I was doing some work in a machine shop over at the old Navy base and while I was walking through the giant shop floor, I started to notice all of the cool shapes, colors, & surfaces all around me. On the return trip I pulled out my iPhone and started snapping shots of various things that caught my eye.

I made most of these shot’s using Trey Ratcliff’s awesome 100 Cameras In 1 app. The color and texture complimented the effects of the app – a case of marrying the right tool for the job at hand.

I also tried using one of the new in-app purchased filters in one of my other favorite iPhone camera apps, Camera+. An awesome new feature in the latest version of Camera+ is the ability to adjust the strength of the filter you apply – very much like Trey’s app. If they let you combine filter’s like Trey’s does then it would be perfect. Fortunately 100 Cameras In 1 does do just that!

Most of us have subjects all around us that can be captured photographically and we pass them by due to either familiarity or just plain negligence to open your eyes in your own backyard. Try to look at life as a tourist – you might be surprised at how cool your environment can be.

Happy Birthday Amy

She’s my soul mate and as they say, the picture doesn’t do her justice. She is strong, scary smart, has a heart the size of the mountains she grew up in, and is to me the most beautiful person in the world. I love you Amy!

BTW, did anyone ever tell you that you look like Gillian Anderson?

Second Sunday On King St.

Late last year, the city of Charleston decided after the success of the “Do the Charleston” festival to regularly close King Street to traffic on the second Sunday of each month so that the pedestrians could take over (you can read more about the origins here). Today I was finally able to bring the family for an afternoon downtown and also to do some street photography.

The diptych above was a group of people watchers in Ye Ole Fashioned Ice Cream and Sandwich Cafe. They were having a blast commenting on what everyone was wearing, and I told them I was turning the camera on them next!

1/100th of a sec | f/4.5 | 62mm | ISO 200

It didn’t take long for me to start looking for some decent light and interesting people to shoot. It was mid-day, so the light was harsh and three quarters of the street was in shadow. I found that the slivers of light between buildings was a great side-light opportunity and looked for opportunities to use it.

I also looked for people who were doing just ordinary things, like eating some lunch…

…or drinking some coffee…

…or talking on the phone…

…or walking their dog…

…or flipping me the bird while double-fisting some beverages…

…or looking as happy as can be…

…or just as pretty as can be.

I was hoping to get a lot of shots of people dressed up as characters from the “Where’s Waldo” series as there was an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most people dressed like Waldo in one place (more info on that here). Unfortunately, they fell quite short of the record. I did grab a shot of these two festive Wandas:

As with any outdoor Low Country event, the dogs were out en masse. I think the next time I attend one of these Second Sundays I’m gonna focus on capturing the dogs – there were so many awesome dogs out.

Getting down to the dog’s perspective makes for an interesting composition:

These dogs looked really excited to be out and about:

I also made some black & white shots – I knew when I shot this one that it would be perfect as a monotone image – the contrast and negative space are just shouting to be devoid of any distracting colors.

All in all, I had a blast and cant wait to do it again. I have a hefty set of photos on my Flickr stream if you want to see some of the other shots I made today. Street photography is a fun and exciting way to exercise your creative mind, and you end up meeting interesting people in the process.

Walking The Shem Creek Bridge

1/30th of a sec | f/2.8 | 17mm | ISO 200

Last night I was driving through Mount Pleasant as I find myself doing on a pretty frequent basis, and the time was right, the location was right, and I was prepared. I approached Shem Creek just as the sun was bidding adieu to the coast of South Carolina and pulled into a parking lot. I slung my camera on my shoulder set to manual mode with a fixed ISO of 200 and started walking up the bridge. As I approached the middle, I quickly brought the camera up to my eye and checked the internal light meter. As I tend to do, I made it set to be ever so slightly under-exposed and started firing away. this is what I caught:

1/80th of a sec | f/5.6 | 55mm | ISO 200

I dug the foreground of the boardwalk, so now I wanted to isolate the mid-ground area a bit more. I took a few steps forward and zoomed in a little to get this:

1/100th of a sec | f/8.0 | 72mm | ISO 200

All the while I keep adjusting my exposure values – specifically the aperture and shutter speed. In the moments just after a sunset, every second that passes dramatically changes the light. Once again I took a few more steps forward and zoomed in a bit tighter to get this:

1/60th of a sec | f/7.1 | 100mm | ISO 200

I checked the back of my camera and knew I had the shot I wanted. Now It was time to explore. I kept walking and came up to a glorious blue building that rents kayaks and has a seafood market in the back. How blue is it?

1/20th of a sec | f/4.5 | 55mm | ISO 200

That’s pretty damn blue. I needed to capture the entrance to the building. When you get that kind of red against that kind of blue, you can’t go wrong.

1/20th of a sec | f/4.8 | 125mm | ISO 200

I really dug the convergence of lines from the wood siding and the angles of the metal roof. The light was really starting to fade, so I switched out to a faster lens and shot this:

1/13th of a sec | f/2.8 | 50mm | ISO 200

I decided to look down off the side of the bridge and lo and behold, there were a couple of pelicans perched a few feet below me. I braced the camera on the railing of the bridge and composed some shots of the big birds.

1/30th of a sec | f/2.8 | 50mm | ISO 200

When shooting in this low amount of light at pretty slow shutter speeds it’s quite difficult to capture these birds sharply. They never cease twitching their beaks and adjusting themselves when you are as close as I was. It’s best to set your shutter to burst mode and let it rip once you have your composition. You can shoot a dozen shots and possibly only get one that’s decently sharp if your lucky! You could always bring out a flash, but you’ll get one chance before you send that bird soaring to the other side of the creek.

1/5th of a sec | f/2.8 | 50mm | ISO 200

I was quickly losing light, I was shooting at speeds that require bracing the camera on something sturdy, and I was getting pretty damn cold (at least for just a sweatshirt – guess I wasn’t as prepared as I thought). I only had a couple of more shots left in me, so I started to get a busy composition of the waterside of the blue seafood/kayak building when one of the birds flew right into the composition and landed in the perfect spot to become the focal point of this shot:

1/5th of a sec | f/2.8 | 50mm | ISO 200

Talk about a lucky break! I started to walk back to my car and fired off the shot at the top of this post. The color in the sky was no longer as magnificent in this location (although as I drove home the colors in the sky were unusually deep – the horizon was almost brown for a few moments). I decided to create a split-tone image which basically worked out as such: I first converted the shot into a black and white image, and then I gave the highlights an orange tone and the shadows a blue tone. The result is what you see above. It can add a little more mood to a black and white image as well as make something starkly different. It definitely stands out amongst the rest of the images I shot last night.

More Than One Way

robo-rainbow from mudlevel on Vimeo.

I saw this video this morning (via engadget.com) and thought it was really interesting. As I read through the comments on Engadget, there was one troll on there who was complaining about the uselessness and inefficiency of the machine. I had to chime in and “feed the troll” as they say because it’s apparent that some people don’t see something like this for what it really is. There’s always more than one way to interpret art, and for something like this, the end result is not the whole point of the piece.

As you watch the video, which was carefully filmed and edited together, you see a man assembling a machine attached to a bicycle. You get close up shots of the metal work, the fitting of the electronics, and the movement of the gears and chains. Each shot isolates a feature and is dramatically demonstrated until we see it all in action – which is shown with a wide shot of it painting a rainbow on a wall. Now, to someone who’s not paying attention, the art was in creating the machine and the filming of the assembly of it. The rainbow itself was just a mere punchline to a well setup joke. If this was about painting a perfectly symmetrical rainbow, then it would be nutty. There are plenty of ways to paint a rainbow without going through the effort that was put into this.

The art is in the creation of it all. The steampunkish contraption itself, the storytelling in the filming, and the final execution all work together. It’s the act of creating something because you can. The message I took from this was that the journey is always more important than the destination. What’s your interpretation?

Musical Composition

Sherwin Sleeves (AKA Sean Hurley) is a strange cat. I don’t know if it’s the weather in New Hampshire or what, but I dig his originality nonetheless. He has gained some popularity as a regular contributor to the Ron & Fez show on XM radio, which is how I found out about him. I think my interest in his craft was gained not just by his rather odd musical interpretations of the happenings of a radio comedy show, but by the videos he’s posted and words he’s written. He is a fine pianist who can write music seemingly effortlessly. He’s a master of his art.

If you have a few minutes, watch the video above. The character of Sherwin Sleeves is a bit over the top, but I think it works. If you apply a lot of his concepts about musical composition to the art of photography, you will find that the creative process is very similar. I have been beating the drum about the correlation between music and photography since I started this blog in September, in fact my first real post here was entitled “Music & The Zone“.

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