negative fill light

I was wandering in the rain tonight and came across a tavern that advertised "Aerialists tonight." It was early so I had a chance to look around the place, mid sized tavern with a very high ceiling.  Built into the rafters were some ropes, drapes and a small trapeze.  I found a spot in front of a 6 foot high jukebox which offered me a flat stable surface and a bit of protection from the folks who crowded in just before showtime.  

So many people squeezed in that I'm sure we were way over the fire marshal's limit and more kept coming in.  Once I put my arms up to situate the camera it was almost impossible to put them down again.  A pickpocket would easily have robbed anyone near but probably not have been able to get away.  

It's funny I suppose but a guy kinda bumped into me a couple of times and then looks at me and says, quite demanding "I'm trying to get through, EXCUSE ME!!!"  WTF?  "You'd better be able to fly then ass hole."

Oh well.  Couple of shots here.  It was very dark.  I was shooting full open, ISO800 and -2 or even -3 EV so either 3200 ISO or 6400 ISO.  None of my images are very good, the aerialists moved quickly and constantly but it is interesting to me how Negative Fill Light works here.  Top image AUTO in SPP, next image has negative fill light applied.  It seems to work the way a spotlight would have worked.  No particular manipulation, I did crop a bit to take nearbye heads out.  The 3rd image is just to kinda show the height of the ceiling.

Couple o fisheyes

Because I am a big fan of wide angle lenses I brought my Nikon with me to Zion, Bryce.  These 2 images are obviously fisheye, Nikons fine 10.5mm.  

In the Bryce image I am really drawn to the 2 trees.  Many folks consider the distorting of vertical lines as in the trees to be a fisheye "Problem."  I just love it and often look for ways to include it in my images...doorways, narrow hallways, whatever.  Oh well,  as they say in the car business,  "There's an ass for every seat." 

The second image always catches my eye when looking at thumbnails.  I've judged it to be a dud many times but still come back to it.  The subject matter is mediocre, the fisheye wasn't held level so there is a "U" horizon.  Unlike the verticals I kinda like my horizontals flat.  The image is poorly exposed,  washed out on the right...detail is sloppy.  Then it dawned on me, it's the red.  The leaves are kinda red, more like a reddish brown but red all the same.  Red does indeed have staying power.  As my friend John Barclay tells me..."If you see red, shoot it!"   Guess he has a point, or pernt dependent upon where you live.

Good Fortune

The later fall is an ideal time to visit many popular places, particularly in the south.  The crowds are gone and the daytime temperatures are not blisteringly hot.  The weather is a lot less predictable, but that adds to the excitement when things fall into place.

Zion NP in November, sunrise at the Towers of the Virgin.  Yesterday it was in the upper 70's and sunny, today it's cloudy, windy and cold (tomorrow it will snow).  As the wind blows the clouds around the sun briefly illuminates a small spot, then it clouds up, then another spot, then clouds up again.  I noticed that in addition to our group there were a dozen or so other photographers (2 with view cameras), all set up,  all hoping for some magic... nobody really expecting it though. 

The first shot above is of The Towers, interesting on a cloudy morning.  The second is the mountains and clouds behind us.  Then the sun shone through, turning the Towers golden for just a few seconds.  It was so sudden and for so brief a time I'm not certain that everyone there that morning was as lucky as I was. This was the only sun I saw all morning, what a great time for it.

I always carried the DP1 and usually the xPan.  This morning I was confused about lens choice so I also carried a Nikon DSLR with a couple of lenses.  I was lucky that I had the DP1 on the tripod.  The 1 shot I took with the Nikon (while the DP1 processed)  just wasn't the same.

The right place. The right time.

How often these words apply.  It seems that planning, preparation & persistence are just the first steps, luck either adds or removes the final piece.  While it's true that we need to be prepared for luck to help us,  we also really need it to help us.

On a photo shoot in Utah this past November, thinking we were on the road to Kodachrome Basin State Park my sister and I were actually driving into Bryce Canyon.  My watch told me that it was officially "O Dark-thirty," it was also about 31 degrees with a freezing rain/sleet mixture falling.   As we were about to make a u-turn we noticed a thin orange flame of a sunrise. Leaving the car on the side of the road, idling as I remember now, we grabbed a camera each and ran across the road, down into and out of the ditch, under tree limbs, over deadfall and reached the edge of the cliff with a few seconds of color left in the sky.  Very few.

As a result, a couple of minor scratches and these images.

Technical info.  ISO 50 -3EV. (f5.6 1/15 sec).  Processed without manipulation in SPP.

Fill Light

As my DP1 RAW files aren't read by Aperture I process them in the manufacturer's software SPP.  This does a very good job as might be expected but is painfully slow and it's not really a program for managing large numbers of images.  SPP does offer some additional adjustment capabilities though, one of them is Fill Light.  Other programs have fill light capabilities but they're different.

The Fill Light adjustment has both positive and negative capabilities.  Positive fill light approaches a somewhat HDR effect.  Negative fill light adds a dream like quality to images, it's fun to play with.  The impact is most pronounced around the lightest part of the image.

Ohio Wheat

I was driving some back roads in southern Ohio this summer.  One of them ended in a wheat field.  I didn't expect wheat in Ohio.  Once again the clarity of this DP1 lens astounds me.

various manipulations

It's been 3 months since I updated this blog.  This is due to several factors: I'm evidently quite lazy; I've been busy this fall; and, I'm not at all certain about the nature of this (or any) blog.

A blog is perhaps just a journal or diary but if that's true then why electronically publish it?  

I originally had the idea that the DP1 being a new type of camera this blog might be of use to some considering one or starting to use one.  I believe that this has been true.  But then why continue to publish repeats of the same information if not for ego reasons.  OK, ego, I guess that's good enough.

Having used the camera for over 8 months I have started to understand it and the software enough to experiment.  I will post some examples here and on future entries.

I have recently returned from a photo trip through parts of the American South West.  I learned more about my personal style of photography (and the DP1) than I had expected.  I will post some pictures on future entries.

Regarding manipulation.  I have always been interested in platinum / palladium images.  These seem to convey an additional presence not found in other printing methods.  As reference I would point of course to the work of Alfred Stieglitz.  This process requires a large negative to be contact printed onto paper which has been treated with a platinum / palladium substance.  The work is expensive if nothing else.  It also requires the ability and the place to work with chemicals, light boxes and of course large negatives.

There are many people presently using this method and producing quite stunning work.  I point to 2 whose work I own and enjoy, Beth Dow and Dalton Rooney.  Beth has arranged to have some of her work professionally prepared, copied (?) and printed digitally, the result is that I can afford some...thank you Beth.

Dalton Rooney is an exceptional photographer from Brooklyn who recently started to experiment with the process and sold a few of his first works for next to nothing, probably not enough to cover expenses.  I have one and just love it.

With an increasing understanding of my DP1 and a love of B&W and platinum photography I have decided to see if I can put something together digitally.  This is my first attempt.

I like the color image, the yellow is very delicate. I also like the almost monochrome background but wish it were a bit less in focus.  I wondered if background manipulation would add to the 3-D impact of the flower.  I am terrible with Photoshop.  Fortunately the few tools I needed to use were quite intuitive.  I outlined the flower with a magnetic lasso inverted and applied a blur filter.  Changed image to B&W and added toning in an attempt to match the color I see in platinum / palladium prints.  I need to do more with yellow.  The color is very hard to get correct.  I am also thinking about bringing some of the leaves into focus.