Go Long!

It's that time of year again. Back at beautiful Clear Lake for our regular family sojourn, and armed as usual with an arsenal of camera equipment. This time I bring a fresh new set of Lee graduated and neutral density filters, having giving up on the cheap=crappy Cokin filters used in previous outings (they imparted brutal color casts and were prone to flare). I was particularly excited to put the Lee Big Stopper into use. It's a 10-stop pair of sunglasses for your lens that reduces light by (if my math is correct) about 1000x, thereby allowing for extra-long exposures that deliver the silky smooth waters I really like.

First crack at it was the bridge to the pier. More of a proof-of-concept as I want more wispy cloud movement. Will keep trying. The exposure here is 100 seconds.


Although you wouldn't know it from this image, the water was actually quite choppy and there was a constant flow of people passing by on the bridge. All rendered smooth and invisible thanks to the 10-stop filter. A Lee 3-stop hard grad balances the sky with the foreground.

Last night presented an opportunity for capturing beautifully colored clouds at dusk. But 100 seconds was pretty pedestrian. What happens at 166 seconds - almost 3 minutes?


Again a single exposure - no Photoshop funny business with the brightness of the sky tamed with the 3-stop hard grad. Water was much rougher as the wind blew in off the lake. Here, instead of the normal 1/6th second exposure without the filter those waves are blurred into oblivion. Splashes against the rocks become a fine mist. And the clouds become a sweeping blanket of color. If this image doesn't relax your soul I don't know what will.

Feeling saucy I figured I'd push it farther one more time. 251 seconds. Over 4 minutes. Trip the shutter and have seat. Yields this purposely abstract rendition of the waning light.


Challenge with this type of photography is, while addictive, can also become redundant. So I'll need to exercise some will power over the next couple of weeks and not overdo it.

Waiting

A lightning strike alert. This I found out was delaying my flight home from Toronto's Pearson Airport last night. And likewise stranding the poor souls on the inbound plane parked not 10 feet from the bridge. So the waiting game began, with nothing happening outside other than a few drops of rain. And nothing to do but stand around and watch.

Funny that it wasn't until after the alert was lifted when I actually saw lightning in the sky. Go figure.

Three's A Crowd

The sun was baking down on an unusually warm April evening. Made for some interesting silhouettes from neighboring trees against that warm, rich color.

Went to a Ringette Game (...and some pictures broke out)

Shooting sports and action is always fun. Do it for every one of my daughter's ringette games as well as most of the practices. This weekend deviated somewhat with venue and time. To start off with, we were at a local rec complex that is amazing for local sports with proper seats and lighting and so forth. Which opens up time for interesting perspectives off the ice. Such as this row of unoccupied seats. That plus a long lens (the absolutely sick Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VRII) and a wide open aperture gives the following. Also of note are that a) this was shot through glass (rule: push your lens up tight and it disappears), and b) at high ISO on a Nikon D300. The otherwise very noisy shot cleans up beautifully with the latest RAW algorithms from Adobe. Like getting a brand new camera. Seriously. This was at ISO 2000.

Leaving the arena gave me another unexpected opportunity: a low, warm evening sun throwing great light against a clear blue sky. I've been looking for a solo tree to shoot for some time and here's one literally staring me in the face as we leave the arena. Out comes the camera and quickly framed again with the 70-200. Great warm light on that tree against the blue sky, and biting sharp with that lens. There were two unavoidable distractions (the tip of a tree over the horizon on the left, and a parking sign on the right) that had to be removed in Photoshop but other than some slight contrast and color enhancement of the RAW file this is how it came out of camera.

With the family anxiously waiting for me to get a move on I glance another opportunity at the arena entrance. The low sun burning in created this opportunity to capture some great shape, line and texture. I saw it in black and white from the outset, wanting to focus on those elements. The shadows of the stairs lead into the door. Such warm color blasting onto the walls only detracted from that. My conversion (via Nik's SilverEfex Pro) separated the yellows from the other tones to bring out the texture and shadow. Unfortunately I also had to clone out a pile of discarded cigarette butts. Nasty.

Turns out Sunday evenings are great for practice after all.

Gnarly

Was with a friend today scouting locations for pictures at his upcoming wedding. It's still early spring and the golf course is pretty threadbare, which lends itself to some great textures and really gnarly, naked trees. Take this one for instance. Screaming for black and white...

Kind Of Blue (but looking up...)

Returning from a recent trip to Seattle, or more specifically east of Seattle in the beautiful city of Bellevue. Lots of great modern glass architecture there that looks particularly nice in the fading blue light of dusk. These are three perspectives of one the ubiquitous Microsoft offices in town (the main campus is down the road in Redmond). Hope they don't mind this is being posted from a Mac.

Another highlight of the local Bellevue scene are the shops of The Bravern. A beautiful, high end open-air retail complex that is also home to some fine restaurants and big-cash condos. Conveniently across from my hotel! The architecture was apparently Italian inspired. It actually wasn't long before a security guard came by and asked (politely) what I was up to - apparently you need permission to shoot in there. I already had a few in the can so wasn't too concerned. This I like because of the color and shape contrasts. A perfect example (along with the windows above) where high-ISO noise averaging really saves the day - crank it up to get a sharp shot, and then overlay the images and (with some extra voodoo) you get essentially a perfectly clean but fully detailed file.

Winter Abstract

A quick peek outside this morning revealed another crisp, winter day complete with hoar frost aplenty. The other pictures I took from inside the house (read: couldn't get my lazy butt to open the door and go out) didn't turn out, but I thought this was interesting, the meeting of snow and rock contoured by the low morning sun. Basic B&W conversion courtesy of Lightroom.