Flying

I know, it's been a while since my last post. Fortunately for me, this is my blog and I do what I want! ;-)

In all seriousness, I had an awesome day yesterday.

It started with a plane ride at noon with my buddy Sean, who recently got his pilots license. When I say recently, I mean I was his first (non-instructor) passenger. Sweet!

I got a few fun pictures from the morning:

The plane we rented: a 2002 Cessna (thats all the detail I remember)

Inside of the plane

Sean - Pilot Extraordinaire (my favorite shot)

Pretty mountains (through ugly haze)

More pretty mountains and a wing

Sharp turns. (shutter speed of 1/6400 to catch the prop)

Me and Sean

Overall, it was decidedly awesome. The weather didn't quite cooperate - the haze we were flying over/through really got in the way of taking decent pictures. The ones I did manage have had some serious adjustments to them to make them presentable, and I think that might even be a stretch. I am really happy with the picture of Sean though.

No idea what's on tap for me as far as photography in the near future. Today I plan to read and relax.

Have a fantastic Monday!

Film

Back to our regularly scheduled programming - that is to say - still photography.

Here are a few shots off my most recent roll of film. (Kodak T-MAX 3200 ISO B&W)

All were shot with available light on some seriously high speed film, most of them with a fixed 50mm lens. Contrast adjustments as well as some noise reduction in post-processing to make them a little more presentable.

I absolutely love shooting film. This particular roll was in my N80 camera for nearly a year, so getting it developed and looking through the scans was a real treat because I didn't remember most of what I photographed. Unfortunately, shooting film is also insanely expensive. The roll of film cost about $6, then another $22 for development, "archival" (4mb) scans to a CD and a set of 4x6 prints. I'll hopefully shoot another roll before the end of break.

Avatar

- There are no spoilers in this post -

We're going to take a journey away from still photography for a moment, and discuss the new movie Avatar.

It was released in a myriad of formats from the traditional movie, to 3-D to IMAX 3-D and it cost an obscene amount of money ($230 million) to make. I went in thinking: "if it cost that much, it better be pretty good!"

It is WAY more than good.

The Computer Generated Imaging is unlike anything ever done before. It puts Transformers 2 to shame, and that was pretty good CGI.

The acting, the characters, the emotional connections that I made with the characters were all head-and-shoulders above any other movie. I literally wanted to cry when it ended - not because the ending was sad, but because it raised the bar in every single way that no movie will be able to compete for a long time.

I measure movies not by the stories they tell (because let's face it, they've all been told) but by how well they tell it. How well they engage me and pull me in. My previous all-time-favorite movie was The Lion King. It's a classic story with themes you just can't beat. It tells the story well and the music always moves me like only like Lion King music can....

... But it tell you what. Avatar tops it in every way.

I'm going to get repetitive if I keep writing, so let me conclude by saying that it is hands down the best movie I have ever seen and I recommend that you see it regardless of your age or profession. Anyone can appreciate this movie.

Shooting Whiskey...

... with a camera!

I found a bottle of Maker's Mark Whiskey in my parent's liquor cabinet and decided it needed to be photographed.

Here was my first test shot, with some white foam core I have leftover from a project. I tried to use it to reflect light from the bottom, but it ended up being more distracting than helpful, so I nixed it.

I realized what I needed was some light shining through the bottle, so I grabbed one of my hotlights and tried a few angles to see how I could light the liquid. Aside from the failed exposure, I didn't like this shot because the light shone through on only part of the label. So I moved it to underneath the bottle as seen here:

I'm using 1 SB600 with my ghetto-dish (tupperware + paper) and a white foam core reflector.
I borrowed a few members from my mom's nativity scene to hold up the reflector:

They did a great job.

Moving floodlight to underneath the bottle gave me light that worked much better, without making weird highlights on the inside of the label. Then it was just a matter of mixing the ambient and the strobe to get something that worked alright.
I ended up at 1/13 second at f/4, ISO 200.

Here's the final product!

30 minutes to set up, shoot and tear down. Good thing too; I'm not sure my mom loved me having a studio set up in the living room.

Also, I downloaded the Strobox app free for iPhone/iPod Touch. Works like a charm

One of these days I'll get some gels for my flash... I would have liked to make it a bit warmer to complement the flood light... oh well.

Help Portrait - Behind the Scenes!

Got a bunch to share with you in the next couple days. I've been shooting and editing like a maniac - finally having fun with photography again!

Until I get that content ready for you, here's a quick behind-the-scenes look at the Boulder Help-Portrait event!




*Update* I just learned that the 2010 date is December 4th! Unfortunately, that means I probably won't be of much help for the Boulder event, as I'll still be in Flagstaff. However, it does mean that I can help with a Flagstaff group!

Photos from the St. Brigit Xmas Pageant

Whew.

Well I finally got off my arse and shot a bit, this time at the St. Brigit Christmas Pageant.

A friend of mine, Judy Nieusma was there front and center with her Canon 5d MkII and a 24-70mm lens. She was rocking 4000 ISO and full color. Knowing that "angle" was covered, I decided to experiment (I know, such a surprise).

I put the camera in JPG, monochrome and I randomly picked a filter (this time, Orange). I put it at ISO 1600 which gave me shutter speeds from 1/50 to 1/320 at about f/2.2 with my fixed 50mm lens.

Then I did what I do best, and here are some of the results.

Not a whole bunch of post-processing to these either. Sharpening, cropping, contrast and exposure adjustments, vignette. Nothing really radical, but all very necessary.

These are just my top six, you can see the rest of my top 20 on my Flickr page.

I'll make a couple CDs for the church which I'm hoping the parents will just eat up. The pageant was an absolute blast. It was written by Susie Manica who goes to the church and directs music (and apparently writes musicals). She's a lot of fun, full of energy, and an absolute thrill to be around. I plan on doing her portrait one of these days, though she doesn't know that yet.

Coming up tomorrow: still life!

Have a great Thursday! Take a picture, at least one picture, today. You know you want to.

Figured it out - DUH

You ever encounter a solution to a problem that makes you stop and just say "Duh!"?

I did that this morning after I figured out what was wrong with my Google Reader issues.
Turns out I was "following" Ken Rockwell via Blogger.com, which has its own management system totally separate from Google Reader. As such, though I could delete the feeds from the reader, I wasn't deleting them from the list of blogs I was "following" via Blogger. So, every time Google Reader checked with Blogger, it re-added the feeds.

I went in, deleted the feeds from Blogger, and all is now well.

Also - bought a card reader yesterday from Target. Slowest damned thing EVER (8 minutes to download 2.4gb), but it gets the job done, and now lives on the back of my macbookpro just in case.

Yay for duct tape.

Tomorrow's post will actually contain photographs. I know. The day you've all been waiting for....
Here's a teaser.