Night Portrait at Peace Pagoda

Panasonic DMC-G1, Lumix 20mm f1.7

I thought that the base of the pagoda would make an interesting location for a portrait so I asked Gail to pose there for me.

--Warren

Gail at Victoria Bakery

Nikon D100, Nikkor 50mm f1.8d

Natural, ambient window light is always a good source of lighting for a portrait.

--Warren

July Project: Otakon 2010

It's that time of year again in Baltimore, when waves of young people arrive at the Convention Center in amazing costumes for Otakon

I brought my Big Gun camera with me today so that I could try for some interesting shots during lunch. Here's my best one - a lucky grab shot that seems as if it were perfectly composed!

This one is almost straight out of the camera with just a tiny bit of fill light in Picassa. It looks pretty good in B&W as well, but I'll wait til I get home and use Channel Mixer in Photoshop to do it right.

July Project - Abu the Flutemaker

Here's my new friend Abu, playing a saxophone-like contraption that he makes out of plastic pipe and fittings. Now here's what I find amazing - it sounds pretty good - at least when he plays it.

Abu is a street entertainer, licensed by the city of Baltimore. Besides his music, he has a bright and happy personality. While we were with him, he gave me and another admirer each a straw, then proceeded to teach us how to "play" it, including showing us several ways to get various sounds out of it.

Abu entertains at the nearby Medical Center Plaza each Tuesday; I'll try to catch him for some more photos in the coming weeks.

Guitarist

Nikon D100, Nikkor 85mm f1.8D

This guy must have chosen this spot for the acoustics. He was in front of a concrete tunnel in Golden Gate Park.

Interestingly, the gate and tunnel appear to be a black & white picture, even though I did no post processing to make it so. :)

--Warren

Dahlia, 2010

Nikon D100, Nikkor 85mm f1.8D

Indescribably beautiful dahlia at the Dahlia Garden in Golden Gate Park near the Conservatory of Flowers.

No tripod and no fancy technique here, just handheld @ 1/1000, f2.0, slight levels adjustment, and a square crop.

--Warren

Two Months' Projects in One

Panasonic DMC-G1, Lumix 14-45mm

Does anyone remember Cousin It from the Addams Family? :)

--Warren

Gail at a Rocky Beach

Panasonic DMC-G1, Lumix 20mm f1.7

I forgot to note the name of this rocky beach. We found it somewhere between San Francisco and Morrow Bay off of Highway 1.

Gail was exploring the area where a creek empties into the ocean. The moss growing on the rocks in the stream caught my eye.

--Warren

Action Sports

This was my first attempt to capture action images and I have a new found respect for sports and wildlife photographers. I was using the canon 5d with a 300mm f4 with stabilization. Shooting with a shutter speed of 360 at f11 forced me into a relatively high iso of 1250 as the evening progressed. The pros I watched were using faster lenses and faster higher iso bodies. Of course they get paid and we just have fun. All in all this was really a great experience. The women on the course are all nationally ranked with some Olympians in the field.

The winner she really dominated the field.

Dan

My First Camera

Sounds like something from Playskool! But it was actually my Dad's Kodak Retina I, a little Stuttgart-made 35mm folder with a decent Schneider lens.

Along with a 1948 GE light meter, a gift from my friend Roger Wesalo, I was in business. With a camera as basic as this one, I had to learn all the basics. I even had to get good at estimating distances (in meters) because there was no rangefinder - just scale focusing. So that lead me quickly to understand depth-of-field.

My college friend Ed Hollingshead took this in NYC in Central Park sometime in the fall of 1967, our freshman year at Stevens Tech in Hoboken. I used to poke fun of Ed because of his left-handed, East German Exacta SLR. Little did I realize then that years later, I'd be a collector of Commie Cameras!

The Zipper!

Midsummer in upper Anne Arundel County means the Earleigh Heights VFC Carnival. I haven't strolled through while it was operating for six years, so I decided to take my camera one night this week.

Shooting these rides seems really hard, at least for me. I did manage to get three or four decent photos, and I'll post the others over the next few days.

Doing the Portraits.. on my phone! crazy.

I went to an Andy Warhol exhibit a few weeks ago at the Seattle Art Museum and, although I had heard of him before and read a little about his works and his life, I found the museum experience somehow SO MUCH more engaging. Since my visit, I have been on a makeshift Warhol Warpath.... He really liked the photo-booths at theme parks because it softened people's skin with so little effort. He was all about minimal effort with this and his silkscreens - repetition was simple, and the technology was easy. And I found out that there is an app on the iPhone called IncrediBooth which gives you this same experience (even minus the $4 per shoot!). I was playing around with it and another one called Diptic (reiterating our March 2010 diptych/triptych project with a new aspect) which allowed for a whole lot of "little effort" fun... and still working on this month's project --Portraits! So yes, there is a 'decreased quality of photo' due to the phone's camera but it is all part of the fun that Warhol inspires (in my mind anyway :). Enough caution notices now.... Here they are:

Treyf* Alert!

I drove to Crofton the other day to deliver photos I took for a bat-mitzvah a few weeks ago. On the way back, I spotted this little ornament hanging near the entrance to Fat Boy's Crab Shack. The colors and shape helped me overcome my genetic disinclination to come within 20 meters of anyplace crabs are served.

* treyf = Yiddish for food that is not in accordance with Jewish dietary law, derived from the Hebrew terefah (טְרֵפָה‎)

Me and My Koni

Actually, I'm just posing with a Koni-Omega Rapid M camera that we had on the shelf at Stansbury Photo. I'd say this is in 1970.

I don't remember ever using the Koni, but it was a favorite of wedding and event photographers in the 60's and early 70's. It used 120 or 220 roll film, for 10 or 20 2-1/4" x 2-3/4" negatives per roll. It was very robust, built like a tank, and in a pinch, you could swing it to use as a formidable weapon. Besides all that, it had excellent, interchangeable lenses available. To top it off, each lens has its own leaf shutter, like the Hasselblad 500, which means flash synch up to 1/500 sec. For event photography, it was much cheaper than the Hasselblad and far easier to use.

I was going through hundreds of old photos today and found this one. Warren's recent acquisition of a slightly newer model Koni prompted me to post it on FPCF.

Portrait

At the beach, thought this was a cute one.. It reminds me of a squirrel.

Main Street shops in Kalispell, MT

8pm or so, but still a lot of light out. Small friendly town, live music in the park, mostly tourists. Lots of things to do within an hour or so - wildlife, Glacier National Park, Flathead Lake, Missoula, MT is about 2 hours south.

More Sand Creatures

Panasonic DMC-G1, Leitz 135mm f4 Tele-Elmar

The intense blue color caught my attention. I'm not sure if it is something special in the Leitz lens or not, but I wanted to make sure that I had a pictures of the elephant seals with beach and the blue surf in the picture.

--Warren

Sand Creature

Panasonic DMC-G1, Leitz 135mm f4 Tele-Elmar

An elephant seal snoozing in the sand. This was taken on our drive down Highway One last month.

--Warren

West Marin Funky Parade

When the word funky came into the vernacular, our parade was listed as an example of what it truly means. All in all about an hour of folks celebrating the day and having fun.

Dan


The band was playing all James Brown

He just finished chugging a beer, don't know how he kept it down though.

He actually was a retired circus performer.

Soldiers at Work in Arlington

D200 18mm

The Guards of the Unkown Soldiers at Arlington.  The marks on the ground are from the guards marching in almost the exact place every 20 seconds, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

Reflections of Windows in Windows

Reflections of Windows in Windows

While walking around the Foggy Bottom part of Washington D.C. this reflection of windows fit almost perfectly within these windows.

June Reflections

Men at Work

D200

While at Arlington most people see the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldiers. We had the opportunity to watch the detail perform the lowering of the flag.

Reflection at the National Cathedral

Often we are looking up and in front.  At the National Cathedral the floors are very polished and the sun was making a nice reflection on the floor.

June Projects

Future President

D200 / 18-200mm

I was out one morning taking some pictures.  I caught this boy setting on the Lincoln Memorial looking towards the Washington Memorial.  I spoke with him for a few moments...smart..nice..good looking....future president.

June Project

Washington Memorial for the 4th of July

This was taken from the step of the Lincoln Memorial, hand held.

(June Reflection Project)

This shot was also from the Lincoln Memorial but off to one side. You can see the capital building behind the Washington Memorial.

(June Reflection Project)

Deck Charis - July 4th Morning on the Magothy

Unfinished words
flying like birds

high in the sky

above my deck chair

President Lincoln Memorial

D200 / 18mm
Lincoln Memorial early one morning.  I picked up a great all purpose lens just before the trip 18-200mm.

(Reflection 2)

Reflections in a Window

D200 18mm
I was standing outside one of the museums in Washington D.C. and the mid day sun made for an interesting shot.  In the window you can see the stairs, with the art piece behind me, the cable type car, and one of the Federal buildings.

(Reflection 1)