Oh yeah

While things may be quite over here, they aren’t as quite over on my Flickr photo stream.

Hello..oo..oo..o

Yes, it is kind of quite around here. Too much work and too many sunny summer days. That and I am still not sure what I want this place to be. 

Photographers

Well so much for trying to post every day or even regularly! I have hinted to it in some comments on mama urchin, but work has been somewhat overwhelming lately and I have to say this site was the first thing to go. Anyway, Katie and I decided to go out and enjoy the weather while Tristan was napping on Sunday. She wasn’t very interested in having her picture taken, but she was willing to take my picture so I set the camera on the tripod, used the timer and let her have at it with a second camera.

One thing I noticed when flipping through was that these pictures all had the same framing (because the camera was on the tripod.) Having recently been introduced to Rebekka’s flikr stream, I decided to borrow her idea and combine them into one. This is nowhere near the quality of her work, but fun none the less.

Masters – Jill Greenberg

I have been working a lot of late hours and haven’t been pulling the camera out lately so here is another one of my favorite pros. This time it is portrait photographer Jill Greenberg. Widely known for her somewhat controversial end of times series, one of which is shown below. Personally, I love this series. If you live with kids this age, you know the water works are so frequent that you don’t worry about them. Sure it was a little bit mean of her to take lollipops away from these kids to get them to cry, but it is no more traumatic than things happen daily in our house. The result are amazing photos that push the boundaries, and that is what separate the good from the great.

What ever you think of “end of times” you owe it to yourself to check out the rest of her work. Her primate portraits are amazing. These monkeys not only look like people, but you can see the personality of each one coming through. Even her celebrity shots are great, she uses unique and controlled lighting to achieve unique metallic look that many people are still trying to figure out how to duplicate.

The Bride

When my sister-in-law was married in a small private ceremony a few years ago they asked me to take pictures for them. I was actually pretty nervous because taking wedding photos is a big responsibility. Fortunately, Mama helped me put together a plan and everything went very smoothly, but even more importantly I got some great shots.

I did the photoshop work on this image a few years ago so I can can’t tell you in detail what I did, but here is a general overview of the editing. I vignetted around her face to darken the rest of the image. Then I duplicated the base layer and added blur to smooth the skin. Finally, I masked out the detail areas like the eyes and lips.

Modeling a Smock

Sorry for the sparse posting, things have been pretty nutty around here. This is a shot I did for Mama Urchin. Katie was in a playful mood and happy to model, unfortunately my small studio didn’t leave me much room for the shot.

+ Great look
+ Good exposure on katie
- background not lit enough
- Cropped her at the knees

Masters – Galen Rowell

I don’t think I have a single favorite photographer, there are so many specialties that are so different and I have favorites in each genre. My favorite genre would have to be landscape photography. This is probably because I so rarely get to shoot this kind of photograph, but I love powerful majestic images created by nature. The best thing about landscape photography is that you know that no matter how good the photograph it was more beautiful in person.

When it comes to landscape photography most people think Ansel Adams. Ansel-schmansel, Galen Rowell has him beat any day of the week. Maybe its the stunning use of color or maybe its the fact that he changed the game when it came to photographing Yosemite, but his work always amazes me. He was an adventurer, a mountain climber, a traveler and pilot who always had a camera with him. These aren’t just snapshots though, he had phenomenal skills with a camera and even designed some of his own equipment. His 2001 article for Outdoor Photographer is one that sticks in my memory. In it he describes how he often trail runs to locations at the crack of dawn to capture his images. I hate to carry water when I am trail running, let alone a camera. People always talk about changing your point of view to get an interesting shot, Galen takes this to a whole new level.

Anyway, enough of my yapping, head on over to his Gallery and see what I am talking about. When I post my shots from Yosemite you will see how pedestrian they are and you will see the difference between where I am and where I want to be.

Update & New Feature

So my sense of humor and tendency to take a joke too far have gotten me again. Even my mom has been trying to convince me that my shots are good. Despite the fact that I have presented a pretty negative view of my work, I actually think some of it is pretty good. The thing is I really want to take amazing photographs. The goal of these critiques is to help me take my photographs up a notch. To show you what I mean, I am going to introduce you to some of my favorite photographers. Some are well known pros and others are random people I found on Filckr.

Tristan at the vineyard

Back to kid photos, here is a picture of Tristan out in the vineyard.

+ Cute kid
+ Nice rolling hills
- The fence in the foreground is distracting
- It would have been better if he was looking into the frame
- The background color palate is bland

Rose

Next week I promise there will be no flowers.

+ The flower was nice.
- Too sharp for me.
- Too much contrast in the petals.
- The bottom of the flower is lost.