Category: photography

Whadderyoo Looking At?

There is so much I have yet to learn about making good photographs. Each step along the way seems like I’ll never sort it out, but I keep at it. I snap photo after photo until I finally understand what makes a particular aspect work. It’s usually one photograph that turns out just right, and I say “hey, maybe I’m starting to get the hang of this.”

My current studies are about macro photography. I’ve owned a macro lens for a quite a while now, but have used it only rarely as I’ve never happy with the results. It’s the photographer’s fault, not the lens. It’s a fine lens, but a macro in the hands of an inexperienced photographer can yield some funky stuff (and not in a good way).

To me, a macro lens is amazing because you can get such detail, but that detail can come at the cost of clarity if you don’t have it focused just right.

Well, the practice continues, and since my pets must suffer their fate as the subject of my ongoing photography education, today I present to you another photo of my beloved male betta named Benito.

Last evening I pointed the macro lens his way when it was his turn to cool his fins in a holding cup. Freshly treated water in his tank was warming up to a comfy level while he waited.

Snapping him in the holding cup helps because he doesn’t have as much room to move and spin and twirl and turn his body into a perfect u-shaped form, thus creating ever more blurry photos of half a fin or an out of focus gill.

He’s very responsive when I speak to him and comes right up and looks at me. Sure, he wants me to feed him, but I like to think it’s because he knows I’m his human and here to take care of him.

I like looking into his little eyes, and wanted very much to capture a photo where you could see the clear domes over his little fishy eyeballs.

I think I succeeded. He was very patient while I fiddled with the focus and turned the knobs on my camera and cursed and snapped away.

For this photo, I used a very shallow depth of field and I like how his head is very clear and the rest of his body blurs to soft focus.

Benito is not really a fan of having a camera aimed at him, so I only took about eight photos, but I’m pretty pleased with the results.

I’m learning!



click image for larger size




This week’s Theme Thursday assignment is turn.

Photo by Karen Fayeth and subject to the Creative Commons license, as posted in the right hand column.

The lump in my throat, feeling kind of homesick, photo of the day

From the National Geographic Photo of the Day site:




(click photo to see larger size)


Photo by Troy Lim, taken December 2010 at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.

As a school kid we went on a field trip to the Bosque del Apache and I also went a couple times with my folks. It is one of the most visceral feelings I’ve ever known to sit in among the vast amounts birds at either sunrise or sunset and hear them all calling, honking, tweeting, whatevering at each other. It is a feeling, truly, that nature is much, much greater than you.

And I miss it.

Cheers to you, my Fair New Mexico.


I’m So Pulling out my Textbooks

Back in 1890, they passed into law this little ol’ thing called the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

From the wiki: “The purpose of the act was to oppose the combination of entities that could potentially harm competition, such as monopolies or cartels.”

Yes, this is a good thing. Boon to a free economy and such.

Well I’m ready to invoke that act on a little institution known as Getty Images.

If you look around the web and you see an image you like, look closer…odds are Getty already owns it. And don’t both trying to “borrow” it, Getty wants their money and they want it bad.

Oh, and they are large enough to bring a whole passel of lawyers along for the ride.

Getty owns most shots from any professional sporting event. Getty owns the photos of most individual players too.

Getty has hoovered up many of the great images on Flickr, too. In many cases, photographers *gladly* gave over rights to their photos in hopes of making a little money or at least getting a little exposure.

Understandable, but I don’t have to like it.

Ever visited iStockPhoto, a place where you can find a lot of for-pay great stock images? Getty.

And now, oh now, my fave royalty free photo site, stock.xchng is under new management.

You guessed it, Getty has booted the original team (ok, they probably received a nice sum for their time and trouble) and is now in charge.

I’ll betcha some cold hard cash that many of these formerly free images will no longer be free. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that stock.xchng will soon be blended entirely into iStockPhoto and s’long high quality royalty free photos.

This make Hulk maaaad.

I’m just a little personal blog. I don’t make big ad bucks. I make no bucks from my blog. I do it for the satisfaction. And oh so sorry, can’t pay for high quality photos with just my sense of satisfaction.

Bah!

Photo below, found by searching “greedy” on stock.xchng.








Photo by Svilen Milev and used royalty free (for the time being) from stock.xchng.


Photo Fun: Fish Eye lens

A couple years ago I invested in a few of those fun plastic Lomography cameras.

I own an Action Sampler multiple lens camera, a Colorsplash with gel films for the flash, and a camera with a built in fish eye lens.

Of the three, the fish eye has been my least favorite. With that big bubble lens skewing the view, it felt damn near impossible to take a good photo with the thing.

Better photographers than I understand the proportions of this extremely wide angle lens, but for me I felt like I was fighting with it.

So I gave up.

Recently, I was cleaning out my gear and I noticed that the fish eye camera had a roll of film loaded, and the counter showed 1. Turns out I hadn’t even used a single frame of the roll.

I tossed the camera in my bag for New Year’s Eve weekend. I knew we’d be staying near Sausalito and there’s plenty of photo opportunities up there.

Well, I forgot I had that fish eye in my bag until the day we were driving home when I had a flash of inspiration. As we drove over the bridge, I held the camera out the window and on the roof of the car, tilted it up slightly, and snapped away.

Sometimes serendipity is the best friend of the photographer.

Other than straightening the horizon, this photo is straight off the camera.

Suddenly I like that fish eye camera a whole lot more.



(click to see a larger size)


Important Medical Tools *snicker*

Yesterday I had my annual physical with the doctor.

Unfortunately, the good doctor was detained by the patient in the room next door. The gent had experienced complications from drinking too much over the holidays, and in the follow-on checkup meeting wanted to (loudly) argue with his doctor about reducing his alcohol intake.

New Year’s resolutions and all that, I suppose.

Anyhoo…when you leave me in a tiny medical cubicle for over an hour wearing only a rear ventilated paper gown, I’m oh-so very much going to find ways to amuse myself.

Herewith, a photographic treasury from my appointment.

Once I’d gotten myself settled into my paper gown and black socks (a hot look, I can assure you) I shifted my heiney up onto the exam table, where I was instructed to wait.

The first thing my gaze fell upon was this:



That doesn’t…look, um, right. I mean, I live in a first world nation. What exactly are these barbaric tools doing just lying about?

And how exactly is the item on the left is incorporated into the items center and right?

Wait, don’t tell me. I’m not sure I want to know.

Yes, I know that one is a tuning fork to check my hearing and one is a reflex tester to whack at my knee. But do I really need to be lubed up for all that?!?

I felt…uncomfortable.

Which made me start to shiver like a Chihuahua in my little blue gown.

THEN my gaze landed here:



Um. Is that applied to the air? Or is that applied to me? I showered. I’m fresh as a daisy. Honest.

And then you have to think…in a medical facility…they probably get some odors you don’t want to know about.

So I *quickly* shifted my gaze.

Oh, look, there is a rack of brochures! Who doesn’t love a nice brochure?

Whoa. What’s this?



Is this a cautionary tale? Don’t get the piles, kids, or you’ll look like this guy!

Hemorrhoids make you a zombie!! *rooowwwrrrr*

That photo is so wrong. So, so wrong.

And the copy of a copy of a copy gives it such a backoffice, off-label, ‘roid whacking assembly line feeling that doesn’t make me love my current health care provider.

I quickly started digging in the cabinets to find another paper gown to put on backwards, just to cover stuff up. No luck, they must dole out those tiny gowns in the smallest possible increments.

“You know…I’m feeling *fine*…I am fit as a fiddle! I’m just going to go home now, mmmkay?”

If you see a lady sprinting down the road in a tattered blue paper gown and black socks, look away. I’m working out some issues.