Tim McMurdo

barn swallows – almost great

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

This is one of those images that just doesn't make the grade. I think it could have been a fine image. In the end, the picture is just too soft and no amount of sharpening is going to make it live up to its potential.

Exposure	0.067 sec (1/15)
Aperture	f/5.6
Focal Length	55 mm
ISO Speed	1600

If we dissect the EXIF data, we can see a suspect in the shutter speed (exposure). Even when combined with an ISO of 1600 (the image was taken inside of a barn) 1/15th of a second is pretty slow for hand held shooting.

However, I suspect the real culprit is the fact that I was standing on tip toe, holding the camera above my head, and using the live view 2.75 inch display to focus. I don't see evidence of the shaking that you would normally see with long exposures. Instead of shaking, the entire image is just a bit soft. I think we can convict my bad attempt at focusing of the crime.

foggy morning redux

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

This morning was just as foggy as yesterday's and I was just as excited to get out and shoot in the mist. If tomorrow is foggy, I will be out there as again. I am even willing to get up early. That is how much I enjoy photography in the fog.

Exposure	0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture	f/8.0
Focal Length	55 mm
ISO Speed	100
Exposure Bias	-0.7 EV

To avoid posting all of the images in this post, I created a new gallery for the foggy morning images. You can find the gallery at the bottom of my gallery page.

http://justsitting.typepad.com/ephemerallife/galleries.html

I hope that this Monday morning gets you off to a great start to the week. I will be traveling to Atlanta to be spend some time with my son and family. Expect to see plenty of new images as a result. Have a fantastic week.

the journey

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

We began the journey on the Great Lake in the morning fog. We had far to go and the early start would mean we would arrive at the camp before sunset.

Along the way, the lakes shore was clouded in the dense mist. Occasionally we would see a bird or a fish feeding in the coolness of the morning.

The lake was dotted with small islets and presented a spectacular view.

As we passed close to some of the islets, we could see that each was its own world, complete with birds and other wild life

What seemed like hours later, we had crossed the Great Lake and entered the mouth of the river that would lead us to camp. After the expanse of the lake, the river's banks felt confining. As they closed in around us, we left the lake behind.

Up river two hours, we pulled the boat onto the banks. With our packs loaded onto our backs, we headed inland. As the forrest began to swallow us whole, I turned for one last look at the river and we disappeared into the dense growth.

che roostara

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

As the head of the ghost like organization Peoples Army of Carriage Hill (PACH) Che Roostara has called for the overthrow of the Friends of Carriage Hill governing board. Roostara and his chicken guerilla fighters have been terrorizing the rest of the Carriage Hill animal community with hit and run raids on the farm's cracked corn supplies. After each assault, PACH melts into the surrounding forrest and disappears.

The governing board has issued a commission to Lt. Colonel Sarah, the resident barn cat, to hunt down and destroy PACH and its leader Roostara. Perhaps soon, Che Roostara will be caught and Carriage Hill can return to peace.

sun beam experiment

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

I love those sun beams that you see streaming from bright sunny windows into dark rooms. Unfortunately, they are hard to find and photograph. So, like any self reliant person, I decided to make my own using the radial blur filter in PhotoShop.

The process was pretty easy. I simply selected the bright areas and hit control J to copy them to their own layer and then applied the radial blur filter repeatedly until the sun beams were of the length I wanted. with the sun beams in place, I used the eraser tool to clean up a few areas.

I can imagine that the technique would be great for creating those beautiful god rays that you see on cloudy days. I can't wait for a cloudy day, go figure.

What do you think of the final results? I think that some of them work better than others. Which images work for you? Let me know, your opinion counts around here.

at last, a post with chickens

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

I know, I have been remiss in keeping up with my chicken images. I feel like I have let you down. So, today, we will focus on the original white meat and that should keep us chicken-o-philes going for awhile.

Here is a rare arial view of a chicken. I took it from The Goodyear Blimp (not really). This chicken is Shirley. I know this because she has black and white striped feathers while all of the other chickens have white and black striped feathers.

Here we have the people ladies watching the chicken ladies. The girls (chickens) had been given some bread scraps a bit earlier and were hopeful that there might be more forthcoming. Unfortunately, there wasn't and they soon returned to eating bugs and worms.

I know what you are thinking & you don't need to worry. I made sure that Eric was safe from the ladies. He is doing well over by the summer kitchen where I introduced him to a cute little beetle.

digitus volucris

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

His name is Eric. I know it is not a great image, but Eric is cute… and single, for all you lady bugs out there. Eric is a very friendly finger bug. He is gainfully employed, has his own place as well as a healthy relationship with his mother. Eric likes short walks on blades of grass and long flights during sunset. The only thing that is missing in Eric's life is a lady companion to share his world.

Do you know a nice girl bug for Eric? If you do, please let me know. Together we can make a difference in Eric's short life.

Come on, hook a bug up!

flower’s point of view

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

This is not my best image by any means. However, I liked the warmth of the image and the point of view enough to share it with you. Normally, I rely on depth of field and focus to draw the viewer's eye. In this image, I relied on negative space. The blue area in the upper right of the image brings your eye up and out of the flowers and into the sky. At least, that is the idea. What do you think? A nice surprise in this image was the insect flying in the upper left corner.

Exposure	0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture	f/11.0
Focal Length	20 mm
ISO Speed	100

My post processing included color balance, contrast, black point and saturation in Aperture.

before and after

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

A very special young lady asked me to shoot her senior portraits. I don’t shoot a lot of portraits but, she is a great kid and she, her sister, and her mom have very kind to me over the last few months. So, I did not hesitate to say yes.

The shoot was a lot of fun. We shot at a couple outdoor locations and I ended up with quite a lot of images. After the shoot, Her mother joined us and we sat down and sifted through the raw images to cull out the bad ones (there are always bad ones).

Post processing included my standard color and contrast adjustments. However her mother had asked me to take a shot at her severe acne on a few of the images. I thought it was a good idea to show her how the rest of us saw her. The big but here is that I firmly believe that people are unique and beautiful as they are. I didn’t want to completely eradicate her acne because I wanted her images to reflect her true self. On the flip side, as anybody would, she wanted to look her best. I had a fine line to walk.

Here is how I approached the post processing in PhotoShop.

1. I made a duplicate layer of the original image to protect the original.

2. I performed my normal curves adjustment for color and contrast.

3. I then used the healing and clone tools to remove the worst of the spots. I also brightened the teeth just a bit.

4. I then duplicated the layer from step 3 and made a levels adjustment to the red channel only. The adjustment amounted to moving the lightness slider all the way to the right. I then masked out the lips and other areas that I did not want effected. I set the layer blending mode to luminosity. This removed most of the red splotchyness from the skin.

5. I then merged the layers from steps 3 and 4 and duplicated the resulting layer.

6. I applied a heavy gaussian blur to the new layer and set its blending mode to overlay. This smoothed the scaring to the skin without completely eliminating it. Once again, I merged this layer with the layer in step 5.

7. I created a new empty layer and filled it with black, setting the blend mode to soft light.

8. I then merged all of the remaining layers and saved the new version of the image.

How did I do? Was I successful in walking the fine line? I would be interested in what you think of the final image.

upon closer inspection

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Tim McMurdo

In this image are my sister-in-law (wearing the glasses), my wife (in the right lens) and me (in the left lens). Saturday we attended the spring street fair in Yellow Springs, Ohio. We love to go down there and shop the booths, eat fair food and watch the people in the crowd. The day gave us perfect weather and we took full advantage of the clear warm conditions.

Exposure	0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture	f/4.5
Focal Length	30 mm
ISO Speed	100

To get this image with the reflections that I wanted, I focused on and exposed for the image in the right lens.

Author: Tim McMurdo