Saturday was the dress rehearsal for Our good friend Patrice's annual spring dance recital. This is one of m favorite shooting opportunities of the year.
The challenge is to try and come up with new shots and try not to repeat one from the previous year.
What I really enjoy is the chance to record this rite of passage for both the children and the parents.
I am already looking forward to next year's rehearsal.
My trip to DC was a photographic experiment. I travelled without my laptop and retrieved, processed, and up loaded my images using only my iPad and the camera connection kit.
For image processing, I used an app named snapseed. The best $4.99 I ever spendt. The app has a remarkable collection of editing tools. I highly recommend it for those of you in search of a powerful app that can handle almost everything you will need while travelling.
Scene from my hotel room in DC and the end of a very long but fantastic day of travel and meetings. I took this with my iPhone and processed it with a nifty little app called SnapSeed. Pretty cool. From time to time, I will share my iPhone experience with you and let you in on my discoveries.
I arrived at the farm this morning to find my friend Debbie practicing her mandolin by the light of the window. What's a photographer to do?
Debbie and her friend Rob have a concert tomorrow night and she was fine tuning her performance. In case you are wondering, she is playing a nineteenth century mandolin. The instrument is gorgeous and in Debbie's hands, it sounds wonderful.
I had the 70-210mm f2.8 mounted on the camera body & had to back up against the wall to get these shots in. Still, I ended up cropping a little closer to make them feel more intimate. I hope you like them.
This is Sheep to Shawl weekend at Carriage Hill Farm. That means that the sheep are being shorn, some of the ladies are spinning the merino wool into yarn while others are weaving the yarn into shawls on the loom.
My good friend Debbie told me that she would be working her great wheel and asked me if I would like to come in early to take photos before the public arrived. I was pretty excited because I had never seen the great wheel in use and we would be shooting in the natural morning light from my favorite window.
The challenges started very early. The morning turned out to be rainy and the light from the window was weaker than normal. I had to run back to the car to get my tripod. I had hoped to shoot a little more agile, but I would rather be tied to the tripod than get shaky shots. I really don't like to shoot handheld slower than 1/30th of a second.
While Debbie prepared to spin, I set up the camera gear.
The great wheel is also called a walking wheel because the spinner walks back and forth while spinning the wheel by hand.
The larger wheel causes the spindle to spin very fast, adding a lot of twist to the yarn, perfect for wool.
Debbie made fast work of the wool and before long, she had a skein ready to go. For me, the shoot was as much about post processing as it was about taking the photos. I converted the images to black and white and thought they looked pretty good, I decided that they could use a little warmth. I decided to then add a little sepia tone, finally deciding on only 15% level. I didn't want the images to be brown.
Finally, I wanted to throw the viewer back in time and anchor them there. So, I added a vignette to each of the images.
I hope you like the images. Drop me a comment to let me know what you think.
Tim
My reflection in a dress store window. Thought you might enjoy seeing an image of me in action. I almost called this one "44".
Whenever I approach a photo subject, I try to see something new or iconic in the image. I often take several images from different angles and with different settings. I'm trying to go beyond the normal view of the object. I try to determine what caught my eye. Was it the light? Was it the shape or maybe the contrast in colors?
My approach to a scene would be a little different. Then, I would often look for the story that the scene tells. However, with objects, I am often focused on trying to catch your eye without telling a story. I just want you to see what I see. I want your eye to settle where I think it should. Often, through framing, focus, depth of field, and post processing, I can lead your eye around the image until it becomes riveted to a single spot in the picture. That is a real challenge, and is real power.
Of course, sometimes, I just see something pretty and want to take a picture of it. Really… no need to over think it.
Waking up early is part of my daily routine. On week days, this leads to getting ready for work and the long drive in. On the weekend, the time is spent surfing, reading and going for walks at the lake. I look forward to watching the sun rise. During this particular morning, as I watched the sun coming up through the trees, a fish jumped in front of me. I was too late to catch the fish, but we can see the ripples that resulted.
In processing this image, I really selectively pushed the saturation. Blues, reds and yellows were all given a heavy hand to make the colors pop. I hope you enjoy the photo.
tim mcmurdo 