Sometimes, when insomnia strikes and I wake up far too early, I take my camera and walk the streets near my home. For the most part, I have the town to myself. I like that. I enjoy the peace that can only be found in the middle of the night. I can imagine that the entire world is sleeping except me. Eventually, the world begins to waken, slowly, one home and one business at a time. The waking lights are my cue to head home, find something to eat and get ready to face the rest of the day.
Betty! Sometimes I say her name with love and sometimes with frustration. Betty rarely stands still for a photo. Here I wanted to capture a picture with the focus on her paw and her, looking at the camera, in the back ground. She would have none of it and fussed and fidgeted until she finally just started scratching behind her ears. I finally gave up and took the shot as it was.
The entire affair wore Betty out and she decided that she needed to take a nap. She has it so bad. I almost feel sorry for her.
Saturday morning, I visited Jane and Charlie in the main pasture. I love the morning light and the way the trees and barn are lit up by the sun.
The morning air was crisp and chilly. Perfect for getting out of bed and greeting the day. So, I packed the gear and headed for the farm. When I first arrived, the sky was still dark. By the time I left, the sun had cleared the horizon. So, I started with the tripod and ended hand held. Not a bad way to spend your Saturday morning.
Once again, I found myself getting up early to shoot the sunrise… someplace. But, where? I could not think of anyplace spectacular that I wanted to go to on a spur of the moment drive and eventually decided that I would visit my favorite location, the Carriage Hill Farm.
After loading the car and a short drive, I arrived and set up to shoot the barn in the twilight. And then it hit me, I had no idea how to go about manually focusing in such dim light. My camera has an electronic view finder, not the traditional optical view finder. I just couldn't see the image through the view finder well enough to focus. I then switched to the 2.75 inch LCD screen on the back of the camera. Still no good results, I just couldn't see well enough. I then switched to auto focus and zoomed out until the roof line along the barn's roof line became defined enough for the camera's auto focus. Not the perfect solution but, it worked well enough to take this shot.
The lesson learned was that I need to practice focusing in low light conditions until I find a process that workes for me. I'll let you know when I find a good way to get sharp images in very dim conditions.
Yesterday, I mentioned that I had driven over to Columbus, Ohio to catch the skyline in the early morning. This image was taken in the twilight just before sunrise, one of my favorite times of the day for photography.
A month or so back, I described how I scouted locations for my Cincinnati Sunrise shoot via the internet. I used the same process that I described in the previous post. I think that I am really getting good at using the technique.
I pass this bar every morning on the way to work. The light is always on and I wonder if it is still open and who would be in the bar that late or that early? I'll bet that there are a lot of interesting stories about the patrons and their hijinks.
I also wonder what Lisska means? Is it a last name? Was the bar opened by an immigrant and this was his favorite pony's name growing up? Do the patrons all gather here to watch their favorite teams playing "football" back in the old country?
You never know with these things.
| Exposure | 0.025 sec (1/40) |
|---|---|
| Aperture | f/5.6 |
| Focal Length | 45 mm |
| ISO Speed | 1600 |
| Exposure Bias | -0.3 EV |
From a photographer's point of view, I like the B&W version of this image. However, I wish that the street light was not in the scene. I feel like it distracts from the LIsska AR sign. Notice that I stopped down the exposure by 1/3 of a stop to bring the glow from the sign under control.
I have been trying to get a decent shot of this view in downtown Springfield for a long time. Many mornings over this summer, I would walk the street, knowing that there was a good picture here, but without any good results. What changed?
I finally walked out into the street. The morning sunrise lit the building on the right and high lighted the strip of metal attached to the scaffolding on the left. Those high lights combine with the lines in the road and the street lights to draw the eye down the street. I think it works pretty well. What do you think?
I am a big fan of people. I really like them in all of their infinite variations. I like watching them and I love listening to their stories. If they have a talent that I envy, then I am even more impressed. What I don't like are crowds. I don't like the feeling of being pressed in by people.
When I saw this woman playing the fiddle at the Faire at New Boston, I noticed that she always closed her eyes while she was playing. Was that to escape the press of on lookers? Did she need to run from the crowds?
My first thought was that she was like me and by closing her eyes, she could pretend that the crowds were not there. However, the more I watched and listened, the more that I realized that she was caught up in her music.
More than just listening, she was experiencing the music in a very personal way that could not be shared with the rest of us. I imagine that she could feel the notes as they vibrated loose from the instrument and rose into the air. Hers was a private reverie. A oneness with the music, not an escape.
When I am editing a photo on my computer, I sometimes have a similar experience. I can become enmeshed in the image. If I am working on a landscape, I let my mind wander within the scenery. If the image is a portrait, I can sometimes lose myself in the person's eyes. To go even further, I can relish the brilliant colors in a photo, letting my eyes absorb them and process them. Tones, contrast, and saturation become like the individual notes in the fiddler's tune. Like the woman lost in her music, I can become lost in the beauty of an image.
A couple months ago, I suggested that every photographer, that has a photo blog, should know a little HTML programming. The Folks at Code Academy have put together a fantastic site that teaches you how to perform some basic coding interactively. If you are interested, give them a try.
I've gotten a lot of great comments and questions about the Cincinnati Sunrise series and thought you might appreciate knowing how I planned for the shoot.
The original idea was formed during one of my many return trips from Atlanta. Inevitably, I would end up going through Cincinnati at night and always thought that the view of the city at night was spectacular. I would think about how it would look at sunset and sunrise. Being a morning person, I naturally tended to gravitate towards the sunrise version.
One of the most common questions that I have recieved was 'How did you know where to go?' I don't know Cincinnati that well and finding a place to shoot the sunrise with so little time to experiment seemed daunting. When I don't know an area, I turn to google maps and this time around Google was able to nail the location for me. I use google maps quite often and it has proven to be pretty reliable.
I knew that Mt. Adams, to the east, of downtown had great views of the city and the river. If I wanted to catch the sunrise reflected off of the buildings, Mt. Adams would have been a great choice. I wanted to capture the sun rising behind the city, so Mt. Adams was out. I did know that there was a ridgeline to the west of downtown and started looking in that direction.
Zooming in and switching to terrain view, I could see that there were two parks on the ridge to the west of downtown that might fit the bill. Wilson Common was closer to the city but, Mt. Echo had the Ohio river between the park and the city. To me, Mt. Echo seemed like the better location. To check, I searched google images for photos from the park and was able to confirm that the park had the perfect view.
The next step was to nail down the sunrise itself. To do that I turned to a wonderful and free program called The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE).
If you are not familiar with TPE, it is a nifty little program that gives you all of the information that you could possibly about the moon and sun. You get times and directions to both the setting and rising sun/moon. In addition, you get the times for all three morning and evening twilights. We all grew up thinking that if you wanted to find the sunrise, you turned due east and there it was. In actuality, due east is not really correct. The direction varies with the date and location.
TPE uses the Google Maps API and draws lines from the location you chose to show where the sun and moon rise and set. Following the lines from Mt. Echo, I was able to see that the line for the sunrise bisected the downtown Cincinnati area. Perfect. As an added bonus, TPE showed that the moon would also be in the east during the sunrise.
So, before I even left my house, I was able to know the following:
1. That Mt. Echo was in the perfect location and had a great view of downtown Cincinnati
2. That the sun would rise behind the city
3. The time of sunrise and twilight
4. That the moon would also be in the eastern sky during sunrise
At this point, I was comfortable about the time and location. Another web search informed me that the weather would also be good. All that remained was to prepare and pack my gear. Here is what I brought along:
Sony a55v body
18-55mm lens
70-210mm lens
Heavy tripod
Remote shutter release
Small flashlight
Spare battery
Spare memory card
With those items packed in my back pack, I was ready to go and I had a reasonable expectation that the shoot would be a success. The next time you are searching for a location for an image that you have in mind, look on the web. Check google maps, the weather and google images to find the perfect site for you. You will be surprised at how well prepared you can be without even leaving your couch.
tim mcmurdo 