ELEVEN

I took the kids out hiking a little today. It was windy and cold enough for down jackets, but the sky was looking good and I have been looking for some areas to try grunge photography. What is grunge photography? Well, some examples below should give you an idea, but I haven't run across anything that gives a learned definition. Basically, think abandoned and run down. Then take photos that use an expanded dynamic range, and then.... I ran out of rules. Is it commercial? I don't know, but when a close my eyes to compose a shot, it looks like this in my head. I've found a way to get it out of my head and in front of your eyes. 

This is more like art to me. This is making a photo as opposed to capturing a photo. Capturing a photo is being in the right place at the right time; which, by the way, is what I spend a lot of my time trying to accomplish. Get up before dawn, drive to someplace that will show off the golden hour while hoping I have the right equipment and that Mother Nature cooperates. Making a photo is having something in your head, then going out and finding out how to use the equipment you have and the skills you've learned to make it a reality. These pictures are what that is all about. 


Abandoned Tractor
Abandoned Tractor HDR
7 exposures blended in photoshop


Grungy Hideout
9 exposures blended in photoshop

Now, I've got another image in my head. Does anybody have an aqua-blue '63 Corvette convertible they want to let me borrow?
Making pictures (other than portraits) is something complete new for me. I am loving this! I just wish I had that Canon 17-40L. There were quite a few images that were ruined because they met at the intersection of my beginner skills and low end equipment.  Too much weird ghosting and flares and I really needed the backlighting.  The kit lens has run up against the wall, so if you have a spare 17-40L laying around........

Comments

  1. travis pitcherNovember 13, 2010 at 9:25 AM

    We don't have a 17-40L, but we'll be sure to bring all our lenses when we come for Christmas so you can play with them.
    The 100mm Macro will blow your mind. It's so awesome.
    As is the above picture. The colors are crazy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. travis pitcherNovember 13, 2010 at 9:25 AM

    Oh. That comment and this one were actually from Becky

    ReplyDelete
  3. John,Tori, Alison, Aaron, And MaggieNovember 16, 2010 at 4:49 PM

    You should study more!!! When I come to you for drugs, I need you to be sharp! Sure the pictures are good, but really I think your camera is sucking your brain.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tim LindsayNovember 18, 2010 at 5:05 PM

    This HDR stuff is new to me. Just when I had convinced myself that Photoshop is a black hole for time that yields only marginal results, you show me that it may be a black hole for time that yields impressive results. The saturation on that tractor is enough to give me a headache. But it's really a great shot.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Choosing where to live.

Image
Not knowing where we will be next year is starting to take its toll. On me, on my family, probably on my performance at work.  I obsess about it. "Where do we want to live?" I have my list. My goal is to find a community that maximizes the number of things on that list. Polly has a list, but it is much shorter, or contains secret elements that I don't know. Her list, as far as I can tell is: 1. Access to grandbabies. 2. Church members in adequate numbers that we don't practice our faith on an island, or in a fishbowl. That is a short list. My list is more complicated. It has lots of items, and the those items change in relative importance as the seasons of the year, and my life, change. I like the outdoors- that has always been and will always be true. I find that I get depressed fairly quickly if my senses are deprived of the outdoors. The sound of the wind through the trees, the smell of woodsmoke and pine, the simultaneous sensation of a warm sun on my bac
Read more

CPAC Soccer Game

Image
I was finally able to attend a soccer game and watch Kathryn play. It was so much fun to watch Kathryn and the other girls play so aggressively. They have completely dominated the first two games, outscoring their opponents 9-1. I was surprised on how big the pitch was. Those girls were running! Kathryn is playing on a U-11 team. About half the girls are playing up from younger age groups because our club is brand new and just starting out. Watching the younger girls play tough on (sometimes much) bigger girls was inspiring.  The team's coach, Ian Hill, is really quite different from other youth sports coaches. He coaches with Love. Sounds corny, right? It's not touchy-feely namby-pamby stuff. He is teaching the girls accountability to your teammates, coaches, and parents because you love them. He makes them run at practice until its uncomfortable (maybe even some tears) because he wants them to know what it feels like in a game to keep going when you think you can't run
Read more

EIGHT

Image
Purple Mountains and an Emerald Lake I am just now starting to go back through the photos from my backpacking trip through Glacier from a year ago. When I first got back, I was too miserable and sore to even think about it, then I got busy. Then I forgot. Now I'm procrastinating school work. This was such an amazing trip. I wonder how people used to do it, slogging along with some external frame, canvas pack that weighed a ton and absorbed  water and if I had to guess, it probably didn't even hold every thing you needed. I used an Arcteryx Bora 90 which kept my stuff dry, organized and on my back. In fact, the only thing wrong with my pack was it was too big. You never want to be the guy with a 90 liter pack when everyone else has a 60 liter pack.
Read more