Oregon Panoramics
February 10th, 2010
I joined GetDPI.com for it’s Oregon Landscape Workshop. Here are a few of the panoramic I captured during the trip.
GetDPI AZ Workshop: Grab Bag
June 24th, 2009
I figured if I posted two random images from the workshop weekend that the viewer could struggle to find some deeper meaning for the pairing.
In actuality there is no connection; they just didn’t fit into the other categories.
GetDPI AZ Workshop: Curse the Sky
June 24th, 2009
Landscape photography is all about composition and light. After all the subject isn’t going anywhere. The mountains, rocks, and canyons have been there for millennium and will be there for millennium to come. When the light isn’t right the frustration can be hair-pulling. Since there are often only a few days in the entire workshop a single bad day for light often means hours of “wasted” driving and setup.
But when life gives you rain, make rain-aid. The below shot of the rain was taken at the Horseshoe Canyon; while not as colorful and dynamic as the shot I arrived to take I think it does hold meaning. Photography is many things to many people; to me the best photography evokes an emotion.
This image is a metaphor for all the frustration and disappointment of real life. Each drop is a set back and the out of focus clouds are that hard-to-shake vague sense of impending doom often found in the depravity of modern life.
GetDPI AZ Workshop: Texture
June 24th, 2009
One of the things that fascinated me about the Great American west is the variation in texture wrought by the combination of abundant sand, wind, and time.
Black and White is the perfect medium to convey texture and patterns. Unfortunately the web is not. These images were capture on various digital backs between 39 and 60 megapixels; when printed several feet wide they reveal more subtle texture that even my 30″ monitors can begin too.
GetDPI AZ Workshop: Vertical Stitches
June 24th, 2009
WARNING: Technical mumbo jumbo to follow.
The two images below were captured with a Cambo Wide RS body, Phase One P40+ digital back using a 2-image stitch (horizontal@15mm fall, horizontal@25mm rise) for 70 megapixel image. Since the stitching occurred by shifting the capture device within the image circle there was no distortion or geometric alignment of the two frames, making the stitching process both easy, and high quality.
GetDPI AZ Workshop: Balance Rocks
June 24th, 2009
One of my photographic philosophies is “don’t miss a shot to get a shot”. While driving for hours in the Great American West to get to a particular pre-scheduled shot our fearless leader Guy Mancuso stopped on several occasions at unmarked, undocumented spots to shoot. This was one of my favorites.
Viewing these balanced rocks makes you wonder at the amazing effect of time on the landscape of the Great American West.
GetDPI AZ Workshop: Pinhole Landscapes
June 24th, 2009
I took these shots while on the workshop using my Phase One 645 Body and a self-made pinhole lens (body cap + coke can+ jewler’s drill + gaffe tape).
GetDPI AZ Workshop: Antelope Canyon
June 24th, 2009
The GetDPI 2009 Arizona Workshop just ended. As with the 2009 Moab Workshop and the 2008 Lighting Workshop before that I was an instructor of software/workflow while the very talented co-owner of GetDPI.com Guy Mancuso (Jack Flesher, the other owner was unable to make this workshop) taught the composition and capture side.
I’ll post more of my images from the trip as soon as I get some rest. Until then enjoy these images from Antelope Canyon.
Moab in Color
April 13th, 2009
If you saw my post on Black and White Landscapes in Moab you might have wondered where the color photos were.
Wonder no more.
Viva Las Vegas
April 13th, 2009
I’m really not sure what day or hour it is right now. Red eye flights from Vegas always leave me disoriented and confused.
While I went to Vegas to help my friend and fellow photographer Luke Potter shoot a wedding (including a shoot at an abandoned Vegas Sign graveyard) I couldn’t pass on the chance to shoot in the desert.
The wind was blowing across the sand like a banshee. Fortunately Teri Marie was a truly professional model and stuck through the high wind, constant dust in her eyes, and abusive sun. Finding good models (10% looks, 40% talent, 50% professionalism) is hard work, so if you are in the Vegas area and need a model who you can count on I can strongly recommend Teri.
The style in these shots is heavily dependent on the lighting technique. The camera used for this shoot was a Hasselblad H2 medium format body with a Phase One digital back. The H2 system uses leaf shutter lenses which can sync with flash at 1/800th of a second, which means it’s relatively easy to under-expose the ambient light (making the clouds, sky, and ground dark) and take most of the light from the strobes.
Fairchild Botanical Gardens
March 14th, 2009
The last time I was at the Botanical Gardens I took only infra-color photographs (half infrared and half visible light).
Returning today for the Orchids festival with my friend Julia (of Shoe fame) and her husband, I brought along two visible light cameras.
The below frame is strait out of the camera without any contrast or saturation changes made. This flower really looks just like this.
Sunset with Meetup.com
February 9th, 2009
Recently I found meetup.com which is a social organization site that encourages people with similar interests to get together in “meetups.” One of the meetups local to Miami Beach is a photo meetup.
These are four photos taken at a sunset shoot organized by this group. It’s always a pleasure to meet fellow photographers. If you’d like to join there are two such groups Miami Photography and Shoot Miami.
Moab: The Flight From Miami
February 5th, 2009
The MIA-DEN flight left long before the sun rose in Miami. The sunrise through the plane window made for an excellent treat on the way to Denver. A good sunrise on a flight to a photo workshop is a sign of good things to come!
Moab: Black and White Landscape
February 5th, 2009
Here are some of the images I captured at the Moab, Utah workshop run by GetDPI at which I was a guest instructor. These were shot with a Phase One P21 medium format digital camera modified for infrared capture. I’ve written about infrared photography previously and have a portfolio of landscape images taken with various infrared devices (film, dSLR, and medium format digital).
