52-week Challenge: week 11

WEEK 11: Landscape: Reflection – Find a way to show your landscape/natural beauty in reflection. The mirror world revealed.

I had contemplated this assignment ahead of time and even went to the dollar store to get a mirror for inspiration. Nah, I thought that would be too cheesy. Then I considered perhaps a reflection of the countryside in a pair of sunglasses, but that would require a willing model! My next brainwave came when one of my daughters decided she needed a ride to the shopping mall – use the car window to get a reflection of an urban landscape – brilliant!

Of course, things never work out quite that way, do they? Rather than dropping off my daughter and her friend I was told I could pick them up instead. This is always the worst of the two standard unpaid “Uber” roles for a parent as there’s no definitive meeting time or place. Ho hum, thinks I, I can still do this as I’ll get there a little early and take time to position the car for its job as photographic canvas.

I hadn’t anticipated how full the parking lot would be, nor the rain.

As I was driving around searching for a place I thought to reverse park in one space at the edge of the lot. This way I would be able to use my driving mirrors to get a shot across the road and modify my original idea.

As I did so, I saw the reflection of a this guy across the street begging money from cars at the stop signal. The light was fading fast and he was there only for a few minutes, presumably after a long day. The irony of the red and blue umbrella and the stars and stripes hanging limply nearby was not lost on me – a reflection of humanity in the world’s richest nation, perhaps?

~Richard

March 14, 2016 0

52 week Challenge: week 10

Week 10: Portrait: Environmental – Show a subject in their natural habitat. Their place of work or hobby is a great start. Tell their story with the environment.

I found this to be the toughest assignment so far. I wanted to push my comfort zone in getting out with camera; perhaps creating some street photography. The difficulty for me came with the concept of taking this as a true portrait. I sort of misread the brief a little but I still feel that this shot does meet it as it shows this young lady in the middle of her job writing down a food order for the cook in the food truck. Our only communication was through the little Plexiglas window, which seemed like an obvious frame for the shot.

160308_FastFood

~Richard

March 8, 2016 0

52 week Challenge: week 9

Week 9: Artistic: Shadows – The opposite of light is dark, the absence of light is shadow. Interpret this into a masterpiece.

This was quite an interesting assignment and opened up a lot of possibilities. The one constraint I set myself was that I was only going to use natural light, so no flash or lamps to create shadows that weren’t natural.

I had a trip to Philadelphia, and in the end settled with a fairly classic abstract taken on the steps of the terrace on Liacouras Walk in Temple University. I converted it to a black and white image as I think it works better for contrasting the zigzag lines onto the grey stone steps.

160301_ShadowTempleSteps

However, last night just as I had returned home from work I caught sight of the shadows cast from a couple of our German Erzgebirge ornaments being cast by the final rays of the setting sun through the window. These are delightful little wooden sun and moon characters and I thought their shadows were lovely, as well as relevant to the time of day.

160301_ShadowSunMoon

In this case I left the image as full color as I think the dark wooden background of the shelf makes the shadows seem warmer, as it partially reflects the sun into a blown out highlight.

~Richard

March 1, 2016 0

52 Week Challenge: Week 8

Week 8: Landscape: Wide Angle/Panorama – This is a great opportunity to explore panorama stitching and create a wide sweeping landscape.

Today was unseasonably warm, rising to 61°F (16°C) in the afternoon, so I took the opportunity after my Saturday taxi driving for the entire family over several hours to visit a local nature preserve while there was still some sunlight left and before the next round of vehicular collections was due.

I know the experts all tell us to use a tripod for panorama shots but, to be honest, I was in a bit of a rush, and I know I have pretty steady hands,so I initially tried using the in-camera panorama mode of my Panasonic GX8 to produce this quick image:

For everyday use I think it does a good job. The camera uses rapid fire mode and you simply pan it left to right. The only downside is that it produces an image only 1920px tall, so it’s a bit limited for printing.

So, over to the manual approach and the use of stitching software, as requested in this week’s challenge. I have used the free Hugin image stitcher before which is very capable and allow for a lot of fine tuning. However, this time I used the much more intuitive (and free) Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE).

So the process is to take a series of shots when panning, ensuring that at least 30% of the image overlaps between frames. This gives the software a lot of ability to match elements in the images and so map them properly. By using the camera vertically I was able to get a panorama 5002px in height and 17695px wide. Big enough to do a lot with! The reason is wasn’t full sensor height was because I hand held and wasn’t perfect in holding it level throughout the series, so ICE had to crop it to get a straight edge. It’s all easy to do though.

I made several composites but in the end I chose this one, simply because I liked the texture of the corn (maize) field in the foreground:

~Richard

#dogwood52 #dogwoodweek8

February 20, 2016 0

52 week challenge: week 7

Week 7: Portrait: Faceless – Tell someone’s story without showing their face.

Ice Queen No More

The night was bitterly cold. So cold, in fact, that it was too painful for her to draw a deep breath. She waited for him inside the building and tried to peer out through the frost covered window. At last she spied him hurrying towards the door. She smiled. Soon they would both be warm.

160215_IceQueen

~Richard

#dogwood52 #dogwoodweek7

February 15, 2016 0

52 week challenge: week 6

Week 6: Artistic: Candy – Your artistic interpretation this week should be inspired by something sweet. A great chance to play with macro photography.

This one was relatively easy for me, as we have a house full of candy at the moment, an excess from xmas and some more recent additions for Easter. Or rather, since “candy” isn’t a term I would normally use, we have lots of “sweets” in the house, to use proper British vernacular!

The ones that I chose are known in the US as “fruit candies”, but as kids we would have called them “boiled sweets” and they were a staple available from any elderly relative who, back in my childhood days, always seems to have a variant of these on hand in a paper bag in case of getting a dry throat or a cough. Odd behavior perhaps, but I’m just telling it like it was.

I was going to use a zoom and some of my macro tubes to experiment but in the end I decided to stick with f/1.7-20mm as before and set this up in my “studio” by placing a black cloth over a chair balanced on the ironing board under the shop LED lights in the basement! I couldn’t be bothered to dig out a tripod from the trunk of the car so I took the shot hand held and used manual focus to get as close as the lens would allow me.

I’m pleased with the result but let me know what you think.

~Richard

#dogwood52 #dogwoodweek6

February 10, 2016 0

52 week challenge: week 5

Week 5: Landscape: Black and White – Look for a scene with great contrast that will make a great black and white.

The recent snow came to my rescue a second time in the challenge. As I was driving home from an appointment yesterday evening I was pleased to still have what was left of the evening light available, so giving me an unexpected opportunity to make a start on this week’s challenge. I turned off the main route and took a few back roads on the Delaware/Pennsylvania border and was able to get a few shots. I was very short of time though and, due to having no place to park on these recently plowed roads, I had to resort the to taking some shots from the car. I was pleased with the composition of the shot below but, to be blatantly honest, it is not as sharp as it could be, since I was too rushed (lesson learned there!)

160130LandscapeMonoSmall

So this morning, on my way back home from an indoor hockey game I stopped off at another open area and put together this shot. I really wanted to capture the texture of the tree, fence and wispy clouds, but as I am still forcing myself to stick to my trusty 20mm f/1.7 lens I was forced to be a little creative. I took 3 overlapping portrait shots and then stitched them together using the free Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE).

Therefore, I offer up not one, but two images for this week’s challenge, although technically the second image is actually 3 photos in itself!

160130Landscape2MonoSmall

~Richard

#dogwood52 #dogwoodweek5

January 30, 2016 1

52 week challenge: week 4

Week 4: Portrait: Headshot – You shot a selfie, now shoot a “selfie” of someone else!

As I mentioned in my earlier post on this subject ‘… (portrait) is largely unexplored territory for me to date, other than through reluctantly granted periodic “family portraits,”’ so I felt that this was going to be a tough assignment.

Help came though in a totally unexpected way – through Winter Storm Jonas! Bizarrely, as the storm was heading towards us, the majority of my family left to go on a pre-planned ski trip in Vermont, thereby missing the storm in its entirety. I, on the other hand, was left at home in PA to look after the place, but mainly because I no longer ski due to an accident in the Austrian Alps 10 or so years ago. Staying with me was one of my daughters, and as I was spending 8+ hours shoveling snow to dig a path to the road she, obviously, decided to build an igloo.

Aha! I thought, I will strike a bargain and, as part payment for providing some material for her to use as a roof, she agreed to let me take a few pictures of her. I particularly liked her choice of headgear and I had her pose inside her igloo too to provide an interesting backdrop. I admit to taking several shots over a short period (1-2 minutes) and I stuck to using my 20mm f1.7 (40mm equivalent) lens simply because I wanted a large aperture as the light was fading.

160125_PortraitGColor600px

160125_PortraitGMono600px

After some minor touch up in GIMP I also tried a black and white version, so this week I offer up two images to the challenge!

I would be interested to see which one is preferred, as it’s a tough choice for me.

~Richard

#dogwood52 #dogwoodweek4

January 25, 2016 0

52 week challenge: week 3

Week 3: Artistic: Red – Shoot whatever inspires you. Red should be the focus of the image. Don’t be afraid to be creative.

According to my previous post on this subject (wow, was it only a week ago?) this assignment should be the one I find the easiest of the three repeating themes. After all, there is certainly not lack of red objects around, even in the winter. In fact, have you noticed that whenever you start to look for something specific you suddenly see it everywhere? We used to call this the new car effect when we were kids. My father would change his car periodically, usually replacing one non-mainstream model with another every few years. They were not new vehicles, but they were new to us, and usually we had not seen many of that particular model on previous travels. However, as soon as we went on a trip of any length it was amazing just how often my brother and I would see “our car” from the back seat being driven on the road. Long before in car entertainment, and rear seat belts, this was theme that played out on many trips.

So, back to the task at hand. Driving around the local area, walking the dogs, and even just pottering about the house and garden I am seeing red (although not in the “getting angry” sense, thankfully!).

So what should I do?

Then it hit me as walking down our driveway; perhaps I should concentrate on something that is quintessentially American. How about the red flag on the mailbox?

I am still challenging myself by only using my m43 20mm prime lens, forcing me to really get into the shot rather than having the convenience of a zoom, but then the advantage of being able to open the aperture up to f/2.0 helps get a great bokeh on the background.

~Richard

#dogwood52 #dogwoodweek3

January 21, 2016 0

52-week Challenge: week 2

Week 2: Landscape: Traditional Landscape – Shoot a beautiful landscape and share it with the world. Find a nice foreground and don’t forget the sky.

I have been surprised at just how difficult this activity has become for me right out of the gate. I guess that’s why it was called a “challenge!” Although I didn’t make it clear in my first post on this subject, Dale’s list is broken into three types of photography: portrait, landscape and artistic impression. Personally, I feel I am fairly strong in the third category (artistic impression), as this is my comfort zone, while I am improving in the second theme (landscape), and the first category (portrait) is largely unexplored territory for me to date, other than through reluctantly granted periodic “family portraits”. In part, that’s why I took up the challenge in the first place – to push me into areas that I would not normally explore.

So, if I’m reasonably comfortable with landscapes then why was week 2 a challenge, after all it was a simple assignment? Well, to be honest it’s the time pressure. I am trying to really focus on this challenge (no pun intended) and one image every seven days does not sound like a tall order, but in reality it is. Each day this week I have looked at the weather and my schedule and tried to plan a time to be outside for a landscape shot. Given that I also have a full-time day job to attend to and that my office, although not in the city, isn’t exactly surrounded by bucolic riparian scenery this has been a little difficult.

Nevertheless, today my time was nearly up so I girded my loins for the challenge and decided to get the shot before I arrived at the office.

We do have a small country park about a mile or so from my workplace so I drove there as the sun was coming up in anticipation of being able to achieve my aim. Last night was particularly cold and the car thermometer read 19F (-7C) as I stepped outside this morning, so a little bit chillier that I’d like when dressed for the office. I took my trusty micro four-third Panasonic GX-8 from it’s bag and, although I am really obsessed with zoom lenses, fitted on the 20mm f1.7 (40mm equivalent), as the more “classic landscape” prime lens, so I am told. Strolling away from the otherwise empty parking lot the wind hit me. I swear my fingers seem to freeze instantly and my face began to sting. To be honest, these temperatures aren’t at all unusual in Pennsylvania this time of year but we have benefited from such a mild winter to date that I guess I am just not acclimated to it, yet!

Anyhow, I walked the park for as long as I could stand, tried to get what I would consider to be a serviceable, yet perhaps not overly inspiring, image for this challenge and then headed back to the warmth of the car.

160113_Landscape

~Richard

#dogwood52 #dogwoodweek2

January 14, 2016 0

Category: 52-week challenge

52 week Challenge: week 10

52 week Challenge: week 9

52 Week Challenge: Week 8

52 week challenge: week 7

52 week challenge: week 6

52 week challenge: week 5

52 week challenge: week 4

52 week challenge: week 3

52-week Challenge: week 2

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