Bacon Lettuce Photo

by Joe

The New Jersey shore is one of my favorite subjects. Intending to shoot something a little different last week, I’d headed to Island Beach State Park, armed only with my Lensbaby Composer mounted on my Nikon D200, hoping to get some dreamily blurry seascapes. The first thing I saw when kicked off my shoes was this sign, posted at the entrance to the public beach and pointing directly at the sea. My first shot of the day is usually a throw-away — a sort of warm-up to the rest of the shoot — but I knew this one would be a keeper. The urge to shoot it was undeniable. It was bizarre, ironic, and cinematically irresistible.

I shot this in color and cropped and converted it to black and white in PS CS3. I cropped the image because the f/5.6 aperture ring I was using on my Lensbaby blurred the seagrass on the right side of the frame so dramatically that it detracted from the sign. And I converted to black and white because the “happy” mood evoked by the deep blue sky and vivid green grass made the sign seem more cute than odd. As an added bonus, when I pumped up the blue filter in the bw conversion process, the sky grew more dramatic and “smoky.”

If you ever go this beach, be sure to check out the sign on the other side of this dune: “NO BARE FEET.”

No kidding.

I love this photo for a couple reasons.

The first being its just a great black and white, the contrast is perfect. I think that is what makes a black and white so dramatic is the amount of contrast. If you simply just take a digital image and drop the saturation it’s still not the same. If you look at black and white photos from a roll of film the contrast tends to be deeper. However, that is my opinion and is subjective.

The second being the tilt shift effect. It adds this mystical feel to the photo along with the black and white and dark clouds that give it this ominous feel.

I don’t know if I would have stopped to look at this photo if it were in color. Not everything is better in color.

Check out more of Pam’s work on her website.

- - - -
Brought to you by iLovePhotos

by Joe

I took this photo with a Nikon D200 DSLR and Micro Nikkor 105/2.8 lens combo on a tripod with the lens stopped down to f/5.6 - just enough to blur the background so as to highlight the front camera, but not enough to completely blur the shape of the cameras at the back and spoil the effect of the five cameras lined up. I used a light box so as to avoid having to use the harsh light of a flash, and cropped the top and bottom slightly so the final image fitted a 4:3 format, then tweaked colour and sharpness slightly using Nikon View.

I was about to pack one of the cameras (3rd from the front in the photo) to send to the US, and my wife suggested I take a “group portrait” of it with my other Nikon rangefinders before doing so. The black Nikon SP cameras in the photo are actually quite rare (only 2,500 made) so having three in the one place at the one time was special for a Nikon rangefinder fan like myself! I think most people think of Nikon as an SLR and compact camera manufacturer, and haven’t really heard about the rangefinders, so its fun to take photos of (and with) these cool cameras to share with others.

I love film and I love the look of old film cameras. Immediately upon seeing this photo I started to drool.

Exposure: 1/4
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 105mm
ISO: 100

- - - -
Brought to you by iLovePhotos

by Brian

This was originally shot on film using a Nikon N80 and scanned with a film scanner from a slide. I think it was Velvia but I don’t recall. One morning a buddy and I drove around Palo Alto to take photos and I think this was some hill behind Roche. Not sure, but the narrow depth of field is from my 50mm f/1.4.

The larger version is much better. Click here for the larger version.

by Joe

The photo was on my “short list” of things I needed to photograph here in Seattle. I’ve gone a couple of times, but decided to wait until I had a super wide angle lens to take the shot. I finally got the Tokina 11-16mm for my Nikon D90 so I went down to the tunnel to try it out. The tricky part is getting the correct perspective. If you’re slightly off, the photo won’t work, especially with the vanishing points. I had to try a couple different aperture settings to get the result I was looking for as well. I then shot a few sets of bracketed images (-2, 0, +2) and then went home to post-process. My workflow is pretty standard. I tonemapped the bracketed shots using the Details Enhancer mode in Photomatix to pull out detail and color in the marbled floor and then made basic adjustments (levels, curves, and color) in Photoshop. The final step was to apply Noiseware noise reduction to the image. Pretty simple. Feel free to contact me via flickr if you have any questions.

Info about the shot: Nikon D90, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f11, ISO 100 - 3 bracketed shots (-2, 0, +2), Photomatix Details Enhancer. (HDR)

Peter is a photographer living in Seattle, Washington.

- - - -
Brought to you by iLovePhotos

by Joe

You can use any camera to take this shot. All you need is a lot of light, a timer on the camera and a sense of knowing when your camera takes the picture.

1) I set the camera on the ground or on a small tripod (I have a gorillapod)
2) I set the timer on the camera to be audible
3) I pre-focus my camera to the tip of my shoes, then set the camera to manual focus mode so it doesn’t change. I also don’t change the location of where I stand.
4) I take practice shots of jumping at the right moment when the camera takes the picture (this is mastered over time!)
5) It’s best to use a prime lens on your DSLR (if you have one) so you can use the widest aperture to achieve selective focus (I use f/1.4 to 1.8)
6) You need 1/640s shutter speed if you’re not using flash. If there’s lots of light it’s not a problem. IF you are inside a room, you may have to use flash, or crank up the ISO.

What inspired me? Well, I used to take a lot of these photos when I did my 365 Days project. I do it when I’m particularly very happy and since it was my birthday, I thought it was time to do it again.

Exposure: 1/4000
Aperture: f/1.4
ISO: 200

Doesn’t that bokeh look fabulous!?

- - - -
Brought to you by iLovePhotos

by Joe

I like street photography because I find fascinating how many expressions, feelings and emotions human beings can ‘create’ and how many ways we have to convey them. In my recent works, and in this picture, I am trying to capture the ways we can make an emotional impact on the world around them with something else other than our faces… with our mere presence, with our gestures, positions, movements, shadows, silhouettes…

This photo was taken in Trafalgar Square, London.
I wanted to get this low angle feel so I went down just a few steps on one of the square staircases so to have the camera (with my 50mm f1.4) almost level with the ground.

The main message I wish to convey through this photo is the juxtaposition of two status of the human existance: who stays still, observes, waits, maybe unable to move… and who, even struggling, tries to move on.

Stunning black and whites. What I admire most about Fabuchan’s style of photography is that it’s very natural, lots of contrast, and he’s not afraid to point the camera at someone. Even I have a hard time doing that in fear of offending or getting a stink eye.

Here are some specs on the image:
Exposure: 1/5000 sec
Aperture: f/1.4
ISO: 200

Because Fabuchan has so many great photos, I’ve decided to insert a slideshow showing some of his other works:

- - - -
Brought to you by iLovePhotos

by Joe

For what felt like forever I tried incredibly hard to create the kind of photography I saw around me, and it always felt mediocre and forced. Then one day I just stopped trying to be a photographer and just started doing what I wanted to see. It turns out it doesn’t matter who does or doesn’t like it. If I do, then I’m satisfied.
Personally, I’m inspired by words and concepts, and more often than not I have no idea where I’m going with something when I start it. If I do, sometimes it doesn’t get there anyway! This is a perfect picture for example of that - It started with “not being able to breathe” and ended up “running from death”.

Thanks Karen, you did a great job. Nice texture and layering which adds to the creepy feel of the image. A great site to find textures is deviant art. I’ll make a tutorial on adding textures and layers to images maybe tomorrow.

Some details about the image:
Exposure: 1/8
Aperture: f/3.8
Focal Length: 20mm
ISO: 200

by Joe

It’s not exactly a rare occurrence for a Lego Stormtrooper to appear in my macro photos, and the fellow in this shot is my go-to guy when I want to try out a new technique. I’m not sure how I came up with the idea of him tending to his Lego flowers, but it fitted with the lighting style I wanted.

The effect I was going for is one I’ve seen used in some of Joe McNally’s photos recently, the faked sunset. It’s a great technique for when the light quality is poor (in this case, the direct sun was way too bright and contrasty). You move into the shade, and make your own sun! The photo is lit with a mixture of ambient daylight and flash. It was a bright enough day that the 1/250th exposure allowed the background to come through, but the key light is an off-camera Nikon SB-800 flash fitted with a 1/2 CTO gel to mimic the colour of the late afternoon sun.

Easy stuff really, the hardest bit was getting the Lego Stormtrooper to stand up in the grass. He ended up impaled on a cocktail stick hammered into the ground.

This is a bit like yesterday’s Danbo characters. I have some Naruto action figures I’m starting to think maybe I’ll take them out for a shoot later tonight. Like I said in yesterday’s post sometimes a photo isn’t just capturing something that is happening but making something happen. On a point and shoot camera you can do this by setting it to macro mode, that is usually represented by a flower icon. Point and shoots take some remarkable close up photos

Mike has an amazing collection of Star Wars photos. I encourage you to check them out.
–
Brought to you by iLovePhotos <—- Check ‘em out!

by Joe

Two weeks before Easter Sunday, I was already planning what to post on that day…

I was browsing the most interesting photos (aka Explore) in flickriver and I saw this Danbo character. That was not the first time I saw him in Explore so I thought this guy is really appealing to flickr users, so I decided to use him as a props for my Easter shot.

It took me almost 1 hour to look for the box and cut it to be like Danbo. I used tissue paper for the eyes and red gel for the mouth =D. While making Danbo’s head, fortunately, my flatmate was cooking egg for breakfast..BINGO! An Easter egg shot for Easter Sunday!

Strobe info: SB 600 shoot through umbrella camera right at 24mm, 1/8 power and another SB 600 with CTO gel behind Danbo at 24mm, 1/8 power.

Thanks JP for sharing this with us. These Danbo characters is a cool subculture thing that I’m just starting to discover. There’s actually an entire flickr group with these cute little box guys. I’ll post a couple that are just too adorable! Oh and make sure to check out more of JP’s photos.

Remember, photography isn’t just always capturing something that is happening. You are allowed to make things happen as well.

by Joe

Shot this one in Rome at the end room of “Musei Vaticani”.
Use a wide angle lens on my nikon d300 (Sigma 10-20 mm )
Exposure: 0.1 sec (1/10)
Aperture: f/7.1
Focal Length: 10 mm
EV: -0.30
ISO: 640

I love this staircase, I recognized it immediately as the one belonging to the Vatican I visited a couple years ago. The black and white gives the photo a feel of antiquity. The grain in the wood and detail of the embossed staircase. Well done Federico.
–
Brought to you by iLovePhotos