Bacon Lettuce Photo

by Joe

The image is part of a series called watch. Sometimes you get a vague suspicion that you’re being observed, and I was/am trying to relay that feeling with this series. It’s not particularly strong on its own this way, but I’m planning to have the rest of the series finished sometime this summer.

As for the technical aspects, it was fairly quick and dirty. I used 2 Nikon SB800 speedlights triggered via CLS. One was set on the ground behind the crate and aimed through the handles to cast the shadows. It was set to 1/4 and had a florescent gel on it. The second light was fired into a wall at camera left about chest level at [I think] 1/64 power and had an amber gel. I used a Nikon D300 and 28mm f2.8 prime - the exposure was 1/250th at f8 to kill ambient light and provide the depth of field I wanted. Also, shot in 14-bit to retain better colour tonality and shadow detail.
For processing, I did minor curves and white-balance adjustments in Adobe Lightroom 2, exported as a 16-bit TIFF. Then, some selective dodging to the tv and legs, and colour balance adjustments in Photoshop CS3.

Lighting, whether natural or artificial, is the most important element of photography. Lighting can create the mood and add an element of emotion to your images. This is a perfect image to display the eerie feeling created by just adding some lighting.

Make sure to check out Levi’s blog to see what else he’s up to. Also his awesome Royksopp post.

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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.

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