Portfolio Updates

In the process of organizing my Zenfolio galleries, I put together this group of my favourite images.  Clicking through will take you to Zenfolio where you can find more image galleries and buy prints if you are so inclined.  Enjoy.

These Little Bug Blues

I'm currently working on a project to catalogue a library of insects.  Thousands of little arthropods called  Curculionidae something or other.  What do you want... Latin?  I went to art school, you know that.  I'm lucky I can spell my name in my native language.

This little guy above is something I found in a random box of assorted critters all of which are unidentififed and, as I understand it, unidentifiable in their current condition.  A little tag which we translated to Eastern Criscuma region of Paraguay was pinned beneath.  The googles told me that the Eastern Criscuma region of Paraguay is probably Brazil.  The Google map of Paraguay contains surprisingly little detail, in comparison to the map of the ocean floor.  Maybe Google hasn't found Paraguay, or Paraguay is very good at keeping secrets.
Shiny green thing, keep on shining.
I find it completely impossible not to anthropomorphize a bit.  Imagine walking along trying to be the best little green thing on the circuit, just cruising for a little something to nibble and maybe some romance and all of a sudden you're in a jar filled with sodium cyanide only to end up with a pin through your exo fixed to a box in a little room far from anything that will ever benefit from your existence.  (I'm not preaching anti-anything, or pro-something.  So, don't go too far with this scenario, empathy is good but only to a point.)  One little bug picture and everybody gets a little Kafka shiver.

I'm interested in the inception of the instinct to collect a specimen only to abandon it later.  By extension, the instinct to react to an idea of artistic impulse only to let it flounder on it's own and eventually dissipate like a mustard burp.  Ideas don't have to die in a box, I suppose.  Maybe that's the point of this post.  Seems a fitting epitaph to our cyan adventurer above.

A tiny green idea floats insouciantly along, eventually to become a victim of understanding.

Hook & Moore Glade Moonrise

During the holiday break, I took a break.  Long story short:  I'm back, let's move on.

It's been a long time getting back into my  work pattern and coming to a complete halt for two weeks was exactly what I needed.  The day after Christmas I went out on a hike in a local Nature Area to check it out and maybe find some places to make images.  Great hike.  Not very cold, shallow snow, minimal mud, and not another person around.  As far as the images... a lot of maybe's, really depends on the right sky to give them life.  So, I'm holding on to the ideas for late spring to see how they germinate.

All afternoon the moon was sneaking over the prairie in a playful hike'n'seek fashion, teasing the sun and the photographer alike.  The above image isn't from the hike.  It's from the drive home.  The hogbacks and the small rolling hills I was hiking just weren't coming together for me.  I saw the moon in one way and the hills in another and there just wasn't a composition or compositing technique that was gonna make them come together to meet the picture in my head.  Kind of the problem with a good imagination.

So, I made some snapshots and kept walking.  Eventually getting back to the Jeep cranking the Mahler and heading home.  The playful moon wasn't done though, and started peaking under the drip cap kinda tugging at my shirt.  I handled it calmly, though.  Knowing full well I needed the D3 to get the right files, I watched the hogbacks and just rolled along until I found it.  When I got home I checked the moon phase calendar (full on the 31st) and planned to return in a few days.  Then checked the weather (snow over the 30-31st) and rescheduled for the following evening.

The image above is made from ten separate image files.  Tonemapped and composited to construct the image.  All ten images were made from the same spot and collected in a five minute period.  Why?  Well, one good exposure of this scene would provide only the expansion or compression of whichever lens I chose.  In my head the grand open landscape is a giant playground (14mm), but the moon is huge and giving me a great tug of war for my attention (200mm).  Only one answer for me... HDR technique for lovely glowing late afternoon cold sunlight, HDR for the subtlety of the moon (& essential for matching the colour and luminosity in the sky), then a well executed composite.  Just enough weight in the foreground to keep the eye bouncing around, like a giddy playmate.

I'm off to work on another project, which doesn't require any imagination.  But that doesn't preclude the lack of playfulness, so I'll have some images from that shoot to post soon enough.

Thanks for checking in...

New Layout Test

Checking the image size.

Banded Hazing

Having some fun with HDR on a recent trip to California.  A small gallery can be viewed here.  Guess which is not an HDR?

The Widening Gyre

Shooting some bird activity one hazy and bright afternoon.  A small gallery  can be viewed here.

NIght Tower

The playback is choppy on this little version, so I put up a standalone page for this video.  Shot this on a recent trip to CA (obviously) crossing the Golden Gate Bridge at night. Been working on this stillmotion technique off and on, this is the result of beating my head against the desk for the last fourteen hours to figure out the best settings for playback. What you see is the result I'm most happy with. Personally, I think it's time to abandon this project and find a new subject. Of course if I lived near-by I'd reshoot this one until I was satisfied. But it's not exactly a day trip from my apartment in Fort Collins, CO. Learning curve is pretty high, at least for me. Overall this is too cool to delete.
Camera Details:
NIkon D3, 50mm f/1.4 AF-s, Cloudy White Balance, Manual Exposure Mode, 1/60 at f/1.4, ISO 1600, JPEG Basic, Small
I was sitting in the backseat and just shooting like mad with the D3. Didn't have time to meter, so I guessed. Kindda proud of that fact. Composition was dependent on which lane the driver chose and how I had the D3 wedged between the glass and the sill. Got lucky here, too. It's no less valid that I took a guess and nailed it. Guessing is the result of experience, and a tremendous learning tool. The total was 95 shots in the sequence. An additional 14 were added to each end of the video in Photoshop CS4 to create the fades. Video was compiled using QTPro importing the image sequence at 12fps.
Colour balance doesn't seem to hold after the video compression, but to watch the full HDTV size on the Cinema display is yummy red velvet against the blackness. Success is defined here by the need to abandon this for what it is, a successful experiment which yielded answers to questions that will go toward further projects of this type. After watching this a few time I got some idea of what to change on the camera's end and that should make the post-processing a bit smoother. Got an ice climbing trip planned later in the month, might be a good subject for the next installment.
Now get outside and play...

A Day With(out) Art

In 1989, as a response to the AIDS crisis, this day December 1st, was designated "A Day With(out) Art".  At the time I was living in Philadelphia and attending an art college.  During the early 90's AIDS was impossible to ignore, specially in a city like Philly.  The fear and a few of the stereotypes were eventually lessened and unfortunately the significance of this day was also lessened and in places , if recognized at all, it was forgotten.

Certainly true of the area I currently call home, as well as the blog-o-sphere I haunt.  There is a lot of info available today about new camera gear being announced, three first time authors have three new books available, one formerly reputable blogger has just given away a pile of gear to a recent contest winner, several contests were also announced, but nothing is mentioned about the significance of December 1st.

So here it is:

December 1st; A Day With(out) Art.  I encourage everyone, everywhere to engage in one meaningful and random act of kindness today (or whatever day you actually read this).  Afterward, maybe most importantly, don't tell anyone.  No twitter, no facebook, no blogging, no bragging.  Do it quietly and remember the moment.

To Absent Friends...

WHOA!!! MASSIVE UPDATE!!!!!!!!

I got both drumsticks! That's right... BOTH!!!!!
WHOOOO!!!!!!!!!!HOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Nine shot handheld HDR of the Thanksgiving table in San Jose CA.  Having a great time with the family. Missed a great sunset photo-op today, but plan to make up for it tomorrow in Sausalito.

Hope there were great family times had by all.

Fall Back

Today's photo is from a nearby Natural Area.  Couldn't get the crop I wanted on the trees, so I flipped the camera vertical and shot a 5 frame pano allowing me to keep the resolution after the 4x5 ratio crop.  I was shooting on a little foot bridge and worried about the any little movements and vibrations showing up.  Came together pretty well (eat it Hasselblad!).  Otherwise, not much in post, sharpening, cloning a telephone pole and streetlamp.  Not a breath of wind all evening.  Got kinda lucky, good night for reflections, just wish there were some high drama clouds.

I have a few others in the works and will try to keep them coming daily.  However I'm going to for a family visit over the holiday and might not pay much attention to the blog.  In other words, maybe semi-daily for the next few days.

Happy Thanks Giving everyone.

photo details:  Nikon D3, 50mm, 1/3sec @ f/16, ISO 100

New Gallery and Cheap Stuff

I made a little gallery of 50 of my favourite photos and put them all up as 8x10 prints.  These are the ones that I think sum up my ideas about photography, not my portfolio, per se, but good stuff - lots of colour, lots of big spaces! Just my thing. Because I think they belong every where, they've been priced nice and cheap. Five bucks each! They are only available as 8x10 prints on matte paper. The image area of most is 6x9, but a few are 7x9.  This is the size I have everything printed to have around the studio.  It's great, because, well, they are cheap, but also because they are versatile.  Almost everyone has an old 8x10 frame they can reuse, you can use a magnet on the refrigerator door, tape on a locker or mirror.  Maybe buy them all and cover up the wallpaper in the dining room.  At this price, you're getting a great bargain, only $0.0625 per square inch. Click here to check them out.  Take two... they're small.

Big Pond

I'm fully converted to the use of HDR in Landscape photography.  That reflection is much better rendered than what I was getting trying to shoot at -2EV w/ 2stop ND.  Look at that It's awesome, almost better than the sky!  But, dang that sky!  Layers of clouds, and you see them as you would if you were standing there... some parts go dark and some parts stray away in little wisps.  Along the bottom is the warm grass glowing in the last of the sun, just perfect for a napping family of ducks - or crocodiles.

I'm glad there isn't any concern about crocs in Northern Colorado.

     Photo details:  Nikon D3 @14mm, 9 shot HDR at f/16

The Hayraker

At the risk of loosing any hope of credibility, I'm going to suggest that during the GWAR show, I had what can only be referred to as a "Moment of Clarity".  Anyone familiar with the antics of the band and their gruesome fun stage show, might be a little concerned that I'm reaching for justification of a my current mid-life crisis.  but hear me out.  These guys have been at this for 25 years.  That's a long time to do anything.  I'm not a musician, so I'll spare you that part of the critique.  These guys have made something, it's obvious they love doing it, and as that it's a pleasure to watch... and a bit messy.  All the great things that go into the making of a great performance are there.  After 25 years, you'd expect that, right?

So I did some math, which is very difficult for an art school grad.  I got my first camera in 1988-ish, twenty one-ish years ago.  Photography for most of my "I'm going to be an artist" life, was a copout.  Anyone can buy a camera and some film and take pictures.  Even me.  So I worked at other art forms.  Sculpture was my discipline of choice and metal my favourite medium.  But there was also paint.  the world of colour is a pantheon sized playground.  Then there was a long time that I didn't have the space to paint the way I wanted to, nor dod I have the money to furnish a sculpture studio.  I couldn't afford to develop film, either.

Let's skip ahead a bit.  A few years ago I got a digital camera as a gift (thanks mom, love you) this let me rethink photography.  Which is what I did for a few years, taking lots of snapshots and thinking they should hang in every gallery and sell for millions.  Whatever...

Fast forward, again.  Photography is now my principle means of creation, begging a little forgiveness for my opinions as a youngster.  After 21 years, I'm beginning to see a constant theme in my photographs.  It's hard for me to pin down to a few words, but the conversation in my head is mostly about space and colour.  Even in pictures I shot 14 years ago on Kodachrome, this idea is visible.  And it was all subconscious, I was just taking pictures of scenes that I liked.  I do the same thing now.  Though, with all of that energy of running around snapping pictures behind me I can see some, let it register and stew around and come together as a mental image.  Then I'll walk back to the place the image was born and have a conversation to achieve the objective photograph.  I think my success rate is rising.  I'm beginning to understand the conversation my subconscious is having with my conscious.

Today's photo came about in that manner.  Taken at a local "Natural Area", I had returned to on this evening for the fourth time to make this specific shot.  I'm not fully satisfied with this composition.  The handles on the hay raker and the repeated shape in the dead tree behind kept teasing me.  In this shot I decided to merge the two visually.  It may not be a success, but it's what the conversation was leading to on that day.  Maybe in another 4-ish years, I'll have figured out how to steer the conversation, instead of being led by it.

     Photo details:  Nikon D3, 50mm, 7 frame HDR @f/16

GIVE WEDNESDAY A REST!

It's the middle of the week and I suggest we all revolt from the work-a-day week and claim some time for ourselves...  You can probably guess where I'm heading.  That's right GWAR is at the Gothic theater tonight.  Time to shake the shackles and waste some cash and time.  MIght not be your cup o'tea, but whatever you chose be safe and have a bucket of fun!  New pics tomorrow, promise.

Updates, Updates, and I'm done.

I'm calling it a week.  Nothing profound, perverse, or spectacular going on today.  Some more HDR is in progress and should be up for Monday.  Managed some tweaks to mcfstudios.com, the main portal to this blog and my work hosted at Zenfolio.  There's more in the master plan for mcfstudios.com, but it's a slow process.  I'm currently fighting the need to be out making pictures and the need to be in the studio making pictures into prints and more importantly products.  Integrating the different sites to give a cohesive and unified experience is high on the priorities.  Soon enough, I suppose when winter hits in full I might have a little more desk time to work on that list.  Would be nice to offload the studio stuff to an assistant, but this is all pretty low budget stuff.  Not going to be any offloading any time soon.  Except that it's 5 o'clock on a fantastic Friday afternoon.  I'm going to grab a beer and move to the deck to watch the sunset.  No cameras allowed.  Have a great weekend!

Burn Path

I had every intention to write a full post yesterday.  But I'm still new at this and sometimes it slips my mind.  So I tried blogging from the iPod Touch but for whatever reason, I could only type in the title field.  Let me tell you that after the very long walk (13 miles in three and a half hours) and then driving to the opposite side of town for an evening shoot in a different Open Space, I wasn't in the mood to solve technical issues.

Today wasn't much better.  My knees hurt and I was in a funk.  I've kind of done this to myself.  The knees aren't a big deal, it's part of the game.  It's how far that I am behind where I want to be that's kind of bugging me.  I graduated art college in '94 and immediately started floundering my career and ignoring my talent.  You don't think of those things while it's happening, but they sneak up on you in traffic while driving to meet friends for lunch.

A decade ago my imagination was so active that I physically couldn't hold still.   Now I force myself up a mountain and all over hell & a'gone and then down one more trail trying to shake my muse from it's slumber.  It's not too difficult because my muse lives in the woods and we're childhood friends - kind of an easy play date.  Eh, that's what I have to building on.

Mostly that's enough.  Until I'm sitting in traffic with a knee that's gonna explode if I have to hit the clutch one more time in the next mile.

From the notebook:  burnt forest is a metaphor for those lost years.  all future growth will involve a lot of time and determination.  new sprouts aren't guarantees, either.  nature is not concerned about you.

(should have written a haiku, but I guess I should have done a lot of things and I'm gonna forgive this one)

Photo Info:  Canon G9, 1/125sec @ f/8, taken at the exact moment I got there without any consideration for the meaning or the exposure.

That's yesterday, though, and so is today (almost).  Not all doom howling around here either, the walk jarred something else awake.  A very unexpected energy.  Lot's of ideas are currently stalking the next ridge.  Just gotta get there...

Day Off - thirteen mile hike instead.

Teaser

I'm slowly catching up to the current photos.  Still about a week behind.  This one comes from the morning after our two day snow storm.  I was not feeling well (or motivated) when I crawled out of bed.  While I was making coffee a little sun beam started poking through the mini-blinds and into the back of my head.  If you're housebound for a two day storm with no sunshine, what are you supposed to do if it all of a sudden comes through the window?  Forget about how you feel, grab the camera and get to work.  Didn't last long after twenty minutes of plodding around in the foot deep snow, the clouds took over again.  Oh well at least the coffee was ready when I got back to the apartment.

Photo details:  Nikon D3, 24-120mm VR @ 40mm, 1/125@f/16, ISO 400

The Giving Tree

The tree above is a sort of hero for the photographers in the area.  It is easy to find, easy to access and better looking that most of us locals.  I've avoided shooting it for a long time for reasons too silly to list.  Last week my girlfriend and I drove by and I saw it off in the periphery without paying much attention, but it got in my head - big, lovely, alone in the field.  Of course, in my mind the surrounding city sprawl isn't a problem.  I see this tree existing in it's own world for no reason.  It's a tree, it doesn't need reason, or a photograph, or a "regional open space", to continue being a tree.  The tree in my mind is starting at me blankly, as if to say, "Well, whatcha gonna do now tough guy?"

Photo details:  Sunset.  Nine image HDR ranging from 1/20 sec to 8 seconds at f/16.

I chose HDR because the tree deserves the respect of the detail in it's trunk and leaves.  There are two choices to accomplish this, HDR or elaborate artificial lighting scheme.  You can see a few other images of this tree, including one other HDR, from a recent sunrise shoot using the flickr gallery on the right of this page.

My first title for this image was "Stand Against A Sky".  It's a blatant attempt to connect my ideas to this tree.  While writing this entry, I began to question my relationship to the natural world.  The title "The Giving Tree" is also a book which contains a simple demonstration of what it means to love.  Maybe I began this image feeling like Balboa, but after much time in the moment I began to understand the conversation.  I set out to capture the natural world's beauty in a photograph and return humbled by how much more I have received.