Marmot in an Old Truck

Above the town of Crested Butte sits the remnants of Painter Boy MIne. Surrounding the old sluice is a weird collection of old junk seemingly posed on the hillside as a grave marker.  It provides the local human population a with targets of various squishiness.  For this I used an SB-900 racked to 200mm, the next day someone else was using something a lot more explosive!

Ten Seconds at Camp

...and so it began, another week in the mountains, another seventeen hours of rain.  Gotta get that campfire  hot!  It's gonna be a few day before the wood dries out.
Gone Camping.
Happy Friday!

Hydranomoly

This spunky fireplug sits about seven feet from a paved foot train in a local Natural Area.  An example of the planning committie's forethought and preparedness, or a leftover from the previous zoning?

Any Moon Tonight

A Paddletail Darner (as in "darning needle", yes that's why) fancies a lamp globe.  These guys, like many of the insects you see at night, navigate using the moon.  Instinct says, "Go toward the light!", but it doesn't tell you what to do if you get there.
Dangle for all you're worth, little man!

Contest Entries

                Cold Burn, 2009                                               Dream Lake in a Fog, 2009

Evening Events

Ever find one of those places that you don't want to leave?  I set up my tent and sat here for nearly a week.  Most of the recent photos are from very close to this exact spot.  In the afternoons, I'd head into the mountain (literally), but mostly... I stayed close to this spot.

Wilting Goldeneye

Torrential rains followed by an excruciatingly cold alpine summer night and these Showy Goldeneye have had enough for one season.

Daisy's Dew

Subalpine Daisy

Shiver in the mourning dew.

Eager for the sun.

Flying Through The Firestorm

Close to the same view as the previous startrails.  Differences here are 24mmf2.8 (prime, which is awesome for point light sources, btw) which is pointed a little more south.  My standard 4 minute exposure stack of 9 images, at ASA 200.  Captured an airplane, I like it though.   {wait...ASA?...hmm}  Stray clouds and the heavy dew really started to show in the individual exposures, hence the staccato effect and blotchy areas in the sky.  Enjoy!

The Mauve That Makes The Clouds

Continuing with colour and layers.  Shot this nervously under a very black band of the storm.  Felt like it was lifting and beginning to break up, so I kept telling myself that there wasn't any danger.  But 10,000' makes it's own weather, so you never know.

Trees Against the Night

Light pollution painted the clouds and I painted the trees.  An arm of the Milky Way cuts the frame.  A pleasant night in the mountains.

When Colours Collide

It was tremendously difficult not titling this one after an old song but, then I couldn't get it out of my head and immediately started hating the song again.  But let's face it, the image isn't about the song, I'm celebrating the phenonemon of colour opposites.  Over here on the Front Range, blue and orange is easy, in the center of the state it's green and purple.  Either combo is magic!

Fireside Star Fall

Mistakenly left the camera tuned to ISO 1600 for this, so I ended up with the blue sky.  The storm cleared out and the long exposure ignored the clouds, except the few illuminated by the light pollution in the last few frames.  For something to be captured by the camera, it has to be visible for 25% of the exposure, my method for compiling these ignores all but the brightest values of the images.  Add equal parts mistake, luck and technique - Shiver uncontrollably to combine.  Trees in the foreground left are lit by campfire light.  Seven photos at 240 seconds, or about 28 minutes.  As mentioned before the humidity was tremendous, so not long after sundown a very heavy dew settled on every thing, including that great bulbous 14-24mm lens, thereby ending the shot.

A Clearing Storm in Purple and Yellow

After two hours of duck drowning rain, the temperature lost twenty points, the humidity stayed at 100%, late season Arnica began their wither, and the sun gave a futile last attempt.

Not a Ramada!

Here's my excuse.  My escape.  My little birdhouse, tucked against a tree.  Branches and clouds and stars and mud.  I cannot get any closer to sharing with you, my love of being outside than this image.  Of course, I do a lot of crazy things outside, but being in the mountains, moving slow, watching the sky spin, is what I really need.  Maybe I'll fit some tent time in this weekend, too.  It's a work trip if I have the camera with me, right?

Have a pleasant weekend in your own little birdhouse.

Star Bombers

Trails in the SW sky, the Milky Way (center frame) remains visible above the Hayden Point forest fire. Compiles from seventeen four minute exposures.  These are the same trees and stars from yesterday's image.  Enjoy.

Through the Trees

Three blue spruce stand against the night sky in the White River National Forest.  Several miles away a fire near Hayden Point glows on the horizon.  The Milky Way continues on, undeterred.  Single 30 second exposure, trails to come later.

Flat Tops Trails

Flat Tops Trails, originally uploaded by McF Studios.

Of course I made a time-lapse. This is 10,080 seconds compressed to one.

Flat Tops Trails

A clear night above 10,000 feet in the White River National Forest. Half a moon lit the foreground and provided some colour in the sky. I figured there was too much light to catch any trails, or maybe the star colours wouldn't translate as well. Guess it pays to shoot anyway. The warm glow on the trees on the left is from my campfire. This image was compiled from 42 four minute exposures, roughly three hours.

Steady Thursday & Free iPhone Wallpapers

I think Thursday is going to be my post day.  It's always a struggle to produce content for the blog that meets my standards for artistic endeavours.  Sometimes the pictures happen easily, but the stories have trouble finding words, other times it's the opposite.  But I usually have something to share on Thursdays.  Maybe it's circadian.  Todays offering is in honour of the Fourth of July celebrations this week in the States.  I've created a set of 18 iPhone wallpapers of fireworks.  You get them all for the low cost of one mouse click on this link.  They are sized for the iPhone 4 screen specs but will display on any of the iPhone or iPod Touch models.  To install them Mac OS omputer unzip the file, drag the folder to iPhoto, sync your iPhone/iPod Touch, then, from your iOS device select an image and set it to the wallpaper.  Installing these from a Windows computer begins by pressing CTRL-ALT-Delete, and proceed from there.
Enjoy the prefestival fireworks!

The Cosmic Windmill

Gotta use what you're given, I guess.  Light pollution from Greeley, CO joins a gelled Maglite for a little mood lighting.  The Milky Way enters, stage right.  In adverse conditions, you gotta think through problems and be creative with solutions.  This is a great result and will hopefully resonate with a lot of viewers.  However, what I wanted was more simple and plain.  A lot of dreams start as mere suggestions.  So I turned the camera to the East, to find some black sky and used a small flashlight to illuminate the windmill.  This very subtle frame has all the elements necessary to explain why I make images of the natural world.  It's the last photograph I made that night, and with all those possibilities swimming through the sky, it's a great place to stop and get some sleep.  Have a pleasant weekend!

Cauldron

The Little Dipper floats above the glow from Cheyenne, WY.  Light pollution is a fact of life, and because we're all afraid of the dark, it's never going to cease being a problem.  Sometimes, though nature presents itself in harmony with our shortcomings.  Here the Little Dipper teases at the cauldron of city lights, maybe one day it will reach down and scoop the pollution away.

Polaris Encircled

Got it this time.  What you see is the result of 116 minutes broken into 4 minute exposures.  The colours you see in the photo are not typically visible to the naked eye.  Thankfully, however, the camera can see them perfectly!  The warmer the star is the cooler it's colour, so the hotter stars are blue and the cooler stars are red… science is crazy fun sometimes.  Interested in the timelapse?  Well here you go, 6960 seconds compressed to 1!

Faux Nebula

That gaseous nebula in the lower right is actually light pollution from Greely, CO spewing forth into the night  An arm of the Milky Way fights for attention in the background.

Star Week at McF Studios!

A few nights last week, I endured the mosquitos and sleep deprivation that accompany night photography to make a few star photographs.  These were all taken out on the Pawnee national Grasslands in NE Colorado.  You can't really get away from the light pollution of nearby cities, but that's because there's nothing out there to block it.  No trees, no mountains and no buildings.  I love it!  Our rainy season is ending, so everything is green and lush and buzzing with life.  But those photos are going to wait their turn… for now it's the magic of the heavens and it's expanse of possibilities.  This is the first week I've actually scheduled posts, so check back every day for a new photograph.  This first image was a kind of failure.  But it's too cool not to share!  I love the morse code texture that the star trails have, and if you look at the bottom left of center you can see a nearby fence, great scale.  The prairie was absolutely alive that night, insects buzzing in my ear and the biggest loudest chorus of frogs I've ever heard out there.  maybe that's my I like this so much, the memory of sound is connected by the stuttering in the trails.  Anyway, I fixed my settings that caused this and will have a proper trail up later for you purists.  One more thing, that's Jupiter in the lower right and Polaris in the upper left, with a couple of airplanes throughout for good measure.

Happy Shooting!

A Tale of Two Tails

My first dog liked to chase her tail.  She'd spin in very determined circles, focused on her quarry.  An unstoppable vortex that would attempt to gobble up any counter attempt.  She learned, too, that hitting a wall or other object could giver her an advantageous bit of reach wherein she could finally attain her elusive quarry.  She became quite adept at catching her tail.  Trouble was she knew exactly what to do when she caught it… chew the hell out of it.  I'm sure it made sense to her… chase tail, catch tail, chew tail.  At that time in my life, I was too young to understand dog breeds, or behavioral anomalies and neurosis in canines.  If you asked me why my white dog had a black head and a pink tail, I would have told you she chases her tail and the black is a kind of camouflage.  Her tail is pink because she's good at catching it and she chews it until it bleeds.  Long before she developed this behavior, I named her "Tippy".  She's still a fond memory.  I'm very fortunate to have had a dog which provided me the opportunity to make empirical assessments at an early stage in my artistic life.  Sometimes the creative process is just a series of urges.  It can be similar to watching a dog chase it's tail.  The evening the photo above was taken, I set out on an uncharted course along Northern CO's grasslands.  Setting off without a physical or ideological destination at the beginning of an art making excursion is a valid endeavor, but can lead to the sort of behavior for which artists notorious.  Somewhere in the flat land, I got the idea that there was so much rain the rivers were taking back the roads.  And true the rain was making a very concerted effort to keep me bogged int he mud, so I ventured back to the dull paved lanes and eventually headed west toward home.  Taking the long way and effectively making a bigger loop around my tail, I came upon this scene as I rounded the bend, skidded to a halt, and began to close the loop with a series of u-turns and head-spins.  But to make the final catch on my quarry required abandoning commonsense and ignoring physical and legal threats to my person.  Thankfully, an F350 brought a moment of clarity and sanity to the evening, and I walked out of the middle of the road.  Did, I find something meaningful and succeed in making it an artful moment?  Thankfully, that's something for the audience to discuss.  I can only commit that I did, in fact, catch my tail that particular evening, and I am currently chewing the hell out of it for an, as yet, undisclosed reason.

(several other images from this evening can be seen in my Flickr Photostream, enjoy)

Staring Out, Again.

A two day storm blows itself out, revealing Hallett Peak, as seen from the easy, albeit windy, trail around Sprague Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.  This iconic image can be easily captured by anyone with a camera.  I'm certain that anyone who might come to see it when it hangs in the gallery, might intend to go try for themselves.  I wonder why, though.  As an artist, I am compelled toward the expression of my own peculiar stories and ideas.  But what drives others out into the cold to chase an elusive quarry?  In the six hours I walked around the park chasing my own demons tail, my mind drifted back to the mornings I'd get up hell bent on reaching the top of places like Hallett Peak.  I think it was the post-holing hike with an incredibly heavy pack on my back that dislodged the ancient memory.  Maybe it was the very cold and humid spring morning air and wiping my nose on my gloved thumb.  Felt good to be out and alone, drifting with the low clouds taking pictures of trees being eaten alive by pine beetles, and rivulet streams flowing through troughs in the new snow.  Several months ago I hiked into Dream Lake at 4am for the usual alpenglow photos.  After that I hiked to Emerald Lake at the base of the mountain and climbed to a fantastic napping spot in full sun.  I didn't sleep so much as stare at the craggy face picturing myself somewhere up there lost in a shadow, perhaps staring back, but more likely staring into the distance, yet again.  When, on this snowy morning, the clouds lifted out of the valleys, I slowly walked back to my vehicle, groggy and cold, aging.  Something alerts in the trees and goes quiet, all you hear is wind and brushes of snow.  You've become increasingly aware in the hushed forest, moving toward the daydream, unknowingly lost, alone, and increasingly happy.

Riverbend Series, Plate 4

A couple of nights ago, I woke up from a dream.  It was more of a nightmare, but since I forced myself awake, there wasn't that normal continuation of panicked feelings.  In the dream, I was standing on a large rock that was barely sticking out of the ocean.  There was a great white shark circling the rock and being very aggressively inquisitive.  I turned my head to the person who was with me on the rock and said, "If the tide rises, we're fucked."  Then, I looked at my wet feet.  I was wearing shoes.  This is when I woke up.  When I was a small boy, I was very afraid of sharks.  It was an irrational fear, because I lived in Pennsylvania, but the mind of a child isn't a rational thing.  I couldn't close my eyes in the shower, because when I did, I would see a shark's mouth coming toward me.  As a teenager, on the swim team, I used to imagine sharks swimming in the pool during a race.  Fear of sharks, actually, replaced my fear of tornados.  Seems there's always something to fear.  Being an artist is strange thing.  I get ideas and make things.  I had this idea to make a series of prints around the central themes of water and distance.  Would you lose respect for me if I said, this project has it's own tide?  I hope not.  Anyway, you probably know what I mean, though.  Sometimes you lose sight of the idea as it's building.  You know it's there, but it's far off and a little past the horizon, now.  It may be getting closer, I can't really tell.  Damn-it, it's right there, you know you can catch it… but… you're going to have to get a little wet.

Riverbend Series, Plate 2

The second image from the series "Riverbend".  No luck on a new title, yet.  However, I was lucky to find several willing subjects in a single outing.  When I get an idea stuck in my imagination, it is clear and solid and tangible and definite.  Often, though, I cannot use words to express the idea and instead will use the sounds I hear associated with the flashes of colour I see when the idea comes into form.  Well… maybe art is like sausage, great on the plate, but you don't want to know how it got there.  I'll be direct, instead.  A stone cannot swim against the tide.  In order to create something, I have to let go of something.  This is an honest personal truth.  If you can accept that as the inception of my images, I can suggest  another truth.  In order to understand something, you have to let go of something.  A cloud cannot hold itself together.

Riverbend Series, Plate 1

I've completed the first image in a new series.  Riverbend.  The more I type that title, though, the more easily bored I am with it.  About a month ago, I was trying to write an "artist statement" for a local gallery.  When trying to speak about my use of colour, I had to visualize my own reactions to colours I remember from landscapes I've photographed.  Not being able to completely draw any one experience that defined those reactions, I instead, explored out from the feelings I have when moved by the light in some of the more dramatic areas I've worked.  This new series was born in the mind of a painter.  If you can hold an ounce of paint in your hand, it is a small world of colour.  As much as this dollop of paint has depth it can be explored, so much as it spreads around your hand it can be experienced.  The image above is based on a memory I have of being bathed in pink light during a predawn shoot.  The moment was powerful enough to completely stop my work and send me into a playing, dancing, hopping frenzy.  Lately, though, I've been listless as the season tries to change to spring.  A few weeks ago while out for a walk, I became very interested in the shoreline of these local ponds.  The intricacies of the submerged patterns was an amusing diversion, I was able to swim away into a pink memory, and float briefly, above the stones of winter.

Atmosphere; An McF Studios Series

Groggy and cold is now way to go through life. It's not even a good way to make a living. All the jobs I've had that required me to be present, lucid, and feigning interest at early-o'clock began as someone else's idea. The story about these tree images isn't any different. Sitting at the desk before dawn in January, I got an email from my girlfriend that read, "Get off your ass, it's really beautiful outside." Knowing that she hates the cold, I rushed out with the camera and two lenses, a 50mm and an ultra-wide. Shivering along the drive, my head started comparing places close by that might pair well with the fog. Had to be close, I was six minutes ahead of the sun, but the fog was really thick. I wanted trees and space. No space in town, but there are a few great trees in City Park, so that's where I headed. I started fantasizing about trees hit with god-beams while all around was fog and light. You get what you get. Everything was muddy, mediocre, dull. OK. Walk around shooting a few exposures, check the histo, change a lens, check again. Got it. Shoot the 50mm at f/1.4 min, f/2.8 max which will provide all the separation I need. Composing with the 50 also controls the distortion... ain't none. Just gotta keep picking up the sticks and moving until it's perfect. After that, I'm goin' full HDR baby. I shot 9 stop brackets, but only needed three. Had the intent of doing black and white, but when I saw the first return on the LCD, I wanted the little bit of colour because it increased the separation I was there to capture. Sometimes you just get lucky. Yeah... LUCKY! Today, I got lucky a lot. Lucky that the light was there. Lucky that I found an easy subject. Lucky that the means met the idea. Lucky for the girl who got me goin'. Not a bad day by my standards.
(the rest of this series is available at Flickr, enjoy)

Wolf Moon Prairie

The Wolf Moon rising over the prairie Saturday night, north of New Raymer, CO. After a lackluster sunset on the buttes, and not much glow in the civil twilight, I had completely packed the Jeep ready to go find food, anybody else crave steak after a day out on Pawnee? maybe it's just me. Luckily cought the slight arc of moon light reflecting on a window. Happily, skipping a meal I caught this.  Think the camera saw more stars than I did.  Lots of things I could have done better technically speaking, but that doesn't change how much I absolutely love this photograph.  Single frame shot, Nikon D3 at 30 seconds, f/4, ISO200.

Settler's Gate

Three things that start with the letter "W".

Walking    Wondering    Waiting

Over the last three days, I've unknowingly adhereded to this shceme.  I found it by asking my self a question concerning the state of my art.  Which itself started as a question concerning the value others seem to place on the trueness of a photograph.  I'll start there again.

Sitting in Luck Joe's, showing my small book to a waitress, she asked, "Is this Photoshopped?"

"Yes, everything is.  Photoshop is one of my favourite tools."

She continued flipping through the images and, I think, complimented them before going back to work.

The essence of this question is, perhaps, "Can I believe this as a true photograph?"  Which is the repetition of the SOOC crap, anti-HDR crap, artist vs. reporter crap, and... (this is the exact moment I became bored with the argument).

Both sides of that discussion are ridiculous.  Side A: The river is here every day, it never changes.  Side B: The river is always changing, every day it different.

Explain that yourself.

The action of capturing a percise moment in time as a still image is by design an abstraction of reality.  anything more is an embellishment.  it is the intent behind that embellishment which can offer definition to the image.  arguing against intent, is futile, masteurbatory, and reteric.

From there I asked myself something about my intent as it relates to my means.  I find something while I am walking around.  It will get into my memory and from there a conversation will take place deep in a subconscious realm, while my imagination begins to wonder about that thing.  Then I will wait.

That's the formula.  Let me demonstrate it in a slightly more tangible manner.

The object in the photo above was originally found while hiking on my birthday.  I stopped to consider it twice, each time without a camera.  I thought it would be a great place to take some photos and then went back to stomping into the frozen snow.  Three weeks later, I didn't have much motivation to shoot but for some reason I went out and started racing the sun, because of a suspicion that something really wonderful might be coming.  This spot is close to my apartment and that's where I went.  Technically speaking, the image above has been manipulated from it's original group of negatives.  Lots of tools were used to beat the thing into submission.  All of the tools I use are available to anyone, except two.  Imagination and Awareness.  As an artist, those are the most powerful tools I have.

I walked (actually ran) to this old gate.  I wondered why I was there.  I waited for an answer.

Doing What's Natural

Racing the sunrise this morning, literally.  Running down the trail while trying to get the camera mounted on the tripod.  Couldn't manage to get it centered in the head correctly, so I stopped and did it right.  Fired off a few shots of civil twilight hitting the clouds (view one here) just in case I missed the action when I got up the hill.  Threw the rig over my shoulder and continued the sprint.  I don't run much.  Recently joked that the only reason for an adult to run is from the cops.  Now look at me.  Victim of poor planning.  Got up early enough, but didn't pack anything the night before.  Completely out of practice.  But the running actually felt good, until the hill.  Then I started thinking about taking pictures of the frost melting off the stones in the trail because I was going to be face down soon, waiting on Search and Rescue.  Just a bit of drama in the morning, though, blood moving kept the fingers pink and the boots warm.  This is what I'm meant to do.  Get outside to experience me experiencing the natural world.  Wish it paid the rent, though.

Got up the hill, found my spot and started gunning through the film (digital memory just sounds wierd).  I walked through this local Natural Area a few weeks ago and got an idea the sun would be just about right this time of year for some early morning pictures. The shot above taught me the real importance of tripods... you can keep shooting while catching your breath.  Felt good to be outside shooting, again.  Thankfully the sunrise is pretty late, don't think I could handle a 3am start. There's an interesting feature right behind where I'm taking this shot.  In the next few days you'll be able to see what I think is worth runnning uphill in 15 degree weather to capture.  Funny thing, on the walk back down, I met a cop out to see if the report of a huge buck was true.  He asked me to stay on the trail.  I fought the urge to run.

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.