Random Photos

Some people hear voices.. Some see invisible people.. Others have no imagination whatsoever.





The Moon


The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray
Mounts up the eastern sky,
Not doomed to these short nights for aye,
But shining steadily.


She does not wane, but my fortune,
Which her rays do not bless,
My wayward path declineth soon,
But she shines not the less.


And if she faintly glimmers here,
And paled is her light,
Yet always in her proper sphere
She's mistress of the night.


Henry David Thoreau


Tawney Marie, my goddaughter, the most precious thing in my life!

A red-tailed honey bee

At Del Mar California, My First Ocean Sunset

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Violation of a Photographers Rights

I awoke choking from the smoke. I thought my house was on fire! I jumped out of bed and slid my pants on as fast as I could. I realized then the smoke was pine. Not my house, thats good, but why was the smoke so thick? It was 3 in the morning, I looked outside and the whole neighborhood was wrapped in a smokey blanket. I swiftly got dressed grabbed my little Kodak point n shoot and left the house to investigate.


Fire Trucks at Work

It only took a few minutes to find the source of the smoke. A pile of fire wood next to a shed had caught fire. Naturally I started taking shots. I set my camera on fence posts, stone walls, even on the sidewalk to hold it steady. I made sure to keep my distance never crossing the street even though the fire was out before I arrived. I know better than to get in the way and I did not want to endanger myself.


Protect and serve

The officer sitting in his car must have been bored cause he got out and approached me. Shine his light and asked were do you live? "Just down the street" I answer. "Well I think its time for you to go home. Its all over here", He sneared at me "And photo time is done!"


Cop shines Light

I then proceeded to tell him what my rights truly are which he didn't like. He detained me taking my camera until backup arrived. The backup was a Sargent that is commenly around my area a fellow that I have spoken with a number of times and a very nice guy. He agreed with me that I wasn't braking any laws and that the other cop was just a rookie that didn't know any better. I got my camera back and went home.

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What are your rights as a photographer? Since 9/11 people have come up with some very strange ideas. Photogs are being harassed in many places they were left alone before. Photos being deleted from memory cards, cameras being taken. NPR has a story you can listen to here.

Have a look here to read The Photographers Rights by Bert P. Krages, Attorney at Law.

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Moon Dance

Genevieve dances with the moon.

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HDR a basic overview

HDR

High dynamic range (HDR) imaging is a set of techniques that allows a photographer to capture and display a greater range of exposure than can be captured in traditional film or digital imaging techniques. The consept of exposure range to a photographer represents the values between light and dark areas in the scene being photographed. Factors effecting the range which a photographer can capture is a function of the medium being used; the sesitivity of the film, paper, and digital sensors. HDR has been recognised for decades but its use was limited due to a lack of computer processing power. However with todays powerful computers HDR is now emerging into the general population.

HDR images contain digital information which corasponds to the physical luminance that can be obsevered in the real world. This is differant than traditional digital images which represent information as it should appear on a monitor or papaer. Thus the data stored in an HDR image is often called scene-referred and the data stored in traditional digital images is called device-referred.

The human eye can see a much greater range of lumanace than a camera can. For an image to come close to this range the photographer must make a minimum of 3 exposures of the scene to collect all the data neaded. A photo to record the bright areas one to record the dark areas and one the records inbetween the two. The more exposures made the higher the dynamic range.

in this example we see that 4 images were used with exposure values of -5, -2, +2, and +5.

These exposures are then blended together using computer softwere such as photoshop or photomatrix. However there is one problem, that is in viewing the image. CRT, LCD, prints, and other ways of viewing images have a limited dynamic range. There are however various methods that have been developed to convert the HDR image into a viewable format, the most common of which is called Tone Mapping.

Tone mapping is a technique which employs a computer to map one set of colors to another with the result of approximating the appearance of HDR images. When an HDR image is displayed on a non-HDR display it has a strong loss of contrast, tone mapping adds contrast to the image while retaining the image details and color appearance.


here we see the above images blened together and tone mapped.

Here are the other HRD images I have made.

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Painting with Light

A fun experiment for any photographer is light painting. The concept is very simple, light painting is a technique were the exposure is made in a dark area by selectively illuminating parts of the subject with a movable light source. The light I use is often a flashlight or a camera strobe with different color gel filters.



The above photo was taken in the dark of night. It is a 1/2 second exposure at ISO 1600 and the light comes from a passing car... I was going to use a flash to fill the photo but the car beat me to it. But this shows how lightpainting can be done to make interesting patterns in an otherwise standard photo.


A very simple use of lightpainting, this exposure lasted 15 seconds at ISO 200. As the moon backlit the scene I moved to the right side of the picture and holding a magenta gel over the flash popped off a few bursts of light. Yes it is that simple.


Another much longer exposure (116 seconds) from the same shoot, you can see the movement from the model. In this photo I used a cyan filter on the left side and popped off about 3 bursts of light. I then moved to the right and popped off 1 burst of light with a yellow filter. Just before closing the shutter I added some green light which I bounced off a screen to the ground.


Light painting can also be done by moving a point light source in the photo itself. In this image Amanda just held her position while I moved an LED flashlight around her.


In this photo which can be seen at the top of the page uses two colors with the flash a heavy blue gel just to the right and slightly above the camera and a magenta gel directly to the right of the model at her eye level. The red on Sam's boot comes from a large red neon light located on the roof of a building behind her.

So here are the basics of what you need to do this yourself. First you need a camera that you can lock the shutter open, this is normally called bulb mode. Most cameras will also need a shutter release cable. I have had some exposures go for multiple minutes. You will therefor need a sturdy tripod to set your camera on.
A light source, this could be a flashlight or a strobe and some color gels are nice to have also. The gels I use are the same that are used for stage lighting. They come in sheets that can be cut to fit the flash. You can order them online or they can often be found at your local music store.
After that you just need to use your imagination.


A simple lighting scheme using 3 filters cyan, red, and light orange.


Here I planed out this shot to take advantage of Laurens placement in the yellow flowers and the light gray colored rocks knowing that a cyan flash would make the yellow pop out and the rocks would take the color of the flash. I strategically placed Mat, the demon, so that the red flash on him would compliment the red tones in the sky. The purple in the middle of the photo was a consequence of the red and cyan flashes adding together.


This is also a bit more complex photograph. Lauren and I coordinated her slowly standing up while I popped off alternating colors of green-blue and red-orange.

I hope this will encourage you to try something new and different with some of your photos. The worse that will happen is you will get a blur or nothing at all. However when these photos work the results can be amazing.
After years of playing around with this technique I can now do it like second nature and I always end up with a great photo shoot.

Coming soon I will talk about how light and color work which should help with blending color filters in a photo and how they will affect objects and each other. However the best thing you can do is just go out and play around with it. Learning by doing is key in photography.

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Life of the Hobo - Story in Five Frames

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Deadman Gulch by Night

Deadman Gulch is located off of Sheridan Lake Road a few miles outside of Rapid City.

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Click for a Topographic map of the area.

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We left my house around 11 at night, drove a few mile out into the hills, bundled up against the cold night time air. You have to park on Sheridan Lake Road and walk in as the area is closed to motor vehicles. It is the location of the big horn sheep reintroduction area. Even though we did not come across the big horns we certainly had fun and found ourselves in awe of the beauty that is the Black Hills by the light of the 'Moon of the Red Grass Appearing'. _{So named by Black Elk as recorded in the book Black Elk Speaks by John Neihardt.}

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Vega - jewel set in body of Lyre, the harp.




Vega, third brightest star in the northern sky. Only 25.3 light years from us making it one of our closest neighbors.

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Entropy -



A measure of the disorder of a system. Systems tend to go from a state of order (low entropy) to a state of maximum disorder (high entropy).



Gemini Hides behind the tree. Old buildings die, entropy of the archaeologist.

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Were the north wind from the border of heaven does come.



In the moon when Red Grass Appears may I find that which I seek, that being the quest of love, peace, and fulfillment of life dreams.

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Jupiter rises with Scorpio.



Jupiter ruler of religion, philosophy and social issues of the day. Jupiter also rules optimism in living, prosperity, and growth, both mentally and physically.



Scorpio so calm and steady... dangerously so? The surface cool... but inside...



"The greatest mania of all is passion: and I am a natural slave to passion: the balance between my brain and my soul and my body is as wild and delicate as the skin of a Ming vase." - HST from The Curse of Lono

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