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PHOTO 101 DAY 16- TREASURE & CLOSE UP

~ creakingbones ~ 7 Comments

One of my favourite treasures is my father’s cigarette case. Dad was born in 1905. In his early 20’s, as a young school teacher, he was transferred to a one man public school at a little village in western New South Wales called, Moombooldool, thats right, not a typo. All that remains of the place now is an unattended railway station and nothing else.

Dad’s nick name was ‘Lone Wolf’ and when he was transferred back to Sydney in 1933, the Moombooldool towns folk presented him with a cigarette case with a wolf and the date, 1933 encircled by a wreath of wheat, attached to the front and his initials, FC, engraved on the reverse. The case never left his side, it was if it was fused to him. As he was a chain smoker, the case was always full.

Dad’s been dead for nearly 50 years now and I’ve always treasured his cigarette case. For a while I carried it around, it was as if he was close by. Now it sits in pride of place with other momentos of my parent’s lives.

So, here is an image of my treasure showing the face of the case in it’s entirety.

On the technical side, the image was made using a Nikkor 24-70mm lens set at 70mm, aperture f2.8 at 1/25th sec, ISO 100. The camera was tripod mounted as I like to adhere to the rule that the shutter speed should never be lower that the maximum focal length of the lens in use, i.e., for this lense, minimum shutter speed should be 1/70th second at 70mm.

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                                        MY FATHER’S PRIZED CIGARETTE CASE.

For the close up image of the front and back of the case I changed to a Nikkor 105mm f2.8 Micro  lens. This allows me to get the front of the lens extremely close to the subject and in some settings enables the image to be life size, very handy when photographing insects and the like.

On the technical side, for the front, the exposure was 1/5th second at f4.5, ISO 100, tripod mounted.

Here is my image of the wolf and wreath of wheat on the front of the case:

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                                                      THE LONE WOLF, 1933.

Now for the reverse, This image was made at 1/4th second, aperture f4.2, ISO 100:

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                                                  DAD’S ENGRAVED INITIALS, FC.

Making these images brought back many happy memories and tonight I’ll give the case a loving polish and place it back in its safe haven.

By the way, my apologies for the moire in the last two images. Unavoidable sometimes with my camera body.

Hoo roo for now

PHOTO 101 WEEKEND 3 HONE YOUR EYE

~ creakingbones

Time prevented me from visiting our local agriculture show this weekend passed which would have provided plenty of opportunities for images suitable for this exercise.

Instead, I visited my archives and played around with a number of images which took my fancy. Taking advantage of Photoshop’s tools for copying, cropping and resizing my images, the following just popped onto my desktop.

Hope you enjoy them as much as I did fiddling with the originals. Here we go, full size No 1:

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GOULBURN’S 152nd BIRTHDAY PARADE –  AIF LIGHT HORSE BRIGADE RE-ENACTMENT.

Next, it was my intention to insert the first pair of horses and their riders but for some reason the image was not allowed even though It did meet the size requirements. Instead, I extracted and enlarged( no pun intended) the two young women standing on the median strip, let’s call them extraction No 1A and here they are:

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TWO HAPPY TOURISTS.

For full size image No. 2, I chose an image I made in our local art gallery at the opening of an exhibition. A good crowd had gathered to see the artworks on show and one individual’s shoes caught my eye. Here is the full size image, No.2:

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CROWD AT GOULBURN REGIONAL ART GALLERY

Note the footwear worn by the woman in the yellow dress in the front row. Here they are,  Extraction 2A.

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I’M WATCHING YOU.

Goulburn has been fortunate to have many colourful floats in recent parades, I thought the following one was a ripper so here it is a full size No 3;

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IN THE STOCKS FOR A FLOGGING

The Red Coat looked like a good subject for extraction so here he is, extraction No 3A:

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WATCH OUT, THIS WILL HURT.

In celebrating our town’s 152nd birthday, a short ceremony was held in our central park and a birthday cake was presented to the assembled gathering by town dignitaries and local school students. Here we have a group of proud students and the birthday cake, full size image No 4:

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

The cake, a representation of our local War Memorial, obviously presented itself for extraction and here it is, Extraction No 4A ;

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COME AND GET IT!

Our art gallery has many attractions, including regular talks by local artists, sculptors and playwrights. Recently one of our playwrights presented a floor talk about a coming production based on an Aboriginal man who served with distinction with Australian Forces in World War I. Full size image No5 shows some of the audience for her floor talk and here it is:

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IN INTERESTED AND ATTENTIVE AUDIENCE.

The playwright in the striped blouse caught my eye and so here is Extraction No 5A:

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YOUR GUEST TODAY IS ON MY RIGHT.

The Salvation Army always supports our parades and the 152nd birthday celebration was no exception. Here in full size image No 6 is their contingent:

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PROUD, INSTEP AND IN TUNE.

The marcher in the from line wearing the sun glasses is perfectly positioned for extraction and here she is, No 6A.

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Finally, our local art gallery is always full of interesting people and on a recent visit I made the following image, full size No.7:

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‘AS I WAS SAYING’.

The young lady facing the camera seemed a perfect extraction for this exercise and here she is, Extraction No7A:

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WELL NOW, WHY ME?

A few technical details to round off this blog, all of the images were taken hand held using a 24-70mm f2.8 Nikkor lens. The majority of the images were taken at f2.8.

Photoshop CC2014 was used in the post production, cropping and resizing of the images.

I selected the images from my archives based on their resolution and original size.

Thanks for looking.

Hoo roo for now.

PHOTO 101 DAY FIFTEEN LANDSCAPE & CROPPING

~ creakingbones ~ 3 Comments

Landscapes offer such a wide variety (no pun intended) of photographic opportunities. Quite often too they invite you to sharpen your cropping skills to get rid of unwanted blemishes or if they are ‘wilderness’ shots, to get rid of the signs of any human presence. Often, those signs are on the edges of images so the crop instead of savage post processing is the way to go.

I took the following image on the edge of one of Australia’s vast arid plains. As you can see, on the left hand edge towards the horizon there is evidence of a road.

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SPLENDID ISOLATION EXCEPT FOR THE GLIMPSE OF THE ROAD.

What to do? Attack with Photoshop’s clone stamp tool and replace the road with shifted pixels. No, in this case the smart and rapid way is to crop. Not much of the image will be lost and the sense of isolation will still be there. Here’s the outcome of the crop:

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AFTER A GENTLE CROP

The sense of space and isolation remains, time has been saved and the integrity of the work has not been compromised.

I can’t resist the temptation to pop in a couple of other Australian outback images. We live on a particularly arid continent, with vast areas of flat, sparsely populated country. Never the less we do have some outstanding landscapes. Here is another example:

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MORE FLAT COUNTRY AFTER GOOD RAINS.

As you can see, it’s pretty flat, so when it does rain, the run off is minimal. I bet you can see why we call it the ‘Red Centre’.

Of course we do have occasional hilly country in the outback, and not too far away, as the crow flies, there are some pretty colourful hills we call ‘The Painted Desert’.

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THESE COLOURFUL MOUNDS JUST POP UP OUT OF NOWHERE.

We also have what we call ‘The High Country’, it’s thousands of miles from where these last four images were made. It snows in ‘The High Country’ and there are ski resorts nestled amongst our mountains there. They can be reached by sealed highways or the adventurous can take the bush tracks through some great scenery and landscape photography opportunities. Here is one such opportunity, taken from a spot along the ‘Davies Plains’ track:

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LANDSCAPE OFF THE DAVIES PLAINS TRACK, SNOWY MOUNTAINS.

I know it’s in the mountains, but please, don’t ask me why it’s called ‘Davies Plains’ track. Just let me say it’s the Aussie way.

With the exception of image No2, all of these photographs are straight off the camera.

Thanks for being so patient. I love the place and have to show it off whenever I get the chance.

Hoo roo for now.

PS: How could I forget about my hero, Ansel Adams. This is how he may have photographed the last two of my images:

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PAINTED DESERT WITH APOLOGIES TO ANSEL ADAMS.
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OFF THE DAVIES PLAINS TRACK WITH APOLOGIES TO ANSEL ADAMS

PHOTO101 DAY 14 SCALE & OBSERVATION

~ creakingbones ~ 6 Comments

Motorcycles and Teddy Bears of most descriptions seldom mix and are rarely thought of nor seen other than in their actual physical size. It follows therefore that to see the two together, almost joined at the hip, as the saying goes, would give the observer an idea of their representative scale.

So, seeing the two together in my backyard, I thought, here is a combination fitting for day 14 of Photo 101. I’m no engineer or mathematician so I’m unable to calculate the scale of the bear in relation to the scale of the bike. For the second requirement of Day 14, close observation will reveal to the viewer my selected viewpoint. No prize is on offer for the correct observation and no bear was injured in the making of this image.

By the way, this bear has never been down to the woods unaccompanied.

However, I will reveal all in a later post if necessary.

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HARLEY BEAR AND HARLEY DAVIDSON ENJOYING A BREAK FROM THE OPEN ROAD.

PHOTO 101 DAY 13 MOMENT & MOTION

~ creakingbones ~ 4 Comments

I was sitting in an open cafe on the first floor of the Queen Victoria Building in George Street, Sydney,  camera at the ready to do some candid street type photography of the passers by.

Looking around I saw, in the stainless steel underside of an adjacent  escalator, reflections of the people passing by on the floor beneath me. A golden opportunity for some movement photos.

To avoid problems with the light I selected ISO 640. That setting suits my camera well when the light is only adequate. I wanted to freeze the motion of the people crossing the tiled floor so I selected 1/8th second at aperture f5.6.  I should mention that from where I was sitting I couldn’t see the floor beneath me, only the reflection in the stainless steel sloping away above me and it was inappropriate for me to change my viewpoint.

Because the lighting was a mixture of fluorescent and incandescent I set my camera’s white balance at Auto to allow the camera to sort out the lighting issues. Then manually I selected the best focus point on the escalator and set the lens at 120mm . At this focal length, the only thing to be seen in the viewfinder was the reflected area on the lower floor. The following image shows, totally by a fluke and not my intention, a stationary foot as the body to which it was attached blurred with motion. The image was made hand held, elbows braced against the cafe table.

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                  TWO MOVING FIGURES WITH A STATIONARY SHOE.

As the notes for today include a reference to panning, I stood in my back yard adjacent to a main road to photograph the speedsters as they shot past. I didn’t have to wait long. Just as I’d set my camera at 1/10 second at f18, ISO 200, 70mm lens, I heard a car approaching from my left. I began to pan from right to left and as the car hit the centre of the viewfinder I pressed the go button. Why did I pan from right to left? I wanted to capture the wheels of the car turning and their action would have been less interesting had I panned from left to right along the car’s direction of travel. Here is the result:

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                          PANNING A MOVING VEHICLE.

I was unable to resist putting this next ‘movement’ image here. As you can guess, the event is a cycle race in town centre. I think it’s a fun shot with the casual observer and his dog stationary waiting to cross the road while the peloton rockets past. I took the shot laying down on the medium strip in the centre of the road to the amusement of other spectators. My camera settings were 1/40 second at f11, ISO 200, 24mm lens. My point of focus was the dalmatian.

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                  THE PELOTON AND THE DALMATION

Hope you had as much fun looking as I did shooting.

PHOTO101 DAY 12 ARCHITECTURE & MONOCHROME

~ creakingbones ~ 4 Comments

Here in Goulburn, we are proud to have an Anglican Cathedral, St Saviours, set on a large area of land in the heart of the city. The Cathedral’s foundation stone was laid on the 15th January, 1874 with the construction expected to last at least 10 years. Efforts are still being made to raise the necessary funds to complete the spire, a part of the original plans but never erected.

The cathedral’s architecture is unique, with only one other example of its style, located at Bendigo in Victoria, Australia.

The following image is in infra red, ideally suited for architectural photography. The camera  used was converted to only make infra red images by Life Pixel of Mukilteo , WA, 98275, USA. My only relationship with Life Pixel is that of a highly satisfied customer.

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St SAVIOURS CATHEDRAL, GOULBURN, NSW, AUSTRALIA PHOTOGRAPHED IN INFRA RED.

PHOTO101 WEEKEND TWO: PLAY WITH LIGHT

~ creakingbones ~ 1 Comment

On Saturday, reading the notes for Weekend Two I thought,’Dawn to Dusk’, what a great idea, Monday’s relatively clear, I’ll knock it over then. I checked the weather forecast and sunrise on Monday 16th was for 7.30am. That didn’t sound right to me as on Saturday 16th March is was bright daylight at 7.30am.  As I’m a bloke and always right, I knew the forecaster meant 6.30am. Mistake No 1.

So, came Monday morning 16th March and I was out of bed at 5am, black as pitch. It’s early autumn I thought, won’t be cold outside. Mistake No2.  Wearing shorts, T shirt and track suit top for the stroll down to my chosen viewpoint to wait for dawn was  mistake No 3.  When I got back home, frozen stiff about 8am I learned it was only 5 degrees C when I left home at 5.30am. Not cold by many standards but here where it reached into the 40s C just a few weeks ago is seemed below zero where I stood for quite a while making these images.

From my selected viewpoint on a bridge crossing the Wollondilly River just after 5.45am I could just make out the lights of an outbuilding near the historic Goulburn Waterworks and not much else. I set my camera up on the tripod, checked the light meter,  readied the camera for my first exposure and set the ISDO at 640. Here is No 1, lens set at 200mm, exposure 30 seconds @ f2.8, ISO 640.

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FINAL 1
GOULBURN HISTORIC WATERWORKS AND OUT BUILDINGS, 5.59am ON              MONDAY 16th MARCH,  2015

My next exposure was made just 12 minutes later at 6.11am, again with the lens set at 200mm, exposure 25 seconds@f8, ISDO 640.

FINAL 2
GETTING LIGHTER, 6.11am ON MONDAY 16th MARCH, 2015

Nine minutes later at 6.20am, the lens still set at 200mm, exposure was still 25 seconds@f8. ISO remained at 640.

FINAL 3
LIGHTER STILL,6.20am ON MONDAY 16th MARCH 2015

At 6.30am, for image No 4, I decided to vary the field of view and set the lens to 70mm in order to catch the mist rising from the water trapped behind the weir. Exposure this time was 15 seconds@f8, and I left the ISO at 640. This image was made exactly 1  hour before sunrise.

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1 HOUR BEFORE SUNRISE WITH A WIDER FIELD OF VIEW AT 6.30am, MONDAY 16th MARCH 2015.

Immediately after making the above image, I zoomed the lens back to 200mm and made this next exposure , 25 seconds@f8, ISO remaining at 640. It’s interesting to note that the exposure time increased by 10 seconds on the lens change between 70 and 200mm.

FINAL 5
1 HOUR BEFORE SUNRISE, BACK TO 200mm.

Finally, the cold got to me and I decided to to head home.

My next two images were made about 2.30pm from the same viewpoint. I changed the ISO back to 100 and left the aperture at f8. For the first image I set the lens at 200mm and exposure at 1/160th second@f8, then for the second, I pulled the lens back to 70mmwith the exposure set at 1/250th second , again at f8.

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2.30pm on MONDAY 16th MARCH 2015, 200mm
FINAL 7
2.30pm MONDAY 16th MARCH 2015, 70mm

Later, about 6.30pm from the same viewpoint, I made the following image, closing the aperture down to f16 to take advantage of its greater depth of field in the hope of recording the lengthening shadows on the hills in the background. With the lens set at 70mm, exposure at f16 was 1/30second at ISO 100.

FINAL 8
LENGTHENING SHADOWS, 6.30pm ON MONDAY 16th MARCH 2015, 70mm

About 15 minutes later, about 6.45pm with the lens zoomed back to 200mm, I made the following image, exposure 1/13th second, again at f16 and ISO still at 100.

FINAL 9
LENGTHENING SHADOWS 6.45pm MONDAY 16th MARCH 2015 200 mm

Then, about 7.05pm I made my final image at 70mm, aperture 1/5th second, still at f16 with ISO at 100.

FINAL 10
FINAL IMAGE, 7.05pm ON MONDAY 16th March 2015, 70mm

All of the proceeding images have not been post processed and are exactly as recorded in camera. The only exception has been in the reduction of image size to 10MB or less.

However, on walking home just before sunset, about 7.25pm I couldn’t resist the cloud in the darkening sky so here is its image, enhanced slightly in post processing.  Hope you like it.

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EVENING SKY OVER GOULBURN, NSW, AUSTRALIA

PHOTO101 DAY 11 POP & COLOUR

~ creakingbones

Red is a very strong and powerful colour and tends to be the dominant colour wherever it is used.

It’s also the colour used to indicate danger.

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HISTORIC RED POSTAL PILLAR BOX

These two red objects speak for themselves.

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TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE

Taking an airing after a hard mornings workout.

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PLEASE LET ME REST A WHILE.

Despite the busy and non neutral background, I just couldn’t resist this image from a parade here in town on Sunday afternoon. The smile on the driver’s face tells it all.

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TWO OLDIES ON PARADE

PHOTO101 DAY 10 MYSTERY & LIGHTING EFFECT

~ creakingbones ~ 1 Comment

Michelle’s Montreal Jazz Festival example reminded me of a visit in 2013 I made to the Canowindra Balloon Festival Night Burn. Canowindra is a small town in western New South Wales.  You could sense the  excitement in the crowd as the tethered balloons fired up and illuminated their surroundings and the crowd. The effect was colourful and electrifying. I made this image at the time.

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                LIGHTING UP AND GOING NOWHERE – YET.

Belmore Park is situate in the centre of my town and is only a short walk from the railway station. I thought it would be a great place for more night photography to fit  Day 10’s requirements.

A little after 8.30pm I entered the park in front of the rotunda

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                                                    THE ROTUNDA

Then I passed by a dimly lit fountain, I saw that unfortunately, the water was turned off

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         A FOUNTAIN – WATER TURNED OFF UNFORTUNATELY.

Then to my left adjacent to the park, I saw that the facade of the Services Club  was illuminated in brilliant blue.

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                                   GOULBURN SERVICES CLUB

When I looked back towards my point of entry to the park, I thought that the park appeared quire eerie with its heavy tree cover and long shadows.

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LOOKING ACROSS BELMORE PARK TOWARDS AUBURN STREET

Then, I crossed over to the railway station which was ablaze with lights as a train had just arrived but alas no passengers alighted to be photographed.

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                 GOULBURN RAILWAY STATION LOOKING SOUTH.

On leaving the station I passed a public telephone, it’s booth was bright but its surrounding dimness didn’t encourage dallying. Not at night anyway.

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                  THE PUBLIC TELEPHONE AT THE RAILWAY STATION.

Looking back as I walked away from the station, I saw another flight of stairs looking as if it was leading nowhere – what a mystery.

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                      RAILWAY STATION STAIRS- WHERE TO?

It’s a balmy night so the stroll was pleasant, the lighting interesting and the lack of people mystifying.

PHOTO101 Day 9 Warmth and quality of light.

~ creakingbones

Two blogs in one day, what a superb effort. This morning when I worked on the Day 8th images, the sun was shining brightly and the light was more than adequate for the task.

This afternoon it is a different story, plenty of cloud cover sometimes obscuring the afternoon sun and the shadows are almost non existent in my backyard. So what to do?

Recently I made some portrait style images of one of my motorcycling mates and when I reviewed them I thought that some may fit the day 9 images. Probably in the quality of light department but probably not when it comes to warmth, and I don’t mean degrees Kelvin. When you see them I’m sure you see what I mean.

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                                    FULL FRONTAL LIGHT

A close look at the face shows the light has highlighted the skin pores, particularly on the nose and a few blemishes on the forehead. If the light had been softer, these blemishes may not have been so prominent. Note that the only shadow on the face is under the left eye.

The expression was of his own choosing, portraying the perceived bikie persona I guess.

In the following image the light is almost directly on the face and there is a slight shadow to the left of the face, but not pronounced enough to change the content of the image.

His defiant pose was his own idea, talk about a bikies warmth.

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                                               FULL FRONTAL LIGHT

In the following image the light is shining on the right side of the face, and creates a pleasant shadow to the left of the nose, almost dividing the face. Again the strong light has brought out the skin imperfections and pores and has created quite a large hot spot in the hair.

On this occasion, my cobber thought it was ‘cool’ so we left it there.

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                                           LIGHT TO THE RIGHT

In the next image we mucked about a bit with the light and his position. Finally I kept the light on the right side of the face and he turned his face slightly into the light. This gave some highlights to the stubble on the face and to the logo on the sun glasses whilst retaining most of the shadow.

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LIGHT TO THE RIGHT

After looking at these images this afternoon I decided to include two attractive faces to lighten the load as they say.

In the first image my friend is looking directly into the camera and the flash has  reduced the softness in the skin tones and hardened the image. However the highlights in the eyes make up for it somewhat as does the glow on her cheek bones.

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                               FLASH DIRECTLY IN FRONT

In the next image my friend has adopted a relaxed pose with her head turned slightly to the left to darken that side of her hair and give her a slightly whimsical look. I used a very wide aperture, f2.8 and ensured the light was soft and utilised a black bed sheet as a backdrop.

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                                    LIGHT FULL IN FRONT

Well, I’m glad this afternoon has been overcast. I’ve had fun with Day 9’s images.

Hope you enjoy looking.