1.31.2009 Frozen Head State Park

(Click on pictures to enlarge for detail)

It was a glorious winter day in East Tennessee today with brilliant blue skies and unseasonably warm temps in the upper 40s. There was no way we were spending the day inside, so my wife, my 9 y/o son and I headed off for a drive with no idea of where we were going. We took a circuitous route of country back roads through six counties and ended up somewhere we'd never been before.

You know you are in for something special when your navigation system literally has you in the "middle of nowhere". Don't you think they should be more colorful in situations like this and just say "There be monsters here" like they did for unknown areas in the old sea charts?
Old railroad bridge in Oak Ridge (A secret city built in the 1940's to make the uranium-235 used in nuclear weapons). As with all photos I am taking while I'm in this class, none of these have been photoshopped except for resizing and the third bridge picture was cropped just to make it even on both sides.We ended up in Frozen Head State Park. Fortunately I had a pack mule to carry my camera gear bag on the hike to DeBord Falls.I felt so alive smelling the forest and hearing the roar of the falls, as we approached. When I first looked down into the gulch and saw my first glimpse, I KNEW this was going to be something special.
I took advantage of this trip to practice the shutter speed/aperture skills I learned in class this week. Self portrait using the 10 second timer.North American Tail-less Monkey in a tree. I should have used a shallower depth of field on this one but I was so caught up in the moment.I still have SO much to learn, but looking at these when I got home, I can say I am no longer a guy that takes pictures....I'm evolving into a photographer.

1.29.2009 Shooting Assignment #1

You might notice I am not including materials from class or the actual assignments here. That is because all of that information is Tom's proprietary teaching material. He's worked hard to develop his lesson plans, examples, and handouts and I am going to respect his intellectual property.

I will tell about the general info and pass on a few tips he might give out. For example, he gives a good general rule of thumb for when you need to use a tripod. If you are shooting at a shutter speed that is less than the inverse of your focal length, use a tripod. Well, yes, that involves math but it's not hard. If I'm using my 18-55 mm lens at 55mm, then the inverse would be 1/55*. So if I use a shutter speed SLOWER than around 1/60th of a second, I should use a tripod.

*Technically speaking, Nikons have a crop factor of 1.5 so the focal length equivalent would actually be ~ 82.5mm. But that's another discussion!

The assignment generally had us practice manipulation of exposure, speed, and depth of field. Again, the focus here is on mechanics of the camera and nothing to do with composure or anything artsy like that yet. So these are boring pics.

Exposure bracketing:
Shutter speed control, notice the pendulum.Depth of field. Notice the potted plant in the far corner of the room in both pictures.

01.25.2009

Tom made us all swear that we will NOT shoot in auto mode (point & shoot) for ANY pictures. Shooting in manual mode has been eye opening. I have stumbled into so many questions like
-What the....?
-Why'd that just.....?
-Wait, what?

But it's not too frustrating because I've also learned so much in the past 4 days while making myself stick to manual mode. Turns out, all of that was by design. Tom sent out an email this weekend that said in part: As you will see, a lot of my exercises and homework assignments are purposely designed with some small traps. Sometimes I will ask you to do something that will cause you to have to figure out something, instead of blindly following what I just said.

I've shot about 500 pictures since class. Some were just around the house. This morning we drove to the intersection of Broadway & Central and walked around taking pictures.

Alexis at home. These few shots make it obvious that I have a bunch to learn about white balance, which we haven't covered yet. The metafile info shows that white balance was "manual" however, I had it set to either auto or fluorescent the whole time, not sure why that is. I did learn from experience that my aperture range is affected by the lens I am using. I couldn't get it down past 5.6 with my 18-55 mm lens but could get down to 4 or less with my 55-200mm lens. All of these were using center weighted metering.

[f8, 1/13, iso 200, 55mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]

[f5.6, 1/8, iso 200, 55mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]

[f4, 1/20, iso 200, 55mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]

[f4, 1/20, iso 200, 55mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]

Note: Double left click on these pics to get the larger, full effect!

Spike, the bearded dragon. I was playing with a shallow depth of field.
[f5.6, 1/25, iso 200, 122mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]

Store fronts at Broadway & Central. (Yes, Brandi, these are the ones that I exclaimed, "Holy $(%*, I have to come back and take a picture of those" while we were on the phone as I drove by them.)
[f8, 1/320, iso 200, 18mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]

This scene reminded me of small town, old fashioned Americana, so I wanted to go retro. I converted it to black and white and made that a base layer. Then I added the same picture as a color layer over it and erased everything on the color layer except the buildings. The effect looks like a colorized black and white pic. This was for my own amusement instead of school.
Here are various memorial statues in the Old Gray Cemetery. It was interesting reading all of the names and dates. One of the interred was one of The Immortal Six Hundred, a group of Confederate Soldiers who were used as human shields by the Union Troops at a stand off near Fort Sumter.
Confederate soldier at the military cemetery.
[f6, 1/1000, iso 200, 190mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]
[f5, 1/1000, iso 200, 150mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]

[f5, 1/1000, iso 200, 82mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]

[f5, 1/1000, iso 200, 55mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]
St. John's Lutheran Church established in 1888:
[f5, 1/1250, iso 200, 105mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]
[f8, 1/800, iso 200, 86mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]
[f8, 1/500, iso 200, 55mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]
[f8, 1/800, iso 200, 55mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]

1.22.09

Last night was my first class in the University of Tennessee's Fundamentals of Digital Photography - 1 Course (part of their Photography Certificate Program), instructed by Tom Geisler. After just one class, I can tell you that if you live in Knoxville and have been thinking about taking such a course (like I had been for some time), TAKE THIS COURSE! Tom's got a fantastic teaching style and the class is informative, high energy, and fun.

The first portion of this course is heavy on the technical aspect of using your DSLR camera, so for the next few weeks, my pictures are going to be very pedestrian while I get edumacated about this here picture takin' box. Don't expect any breathtaking pictures for now.

This week, we are working on using ONLY manual mode setting the aperture and shutter speed myself, making sure my result has a "happy" light meter. This is just concentrating on 3 of many, many variables but I'm taking baby steps here!

Today at lunch, I grabbed my camera bag and headed to a great photo opp spot, Sharps Ridge Memorial Park. It overlooks the city of Knoxville, the Sunsphere, etc and gives you a great view of the Smoky Mountains...well on a less hazy day, that is. On a clear day you can see very specific peaks of the mountains. I think this picture shows the potential of this location. If you look close, you can see several layers of the mountains.[f8, 1/800, iso 200, 122mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]

I took one shot in auto mode:
[auto chose f10, 1/200, iso 100, 55mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]

just so I could compare it to my first fully manual shot:
[f22, 1/200, iso 2oo, 55mm focal length, 0 exposure bias].

Since the ozone haze wasn't cooperating for a scenic shot, I turned my attention to the plethora of radio/TV antennas on top of Sharps Ridge to play with the camera settings with basically the same shot. The ISO, focal length, and exposure bias were all the same.
[f5.6, 1/640]
[f8, 1/320]
[f22, 1/15]

I didn't know that President Obama had signed an order for closing Gitmo when I took these shots of razor wire around the towers.
[f8, 1/200, iso 200, 190mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]
[f5.6, 1/640, iso 200, 125mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]
[f8, 1/800, iso 200, 190mm focal length, 0 exposure bias]

The one thing I realized today is that I need a LOT of practice playing with this settings. I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't practice this before next week's class.

Snow Day

It's hard to believe, my first photography class starts tomorrow night! Yeah, finally.

Knox County schools were closed this morning because of a massive blizzard (err...about 1/2 inch accumulation, but there was ice). I bundled up and walked the neighborhood looking for photograph opportunities.

This shot frustrated me, I should have been more patient in framing it and focus, but I rushed the shot.This was a series of shots of the island at our neighborhood pond.I hope our neighbors didn't look out the window and wonder why someone was taking pictures of their shrubs first thing in the morning!Nardinas in our front yard. I love this plant during winter and doubly so after a snow.Finally, a few gratuitous shots of my 9 y/o son snowboarding. (More like "frozengrassboarding").