08-21-12 Self-Conscious

I took this informal portrait of a waitress at the VooDoo BBQ restaurant on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. She wasn't the least bit self-conscious, as I think you can see in this photo. I was.And it occurs to me that when I am self-conscious as a photographer, I am not conscious of other, more important considerations than me. For example, if I had been totally "focused" on the task of getting a decent portrait of this young woman, I would have checked the full frame. I would have removed the styrofoam cup behind her. I would have tried to frame the photo so there wasn't a distracting bright area in the upper left corner of the photo. And I would never had tried to take a portrait with a 1/50 sec shutter speed.Why was I self-conscious? Well, I don't normally take semi-posed photos of people I don't know. And I had 5 of my photo/media students sitting at the table watching me.Like so many other subjects and places I've photographed, I'd like to have another chance at the VooDoo BBQ restaurant.Canon 5DII 1/50s f/3.2 ISO1000 50mmPlease take the "A Photo A Day" survey!

08-20-12 Glamorous Grain

Some of you remember Tri-X Pan black and white film. It was made by Kodak and was a standard "high speed" film with an ISO of 400. That meant that you could shoot in relatively low light with this film. The down side was that you got quite a bit of grain.I can remember that when digital DSLRs hit the market, some photographers bemoaned the fact that digital photos were so smooth - there was no grain. That prompted software companies to make filters that added grain. It was an artistic effect but it also soothed the jangled nerves of photographers who were raised on film.I never missed grain, though I did play with the filters in software from time to time. This photo is evidence of that. It was shot with my 1D II, a camera that led the market at the time and which produced pretty smooth photos at ISO 100, which is what this studio photo was shot with.It occurs to me as I head back into the classroom tomorrow to meet a new group of photography candidates that much of what I've talked about in this post will be foreign to them. But so are phones with cords and movies on cassette tapes. The times, they are a changing, as Dylan says. Or was that Ecclesiastes?Canon 1DII 1/250s f/8.0 ISO100 40mm

08-18-12 An Uncommon Place

I have been sailing Lake Oahe on the Missouri River in South Dakota for over 20 years. I have seen all kinds of weather and wind. And so you might think I would be jaded, wouldn't you? But I will tell you that I doubt that I will ever got bored by the amazing scenery and experience this place affords.Recently, Deb and I were enjoying our last full day of the season on Lake Oahe. We set sail shortly after sunrise and made it upriver to my favorite place, Mission Creek. By afternoon the wind had slackened and though we enjoy the serentity that this place offers when there is little wind, we decided to go motoring.At one point the wind died completely and I stopped the boat in the middle of the reservoir to enjoy the beautiful clouds, sky and water. The silence was absolute and I was reminded of the simple magic of that keeps drawing me back to Oahe: on this day we weren't looking at a mirror; we were in the mirror.Wandering Star is back in our driveway and will be put into storage soon. I put over 800 miles under her keel this summer, which is equivalent to going east to west across South Dakota and then back again. At about 5 miles an hour. A waste of time? An expensive hobby?"Yes" is a simple answer to those questions. But for me sailing Oahe is an important part of who I am and how I live. For me (and many others I know) it is a truly uncommon place.

08-17-12 What Do You See?

I don't know about you, but I have never looked closely at a human eye before I edited this photo. The eye you're looking at belongs to Tiffany, one of my Photo/Media students at Lake Area Technical Institute, and she was a good sport when I spontaneously told her I wanted to photograph her eyes. We went up to an area in our school that has great northern light and I took several photos.I'm not sure if a viewer would find this photo fascinating or a bit unsettling. If it's unsettling, I can tell you that it shouldn't be because Tiffany wouldn't unsettle you: she is a beautiful person, with a beautiful personality. And she has beautiful eyes.Sorry for the deep thoughts here but I think close-ups of body parts, like a single human eye, are striking because we don't tend to look so closely at them. In fact, if someone stares at us too long, we often look away. Further, an eye is in the realm of people like optometrists, not teachers, friends and acquaintances. And beyond that, it is only part of a whole that we call our bodies. I believe we are less our bodies than we are our experiences. Our bodies are like suitcases (Samsonite? Luis Vuitton?) in to which we pack our true selves.That aside, today I am showing you Tiffany's eye and asking you "What do you see?" In my case, to quote the famous discoverer Howard Carter, I see "wonderful things". . . .Canon 5DII 1/60s f/4.0 ISO200 100mm

08-16-12 Allison

So I was looking for a connector for my iPad yesterday, which I hadn't seen since May. And though I didn't find the connector, I did find a collection of DVDs of senior portraits I had taken in the summer of 2004. And when I saw "Allison R" on one of the labels, I immediately remembered this particular outfit and pose.Allison was a beautiful subject who came to the session with many props and ideas. I am always worried when a portrait subject says he or she wants to bring a prop. I usually ask two questions: 1)Is it living? 2)Is it bigger than your face?The first question is because living things (boy friends, snakes, cats, dogs, parrots, etc) can be challenging, though I'll takes snakes over the other animals listed.The second question is because, if you ask me (who is admittedly old fashioned), I think a portrait is about the face.In Allison's case, she brought her cello (bigger than her face but OK by me) and a huge, hot pink prom dress. The prom dress begged for a high-key treatment and that's what we ended up doing. Allison liked this photo and so did I, largely because she is very comfortable in the shot and she has a wonderful, relaxed smile. Allison ordered this photo in color and when I did some basic re-editing today, I decided to convert it to black and white, maybe because I am even more old fashioned than I used to be - I don't want you to be distracted by the bright color of her dress.I have been writing a bit about what is "real" in the last few posts and I think that this is the "real" Allison. And that's what portrait photographers should always strive to capture.

08-14-12 Hand County, South Dakota

This is another HDR (high dynamic range) photo that is actually a combination of two photos. I'm not sure I like the dramatic "rays" that seem to be streaming to the ground from the clouds because I didn't see them when I took the photo. And they look a little unreal.But they are real. The HDR process only enhances and demonstrates what the camera "sees." As I was looking at this photo, wondering whether I should post it, it occurred to me that light is to a good camera what the high pitched dog whistle is to a dog: the camera and the dog perceive things much differently than humans do. And though cameras are tuned by humans to show us what humans normally see in terms of color, brightness and contrast, software processes allow us to see an alternate reality. In this case it is an HDR photo that shows us what shadows under clouds look like.On a side note, I took this photo where I did to pay homage to my mother- and father-in-law. Years ago they had a painting hanging over their couch that was a winter scene showing a prairie that was table flat and that stretched out to infinity. My mother-in-law said the picture reminded her of home, which was Hand County, South Dakota.Though it isn't winter yet in this scene, the landscape is certainly table flat.

08-13-12 A Return To the Painted Trees

This is not the first post of these trees. But this photo offers a slightly different view and treatment. "Do they really look like that?" you ask. Well, I studied and taught philosophy just long enough to be confused by that question. So I'm not answering. . . .

08-12-12 Wonderful Web

08-11-12 The Fisherman

08-10-12 Quiet Anchorage

08-09-12 Native Grass

08-08-12 Ten Trees