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roadside dawn
The really good light for photography occurs early during these summer months, very early. With sunrise taking place just after 6:00 am, getting to a location for the really good light means being there by 6:30. Capturing the glow of the morning sun as it approached the horizon ... at least an hour earlier than that. Add travel time to the location and this can require departures while it's still dark.
I'm normally an early riser and there are many early morning images in my library ... but, as of late I've taken to "banker hours", or so a friend chided me recently. After meeting up to scout out a location that my friend had photographed many times before, the good light was gone. We were too late ... by a long shot. He had arrived early and made a couple of stunning images and I was left to snap off a few that left me wanting "the really good light".
OK, lesson learned. I need to start getting my sorry butt out of the house and off to the shooting location earlier ... as I did for this week's shot. As a matter of fact, this image was almost captured too late. The sun was over the trees and rising in a cloudless sky. The morning mist was beginning to burn off. Not to worry, we'd been out shooting for almost an hour and at least 30 minutes at this location.
I'm reminded why I love getting up and out early ...
DJE
tree & broken fence
On the hottest day of the year so far, the sun was intense and blazing down on the landscape as I made my way across the flat farmland of Southwestern Ontario. The day started with an absolutely clear sky, but clouds had formed and would provide some interest for the background in a scenic image.
A lone bare tree standing in a field caught my eye and I made a number of infrared (IR) exposures before noticing a broken section of fence to use as a foreground element. Knowing the bare tree and fence boards would render as dark, almost black in IR to contrast against the white grass and clouds, I moved to find a suitable composition including the fence and creating some depth to the image.
While setting up, I noticed the shadows from the clouds sweeping over the field and waited for a moment when their shadows were approaching the tree and sunlit fields were visible on the horizon.
DJE
Ed - In the Light II
There is a lot more to making a Black & White image from digital capture than simply setting the camera to "monochrome" and accepting what it gives you.
First off, shooting in RAW rather than jpeg gives me considerable latitude when processing the image. There are more than enough online tutorials available on this subject so I'll refrain from being redundant here. Suffice to say that I have been experimenting with some processing techniques and programs for my B&W images lately and decided to invest in some fantastic software that works with both Lightroom and Photoshop.
After installing NIK Sliver Efex Pro 2 for my B&W conversions, I was taking advantage of their online training where one tutorial used images of performing musicians to show what could be done. This gave me the idea to go back to some work I did with my cousin's band, PKK, where the strong colour cast of the stage lights was quite distracting in the colour images. The tutorial instructor was suggesting the use of Silver Efex to convert to B&W, removing colour altogether when stage lighting just can't be made to look "right".
I feel that this image of Ed, one of the band's guitarists and vocalists, is much improved with the use of a sepia monochrome conversion. I like the slight warmth retained by the sepia tone and how all but the highlights just fall into deep black background and enhance the soulful mood.
Here is the colour version of the original image for comparison.
DJE
the lookOn the way home from the Listowel recently, I saw a young daughter and her father working at the end of the lane to their farmhouse. I had passed by but decided to turn around and grab a few images. By the time I got back they had moved quite a way from the road. My 70-200 did not have enough reach for the composition I wanted so this is a significant crop.
The heat haze and a bit 'o post gave me what I was going for ... of course the little lady provided "the look".
Opportunities like this are precisely why I always travel with a camera. It may not be my DSLR with a full range of lenses, but I can say that I never knowingly or willingly travel without at least a compact digital camera. As it happened, I had a photo backpack with some of my better gear with me on this occasion and as already stated, even that did not provide the framing I wanted for this image ... so I made use of the digital darkroom and cropped the portion of the image I visualized at capture.
I made few other exposures of the rural Ontario scene before me, trusting that I was able to capture what I needed in a couple of images. The subjects were retreating up the lane to the farm house and quickly, the moment of interest passed.
up the lane
DJE
jelly beans in the rain
Jelly Bean Row is not a specific street or block of houses rather a term used to describe the groupings of colourful houses in St. John's, Newfoundland.
There are ares in the city where they are sparse and others where they extend along the block on both sides of the road. Some are freshly painted, many are weathered and in need of considerable TLC.
With only a few days in St. Johns and many sights to see in the area, I left photographing these unique structures until our last day and as luck would have it, in the rain. We walked for blocks, turning corners, crossing streets enjoying the kaleidoscope of colour.
DJE
