Waking Dream

There are times when I can’t sleep, can’t work and can’t relax.  The photo is the result of one such time.  Taken early Wednesday morning in a Dallas hotel.  I…ummmm…borrowed the flower from a room service cart that had been left in the hallway.

Dream Flower

Nikon D90 with Nikkor 50mm.  1/40s at f/4, ISO800, Portrait Mode.   Setup on a window sill, early morning back light, shot through a window shear.  In Lightroom, adjusted light levels, brightening the scene.  Saturated the yellow and reduced clarity.  Increased contrast and yellow luminance.  Reduced green saturation.  I bumped noise reduction up to its max, adding to the softness.   Added a white vignette and feathered it into the scene.

Abstract

If I might wax philosophically: I feel a prisoner to my own declining body.  I am tired now, too tired; more tired than I can remember being in a long time.  There is a lot I want to do but I don’t have the energy.  I know this will pass.  Perhaps a good long sleep this weekend.

Geometric Abstract

Taken in Austin in August.  Nikon D90 with Tokina 12-24 at 14mm.  1/160s at f/13, ISO200, Landscape mode.

High Key Portrait

I’ve been working on high key portraits after my stint with flowers and a yellow squash.  I will be keeping my secrets of squash shooting, though.  hehehe…OK, so here is my darling daughter.  She is not as photogenic as her brother but this was her favorite photo of the morning shoot.

I placed her near a large window.  It was gray and overcast outside.  The light was very blue, bright but diffused.  I used a large, 52-inch circular white reflector on the other side.  I think the difference in intensity was about 2:1 or 3:1 towards the bright window.  I think the difference in brightness is key to making this work.  I exposed for the darker side and took several photos at various shutter speeds so as not to blow out the highlights.  I also shot this pretty much wide open so I had depth of field issues (I missed her eyes slightly but loved the look and the light).

In Lightroom, I balanced the light, reduced clarity and cropped the photo.  I then worked on the eyes, to darken them and bring some color back to them.  The bright light washed them out a little and when I darkened the eyes, I noticed the blue ring around the outside of the iris (it actually exists but I had not noticed).  My daughter calls this her portrait with the eyes.

Next, I went to work on skin color.  This looks great as a black and white but in color, you must restore the skin.  I wanted to keep the soft, dreamlike feel and in fact, my daughter insisted that I do so.  After balancing the light and color, I mask sharpened and added a bit of a dark vignette.

Nikon D90 with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8.  1/125s at f/2, ISO 160,  Portrait Mode.

High Key Daisy

To make a high key image, I needed to light the background so I placed a silver reflector behind the flower.  I setup next to a picture window on a bright but gray day so that I lit the image from the left.  I used a large gold reflector to light the image from the right.   I knew this would be a black and white, so I wanted the metallic brightness of the gold and silver without worrying about color cast.

I will try this technique again both with flowers and people.  The next time I shoot a daisy, I think I will back away and diminish the size of the flower.

Nikon D90 with Tamron 90.  1/60s at f/8, ISO100, Landscape Mode.  In Lightroom, I decreased contrast, increased fill light, decreased clarity (-100), darkened light tones and highlights, brightened dark tones, adjusted color levels and added a white, bright vignette.

Bedroom

Bedrooms should be dreamy places of calm.  I wanted to accentuate that idea in this photo and grayscale was the way.  I used a slower shutter speed in order to slightly overexpose the windows and make sure I caught the details in the room.  I accentuated the overexposed windows by reducing clarity which increased the dreamy feel of the light.  Portrait mode also helped by flattening the light and making it more ethereal.  The grayscale removed the warmth of browns in the floors and walls.  Further, I increased slightly contrast and adjusted the light levels.

As with most of these photos, I will reshoot them when the house is complete.

Nikon D90 with Tokina 12-24 at 12mm.  1/30s at f/5, ISO400, Portrait Mode.  Handheld.

Illusion

I am, as many of you know, obsessed by a dream of softness.  In pursuit of that and in contrast with the sharpness of other photos, I took this image far out of focus.  Out of focus is, well, out of focus and mostly, it looks bad.  This, however, I like.  It uses black space and creates a feeling (for me, at least) of something barely remembered; craved, perhaps.  It contains a hint of the mysterious romantic.  Perhaps even a voyueristic quality, stealing a glimpse of that which is just out of reach.

Nikon D90 with Tamron 90.  1/10s at f/4, ISO200, Landscape mode.  In Lightroom, increased black and lights, saturation.  Decreased clarity and contrast.

Dance of the Veils

I love this hibiscus.  Unlike yesterday’s shot, I wanted more depth of fieldHibis so I stepped back rather than stop down the lens.  The camera was handheld still and a breeze had picked up.  It was noon, the hibiscus shaded by part of the house.  Hibiscus love the sun but a little noontime shade in Texas never hurts.

As I watched the flower, I was struck by how light and dark mingled like swirled chocolate.  I saw the image repeated when I poured half and half into my first cup of morning coffee (it is the only time I add half and half or sugar, the rest of my coffees are black).  Finally, a friend of mine showed me photos he took of ballerinas.  They were practicing in an old warehouse and his lighting was fabulous, the swirls of motion contrasting with frozen, perfect faces.  So, yesterday, it was back to Lightroom.

In Lightroom, I desaturated the image and brightened the light parts of the flower.  I darkened the dark parts.  Then, I went to split toning where I chose a sepia shade for the dark (it is 17 on the slider, if anyone uses LR).  For the highlights, I choose more of a deep reddish purple.

Nikon D90 with Tamron 90.  1/320s at f/4, ISO160.

I think flower photography more than anything allows me the freedom to explore my imagination.  

In Nikon, the standard ISO is 200 so reducing this lowers noise but also reduces contrast, slightly.  I think it MIGHT give me a little more range of color.

Formless

I have managed to get back to the flowers.

Without form there is only light and color.  Without form and structure, we wander aimlessly, unconfined by boundries.  On the other hand, aimless wandering often leads no where.  So, how to strike a balance? I don’t know but here is to experimentation.

I look forward to getting back to other’s blogs.  I feel terribly out of touch.

Nikon D90 with Tamron 90.  1/320s at f/4, ISO160.  In Lightroom, used a graduated filter to adjust the color from upper left to lower right.  Cropped the image, luminance smoothing and added noise reduction to soften the image.

Mystery Within

“There is a point where in the mystery of existence contradictions meet; where movement is not all movement and stillness is not all stillness; where the idea and the form, the within and the without, are united; where infinite becomes finite, yet not” Rabindranath Tagore

Mr. Tagore is a very interesting man.  He was from India and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.  In photography, there is a point between the sharply defined and the softly unfocused where reality is blended with self-perception and a piece of oneself shows.. Nikon D90 with Tamron 90.  1/125s at f/2.8, ISO400, Black & White mode.  In Lightroom, used split toning to introduce small amounts of brown highlights and green dark tones, added clarity, noise reduction for smoothing and sharpened.

Dreams

I think that photos can be like dreams.  I have a recurring dream that involves soft, warm breezes blowing in through large windows.  Silk shears billow, caught in the wind and the room is bathed in a soft gray-white-brown light.   The rest of the dream is private but you have the general setting.

The dream is based on two events in my young life.  The first took place in Nice, France when I was a very young boy.  My family and I were walking along its famous promenade when I saw a woman sitting between two men.  I thought she was beautiful and as I walked past her (staring at her in that innocent way) she exhaled cigarette smoke.  In the early 1960s, smoking was not taboo.  Her face became veiled in soft, wispy smoke and it was a sight I shall never forget.

The second incident happened later, in a house in Venezuela.  It was an old house, perched on a steep hillside above the sea.  The house had no air conditioning and the windows were flung open at night.  I would fall asleep to the sound of the surf not more than 100 yards from the window.  In the morning, I would wake and see the curtains billowing and I was never sure if I was awake or dreaming.

My subconcious is obsessed with soft focus and smokey, sensual light.  So, here is a lowly vinca that my daughter planted.

Nikon D90 with Tamron 90.   1/80s at f/3.2, ISO400.  Although the camera was set to Landscape, I changed this in post processing to Portrait.  This provided a brightening of the image, making both the flower and the background brighter.  In Lightroom, I brightened the midtones further and took clarity and contrast way down so that the distinction between the flower and the background was blurred.  Using split-toning, I introduced sepia to the highlights and light blue to the background.  I combined the two colors with a bias towards the blue.  The effect is an image with a very soft focus and only a few edges sharp.  Some water drops (it’s been raining) are in focus while the rest drift off into the image but still add texture.  I am reminded of soft sheets.