A Word on Digital Photography

A Bit of New York Photoshop

2009-03-25T16:36:00.004-04:00

Having fun with the photos you took can be slightly daunting. The idea of irreparably damaging a photo you though was good trying to make it better can be tough.

Luckily, google has given us Picasa that allows us to tweak to our hearts extent without damaging the original. If you like the "improvements" you've made. Well you can go ahead and save them as new files
Isn't technology fun?

Match Day

2009-03-25T16:24:00.004-04:00

One of the quirkier Med School traditions is Match Day. To come clean they are all quirky / odd to some extent. From going on stage to have some throw a white coat over you to the tear jerked faces of your loved ones all the way to the televised showmanship of Match Day. 4 years of hard work has prepared you to open your heart out.. in front of an audience of hundreds... to the soundtrack of Kayne West...

...its just all a bit odd.

Either way it is a day full of emotion.

Before

During

After

Tilt-shift photos

2009-03-25T00:53:00.009-04:00

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

This is an amazing and awesome video my friend Pete showed me today

My friend Sam showed me this website:

http://tiltshiftmaker.com/

The above photo took about 20 seconds to make after one practice. Have a go. It may make a boring photo look really cool.

You can purchase an actual tilt shift lens if you want to. Unfortunately they come in around $1500 each.

I would suggest start saving now!

New York, New York

2009-03-24T16:56:00.002-04:00

This last weekend, I went to New York.... The Big Apple....New Amsterdam?

We spent most of the weekend in Manhattan and really that is enough for me.

Whenever anyone goes to New York for the first time, there are always a few obligatory visits that a tourist must make. The Statue of Liberty is no exception. Standing tall in the harbour she is a beautiful sculpture as well as engineering masterpiece.

Of course, having spent enough years at OSU, you start seeing OHIO everywhere. Lucky Lady Liberty helped us out with this one.

Once you visit the statue the next port of call is Ellis Island. A port of mass immigration, it is testament both to the early 20th century immigrants that flooded the US as well as the country they entered. It really brings home the multicultural aspects of the USA that are commonly forgotten by foreign nationals. There are certainly ignorant sections of any society, but the Americans get universally stereotyped by theirs. When a country such as America forgets and stops telling the story of its immigrants, it will be a truly sad day.

One of the things I noticed the most about Manhattan is the amount of skyscrapers and glass in the city. Buildings almost blend together and you loose your self in the sea of glass. You may be even forgiven if you loose track where one building starts and the other ends

New York (faces)

2009-03-24T16:54:00.004-04:00

So here is a bunch more photos i took in New York. They are all more facial based photos and I thought I would bunch them all together in one group. I will try and put it all in some sort of order with a little info on each.

Believe it or not we start with this gentleman. Getting up in the (what feels like) sub zero temperatures we made our way to see Lady Liberty. This was the first character to greet us. A good mannered busker with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of American towns. Manly from decades of experience I think over a miss-spent childhood.

We are then brought to Lady Liberty herself, staring out looking for the freedom from those English tyrants. The tour guide joked with the French tourists thanking them for her. I joked back that he can thank me for his freedom from our tyranny.

My Jokes never go down too well all the time.

We now actually get to the Met. (Metropolitan museum of art). There Egypt exhibit was fascinating. More or less their entire exhibit is a gift from Egypt for helping preserve many archaeological sites.

That is a much more commendable act than how we populated the British Natural History Museum. I guess when you are an Empire, its not technically looting. Still, not the best thing the British had ever done. Definitely not the worst!

Having left the Egyptian section we randomly chanced upon the most random of parts of the museum. A hotch-potch collection of sculptures, paintings and artifacts. It also included this lady who reminded me of the girl from Goldfinger. She seems more at peace though.

My favourite part of the exhibits as the modern art section. Here we have a self portrait within an untitled piece by Anish Kapoor from 2007. It certainly made you feel happy that you were not a fly.

Of course my fiancee had to look meaner than Chairman Mao. I guess Warhol was a bit too kind or I'm in for a tough marriage!

Oh yes. After leaving the Met we saw this creepy mime / ballet dancer. She looks happy but crazy. At least she is happy though.....

Spring is here!

2009-03-08T23:54:00.005-04:00

OK, so this is a bit of a bold statement. However there are several clues that may bring a logically minded person to this conclusion.

1. It has been over 60 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend

2. Buttercups are out for all to see.

So it seems that my declaration of spring is a tad preemptive. With 12 inches of snow at the beginning of April last year it seems I may be counting my chicks before they are hatched. Before I had come to the US I had never heard the term "Indian Summer". Apparently it refers to a time in November / December when after a cold spell, the temperature climbs almost to T-shirt/shorts weather. I guess it refers to some Native American (First Nation) thing. I will have to ask a Yank! I hope this is no Indian Spring!

Either way point 2 was easily to be seen today. In Overbrook ravine the buttercups are all out for everyone to see. Full knowing that more cold weather is on the way I thought I would snap a few pics.

It was only last week that I discovered Overbrook and it is fast becoming one of my favourite ravines.

By the way, this was the moon tonight. As you can see it is almost full. I think I like it the most when it is half or a crescent. You can the craters a lot more!

270mm (effective 405mm), f6.3, 1/160 sec, ISO 200

ISO Speed / Shutter Speed

2009-03-05T00:19:00.003-05:00

Tonight I thought i would compare ISO speed with shutter speed. I took 9 pictures of the moon. There were 3 different ISO speeds: 200, 400, 800 and 3 different shutter speeds: 1/80, 1/100, 1/125 seconds. From the picture it seems thats the best result came with the lowest ISO and a corresponding shutter that neither over or under exposed the moon.

All pictures were taken with a 270mm lens at f6.3

New Lens

2009-03-04T12:25:00.004-05:00

On friday of last week, I got myself a new lens. Its a 18 to 270mm Tamron DiII lens. Its awesome for 2 reasons.

1. The vibration reduction. I love this stuff. It really allows me more freedom with hand held shots. Its a big weighty lens but it is so versatile.

2. That extra 70mm on top of my 55 to 200mm lens now gives an effective zoom up to 405mm.
Apparently its the worlds first x15 zoom. It does a good job with close up pictures as well.

Either way I had a wonderful mouth surgery on Monday so unfortunately I was put out of commission. I took my lens to Tang Soo Do. Now usually I am not a big fan of the photos I take at martial arts events, however I really like this photo. Derek is, at times, the epitome of stillness. It was line drill and everyone was doing Ee Dan Ahp Cha Ki . I.E. Jumping front kick, Derek waited for the person in front of him so to give himself space. The resulting picture gives him a motionless quality.

20mm // f3.5 // 1/20sec // Exp -0.7

I have always wanted to get a really good photo of a Red Cardinal. They are the state bird of Ohio and this the best one so far!

270mm // f6.3 // 1/500sec

The moon is a very cool....moon! Its fun to watch it go through its cycle from day to day. These are my first attempts with the new lens to photograph it. Unfortunately even a 270mm lens is just not enough to get the moon in any good resolution.

270mm // f6.3 // 1/100sec

Put on a jumper and have a cup of tea

2009-02-11T12:30:00.009-05:00

I don't know if you have noticed but it snowed a bit last week, it was also a bit nippy out as well. As temperatures plummeted to around 0 Fahrenheit or ~ -18 Celsius it really did feel like winter was here and had us by the balls!

Hayden Run Falls

The falls

Woodworm showing its work

Graffiti above the falls

I have already put up a few photos that I took around Hayden Run falls. Along with those I went out not long after an ice storm to take a few snaps. Unfortunately due to the bitter cold and the simple fact that snow is awful to photograph, I did not get a lot of good ones. Being so white and reflective, snow just doesn't do it for me. Anyhow here is a selection of fun photos that I took!

Glen Echo Park

A snowy stream bed

A snowy stream bed

Wind blown snow on a tree

Misc

A frosty morning after the snow started melting

Speaking of melting snow

Wintery RPAC lighting

Icy Dumpster

Icy outside light

The heaviest snow fall on a bench!

The moon with an OSU building in the foreground

Big Sky

Bringing a friend to Hayden Run Falls

2009-01-25T17:12:00.008-05:00

One of the reasons I like photography so much is how personal it is. Not only do you create a record or image of a particularly memorable moment or beautiful image but you also get to add your personality to it. Not only do you invest your time and expertize in making it but like those early movies of native americans who are afraid having their photograph taken will steal their soul, it seams more of the reverse, you invest more of your soul in taking the photograph.

Either way I like to take photographs by myself. I have taken photographs with my fiancee. She is not a photogragher (in the sense that does not like to take photos at all!). Generally after 10 to 15 min she gets bored and that makes me feel bad. She does not want to be there and I'm keeping her from something else.

For the second time I went out taking photos with my friend Megan. She has a lovely Cannon SLR and is still in the process of learning how to use it. I took her to Hayden Run Falls. The pervious week has been frigidly cold but the previous day had warmed up. I was expecting it to either been frozen or completely melted. Instead it was half way inbetween, which is nicer than the previous time I visited it when it was bone dry.

Either way it was an hour and a half of fun. Not knowing the full way the Cannons work, I could not help her as much as I could have. Either way I think we learnt something. She learnt a few new things about her camera and I learnt that although I can teach chemistry, teaching photography is much harder!

Please enjoy a wintery Hayden Run Falls

Halloween and coins

2009-01-19T15:37:00.007-05:00

So, this year my fiancee and I carved Pumkins for halloween. We sat outside on a chilling evening with a bowl full of "candy" and as we carved pumkins we handed it out to children tick or treating down the street. The really funny thing that happened, happened next morning. As I drove to work I saw that "youths" had be out and about that very evening. It seems that they took people's jack 'o' lanterns and either smashed them or placed them in roads for cars to hit. Now here is the interesting part. They left mine alone but took my fiancee's. Im not saying hers did not look as nice as mine, but she has a tiny bit less patience than me and so it did not take as long. I find it so interesting that kids out there who ARE destructive, can still recognise effort put in to carving a pumkin and have the respect to leave it alone!

The English Mint released last year a new set of coins for use by the general public. Together a 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 pence pieces display the Royal Standard. Now if anyone finds a 50 pence piece. Please send it to me! The bottom is sorely missing!

Odd Knick Knacks

2009-01-19T14:21:00.004-05:00

I have a thing about taking pictures of people reading books! Plus I seem to sake random phots which I just think are kinda cool.

Picture Book

Wordy Book

The Golden Highway

A digitally enhanced Aligator (contrast and saturation)

My nieces

2009-01-19T14:14:00.002-05:00

are growing up. I rarely see them as they live in a different country. Every time I see them I make sure to get just a few really niced photos. Lovely photos that my family could hopefully cherrish. Here are a few I took at Christmas.

A homage to

2009-01-19T14:10:00.002-05:00

To my friend Jeremy. Im sure he was not the first to do this, but I learnt the trick from him.

I hope you like it!

Fire.

2009-01-19T13:58:00.003-05:00

Its great!

Looks awesome and functional (cooks things!) . Very.... Elemental!

Cats are cute! (IMHO)

2009-01-19T13:21:00.001-05:00

Its true! I will fight anyone who says otherwise. Now Ok there are a few d-bag cats out there! I will admit that. However generally cats are GREAT! If my fiancee was not so alergic to them I would get one. Instead, I do not touch them when we are around them and I wash my hands 50 times a day.

It almost feels like having an affair. Imagine this:

You are over at a fiends house. They have a cat. The fiancee is in another city or zip code (whichever rule you use) and you can stroke the cat! These times I enjoy, yet feel like I am being bad.

As long as I was my clothes and shower straight afterwards its ok! Isn't it?

Here are some of the cats my fiancee doesnt know about.

There's a few more kicking around my hard disk somewhere...

Here they are!

Fall arrived and then went

2009-01-19T12:44:00.000-05:00

Yes, it is true. Fall came and went all in the time between 2 blogs. How can this be so? Is it some strange quantum paradox that caused time to disappear like sand down an obsideon bathtube?

No. I got lazy and didnt blog for 3 months.

My Bad!

Anyway, here is a selection of the autumnal colours that you may have missed!

I never know what these things are, but the ants love them!

The fall leaves covered the ground one morning before I left...

...then a few days later after a hard frost.

I guess this is becoming one of my signiture shots. Looking at leaves on a tree. I will try and put some older ones up later.

I really liked these trees! I felt it was like a stoplight of colour. It was so hard to get a deep enough depth of focus, so I went for not trying at all.

New Years Resolution

2009-01-19T10:30:00.004-05:00

To get my blogging back up to speed!

So from my last blog in October. I have been quite busy. Up to Christmas I was preparing for my General Exam in my graduate carrier here at OSU. Unfortunately / Fortunately I has a discussion wih my supervisor the day before Christmas Eve and during this time 2 points were raised.

1. My decreasing level of productivity

2. My increasingly depressed outlook on life here in graduate school.

I had to deciede whether a PhD is really worth the pain, because in organic chemistry it is really pain.

I decieded it was not.

Only a small percentage of people get a doctorate and although I feel I am bright enough. In America that is not enough. You have to WANT it enough. I am now writing up my Masters thesis, (this will be my second) applying for jobs in Columbus and planning my wedding. While I have a lot on my plate. I already feel much happier.

I didnt stop taking photos. I can only appologise for the 3 or so months since my last blog. I will trying and show the best of the last 3 months in a relativley chronological order!

Martial Art Expo Night

2008-10-01T23:21:00.001-04:00

Here are some pictures from the night!

Some sort of Cambodian Kickboxing

Wushu

Shotokan Karate

I had a lot of problems with the low light. My 55-200mm lens is nice but even with the flash I was shooting on 1/60 - 1/80 of a second. I would have shot with my 55mm fixed lens at a lower f-stop (f-1.8) but with no motor in the camera, manual focusing would be tedious. Oh the follies of the Nikon D40. I still think I got some good photos anyhow.

The Wedding Song

2008-09-29T15:17:00.000-04:00

For the past few months it has felt like I have been going to a lot of weddings. So much so, that I now feel a song running through my head. It is called the wedding song and is very closely related to the Doom Song that is sung by a schizophrenic robot in the cartoon Invader Zim.

Invader Zim - the doom song by G.I.R.

For all those people who did not know, Invader Zim was a cartoon which had a small run on Nickelodeon.

Weddings are over now until my own in April. Its sad but true. I will miss them. I am still trying to convince my fiancee to let me take some pictures at our wedding!

Vogue - strike the pose!

Baby Got back - always a firm favourate!

Jenny and Scott

Friedrich Nietzsche

2008-09-21T22:33:00.000-04:00

When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

This is one of Nietzsche's most famous quotes. It is lovingly brought out for more or less every superhero movie made. Peter Parker and Bruce Wayne both have had that troubling tendency that the more they fight crime, the more the criminal they become.

This past weekend I went to a lovely wedding in Sandusky, OH. Well known for it's roller coasters, less well known for its wedding venues, Sandusky is truly small town Ohio, along with all the towns we passed through to get there!

The wedding was delightful and as always I took my camera. So while most people enjoyed their time dancing. I enjoyed a good chunk of my time taking photographs. The Groom later said (quite drunkenly) that he already thought my photos would be better than the photographers he hired. This was of course followed by a Jagger Bomb. This we will have to see. One of the things I talked about earlier in my blog was that I didn't like taking photos of people, especially posed ones. I loved the candid photograph. Now a few weddings down the line I feel a lot more comfortable with the candid shot.

I am now standing at the edge, staring into the abyss. I think the abyss is staring back into me.

Another fine Nietzsche quote is this:
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.

My personal adaptation for this weekend would be:
He who emulates wedding photographers might take care lest he thereby become a wedding photographer.

Now the real question I have for you is this....

....is it really such a bad thing?

Ike comes to Columbus

2008-09-15T10:45:00.000-04:00

Last night at around 4pm I was traveling back to Columbus from Cleveland. Unfortunately the drive was made all the harder by very gusty winds that were blowing us off the road.

Arriving back in Columbus, we came off the interstate highway and headed for my house. As I looked out my window I could see people moving about. As we neared my house I spotted a couple who were covering over their back windscreen with plastic. It just then occured to me that a branch had been blown off a tree and went straight through their window. My mind then went directly to my car which had been sitting below a tree as well. As I got closer to my house I held my breath. Luckily my car was undamaged. Branches had been blown off the tree but happily lay on the other side, my car was safe!

The very thing I did was to move it onto the street well away from any trees. After wishing my fiancee and her family goodbye I was left to my house, getting dark, with no electricity. This is was then the most interesting thing happened to me. I went outside and looked around. There were all my neighbours milling about and talking. It seems that having moved into a new neighbourhood, the best way to meet people is to have a storm come through.

Wandering back to my house after a few minutes of chatting I heard a giant crack and looking down the street I saw a large tree give it up and collapse about a block away. It fell on 3 houses and took out the power lines going to or from my house.

I, of course, took my camera down there. It seems that the power line that had been cut was in fact still live and with however many volts that coursed through it, it was setting on fire anything it touches.
The police came about an hour or so after it happened. Apparently all the 911 lines were jammed in Columbus. They closed off the area and for me my opportunity to see anything had come to an end. I returned to my house, opened a beer and learnt a new dice game called Farkle from a man called Fro. He is a musician who plays a 1977 Minimoog. By the end of the night, I felt like I was in an almost surreal world. Columbus was the same but different.

This morning rosey fingered dawn woke me in my bed, I got up and I assessed the damage the power line caused and I have to say I was suitably impressed.

Almost 24hrs on from when the storm hit, I would like to thank Ike for a fun Sunday night. Power is not expected to be returned to Wednesday or Thursday. We will have to see if I am enjoying myself at that point. With no electricity, I have no means to keep my freezer food cold, I have no way to cook and no traffic lights are working. This will be an interesting few days...

Glen Echo Park Revisited

2008-09-10T22:25:00.000-04:00

I went back there this evening about 5pm with my tripod. Considering it is probably the least impressive stream I have seen this is not coming out of an overflow pipe I think I took a couple of corking snaps IMHO. The hard part now is finding a stream worthy of abilities.

I must say though, going in without Wellington Boots (Rain Boots for the Yanks) was a poor show. I will have to purchase a pair at some point. The most dissapointing thing is that Argyl boots are not easy to come by. Lets face it, Im not going to settle for Hunters!

Above photos are taken with a 50mm lens, F-22, ISO 200, 1-2s. Tripod, remote and wet shoes

Glen Echo Park

2008-09-08T23:49:00.000-04:00

So tonight I ventured out to Glen Echo Park.

I approached the ravine from the most westerly side (on the left next to Tim Hortons!) Unfortunately I was greeted with a not too friendly "Trespassers will be prosecuted" sign and a lot of construction work.

Following the ravine up Arcadia, I looked for entrances. Unfortunately it looked all too steep and I could not see a single path into the ravine. It was not until I reached Indianola Ave that I found an entrance. Taking a flight of steps down from the road I entered a half light world hidden beneath the hustle and bustle of city life. Mighty trees towered out from the ravine floor only to be overshadowed by those up on city level that surround everyday housing. Unfortunately due to the lateness in the day. the light was poor and getting darker by the minute.

The nice thing about photography is that usually when the lighting for one subject is lousy, it is perfect for another. So it was that I found my way out a clearing in the most easterly part of the ravine and into the the stream that ran through it. With a high f-stop, a low ISO and an exposure time of around 1 to 2 seconds I started to take photos of the stream. now with a long exposure, the stream and flowing water takes on an ethereal quality. The biggest problem I faced was to get my camera close enough without a proper tripod (because I forgot it!) without dropping my camera in the water. Luckily in my bag I had a cheap grippy mini tripod which allowed me to sit the camera only inches above the rocks and snap away. I think I will have to come back in better light with some decent equipment next time. It was a lot of fun, even if it was a bit daunting

My Cameras

2008-09-07T23:04:00.000-04:00

I have recently found out that I'm a bit of a hoarder. Firstly in the move from my old house to my new, I found that I had collected together a lot of stuff. Enough in fact to fill a 17ft truck almost to bursting. During the last week I have spent unpacking I found something from a long time ago. My first digital camera. Back in the day (which was a wednesday - FF) when digital cameras started to make their first appearance in the consumer marketplace I had very little money. My friend simon was lucky enough to buy a Canon IXUS, the predecessor to the very popular powershot, I however did not have 300 or 400 pounds to spend on a digital camera. I decieded to splurge on a 30 pound camera. It was very much the most basic camera that could be found, but it was mine and I loved it. At least for a year. The pictures could not be stored for very long before they corrupted. They also were 0.1 megapixel!

L'espiron Digital Dream - $60 equivalent - 0.1 megapixels -2001

Sam and Emily, York, 2001

A few years later I started my industrial masters with a company close to Middleborough (the industrial north east of England). When I was there my parents bought me a digital camera for my birthday. I really wanted a Canon IXUS, because after 3 years of being close to one I knew how good they were. Instead I got a n Olympus. This was certainly a step up. x3 optical zoom, 4.0 megapixels. I had lots of fun and I took it with me so much (and dropped it so much) I had to recently fix it with a steel reinforced epoxy resin (it was a bit excessive).

Olympus C460 - $300 equivalent - 4.0 megapixel - 2004

Moulton, County Durham, 2004

Then of course I got to grad school. For the first year I had no moneypits - no cable, no internet, no car! I could save money. As most people know, after saving money comes spending money. While in Target this bridge camera caught my eye. At last I could choose my ISO, choose my aperture and shutter speeds. I could even manually focus to a limited extent. These were the heady days of learning how to use my camera. I really enjoyed playing with this camera. It still has a firm place in my heart still.

Fujifilm S5200 - $420 - 5.1 megapixel - 2006

Pilot Mountain, North Carolina - 2007

In the last couple years my fujifilm served me well, however the more played with it, the more I found it had limitations that limited me! I wanted it to do something that it could not do. I bought several add on lenses that helped but nothing could fix a high f-stop, grainy high ISO's or a too short shutter speed. I got married and as a return engagement present my fiancee bought me a Nikon D40 (via my encouragement). I love this camera. I have yet to find its limitations. Even then I think these I could live with, until at least I start earning more money and can afford a nicer body. The future starts here...

Nikon D40 - $800 and growing - 6.1 megapixel - 2008

Old swing, Cincinnati, 2008

North Columbus Ravines

2008-09-04T11:55:00.000-04:00

So recently I moved house. In the last 3 or so years I have lived in the USA I have found out something about myself. I dont like walking places.

Every time I travel back to the UK, I walk more than I ever used to. I love to explore & wander round. However in the USA the car is king. With so many streets and so many cars it has almost made me not want to venture out into the wide unknown.

One of the more exciting things about my new house is that I now live much closer to a group of ravines. These have remained almost completely undeveloped. I hardly knew about these until I read an article about them in a columbus buisness magasine. The closest is Glen Echo Park. The ravine extends from the Olentangy river across to Interstate 71, all in all the ravine is about a mile (1500m) in length.

In the next few weeks I hope to bring some digital photos of these ravines especially in fall. I will post up all the good ones.

Glen Echo Park

Iuka Park

Walhalla Rd Area

Overbrook Rd Area

You can thank google for the pics.

BBC In Pictures

2008-09-03T12:03:00.000-04:00

Coming from Britain, I like British things.

Tea (in moderation), bland food (supposedly), ales and of course the BBC.

Now for those who don't know the Bitish Broadcasting Corperation is a publicly funded buisness that supplies to and answers tp the British people. Firstly they get money from a licencing system. To watch TV in the UK you must purchase a licence to watch it. This will set you back ~$250 a year. How do they enforce this? They have men in trucks drive around houses who dont own licences. If the detect the x-rays produced from the cathoray tubes in your TV, they will come in and have a look. Sounds like its straight out of 1984 right?

So what do you get for this draconian system? A news service second to none, 4 channels of commercial free tv, 8+ radio stations and quality programming such as The Office and Top Gear.

I did not realise how different it is from the USA. Its hardcore that you have to pay even if you want to watch only the free commercial channels not owned by the BBC! Now, Im pleased I dont have to sit through commercials every 7.5min but its a bit excessive. Plus on top of that they have to by law, publish a statement every year telling the British people how they spent their money. I would estimate it to be ~$2billion.

One of the many things I like about the BBC is the news. It has that British feel I have become so accustom to. Unlike MSNBC or CNN or any other of those american news programs (Except the Daily Show and the Colbert Report) it doesnt make me want to crawl into a hole cover my head in sand and shoot anything that approaches.

Their news website is very good, especially for those looking for a global view of what is going on.

Almost daily I visit the In Pictures website. It has the best pictures taken that day from around the world. Not really very much related to the news, but there are some corking photos that come up. I would advise anyone to log on and have a look. You might be inspired. The next time something is happening near you, take a camera and a few quick snaps. Luckily I live in Ohio. Nothing much happens here...

In Pictures

BBC News

In the Lab.

2008-08-27T13:56:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately in the last week or so I have been packing up my belongings up so that I can move this weekend to a new townhouse about 2.5 miles further north. I would tell you all about it but that would take too long and I dont want to bring up the headache it was looking for a new place.

Bunsen Burner

Vacuum Pump

With most of my spare time devoted to sorting out the treasures from the trash I have not really had much time to take photos. I thought about trying to take photos of my packing. All I can say is that you must be a very good artist to make the boxes I have at home look interesting.

Reaction in progress

HPLC

At least 3 days a week I take my camera with me to work. Now work is not that interesting, but I have endevoured to make it interesting. I work in a chemistry lab and although most people think about a Dr Frankenstein lab with beakers overflowing with bubbling broths, it is in fact a different matter and for me a much harder place to photograph. However over the last few days I have been trying to get some interesting photos around the lab. I hope you like what I took.

Reaction under vacuum

Nature in Macro

2008-08-18T22:10:00.000-04:00

I really do like taking pictures of the natural world. Here are a few pictures of the natural world around me using my Fujifilm S5200. I believe all these pictures are taken using my macro lense addition. I hope you like them as much as I do!

Grass

Early developed Pine Cone

My Garden

Daffodils at OSU

Leaf

Digital Manipulation

2008-08-13T20:31:00.000-04:00

So if you read my profile on my photo website you should come across this:

About Me:
I prefer not to adjust the photos I take. What comes out of the viewfinder is what ends up on the page. So what you see is what my eye sees. I will only crop and rotate when necessary. Sometimes sections are decoloured to emhasise others. That is all the digital manipulation I like to do.

About a month or so ago I downloaded and installed Picassa. Now Picassa is a cool program. Google developed it. It is a bit invasive in the fact that it will search your entire hard disk looking for photos, however once installed its really nice. You can drag and drop files between folders. The really nice thing about Picassa is that i got to play with a few "photoshop" applications. Mainly some contrast and colour adjustments. I have been using The Gimp for a few years now (a freware vertion of photoshop). I just found it a bit labourious to adjust each photo and save a new copy. Picassa allows you to make as many changes as you want, but the cool thing is that it is within the program so that no permanent changes are made. You can of course save either high res or lower res for blogging of what changes you have made. This has made adjusting photos a lot more accessable and a lot more fun. I will leave it up to you to see what you think of how I have adjusted the photos.

Reeds outside Krone Conservatory, Cincinnati Ohio

Ice on the outside of my car window, Columbus Ohio

Lake District, Cumbria

Aligator in Kiawah, South Carolina

Youth and Maturity

2008-08-10T13:34:00.000-04:00

I'm now solidly in my mid 20's, 26 come january in fact and I've started to notice a few things.

More and more of my friends are getting married and having babies

My metabolism has slowed and my beer gut has increased.

I've found more and more of my friends are acting more like adults than "young adults".

What do I mean my adults vs. young adults? Especially when I was young I felt that when you hit 18 you can imediately call yourself an adult! However I look back at myself then and my friends now who are a few years younger than me and I see that limitless energy that I once had. Where has it gone? Can I ask it to come back to me? Or will it leave me forever like a jilted lover?

Now for those people out there who feel that I have unfairly labeled them adults when they will prefer to the young adults still - I'm sorry.

Anyway back to the story.

This weekend I went to a "training day" for my martial art. We call it a gup clinic but you get the picture. we were up at 6.30 or there abouts and we were done training at 5pm. So all in all it was a long day playing with swords and throwing kicks into mid air! There was about 150 people there training and I would say that close to 50 or more made it out to a picnic afterwards. And this is where I started to see the youth divide. Some of the young adults were still pumped from the day. Although still tired, they had energy to burn. Then there were some of slighly older friends who while still being active - were deceidedly less buzzing with energy. The more I think about it, the more I feel like an adult, 8 years on from when I first started thinking this. Was I wrong back then? Am I wrong now? The more mistakes I make and the more I learn, I could see how I could feel myself becoming more of an adult. Maybe being an adult is a completely subjective thing like appreciation of a photograph. One of the many things I know about my friends is that being an adult is more a choice than anything. Some retain that youthful energy long past me and there are others who have chosen a calmer route.

Youthful Energy

Tranquil Adulthood

Martial Arts and Goodbyes

2008-08-08T13:07:00.000-04:00

It was a sad day yesterday.

I have been doing martial arts on and off for six years now. I started in the second year of my undergrad. There was a "fair" going on in one of the gyms of my university. I wondered round looking at people sporting a variety of equipment and neoprene. I always grew up wanting to practice some type of martial art and this was the day I wanted to start. I first saw a Karate demo in which people were punching other peoples faces until they bled. This was not for me. I then saw Tae Kwon Do doing theit stuff. I was imediately mesmorized by one of the students who had a mowhawk that was shaped just so that it could poke through his headguard. This was not for me.
At last I came to the Judo table and there was Dan, a slight fellow who was very nice. We talked about judo, he told me about the rules - no hitting (good!) and how useful it is. Did you know that 90% of fights end on the ground and judo is 50% ground fighting!

Dan and Nick (OMG) - 2002 APS 24mm

The Club was then run by 2 students Dan and Nick. Dan, a budding photojournalist and Nick, a budding bouncer / national short stick champion. This was a great start for me. A year later Nick had left and Dan and I were runnning the club.

York Uni Judo Club - 2003 APS 24mm*

I faded out of the martial arts world when I left my undergrad city of York. Reaching the level just before the transition to black belt. I started Judo again when I got to Ohio State, but it was not the same and I soon left.

Dan and me - 2004 APS 24mm*

A year or so later my friend Nico introduced me to Tang Soo Do, a tradional Korean martial art a lot like Karate or Tae Kwon Do. This was where I began to notice that the clubs that had turned me off before were not the arts themselves but the way the particular club was run. Martial arts areeally good for me as a photographer is that I can get some cool photos of some cool stuff.

8 second exposure - he broke 30 1 inch concrete blocks in 10 seconds. Awesome!

The 2007 Masters Extravaganza was in Valparasio IN.

What is sad is that the more martial arts I do, the more the people I train with begin to feel like a family. Yesterday my friend Lindsay took her last regular class at Buckeye Tang Soo Do, she is moving to North Carolina and it makes me sad. So I thought I would dedicate this post to her!

One of the nicer pictures I got of Lindsay

Tang Soo Do Yondanja

Lindsay had to spar everyone in the club including our instructor!

A Bunch of idiots!*

*I unfortunately did not takes these photos as I am in them - Can you spot me in every one?

Candid Photography

2008-08-04T11:31:00.000-04:00

Ok. Its been a while since I last posted. About 3 weeks. I could ask if you missed me, but I'm pritty sure you did not. I cant be blogging long enough to be missed.

Either way, last week I got accused of blog fading. Well it was kind of true wasnt it? I started off so well, and then slowly the days creep on and on and before you know it.

Shazam!

It's 3 weeks later. Either way in the last few weeks I have been productive with my new camera.

I have come to the conclusion that I started off this blog as a way to teach and impart knowledge to other people on the art and science of photography.

Seriously who am I kidding? Being a teacher is a lot of work. I dont want to start a curriculam, grade tests. Have people expect things from me. This all seems like a lot of work.

So instead I think I will change tact a bit. Im going to to blog every time I go and take a bunch of good photos and want to tell you, the viewing public, all about them.

So here we are back at my title - Candid photography.

I like it. I prefer images that show a part of the personality or a moment in time that is not being controlled by the subject. I want them to forget that the camera is there. Sometimes hard as its kinda big.

I attended a wedding a few weeks ago and what is awesome about a wedding where you are a guest of someone invited is that alomst no one cares about you - especially the people getting married. This allows you to be ignored, which most of the time annoys me, however for these purposes is nice. What was also funny is that my camera starts to rival in size and complexity some of the wedding photographers out there. It feels like turning up to watch a formula 1 race in a formula 3000 car! If this doesnt work for you - you can make your own one up!

Also I did notice a few days ago that animals are awesome. I have yet to find an animal that poses for pictures. I think if I was to hang around with monkeys or dolphins I might expierence it but I dont think that is likely.
Last friday I went out with a couple of friends who also a fan of the DSLR. I would have to say there an above average number of nice cameras around. What was nice was that after a few minutes everyone relaxed and I manged to get a photo that is rapidly becoming one of my favourate to date. I really like it as I feel like I captured a moment in time. What is also great is that I had it on manual focus which makes me all the more proud.

The first 2 photos I took with my 2oomm zoom lens with the inbuilt flash. The following 3 were using my fixed 50mm lens with a low f stop = 1.8. The low f-stop give a nice low depth of field for the cat portrait and for the last 2 it was great that I did not need a flash in a low light condition.

Abstract photography

2008-07-16T13:06:00.000-04:00

Bed and Lamp

So when I moved in with my current flatmate several things happened. One of these things was that i got more cable channels and DVR. DVR is awesome just inc ase you didn't know. One day I was flicking channels and I came across a tv show called The Genius of Photography. It was on the OvationTV channel. I recorded it and set it to record the entire series. I eventualy found out that it was a BBC program to begin with. ( No wonder I liked it so much!)

Inside a Brazil Nut husk

Episode 2 (Documents for Artists) covered several influential photographers. One was Man Ray. An eary work of Man Ray was L'Elevage de Poussière (Dust Breeding) (1920). His instructor, Marcel Duchamp had left a glass plate covered with lead lines to gather dust. Man Ray's job was to take a picture of it. This abstract image causes you to loose perspective and allows the mind to wonder.Some may consider that at this point the image starts to show relation to the Dada and Surrealist movements.

Beer

In this vein I have tried on occation to take photos that lack perspective and allow the mind to wander.

My Arm, Static Electricity, TV

Ice on window

OSU School of Architecture

My God! It's full of stars!

2008-07-13T15:10:00.000-04:00

Firstly 2010 was a good movie in my opinion. I thought about going with the Moby song about stars but settled on a fairly obscure film reference. Previously I had talked about taking pictures of stars and night time photography and I will like to come back to this now.

Since I got my D40 I have driven my fiancee stir crazy while Im out at odd hours of the night hanging around a camera. It started while on holiday in South Carolina. Somehow the A.C. fan had been turned off.

Everyone else was fine. I was far too hot. Sitting in a stuffy house I tried to sleep but ended up getting up, taking my D40 with me and scurrying outside. Luckily (?) it was 4am and most of the lights were off. Walking through the pitch black path, not thinking about all the aligators that may be lurking around I found a car park (parking lot). It took me a while to figure out that my camera will not take a picture on Autofocus if it cant focus. Unfortunately stars are too dim to focus on. Even with my 4am tired eyes I did manage to get 1 photo in focus.

As you can see I had no clue where the north star (polaris) was. The next few nights I moved my photography down to the beach where at least half the sky was dark. A lengthy time was spent searching for the plough (ursa major), finding that I used it to find draco and then eventually ursa minor which contains polaris at its tail. Here is the best photo I got. 18mm, f-4.5, 1190 sec ISO 400.

Unfortunately you can see the light polution bleeding through over 20min

July 4th fireworks

2008-07-10T09:09:00.000-04:00

In 2005 my brother got married. It just so happened that there were fireworks that night and many of the guests went out to look at the fireworks. holding by hand my olympus point and shoot I started to try and snap away a few photos with Cardiff Castle keep in the foreground. Eventually I got one, however with a poor shutter lag and no tripod, oh how I love a good tripod, it was near impossible to get a good one.

Almost every july 4th is spent in South Carolina for me. In 2006 I had my olympus with a tripod and tried to take a few snaps of the fireworks. However still, the shutter lag was not great and physically pressing the camera added shake to the photos in the low light conditions.

This year I was a man on a mission to get some good photos. DSLR, tripod, remote. All added up to this.

Beaches

2008-07-07T11:03:00.000-04:00

This past week I have been in South Carolina on holiday. For the past 4 years my finacee and I have gone down to the beach with her family. The sole purpose of this holiday for her is to read books. As many books as she can. Growing up I remembered my brother during the summer holidays reading books, not playing with me.

Did I mention that I dont like reading books.

The first few years I went stir crazy. Every member of her family sits down and reads all day with the exception of a few who read half the time and play Batchi Ball the other half.

I play as much Batchi Ball as I can. Its still not enough. I make Sand Castles, even though it seems that the only other people doing that are 15 years younger than me. This year more than the last few I took my camera. Now to me a beach can be very boring. Its very flat and featureless. After a while I ventured out clutching my D40 with care and snapped a few pictures. This is what I came up with.

What is this Jellyfish?

Online Buying and Reviews

2008-07-04T09:48:00.000-04:00

While I was researching into buying my Nikon D40 I searched the internet looking for good deals and reviews. There were several pages that compared prices such as shopcartusa.com these would show you the internet sites that would sell you what you want at their prices allowing an easy comparison. I was looking for a Nikon D40 with a 18-55mm lens. For comparison I will tell you that at the moment Circuit City normally retails at $499.99 plus tax. Other local retailers such as Ritz Camera and Cord Camera sold them for similar prices. Online retailers were showing prices at $330 and up. I was flabbergasted.That was CHEAP! So cheap it made me feel a bit dirty.

During an idle conversation with Jeremy about cameras in which I asked him why I feel so dirty for it being such a cheap price, he pointed me towards the midwest photo and camera exchange. Having ducked out of work early I went to show them the prices of cameras to see if they could match the price. What I was told by them and other high street stores (it's a British phrase meaning well known. They dont all have to be on High Street!) was that there are some websites out there thatseem to good to be true.

I was told a story of a online company that would sell you a camera and then put it on back-order until either you cancelled it or coughed up alot more money for batteries and chargers.

I was also told of a person who bought their camera off a website and sent it to Nikon to get fixed only to find that it was stolen and Nikon kept it.

These stories are vey helpful, but sometimes I have to wonder whether these stores have a bias against online retailers. Either way the infomation was helpful. My view on the matter is that unless you know of someone who has already shopped using a particular online retailer it will always be a bit of a gamble. The retailer who I eventually purchased my camera from was B&H photo which are located in New York. I have only heard good things about them from everyone I talked to.

Looking at magasine and customer reviews. They all gave the D40 good to great reviews. Except one. I think. I'm not too sure when it comes down to it. There is a website called digitalcamerainfo.com who review like I have never seen in my life before. They take it seriously. If you dont believe me look at the technical review of the Nikon D40. That is a boat, nay an ocean liner full of effot. Basically it got me a bit down because if you read the conclusions of the D40 it said that it wasn't nearly as great as other makes and was poorly made. Except that if you read the reviews of the cameras that they list as better, they rip into them as well. If you weight the overall scores from the D40 (~600) against the Fujifilm S5200 (~330). I guess it means that the D40 is twice the camera! We will just have to see...

Night time photography

2008-07-01T16:28:00.000-04:00

This has been a driving force for getting a digital SLR camera for a while now. One of the first photos I took with my Finepix was of the plough (ursa major) over my home village in England.

I tramped out my house at about 9pm with my camera in one hand, tripod in the other. I got up to the top of the hill above my house and set up the picture. It took me a while but eventually got the stars to start to appear on my pictures. The trouble came when I got home to look at the photos on the computer. The gainyness of the photo was just so terrible.

As with low light shots you have to make an effot to capture the stars.

Using the manual setting, set the aperture of the camera as wide as you can. Aperature is measured in a value called an f-stop. You want to make the number as small as possible.

Secondly you have to increase the shutter speed to as long a time as you can. If you are lucky enough, you can increase it to maybe 15-30 seconds long.

Now try the photo. How does it look? If you cant see stars this is when you want to increase the ISO number. My opinion on the ISO number is this. Keep it as low as possible. By increasing the ISO number what you are doing is effectively bunching light receptors together. If the light is too weak to trigger a response from one receptor it can group local receptors together and in doing so increase the response but also increase the grainyness of the photo. The above photo was taken such.

f-3.2, 15sec, ISO 1600.

By getting a DSLR I will now have a bulb function open to me. Blub refers back to the old days when the photographer will squeeze a rubber bulb to open and release it to close it. Effectively it means it will be a manual shutter release. By doing this I hope to increase my shutter time on the order of minutes allowing me to decrease my ISO number and getting a crisper nicer photo in the process. We will just have to see won't we?

My personal inspiration for this type of photograpgh is a man by the name of Art Wolfe (American of course). This photo has been a constant insipration to me.

It was done on a single piece of film. Firstly he took a photo for 1/60sec or so during sunset. A filter was used to keep the sky black. He then waited til night to take a 8hr photo of the stars getting what I can only call a magical image. Unfortunately I can only keep my shutter open for a maximum of 30min. I still think this is much longer than I should need for anything I may want to take.

Man Behind the Mask

2008-06-28T17:58:00.000-04:00

For a long time I hated taking picture of people (unless it was later into the evening). Slowly I've been getting better but with a lot of practice and only once I felt comfortable around the person.
There is a story of a photographer, I cant remember who, was asked to take a photo of Pablo Picasso. He was apparently a notoriously bad subject as he always had his guard up. A mask he wore all day long which had been impervious to previous photographers. The story ends up where the photographer tricked Picasso into letting his guard down by telling him the roll had been ended. He snaped a photo of Picasso which showed him behind the mask.

It may have been Arnold Newman, but I cant be sure.

To me it is all about capturing a moment in time. A brief transitory glimpse of 'the man behind the mask. A lot of people say that a good photographer knows when to be in the right (or wrong) place at a time that will capture a good shot.

Not that long ago I went shooting with the pistol club athe the Ohio state ROTC. It was great. Guns are exceedingly dangerous but also exceedingly fun. After a while you get into the rhythem of the firing. Everyone fires at a different rate. With a slow enough shutter speed to compensate for the poor lighting and slow reflex of the camera, I got 2 great shots. Each showing the fire that momentarily explodes from the firearm. It was very cool. This sort of photography is much easier than say for lightning. There is no rhyme or rhythem there. All you can do is go somewhere where a lot of lighning takes place very frequently. So you can ask now, where are all the photos of lighning then? Well unfortunately I dont like getting wet or standing out in the open during an electrical storm. Hopefully one day I can post a good one. For right now, I'm in no rush

This is no joke!

2008-06-26T13:28:00.000-04:00

There was an Englishman, a Canadian and a Hungarian sitting outside of a bar and they were discussing the greatness of A4 paper over US letter paper.

This is no joke, it really happened.

Two years ago, approximately. We really tore into Letter paper (Pun intended). Such complaints as:

"It's too short"

"It's too fat"

and

"It's bad for making paper airoplanes" were heard.

The last one was me. I brought a brilliant book back from England on 20+ designs of varying difficulties. The Split Nose Cone Glider wa always my favourate. I can still make it with my eyes (half) closed. I cant find my favourate, but here is a close one I found on the t'internet. Effectivley what I found was that US letter paper made bad airoplanes!

We had discussed the merits of the 2 paper sizes and came to the opinion that A4 rules. I believe that I said at some point I said that A4 was more aesthetically pleasing. I cannot find a back up for this, but wikipedia does say:

ISO paper sizes are all based on a single aspect ratio of the square root of two, or approximately 1:1.4142. The advantages of basing a paper size upon this ratio were already noted in 1786 by the German scientist Georg Lichtenberg (in a letter to Johann Beckmann): if a sheet with aspect ratio √2 is horizontally divided into two equal halves, then the halves will again have aspect ratio √2.

Which to a geek like me basically says that it is at least very cool!

This did at some point get me thinking about the photographs I take. The 6x4 size most people see is popular I believe because of the aesthetics of the size itself. I as a personal maxim try never to crop the photos I take. There are 2 very simple reasons for this.

1. What I see through the viewfinder or on the LCD screen is what I want im the picture. If I have to crop, it says to me 'Chris you did not frame this picture well. You included only the top half of the naked man' or something along those lines.

2. I'm too lazy to crop photos.

What this post for me is about is this. When you crop a photo, take a look at the image you want to capture or show and take a brief thought and say to yourself this...

... is this an ugly rectangle?

Venn Diagrams

2008-06-26T11:34:00.000-04:00

Venn diagrams are something I learnt about at school in maths class. The most common one I can think of is the overlap of the 3 primary colours to form secondary colours. To me all Venn diagrams represent is overlap. A point at which at 2 mutually exclusive groups cross and somewhere in the middle a new subset is created.

Now I went to a school where each age group was less than 40 people. Small classes get much smaller after seeing the same people for 11 years. No one at school cared for photography. At university I met a lot more people (some of them I do not remember their names. It's hard to concentrate when your blood alcohol level is that high - its ok. The legal U.K. drinking age is 18).
Only one of my friends was avidly into photography. The first time we saw the Canon IXUS we fell in love with it. He was lucky enough to buy it. I just got to use it lots.

Now before I was talking about overlap and although at that time most people had some form of camera, not many people took it off AUTO. The overlap was quite small for those interested in photography.

Then I got to Grad School. In my hallway of ~ 30 grad students at least 4 I know of have a SLR of some sort and are INTERESTED in photography. I can only conclude that there is a significant overlap between chemistry grad students and photography. I will, in time, endevour to form some sort of Venn diagram that will graphically show this trend.

Now, most of the people I believe are either quite shy or I just dont know well enough to have seen their photos.

The one person I do know is Jeremy. He takes beautiful photos. Whenever I want to look for inspiration I look to his homepage. Every time I go there I find something amazing. I invite you to go look and be inspired.

Basically this blog entry can be summerised as " Go look at Jeremy's Photos"

Macro lenses

2008-06-26T08:41:00.000-04:00

About 8 months ago I bought a macro lens for my Fujifilm camera. For those people who did not realise or know there are a lot of ways to expand the functionality of your camera. A large proportion of the Bridge camera out there have a threaded lense that allows the addition of supplementary lenses. In my opinion the macro lense is so much fun. I enjoy taking pictures of wild flowers abd small insects. Once zoomed in on their level, the photo starts to drag you away from a human sized world and into a much stranger and tinyer place. If you do want to buy anything for your camera, I would advise you to make sure the size fits your camera. For instance; my fujifilm has a 55mm lense and my Nikon has a 52mm lens, so when buying a new camera, you may have to buy new accessories.

Don't underestimate the eye

I noticed a really interesting thing a few weeks ago. I was holding up my macro lense and I noticed that the world through the lense was a magnified upsidedown fisheyed view of the world. I thought to myself that would make a cool photo. I put the lense a foot or so in front of the camera and tried to focus on the lens. For the life of me I could not get it to focus on the scene coming through the lens. After a final bit of finagling I manged to get it focused, abut a metre away from the camera. It seems that I had forgoten how brilliant the human eye is. Without word or command I could focus my eye through the lense at virtually any angle. However the optics of the camera is just not good enough and only a tiny window of focal depth was achievable.

They say the pen is mightier than the sword.

The eye it seems is definately mightier than the camera (at least in this case!)

First time blogging

2008-06-25T16:38:00.000-04:00

Ok,

So I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Chris. Whats yours? No seriously, it's quite daunting putting yourself out there in the 'blogosphere' (what an aweful word). Being there at the mercy of all those people who are ready to drop comments on any ideas or opinions you have. I imagine it could be quite soul crushing. There is only one way to find out isn't there!

Being English there are many things that have come apparent since I moved to the US three years ago.

1. My grammer and spelling is aweful. I can't help it. Im going to endevour to be as good as I can but if something annoys you, please let it slide.

2. Without realising, when placed in front of people I do not know or placed in a position of authority, I seems to up my politeness.

There are more observations to come but number 2 is the segway I have chosen to lead me into explaining my title.

A Word on Digital Photography.

It's so polite and non offensive isn't it. So very 'British'.

I was to put it plainly, bad at art. Drawing, painting etc I sucked at. However from a young age I loved photography (and fossils but thats another story). For a long time I had a point and shoot 35mm, followed by those wonderful APS camera that were so much easier to load and you got to pre-crop the photos before taking. Moving on from that about 4 years ago I was bought my first digital camera, an Olympus C460. It was lovely to have a digital camera. The freedom from the LCD screen and cost of film was immense. My love for photography began to bloom like a new growth which begins in spring. After 2 years I bought a Fujifilm Finepix S5200 (bridge camera).

With a full manual setting I explored the relationships between shutter speed and aperture. ISO speed and light levels. It was great. In 2 years I took over 6000 photos. Over 5000 in the last year alone.

However I got restless. When I was back visiting the North Yorkshire Moors with my friends from England. I took my Fujifilm and my friend Pete took his new entry level DSLR. Almost the same photos were taken, however the colour and quality of the DSLR made my photos look dry and blanched.

So here we are, 6 months later and a Nikon D40 is awaiting me. This friday I will make the final leap to the DSLR. As a way of helping me learn to use my camera and to tell others what I have learnt I thought I would post on this blog. Of cousre I'm not aiming to boast or deride other peoples views. That's not very well British is it?