Sunday, April 3, 2011
Royals Futures Game, 4-2-2011
Here in no particular order are photos I took yesterday at the KC Royals "Futures" exhibition game between their triple-A and double-A ballclubs. Click on them to see higher resolution versions.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays.
For anyone who still checks this blog sometimes, I apologize for not updating it more often. May you enjoy this holiday in the company of family and loved ones.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
NASCAR Nationwide race October 02, 2010
Taking good pictures of a NASCAR race from the stands is very challenging. First, there is a bunch of stuff between you and the action, such as fences, cheering spectators, and just plain distance from very fast moving machinery. But beyond that, it is very difficult to convey a sense of movement, of speed, in still pictures of an event like this. If your shutter speed is too slow, a car doing 175mph blurs easily even at 1/500th of a second shutter speed, thus making your photo just look out of focus and generally sloppy. If you ramp your shutter speed way up, to say 1/2000th of a second, the action can be frozen, and now the cars look like they are parked very closely together on track, with the drivers inside waiting to start the race. I've tried to create some tricks that I hope will result in photos with more life to them, but still good, crisp, clear imagery.
Jeff Gordon during "happy hour" practice for the big boys who race on Sundays. In the pic with the American flag he could seemingly be parked at a standstill. In the closer pic only the blurred tires give away the fact that he is rolling at all.
Contender Kevin Harvick (33) fights through heavy traffic. Harvick would eventually place 3rd. Again though, how can one tell they aren't simply on a parade lap or under caution?
I managed to get two fairly dynamic shots of track workers. The flag man waving his green flag is a sight that every racing fan loves to see. And I tried to create a sense of the cars blasting past by lowering my shutter speed and catching the blur of a car going by a stationary person, in this case a cameraman who may have just taken a photo of the same car. Nice lens there buddy, but personally I'd rather have a Corvette for the same cash.
I named this one "Race Behind The Race" because these two cars are fighting for position in the pit lane. #20 Joey Logano was the eventual race winner, and as mentioned above, #33 Kevin Harvick came in 3rd. At this point they were fighting for first place, whoever got back on track first would lead the race. This is an unusually cropped photo for me, I didn't like it in a standard aspect ratio. The wide, flat format seems to have more life and less wasted space than anything else I could come up with, and the viewer's eye is (hopefully) drawn to the dramatic body language of the pit crew members as they struggle to get their car away first. Please click on this image (indeed, all of them) for a full size version.
#62 had scraped against the concrete retaining wall and his paint and bodywork were worse for wear. This one seems to have more movement to me, I particuarly like how the horizontal silver scratches on the car mesh and contrast with the blurred horizontal greys of that visually annoying fence between the subject and the camera.
I really like "Backstretch Warp Drive". I bumped my shutter speed all the way down to 1/30th of second and simply panned along with the cars while leaning on the shutter button. Of the five frames that the camera took in that burst, this was the only one in which the cars were in focus, but I only needed one photo like that! An unintended but amusing feeling I get when looking at this one is that the drivers have invaded an impressionist painting from the early 20th century.
And we have a winner! #20 Joey Logano crosses the finish line, and the flag man did a poor job of modeling for me, choosing to hold the flag down low where my camera couldn't see it. Bad flag man! Next race hold it over your head like you did with the green one!
Young Mr. Logano celebrates his win in the time honored fashion of redlining his engine and annihilating his rear tires. When I was his age I thought all the girls loved burnouts too.
Hope you enjoyed my attempts at capturing this race. If I had press credentials and freedom of movement I could have done much better, but considering I took all these from one seat in the stands, I think there is a decent amount of variety to them.
Jeff Gordon during "happy hour" practice for the big boys who race on Sundays. In the pic with the American flag he could seemingly be parked at a standstill. In the closer pic only the blurred tires give away the fact that he is rolling at all.
Contender Kevin Harvick (33) fights through heavy traffic. Harvick would eventually place 3rd. Again though, how can one tell they aren't simply on a parade lap or under caution?
I managed to get two fairly dynamic shots of track workers. The flag man waving his green flag is a sight that every racing fan loves to see. And I tried to create a sense of the cars blasting past by lowering my shutter speed and catching the blur of a car going by a stationary person, in this case a cameraman who may have just taken a photo of the same car. Nice lens there buddy, but personally I'd rather have a Corvette for the same cash.
I named this one "Race Behind The Race" because these two cars are fighting for position in the pit lane. #20 Joey Logano was the eventual race winner, and as mentioned above, #33 Kevin Harvick came in 3rd. At this point they were fighting for first place, whoever got back on track first would lead the race. This is an unusually cropped photo for me, I didn't like it in a standard aspect ratio. The wide, flat format seems to have more life and less wasted space than anything else I could come up with, and the viewer's eye is (hopefully) drawn to the dramatic body language of the pit crew members as they struggle to get their car away first. Please click on this image (indeed, all of them) for a full size version.
#62 had scraped against the concrete retaining wall and his paint and bodywork were worse for wear. This one seems to have more movement to me, I particuarly like how the horizontal silver scratches on the car mesh and contrast with the blurred horizontal greys of that visually annoying fence between the subject and the camera.
I really like "Backstretch Warp Drive". I bumped my shutter speed all the way down to 1/30th of second and simply panned along with the cars while leaning on the shutter button. Of the five frames that the camera took in that burst, this was the only one in which the cars were in focus, but I only needed one photo like that! An unintended but amusing feeling I get when looking at this one is that the drivers have invaded an impressionist painting from the early 20th century.
And we have a winner! #20 Joey Logano crosses the finish line, and the flag man did a poor job of modeling for me, choosing to hold the flag down low where my camera couldn't see it. Bad flag man! Next race hold it over your head like you did with the green one!
Young Mr. Logano celebrates his win in the time honored fashion of redlining his engine and annihilating his rear tires. When I was his age I thought all the girls loved burnouts too.
Hope you enjoyed my attempts at capturing this race. If I had press credentials and freedom of movement I could have done much better, but considering I took all these from one seat in the stands, I think there is a decent amount of variety to them.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Kansas Sunset
Taken earlier tonight. The pics aren't bad but the still don't do justice to the real thing.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Miscellaneous at dusk/nighttime
A few fairly random recently taken images. Don't forget to click on them for larger versions which are much easier to look at.
This one is an attempt to catch a "shooting star" during the annual Perseid meteor shower a week or so ago. I don't see any evidence of meteors but the image is still way cool. Its a 402 second exposure, meaning my shutter was open for nearly 7 minutes straight. Its amazing how the stars show so many different colors as they swirl and twinkle through the sky.
A couple of classic cars at a small gas station car show at dusk. Available light only.
This is my new desktop wallpaper for my computer. 1932 Ford "low boy" hotrod. Absolutely classic. I love the reflection of the headlamp/suspension assembly in that flawless red paint.
Here, the sensation of speed is created by using a pretty slow shutter while carefully following the moving motorcycle. There are no blur effects done on the computer, all I did was remove some noise caused by the high ISO setting of the camera and crop the image slightly to make the composition better. You can see this same motion blur technique in one of the first photos I posted more than a year ago while trying to explain the various features of the camera. I've gotten better since then. :)
Here's some more attempts at High Dynamic Range. The aircraft is an F105 Thunderchief, of Vietnam War vintage, on static display at a small municipal airport. Of the 833 total "Thuds" produced, fully 382 were lost, meaning nearly half of the F105s ever built still litter the jungles of southeast Asia.
The sunset behind this rare survivor was spectacular, but due to the large brick sign placed in front of the plane finding a good angle to get the plane AND the sunset was nigh impossible. I did the best I could and came up with these.
This one is an attempt to catch a "shooting star" during the annual Perseid meteor shower a week or so ago. I don't see any evidence of meteors but the image is still way cool. Its a 402 second exposure, meaning my shutter was open for nearly 7 minutes straight. Its amazing how the stars show so many different colors as they swirl and twinkle through the sky.
A couple of classic cars at a small gas station car show at dusk. Available light only.
This is my new desktop wallpaper for my computer. 1932 Ford "low boy" hotrod. Absolutely classic. I love the reflection of the headlamp/suspension assembly in that flawless red paint.
Here, the sensation of speed is created by using a pretty slow shutter while carefully following the moving motorcycle. There are no blur effects done on the computer, all I did was remove some noise caused by the high ISO setting of the camera and crop the image slightly to make the composition better. You can see this same motion blur technique in one of the first photos I posted more than a year ago while trying to explain the various features of the camera. I've gotten better since then. :)
Here's some more attempts at High Dynamic Range. The aircraft is an F105 Thunderchief, of Vietnam War vintage, on static display at a small municipal airport. Of the 833 total "Thuds" produced, fully 382 were lost, meaning nearly half of the F105s ever built still litter the jungles of southeast Asia.
The sunset behind this rare survivor was spectacular, but due to the large brick sign placed in front of the plane finding a good angle to get the plane AND the sunset was nigh impossible. I did the best I could and came up with these.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Happy Birthday Maddie!
Quite literally, her birthday. Ok, maybe the day after, depending on whether you are going by hours or by calandar date.
These pictures were difficult to take, as the room in the hospital had very dim lighting. I went ahead and used the speedlite flash, bounced off the ceiling, to get some extra light that was as diffuse as I could make it.
I've been trying my hand at HDR photography recently. High Dynamic Range photography is a technique, for those of you who don't know, where several images are combined into one via a computer program. You take, for example, three images, one intentionally underexposed, one exposed correctly, and one slightly overexposed. None of the pictures, by themselves, are particularly great.
When you put them together into the photoshop automation program, however, the computer lines them up perfectly and takes the highlights from the less exposed image (which won't be blown out bright like on the overexposed image) and the shadows from the over exposed image (since they aren't completely black like on the darker one), and intelligently combines them with the middle, correctly exposed image, to create an image of impossibly perfect exposure.
Like this!
Other test images I took using this technique the other night:
I'm just dipping my big toe into the waters of this technique, but it certainly has potential. Till next time, folks!
These pictures were difficult to take, as the room in the hospital had very dim lighting. I went ahead and used the speedlite flash, bounced off the ceiling, to get some extra light that was as diffuse as I could make it.
I've been trying my hand at HDR photography recently. High Dynamic Range photography is a technique, for those of you who don't know, where several images are combined into one via a computer program. You take, for example, three images, one intentionally underexposed, one exposed correctly, and one slightly overexposed. None of the pictures, by themselves, are particularly great.
When you put them together into the photoshop automation program, however, the computer lines them up perfectly and takes the highlights from the less exposed image (which won't be blown out bright like on the overexposed image) and the shadows from the over exposed image (since they aren't completely black like on the darker one), and intelligently combines them with the middle, correctly exposed image, to create an image of impossibly perfect exposure.
Like this!
Other test images I took using this technique the other night:
I'm just dipping my big toe into the waters of this technique, but it certainly has potential. Till next time, folks!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Yellowstone!
I was fortunate enough to be able to visit Yellowstone National Park for a day last Saturday. I don't care who you are, the park should be on your personal list of "places I must see with my own two eyes". I took hundreds of photos, but there's nothing like being there and seeing it with your own eyes. Its a place of such majesty and vibrance that you don't really look at it as much as feel it. I'm simultaneously proud of the technical prowess of these photos, and somewhat disappointed that they fail to convey the breathtaking scale and color of the park.
This is an honest to gosh trumpeter swan, in its natural habitat. As I'm taking this picture, I'm thinking, "Its not in a zoo, its not being fed by a game warden or kept in a designated area. Its looking for dinner that it has to catch the old fashioned way, and this is where it lives and we just happen to be able to visit its neighborhood." There is an air of disbelief that comes over me when seeing exotic animals in their natural state of being.
Speaking of which, apparently the natural state of being for Bison is to breed like rabbits. They are no longer on the endangered species list, and the reason was obvious-- note the number of calves compared to the number of adults. Its like a Connecticut suburb in 1947! There's a hexoganal lens flare mark in the middle of this image which kind of spoils its artistic value, but it would be alot of work to remove it in photoshop and the picture isn't good enough to justify it.
A trout fisherman does his traditional slow dance.
Those of you who know me know that I generally don't have much use for environmentalist fanatics. I tend to dismiss them as myopic, naive, and simplistic people. However, one aspect of Yellowstone which struck me hard has me re-considering my position. A great forest fire consumed much of the area in 1989, 21 years ago, when I was only 13 years old, but the devastation brought on by that fire is still evident everywhere you look, contrasted with the various ways that nature has rebounded in the shadows of the burned devastation. If this beautiful forest still shows so many scars two decades after the fire, I shudder to think of the long term damage being done in the Gulf of Mexico right now because our governments and powerful corporations cannot be trusted to shepherd the natural resources they have been entrusted with. Maybe the environmentalists have a point after all. Anyway, enough lecture, here are pictures of the decades-old damage:
I have two different versions of this grizzly bear picture. One version is cropped, so you can see the bear better because he is a larger percentage of the overall image. In effect, he's "bigger" so you get to see him in more detail. The other version is the full, uncropped image as taken by my camera and 200mm lens (yes, he was pretty darn far away from us). In the original image the treeline of the forest presents as a green wall seperating the bear's "neighborhood" from our sight, and gives a sense of perspective. The grizzly is a large, powerful creature, but how small he seems compared to the silent might of the army of trees protecting him! Which version do you like better? Comment below!
More good news: the symbol of our nation is no longer an endangered species either. This may be one of my favorite images I've ever taken. The composition is fairly random (taken out the window of a car) but its intriguing to me. In other words, I like to look at this one and I don't know why. I could use photoshop to remove the blurred tree in the foreground, but somehow I don't want to. And the angled, dead tree trunk cutting diagonally through the image intersects with with the horizontal line between rain cloud and clear blue sky... there is so much going on in this image, I love it!
A picture of a bunch of dead logs? Look closer, friends (click on the image to see it in a larger format). Life is everywhere.
An extraordinary amount of geothermal activity means that some areas look as though they have been infected by an alien world. This geyser spewing out hot, sulfuric water looks like a UFO crash site and made me think of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds". Perhaps the bent branch in front is actually a space creature's tentacle?
A quick self-portrait, "proof of life" photo to show that yes, I was really there and the trusty Canon 40D took these images.
This is a peaceful image. Elk graze in a lush valley being fed by a stream, the rememberance of the great forest fire literally and figuratively behind them now.
And of course, the trip wouldn't be complete without Old Faithful. I hope you all enjoy these images, as I enjoyed taking them and processing them. We should take care of our garden....
Goodnight.
This is an honest to gosh trumpeter swan, in its natural habitat. As I'm taking this picture, I'm thinking, "Its not in a zoo, its not being fed by a game warden or kept in a designated area. Its looking for dinner that it has to catch the old fashioned way, and this is where it lives and we just happen to be able to visit its neighborhood." There is an air of disbelief that comes over me when seeing exotic animals in their natural state of being.
Speaking of which, apparently the natural state of being for Bison is to breed like rabbits. They are no longer on the endangered species list, and the reason was obvious-- note the number of calves compared to the number of adults. Its like a Connecticut suburb in 1947! There's a hexoganal lens flare mark in the middle of this image which kind of spoils its artistic value, but it would be alot of work to remove it in photoshop and the picture isn't good enough to justify it.
A trout fisherman does his traditional slow dance.
Those of you who know me know that I generally don't have much use for environmentalist fanatics. I tend to dismiss them as myopic, naive, and simplistic people. However, one aspect of Yellowstone which struck me hard has me re-considering my position. A great forest fire consumed much of the area in 1989, 21 years ago, when I was only 13 years old, but the devastation brought on by that fire is still evident everywhere you look, contrasted with the various ways that nature has rebounded in the shadows of the burned devastation. If this beautiful forest still shows so many scars two decades after the fire, I shudder to think of the long term damage being done in the Gulf of Mexico right now because our governments and powerful corporations cannot be trusted to shepherd the natural resources they have been entrusted with. Maybe the environmentalists have a point after all. Anyway, enough lecture, here are pictures of the decades-old damage:
I have two different versions of this grizzly bear picture. One version is cropped, so you can see the bear better because he is a larger percentage of the overall image. In effect, he's "bigger" so you get to see him in more detail. The other version is the full, uncropped image as taken by my camera and 200mm lens (yes, he was pretty darn far away from us). In the original image the treeline of the forest presents as a green wall seperating the bear's "neighborhood" from our sight, and gives a sense of perspective. The grizzly is a large, powerful creature, but how small he seems compared to the silent might of the army of trees protecting him! Which version do you like better? Comment below!
More good news: the symbol of our nation is no longer an endangered species either. This may be one of my favorite images I've ever taken. The composition is fairly random (taken out the window of a car) but its intriguing to me. In other words, I like to look at this one and I don't know why. I could use photoshop to remove the blurred tree in the foreground, but somehow I don't want to. And the angled, dead tree trunk cutting diagonally through the image intersects with with the horizontal line between rain cloud and clear blue sky... there is so much going on in this image, I love it!
A picture of a bunch of dead logs? Look closer, friends (click on the image to see it in a larger format). Life is everywhere.
An extraordinary amount of geothermal activity means that some areas look as though they have been infected by an alien world. This geyser spewing out hot, sulfuric water looks like a UFO crash site and made me think of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds". Perhaps the bent branch in front is actually a space creature's tentacle?
A quick self-portrait, "proof of life" photo to show that yes, I was really there and the trusty Canon 40D took these images.
This is a peaceful image. Elk graze in a lush valley being fed by a stream, the rememberance of the great forest fire literally and figuratively behind them now.
And of course, the trip wouldn't be complete without Old Faithful. I hope you all enjoy these images, as I enjoyed taking them and processing them. We should take care of our garden....
Goodnight.
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