New Camera

I ended up buy a new camera, to me that is. I picked up a used Mamiya 645 medium format film camera on Craigslist a couple of weeks ago. I've been looking for a medium format camera for a bit, but the prices were always more than I wanted to pay. Either that, or by the time I got back to the person, it was already sold.

This one popped up on the site, and while the format really wasn't what I wanted, it was too good a deal to pass up. Instead of the square 6x6 format that I had been looking for, this one is a rectangular 4.5x6 cm format.

It sat for a week while I was busy with other stuff, but I got a chance to take it out a week ago. I went through 2 and a half rolls of film and finally got some developed yesterday. I like what I see on the negatives, but I need to learn more about scanning. Either that or set up the darkroom so I can print them the old fashioned way.

Senior Smiles

I realized this morning that I haven't posted anything here for quite a while. The usual excuse, I've been busy.

One thing I've been doing is an effort called "Senior Smiles". It was started by someone who was going through an old yearbook and couldn't find photos of a couple of classmates. For a variety of reasons, including lack of funds, they hadn't had one taken. He figured that the problem still exists and probably has gotten worse due to the economy. After rounding up a couple of folks to help, he started contacting the schools and local photographers he knows.

I was one of those photographers. I have to admit, I wasn't interested at first, but after an in-person plea, I signed up. We are starting out small, just some inner city schools and 200 kids out of the 600 the schools identified as being eligible. So far, I've been out twice, with a total of 6 sessions. We've been having the usual start up problems, miscommunication, schedules crossing, that sort of thing. It's been exacerbated by the fact that the effort started late and we are running up against the deadline for photos to get placed in yearbooks.

The kids and the families have been great though, and the other photographers are fun to be around. I'm glad I let myself be talked into this.

A nice article came out about the effort in the Grand Rapids Press in the past week. They got some facts wrong, especially the role the GR Flickr group played and leaving the camera club out of it. I would have liked a link for other photogs to join up also, but any publicity is better than none at all. The article is here.

Just Another Day

As usual, I've been busy lately. Too busy to do much here unfortunately.

I do have a couple of posts planned. One thing I'm planning on doing is to start reviewing equipment I buy and either use or don't use. I have a start of one review at the moment and hopefully you will see that soon.

I would like to talk about ArtPrize for a bit. For those of you that don't know, Rick Devos, grandson of one of the founders of Amway, started an art competition. First prize was a cool quarter of a million dollars and the top ten got at least $7,000.

There was a lot of talk about the voting rules. The public got to vote each piece up or down using their cell phones or on-line. A voter had to register in person with a government ID. This was to prevent someone from rigging the voting. When it was first announced, a lot of people, me included, derided it as American Idol for the arts. The local art community was even more vocal. How could the unwashed public be expected to pick a good piece of art? They wanted it changed to a juried art show with artists in charge of picking the winner.

An area of downtown was picked, any building or open area could become a venue for the artists to display their work. The artist paid a fee to participate in the show and then had to find a venue. Starting a few weeks before the competition opened, art started to show up. The most noticeable were the sculptures. Especially the huge table and chairs spanning the top of the walking bridge over the river downtown. You can still see that from the freeway as you drive by.

By the time the show opened, downtown was full of art. The competition turned out to be a big hit, bringing record crowds to downtown and business to downtown Grand Rapids overall. Grand Rapids also got a lot of good press out of the show. Something the area and Michigan overall needed.

I had the bad fortune to pick that time to take vacation out of the area. I only made it downtown during the competition for a few hours. It was a Thursday afternoon and I was surprised how busy things were. As usual, some of the art I liked, some I didn't and some I didn't understand. But it was a good experience.

I really expected one of the performance events or the big sculptures to win the prize. The public surprised a lot of people by picking a painting of ocean waves as the winner. I had seen the piece, but overlooked it. Since it will be in the local art museum for the next 3 months, I'm going to have to go take a second look.

There were some lessons learned. All the winners seemed to be picked from the central downtown area, a few really good pieces seemed to have been overlooked by the public because they were on the outskirts. The shuttle buses didn't run everywhere and there was some griping. But for the first year of the event, I think it went smoother than a lot of people expected. There are already plans to hold the event again next year, and I think it will be even bigger. Thanks to Rick Devos and everyone who worked on this so hard to make this a worthwhile event for the Grand Rapids area.

Nighttime Chicago

In Chicago again for the weekend and I managed to get out Saturday evening with the camera. It was rainy and a little chilly, but that just gave me some opportunities I usually don't take advantage of. I know Millennium Park is somewhat of a Chicago cliche, but I love the organic feel of the bean against the buildings. Even though it was rainy, there were still plenty of people about. But I missed some spots I had wanted to photograph and I'll have to remember those next time and ignore the park.

Electric Tether

It used to be that when you traveled with a camera, you didn't need much more than a supply of film. Batteries for light meters and such used to last 6 months to a year and if you remembered the Sunny 16 rule, you could get by without that. If you ran out of film, everyone used to carry it, even the local drugstore on the corner. If you needed something special, there was usually a camera store someplace around that carried it.

Now when you travel, especially for more than a day or two, you need an outlet nearby. The camera batteries need to be recharged, the laptop needs to be plugged in and batteries for other electronic devices need to get topped off also. Plus, since each device uses a different way to charge, you need to carry a lot of different chargers also.

I'm not sure this is really a great advance at times....

Wandering

I'm on the road again, this time in the Upper Peninsula. I had some vacation I needed to use, so I grabbed my cameras and went.

I've seen some wildlife, Bald Eagles, the deer running across the road for me to dodge and the pointy end of a Porcupine. The Porcupine startled me as I was walking down a path, he was in the bushes to the side and all I saw was the pointy end. I waited around a bit to see if he would come out, but no such luck. I also saw a Bald Eagle flying over the river in downtown Houghton, so I have hope that one day we may see that in Grand Rapids.

I've visited plenty of waterfalls, the names are starting to run together. All beautiful, and I still can't get a photo of one I really like.

Of course I had to visit lighthouses, I've seen a few and got some good photos.

I've also tried long exposure photos with light painting. That is where you use a light, usually a flashlight to bring out detail in dark objects. The photo above is one such shot. Taken about a hour and some time after sunset, it has an exposure time of about 6 minutes. During the time I was using a flashlight on the foreground rock and also the one in the back. The rock in the back had a small bush on the top and I wanted to bring it out. I only used the flashlight on the foreground rock for about 15 seconds, the rest of the time I'm trying to light up the other rock. No such luck, the flashlight I had was too small.

More later.

The WTD Book is Out!

If you're a photographer and never read What the Duck, go look at it now. Don't read any more, just go.

An irreverent look at photography and artists in general, this comic hits the mark more than it misses.

Wandering through my local bookstore yesterday, I noticed the new What the Duck book is out. So I made sure I picked it up. It's going to be the photography book I read this week.

Fortuitous Photography

I was out with a group at the Grand Haven pier last night. While I was out on the pier taking a long exposure shot, a gentleman walked by and commented on the "fortuitous photo" I had just taken. Since a kid had just ridden by on a bike with a blinking light, I agreed and kept on taking photographs.

The bicycle photo didn't turn out, but later on in the evening I was taking a long exposure photo of a motorbike and a couple pickups backed up behind it. This left some light trails that help separate the bike from the background. While the jury is still out on the photograph itself, the happenstance helps illustrate this post.

Fortuitous has a couple meanings, somewhat related. One is occurring by chance. The other, which I think is somewhat more related to photography is lucky or fortunate.

Thinking about the comment the rest of the evening, I realize that while I try to plan what I'm going to do with the camera, a lot of photography is dependent on fortuitous circumstances. Is the light right, how about the weather, or is someone doing something interesting? While a portrait photographer can set up the scene and take a photo, do they make a connection with the subject or is the subject even in the right mood? Did I recognize that a good scene was unfolding and was I ready to capture it?

I used to have a boss that said he would rather be lucky than good. While he was mostly joking and people tend to make their own luck, I realized early on that circumstances and happenstance happen all the time. You just have to try to recognize what is happening and be quick enough, or lucky enough to photograph it.

Links

I've been collecting links for a bit, so it's time to publish them.

A Lightroom 2 workflow that is a good overview of how one person does it.

Bruce Percy, who still uses film and a medium format camera is running his own version of how he made 40 photographs.

A Lifehacker article about Swingvine. A web site that tracks trending topics. If you were doing micro stock photography and wanted to try to figure out what's hot, it might be a good site to keep on top of.

The start of an Open Source camera from Stanford University.

I've had trouble getting filters off the front of the camera lens before. I'm wondering if these watch case balls would work better than the wimpy filter removers they sell.

Glamour Magazine run a photo of a normal person rather than the normal model body type they usually do. The photo and a blog post about the positive response of readers that surprised them.

If you are doing a lot of flash photography work and want to diagram the setup, here is an interesting piece of software that will help you do it.

London - More Photos

Walking around Sunday, I came across 3 white Rolls Royce cars decorated for a wedding. I took a few photos, and waited around a bit for the bride to appear. I overheard one of the drivers say that the ceremony was over and that the reception had started and didn't stay any longer.

I ran into a BBC film crew working on a science documentary and this couple were two of the actors. Though I had to admit, they really didn't let each other go, even when filming was on break. The women in the background on the bench was also part of the show.

The host of the show walking backward and talking to the camera.

The film crew and onlookers. The couple, the scooter were part of the show, along with the camera crew.

Yes, another door.

This is the end of my photos from London. I want to go back and spend some more time though, there was much more of the city to photograph.