Goodbye to 2007, Hello 2008

On the last day of 2007, I'm up very early with a cold, a roll of toilet tissue, and a cup of mint tea. I'm sure I'll get the sniffles under control before the end of the day, but right now, I'm fairly miserable. So, it's probably not the best time to write my Year in Review entry, but I'm going to do it anyway. I've done this before in some other journals, as well as this one, and it's always been fun to write. Unlike other journals, though, my review is done with pictures.

January, like always, was a slow month for photography. Oregon in the winter is a dim, wet and gray place, and it's hard to get the creative juices flowing when the environment is so uninviting. So, I had to make do by shooting inside and/or building neat structures for my granddaughter to knock down. Having a baby around certainly made the year far more pleasant that it would have otherwise been.

This was the year she learned to crawl, learned to walk, expanded her vocabulary, and learned to say "Papa," much to the annoyance of her grandmother who has been trying to get her to say "Grandmama" since the day she was born. She's only called for her grandmother one or twice, but she uses "Papa" with great regularity, much to my delight. In fact, most of the bright points of the year were due to this little lady.

But, there wasn't much photography in the long, dreary month of January. But, occasionally, nature throws us a surprise and we get a nice day for some outdoor photography, and in January this came midway through the month with a nice, heavy snowfall that kept most of us at home and indoors, but I took advantage of the clear weather after the snow to get a few outdoor glamour photos in my portfolio:

February sported clearer skies, and after such a dreary January, I just had to get out for a walk in the sun. I live near a community college, so a walk on their campus was just the thing. There are lots of interesting structures and sculptures there, including this lovely fountain in the middle of a koi pond.

The koi were having none of the cold weather though, and they kept well hidden in the reeds and beneath the ice. Who could blame them?

In March I had a business trip to Arizona, so I took advantage of the dry weather there to spend the weekend hiking and visiting the Arizona Renaissance Festival. In March, Arizona's weather is quite nice, and it was delightful to take a short hike near one of the many mountains that rise around the city. It was great to be out in the sunshine with my camera.

That weekend, I met up with a friend and her father, and we headed out to the Ren Faire where we met a Pickle Vendor:
And lots of pretty faire wenches:




And even a mystical creature or two:

And as the year moved on, the grandbaby became quite the camera ham:

March went out like a lion, and April was very much a lamb. The weather turned and the days became warm enough to start some projects:



And to play with the baby in the grass:


May saw the project completed (at the expense of my poor back):


And the warm weather even had the rest of the family bringing out their cameras:


June brought a first birthday and party:





And the grill got lots of use:


In July, we went to Georgia for a visit with the extended family and to spend some time with my very sick mother. Although we spent most of our time at the hospital with her, we did manage to go to a local parade:



Take some silly pictures:


And I even found some time to shoot some glamour:



And, of course, there was the annual Oregon Country Fair:



August was a busy, fun, and sad month. We had a wonderful Luau party the first weekend of the month:



Enjoyed the Hillsboro Airshow with the Navy Blue Angels the next weekend:



Visited San Francisco, Napa Valley, and Jeremy and Kristin the following weekend:







Unfortunately, after a very long illness, my mother passed away later that week, and we had to fly back to Georgia to attend her funeral and settle her estate:



September meant a wedding:



Complete with flower girl:



A great birthday party for a friend:



And of course, the Portland Pirate Festival:



September also had me working with a lovely new model:



October brought a trip to the pumpkin patch:



Fall foliage:





Falling leaves:



And a little fairy's first Trick or Treating:



November, of course, means Thanksgiving, and Jeremy and Kristin managed to make it home for the festivities:







That brings us to December, and to the last few days of the year. The tree was decorated:




And presents were opened:







But the best news this year, came on Christmas Eve, when our son told us we were to be grandparents again in 2008. So, despite the sniffles, we end the year on a positive note with high hopes for 2008 and best wishes for our family, friends and acquaintances.

Holiday Self Portrait

Just a bit of creativity in taking a self-portrait.

Holiday Lights

The holiday season is upon us and lights are up everywhere except, it seems, at my house. I usually put lights up outside, and in past years I put up quite a lot. This year, though, I just haven't done so. The weekend I was planning to put them up, there was a major rain and windstorm here, and it was simply too dangerous to get on a ladder to hang lights, not too mention that it would have been terribly uncomfortable.

This past weekend there just seemed to be too much going on to get around to it. And frankly, I don' t think I'll be putting up any lights this weekend either. So this will be the year without outside lights. It's okay, though, as I can enjoy my neighbor's lights just fine. I have promised myself, though, that I'll take my camera and a couple of lenses and get out to photograph some lights this year. As long as it's not raining or too cold. :)

Writing

I enjoy writing. I'm not sure whether that's because I enjoy the process of communicating my thoughts and ideas, or whether it's simply that I enjoy the process of crafting the words, sentences and paragraphs together into coherent wholes that convey those thoughts and ideas. I also enjoy photography, and therefore when I write, I generally write about my photographs, about my cameras, lenses and other equipment or about the people, places and things that I have photographed in the past or want to photograph in the future.

Lately, I've been writing a series of articles for my personal webite. A list of those articles can be found here: Writings and Articles. I'm concentrating on lens reviews right now, and it has been great fun to go back through my extensive archive of photos to find images that best exemplify the characteristics of a particular lens. The image to the right, for example, is used in an article about the Canon 28-70 f/2.8 EF L lens, which has been my workhorse lens for over 5 years. I have an entire list of additional articles on equipment that I'm slowly, but surely completing, and I'm always looking for new ideas for articles.

This image is taken from my review of the Canon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 EF L IS lens. The image shows just how sharp this long zoom can be even when it is wide open (maximum aperture) and at its longest focal length. The image also shows that the lens has good bokeh (the quality of the background blur) and color saturation.

The image itself was taken at a mid-summer celebration party in 2006. Although the party had a pagan theme, there were guests from all religious stripes in attendance, and the event included costumes, body painting, fire dancing and excellent food and drink (very important for any party). It was really a fun photographic experience, and I enjoyed shooting the event for the group and sharing the images afterwards, and I had no idea at the time that I would be writing an article about both of the lenses I was using at the event.

So, I look forward to writing the articles, and I hope that those that stumble across my personal website find them useful and informative. During the holiday break, I expect that I will be able to finish at least two or three more of the equipment articles and at begin writing a new article about photographic lighting tips and techniques.

Favorite Models

I'm writing a series of articles for my personal website. The articles include lens reviews, places to shoot, tutorials for photographic techniques, and other subjects photographic. I finished a couple of articles yesterday; one on the Canon 85 f/1.2 L lens and another on the Canon 135 f/2 L lens.

I illustrate my reviews, of course, with photos taken with the lenses or at the places of which I'm writing. In the case of the two lenses I wrote about yesterday, the model here was used prominently to illustrate the lenses capabilities and to provide example shots to draw the readers' attention. As you can see, Christine would draw anyone's eye.

Christine is an aspiring model, and I worked with her for a couple of years assisting her with some shots she needed for her portfolio and for some modeling applications. She works hard, shows up on time, and really contributes to the creative endeavor. I really miss working with her. It has been over a year now, and I do hope she is doing well with her career.

The last time we worked together was in August of 2006. We were working on getting her a portfolio established on one of the major online modeling publications. We had gotten several shoots completed for her outdoor glamour portfolio and were about to start working on some more generalized fashion and activity shots when she abruptly told me she wouldn't be modeling anymore for very well thought-out personal reasons. It's really a shame, because she was truly my favorite model and I do miss working with her.

When I was writing yesterday, I found the photos of her best illustrated the particular concepts forwarded by the articles, and that got me to thinking about Christine and how she was doing and how much fun it was to shoot with her. I miss her energy and her willingness to try new poses and concepts, as well as her ability to look at the positive.

Christine, wherever you are, I hope you're doing well and that you've taken up modeling again.

Pinup Photography

The other day a friend asked me aboutu 1940's and 50's style pin-up photography. She said they had never seen any on my site and wondered if I had ever done it. My answer to them was I had done it, but nothing recently and that it was a matter of costume, setting and lighting. After more thought, I realized that those three attributes determine the style or genre of any people photography.

In any event, I went looking through my archives to see if I could find any specific examples, and of my digital files, this is the closest I 've come to that genre of photography since moving to digital. I did find some slides done with other models that were closer to the style, but I've found that the older Ektachrome slides I used don't scan well to digital.

To be really more of a 50's pinup style, though, the model's pose in this photo needs to be more elongated, that is, her body should be stretched out with much more emphasis on the legs and torso. Additionally, the props need to be more closely aligned to the costume. In this case, a red toy sack and a Christmas tree background would be more appropriate.

So, I've been doing quite a bit of research on this style of glamour, and I think that will be one of my winter photos projects, i.e. to shoot a series of 1940's and 1950's style pinups. I'm working on getting access to the loft of a shop which may work out well for a winter photography studio. I have a number of models that will be willing to work with me for copies of the prints for the portfolios, or for a modest fee. It's really, then only a matter of buying the props and costumes and optimizing the lighting. I need to research the lighting styles a bit more, but I've ordered a couple of Bunny Yeager's books and those will provide good examples for what I'm trying to accomplish. With any luck, I'll be able to post a new entry here is a few weeks with some examples of these types of photos.

Favorite Lenses

I enjoy using different lenses on my cameras. The primary reason I bought my first Single Lens Reflex camera was the fact that I could change the lenses on the camera to choose the one most appropriate for the subject I was photographing. Although I've owned many Point and Shoot (P&S) cameras (and I still do), my tool of choice is still a Single Lens Reflex camera with interchangeable lenses.

I went digital with my photography in 1998 and at that time the only economically feasible digital cameras were Point and Shoots. Digital SLR's at that time cost many thousands of dollars. I still shot film, but what I really wanted was the convenience of digital combined with the versatility and image quality of a DSLR. That didn't occur until late 2000 with the release of Canon's D30 DSLR (Nikon had a DSLR earlier, but since all my lenses were Canon, it wasn't an economically viable option for me). With the release of that camera I had my wish and I've since expanded my lens collection significantly.

As I was shooting some photos this weekend for a lens comparison article I'm writing, I realized that there are few lenses that are just wonderful for photography and have to be listed as my favorites. One of these lenses is the Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 with which the posted photo was taken. This lens is a great deal because for the money you got a wonderful low-light lens with fast auto-focus and great image quality. It's big brother, the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II can produce better image quality and has lower light capability, but at a significantly increased price and with slower AF speed.

As you can see from the image here, this lens is quite capable and produces lovely images. I almost sold it last year, but pulled it from my "to sell" list at the last minute. I'm certainly glad I did.

Mark

Montana

I took a longer lunch today and did a photo shoot with a long-time friend of mine, Montanna. I've known Montana for about 5 years, I think. I met her through another friend of mine, and we've done a few photo shoots together. After modeling for a while, she took a break, but is now looking to get back into the business. She has a portfolio on One Model Place and I'll be helping her build and expand her portfolio over the next several months (I hope).

The photo shoot we did this afternoon was fairly quick. We shot under the St. Johns Bridge and it was quite cool down by the river. Montana is a slender young woman, and I could tell the chill was getting to her when we weren't in the direct sunlight. She was quite game and very enthusiastic about the photo shoot, though, so anyone that hires her as a model would be very pleased with the results, I'm sure.

Pumpkin Patch

Just north of where I live, over the ridge and down to the river, lies Sauvie Island. The narrow bridge to the island leads to an expanse of farms, river beaches, and wildlife sanctuaries. In October, it also opens the way to pumpkin patches, corn mazes, and haunted houses and barns.

This past weekend we had beautiful weather so it was time to visit the pumpkin patch to play and to pick out a nice pumpkin for carving into a Jack O'Lantern (whether it ever gets carved or not depends on my eldest daughter who promised to carve it but has yet to make good on her vow.)

I grabbed my camera and a couple of lenses and off we went. I wanted to get some photos of the granddaughter playing in the pumpkin patch as well as some landscape photos on the island. It also felt good to just get out of the house and to walk around on the farm. Makayla enjoyed playing on the hay pyramid, seeing the farm animals, and playing the pumpkin patch. She was most fascinated, however, by all the jets flying over the island (Sauvie is directly below the western flight path for Portland International Airport). Well, it doesn't take much to amuse small children and the spacing of the jets matched well with her attention span.

The day was quite warm. We didn't need jackets at all, and the pumpkin patch was quite dry considering the time of year. There weren't a lot of great pumpkins left, but we found a couple that met our needs and used the stroller to get them back to the main entrance. We then took the time for a quick lunch and treats for the ladies. The farm we visited sets up outdoor food vending during October for the large number of visitors and offer everything from sausages and pulled pork to corn on the cob and candy apples. Just the things to satisfy the appetite on a beautiful Fall day.

After our snack we took the lovely (and curvy) ride back over the ridge and got home long before dark. The turning leaves of the deciduous trees were beautiful against the dark colors of the evergreens, and there was not real traffic to speak of on the trip home. In the distance we could see both Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood, and the St. Johns bridge stood out starkly green against the deep blue sky. It was just a very nice outing for the weekend, especially given the miserable weather of the past weekend.

Hump Day

The week is now officially "over the hump." I was supposed to be in Arizona for a business trip for the rest of the week, but it got canceled at the last minute and that's fine with me. While a little more sunshine would have been nice given the very wet weekend, it was very nice here Monday and Tuesday so I managed to get the seat in my truck reasonably dry (though it's still humid enough to fog up the windows when the heat is on). The rain returned today, but is was more of a mist that a true rain.

After arguing with the dealership on the phone about getting the truck looked at and repaired (it was barely out of warranty by time and still under 36K miles), I just drove down there at lunch and explained the situation to the guy that normally takes care of me. That helped a lot. He promised to look at it and try to get it covered under warranty. Not very long afterwards he told me there was a bad seal around the upper brake light and they corrected with a waterproof sealant with no charge for the repairs. Which is all I really expected. I don't know why the body shop manager had to be so snotty about it all when I spoke to him on the phone. He was acting like I was asking him to do major body work for free.

In any case, it's fixed (for now), and that's one less worry on my mind. I really like some leisure time to do some model shooting and perhaps write a new article comparing some lenses (with photographic examples). I think that will have to wait for a while as I still have some wedding photos to process and a number of other items to do around here to prepare for what looks to be a very wet winter.

Oh, the photo today? It's from a film shoot from nearly 30 years ago.

Wet Weekend

Friday and Saturday of this past weekend, we were supposed to spend a relaxing evening in the Columbia River Gorge at Bonneville Hot Springs Resort. We both took Friday afternoon off as we wanted to beat the traffic out of town and get checked into our room fairly early so we could enjoy most of the evening. The idea was to spend the night there, and in the morning she was going to have a spa treatment (mineral bath, body wrap and massage) while I went shooting in the Gorge. It was a good plan, but it just didn't quite work out that way as it poured the entire weekend. Well, I mean it didn't affect her massage, but it was really much too wet to shoot in the Gorge and the wind and low clouds didn't provide for a very photogenic environment. To top it all off, the roof of my truck started leaking and totally soaked the back seat.

We did have a nice relaxing evening when we first arrived. We had a couple of drinks in the lounge, followed by a wine tasting event in the main lodge, and then dinner. We also took a dip in the pool and sat in the mineral spa for a while. That was very relaxing.

When we got up the next morning, though, it was raining harder than ever. We had breakfast (very tasty) while we discussed plans for the day, and I decided that I was at least going to attempt to get some shots. It was either that or sit around for several hours while she got her spa treatment. So I headed out with my weather-sealed (but not waterproof) camera and lens and did some shooting.

The first image is of a rain swollen stream that cascades directly into the Columbia River. This was located just inside the little town of Stevenson on the Washington side of the Gorge. It was raining quite hard as I was shooting off the bridge here, and my camera and I got quite wet. A quick wipe with the towel when I got back into the truck sufficed for both me and the camera. I then drove through the town looking for something of interest to shoot, but didn't see anything worthy enough to make me want to get out of my warm and semi-dry vehicle (the roof was still leaking onto the back seat).

I gave up on Stevenson for the day (though I might go back there on drier day), and drove up to Skamania Lodge hoping for a nice view.....no such luck. It was pretty well socked in there too. So I headed back west with hopes of getting some photos of Beacon Rock or perhaps a locomotive on the heavily trafficked rail line that parallels the river. Along the way, I noticed one of the tour boats headed west down the Gorge, and I managed to get far enough ahead of the vessel that I could stop and grab a few shots as she went by. This time the rained had slacked off enough that I didn't get too wet, though the wind was quite strong and it was pretty tough keeping my hat in place.

I did drive down to Beacon Rock, but it simply wasn't possible to get any good shots there with the rain and the wind pounding everything, so I gave it up and headed back to the lodge. On the road to the spa though, I noticed some Halloween decorations that were certainly worthy of a shot. It seems like the residents really have a thing for jack o'lanterns.

Sunsets

Most people love to photograph sunsets, and they can certainly be beautiful, but often the shots turn out to be very clichéd. The key to sunsets, I believe, is to find something different or unusual about the sunset - the weather conditions, the activity, the terrain - or anything to make the sunset just a little (or a lot) out of the ordinary.

For me, a photograph of a sunset can vary in tone and the feeling it evokes. For example, this sunset is soft and puts me in a contemplative mood:


Pacific Coast Sunset during a storm

While this sunset has a slightly different nuance to it:


Sunset on the Big Island of Hawaii

Sunsets can wonderful variations of colors such as these two from the Caribbean Sea:




Two views of sunset as seen from the deck of the USS Fury

Sometimes with the sun goes down one color predominates and sets a mood or tone that's almost scary in it's intensity:


Death Valley Sunset

Sometimes sunsets can be very, very wierd:


Iridescent Sunset in Las Vegas

Or they can be very, very subtle in color and tone, yet still be beautiful and evoke feelings of quiet solitude:


Dusk in Death Valley


Sometimes sunsets can provide a feeling of serenity:


Oregon Sunset

While other sunsets can provide a sense of fun:


Sunset Surfer, Big Island, Hawaii


Sunset Riders, Las Vegas, Nevada


Outrigger Canoe Team Practice, Hawaii

Sometimes beautiful sunsets show up when you least expect them:





Two view of sunset in Maupin, Oregon

But no matter what, when you see a lovely sunset, you should take time to enjoy it with someone special.


A couple enjoying sunset on the island of Kauai

Friends

Fortunately, over the years I've had quite a number of friends who have been willing to be my photographic subjects. Often their husbands or boyfriends were more than willing to assist me by holding reflectors, carrying extra cameras or lenses, or just staying out of the way. Most of the time they knew that by helping me, they were making their ladies happy and ensuring the photos from the session would be better for their efforts.

In the case of this photo, my friend Roberta was helping me with a budoir shoot. She was posing on a settee in my living room. While there was sufficient natural light from the windows and skylight in the room, I wanted more moody lighting, and so I instructed her husband to stand at the top of the stairwell with a small, golden reflector and to catch a portion of the light streaming from the skylight and to focus it on Roberta's upper body. This gave her a nice warm color that complimented her tan and set her body off from the white lingerie she wore for the shoot. The reflected light also provided more moody shadows and allowed the intensity to taper off toward the feet. All in all, it was a very fun and successful shoot.

Portraits

I enjoy shooting portraits. They can be very challenging images to make because a good portrait must not only be technically good, but it has to capture the personality of the person portrayed. This is quite difficult to do when working with only the head and shoulders of the subject (the classic portrait). I also find it more difficult to shoot male portraits. I think this is because, despite popular opinion, men are actually more self-conscious of their image and the whole portrait process. Or it may be that I simply have more experience with and relate better to shooting portraits of women.

The two female portraits shot here were photographed on location at a friend's house late in the afternoon of a clear August day. The soft, low light contributed to the warmth of the photograph and provided the soft shadows that help define the portraits. The ladies were posed in a open, grassy area already turned a golden brown brown by Oregon's dry summer. The background was a large stand of evergreens.

A large aperture, a long focal length and a relatively close camera to subject distance was used to minimize the depth of field and throw the background out of focus. This isolated the models to make them stand out from their surroundings. The focus point was on the subject's eyes and a shutter speed was picked that would minimize camera shake for the focal length and sensor size used for the images.

An assistant with a large white reflector provided fill light to soften the shadows even further, and an external flash set to minimum was used to provide a small catchlight in the eyes.

The models were simply asked to look natural. As you can see, one lady smiled for the camera and the other did not. This isn't so much reflective of their personalities, but of their mood during the shoot. They both had fun shooting and were pleased with the resulting photographs, but one model was far more at ease during the shoot than was the other. Neither lady is a professional model (but one has had to put up with my cameras for many, many years).



For the portrait of the couple seen above, many of the same techniques were used, but instead of a reflector, on-camera fill flash was utilized. Posing two people together isn't as easy as shooting one subject at a time, but the couple has a great dynamic and I think this shot works very well for them.

Autumn Photography

I enjoy shooting in the Fall. Of course, the seasonal colors were much better when I lived in New England and Upstate New York. Here in Oregon, the colors are more subdued and tend toward the yellows and oranges as opposed to the bright reds and deep burnt oranges of the Northeast. Also, the weather here makes for more difficult shooting as the storm fronts start moving in off the Pacific beginning in October and a dry day becomes more of a rarity.

I took a day off last week to do some fall shooting. My plan was to drive over Bald Peak into Yamhill County and down to McMinnville to shoot around the vineyards and the town. t was supposed to be a dry day, but the morning was actually pretty foggy and damp. By lunch, however, the weather had cleared and I managed to get in some shooting. Driving over Bald Peak was quite interesting in the fog, but I did get some spooky looking shots at Bald Peak Park and on the property of some friends who live up on the mountain. I found some interesting colors driving down the mountain into valley, but the colors were still fairly dull due to the overcast skies.





When I got into McMinnville, I was happy to find quite a bit of color in the town itself. There were several maple trees outside the Hotel Oregon which had turned, and there was a Farmer’s Market scheduled for that afternoon and the vendors were setting up some very colorful displays. I wandered around town for a bit, had lunch at the hotel, and they shot a few frames of the market, the town, and some of the outlying vineyards. All in all, it was a nice relaxing day, but I sure would love to visiting Vermont and Connecticut in the fall again.