Thursday
11Mar2010

On My Way to Death Valley

DateThursday, March 11, 2010 at 6:49AM

Uuuugh. A 5am wake-up is never fun. But I'm safely at the airport waiting for my flight to Las Vegas for a four day photo workshop in Death Valley, NV, with John Paul Caponigro. It'll be a reunion of sorts: at least four other people on the trip were also in Antarctica with me last year.

I'm really looking forward to shooting in the Southwest again, and having four dedicated days to do it without interruption. I'm also looking forward to getting critical feedback on photos, both from the trip and of prints I'm bringing with me for review. Several of the prints are part of the B&W square series I'm working on from the Washington coast.

It's also a chance to test out some new gear. My workhorse backpack, a Tamrac Expedition 5, has been replaced with a new Clik Elite Escape. It's the best I could find that would hold the gear I carry on a regular basis that included a cushioned hip strap. We'll see how it works!

From a lens perspective this trip is exciting for two reasons: new lenses and borrowed lenses. On the new lens front my 70-200 f/2.8L IS II arrived yesterday, to replace my original model of the same lense. The 70-200 is my workhorse so I'm very excited to put the new version through its paces. I also caved and bought a Lensbaby Composer with soft focus and zone plate/pinhole optics. I blame David for this purchase, since he's constantly lending me his when we head to the Washington Coast for photos. I also have a 17 TS-E on loan from lensrentals.com. I'm not expecting it'll be used that often, but there will almost certainly be a few occasions where it's a necessity.

So that's the scoop. Hopefully I'll have some Internet access while on the trip to post updates (assuming there is time between shooting, reviewing images, and eating!)

Have you ever gone to Death Valley? What was your experience?

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Saturday
06Mar2010

Trinity Test Site, NM

DateSaturday, March 6, 2010 at 1:40PM

Canon 5D, 15mm f/2.8. ISO 100, 1/125 @ f/5.6.

I'm preparing for a trip to Death Valley, NV next week, and coincidentally I was chatting with Eleanor Brown about the American Southwest. The conversation and the upcoming trip reminded me of my trip to New Mexico three years ago for the spring visitation day at the Trinity Test Site.

The day we were there the weather was cold, grey, and generally awful. There was no good morning light, and the site itself is pretty stark. Honestly, from a photographic perspective, the site is pretty uninspiring. Of the shots I took there this is the only one I really thought worked. That's our Geiger Counter in the foreground, showing 0.18 mr/hr.

If you are planning a trip to New Mexico in the spring or fall it's worth checking to see if the Trinity site opening day is around your travel dates. They open the first Saturday in April and October, so this year that should be April 3rd and October 2nd. Your best bet is to spend the night in Soccoro, NM (there's a nice Holdiay Inn Express there) and then drive to the Stallion Range Center to arrive and get in line by about 7:30. Do not do the caravan tours from Alamagordo!

Have you ever visited Trinity, or one of the other sites that were part of the Manhattan project?

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Sunday
28Feb2010

The Best Front-End In The Business

DateSunday, February 28, 2010 at 8:27AM


Canon 5D Mark II, 70-200 f/2.8L with 1.4x. 280mm, ISO 800, 1/250 @ f/5.6.

Something a little different today from the Olympics. We were at the Men's Gold Medal curling game (yay Canada!) and had seats that were nice and close to the ice. The above photo is of Mr Kennedy and Mr Hebert, the best front-end in curling today. What I like most about this photo is the composition and cropping to keep the Olympic logo behind them, and how the logo is right under their feet. It's always nice to see something like that at the event, take photos, and then find out later during processing it worked!

One other note about the photos I took at the Olympics: manual mode on a camera is awesome. It is very easy to fall into the trap of only using aperture- or shutter-priority mode on the camera, but when you are under fixed lighting conditions manual mode is a must. I did some test shots prior to the actual curling events to lock on my shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, then saved them as "C3" on my dial. I did similar tests for shooting the crowd in the stands and saved them as "C1" on my dial. I could then shoot with complete freedom knowing that the exposure would be exactly the same across all my images. If I changed subjects, a quick flip of the dial meant I had exactly the right settings ready to go.

It made post processing a breeze as well: in almost every case a direct cut-and-paste of exposure settings could be applied to all the images.

Have you ever used manual mode on your camera at a major event? How did it work out for you?

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Friday
26Feb2010

The Thrill of Victory

DateFriday, February 26, 2010 at 8:04PM


Canon 5D Mark II, 70-200 f/2.8L with 1.4x. 220mm, ISO 800, 1/250 @ f/5.6.

We attended the medal rounds of women's curling today at the Olympics. Curling is a sport near and dear to my heart, as I've curled for several years at the Granite Curling Club. It's actually a pretty boring sport to photograph though. You have to spend a lot of time and energy trying to capture the little things players do between shots to add some variety to the photos. Otherwise you wind up pictures of butts, sweepers, and some yelling. Especially when you don't have on-ice access like we had for the 2007 USCA Junior Curling Championships.

One shot to get, however, is the faces of the team that wins the gold medal. Even if it isn't Canada, like you hope. It's hard to be too sad when you see the look of joy on the faces of the winners.

Have you ever shot the finals of a sporting event? What kind of images did you get that captured the moment of victory (or defeat)?

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Wednesday
24Feb2010

Pending Inventory Shortage!

DateWednesday, February 24, 2010 at 6:21PM

Once our current stock of folios have sold out (there are 100 remaining) we will unfortunately be out of stock on covers until April. Availability of the paper used to make the covers is a problem all the way back to the mill that produces it, and the earliest they will deliver new stock to our supplier is April 7th.

We are currently researching other papers to replace the existing Royal Complements Charcoal, but realize this may be a problem for past customers who would like to colour match all their covers across different folio designs.

On the plus side, the next print run of covers will broaden the range of available colours to four. We will have a chocolate/maroon, royal blue, and light cream that will be added to the existing charcoal.

We'll update the blog with more details as we sort out paper availability.

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