Exploring the wonders of creation through a 50mm lens...and other lenses too.

Before I get too far into this post I need to offer a disclaimer: this photo was not taken with my 50mm lens (cue sad trombone). I used my 35mm f/1.8 which, because I shot this on my crop-sensor Nikon D7100, could be argued is actually closer to a true 50mm lens than my actual 50mm lens. But math and semantics aside, I just want to make sure to get this out of the way right upfront lest I be taken to task for misleading anyone. Truth be told the physical focal length of this 35mm lens makes its optical properties quite different from a 50mm lens, and it’s not just in terms of the strict field of view. There’s also issues like background compression, focusing distance, minimum aperture, etc. that make this lens dramatically different from its slightly more telephoto counterpart.

So why am I posting it here on my blog dedicated to shots taken with my 50mm lens? The answer lies in the purpose behind this blog in the first place: this image illustrates what can happen if you stop letting your camera collect dust on the shelf and take it out to snap photos. And since this blog serves as a public space for me to keep pushing myself as a photographer and keep my camera in my hands and not in a closet somewhere, I thought it a fitting place for this image despite the fact that I took it with my 35mm lens.

When I took this image I was on my way home from Lincoln, Nebraska a few weeks ago. I went back home for the funeral of my best friend’s father who passed away from ALS, and I decided to get a very early start on my return trip to Oklahoma the following day. I wanted to get back to my wife and kids, and also leave a bit of wiggle room for pictures along the way. (My go-to travel kit is my D7100 + 35mm lens, because it works great for so many photographic situations from people to nature to architecture to anything in between.) That’s one of the nice things about road trips: photo opportunities abound if you’re willing to look for them, stop, and get out of your car. I took Highway 77 south out of Lincoln and as I crept up on Beatrice I saw a gorgeous sunrise on the horizon, so I pulled over, grabbed my camera, and took several shots. A half hour later as the sun was a bit higher in the sky I passed what I think was a Christmas tree farm south of Wymore and saw a field of young pines silhouetted in the morning fog, backlit by the rising sun.

And I kept on driving.

See, at the time I was thinking of a dozen reasons why I shouldn’t stop for a photo. They were all stupid thing like:

• I just stopped a half hour ago

• I already took a sunrise photo

• I don’t have time

• I might get my shoes all wet in the morning dew

• I’ll never be able to capture a good photo of that scene

• I already drove past, and it’s too late now

Thankfully before I had gone even a half mile down the road I decided that all these reasons were patently ridiculous so I found a dirt road, turned around, and drove back to the tree farm. I pulled off the road, got out my D7100, and took a dozen shots before getting back in my car and continuing my seven-hour drive back home. In the end I’m so extraordinarily glad I took a few minutes out of my day to get this image. Every one of the reasons I found to not stop and take a photo seems entirely trivial compared to the picture I got, and even if I didn’t manage to capture a decent shot I would still have had a fun little experience. And sometimes that, my friends, is worth a thousand photos.

Remember that scene in Star Wars: Episode IV when Grand Moff Tarkin ordered the destruction of Alderaan? It contained a few brief shots of the Death Star Control Room and for some reason those few seconds have always stuck with me. I really liked the idea of flipping levers and pushing buttons to activate such a massive device (though if it were me I don’t think I would have been able to go through with the annihilation of an entire world), and though the chances of me ending up on the Death Star to flip said levers and switches is somewhat remote, we have the next best thing at my job: video edit bays.

The title of this post is a bit misleading, since it’s meant to be a reference to the main telecommunications control room where I work at Oklahoma State University, but the picture itself is in fact showing one of the nearby video editing bays. It’s where members of our production staff monitor incoming video feeds, edit live and recorded footage, and work to produce polished final content. Each bay contains a board similar to this one but a lot bigger, and allows editors and producers to perform all manner of complex edits in realtime. Every time I walk past one of the edit bays I can’t help but reminded of the Death Star Control Room, especially since they seem to shave several common elements such as the lever you see in the picture. What does it do? I honestly have no idea, but it sure does look cool.

Getting this picture was a bit tricky and involved a bit of help from my coworkers Gina and Kristi. My goal for the shot was to show one control lever within the larger context of the entire edit board, and also illustrate the many other buttons and readouts at the same time. I took a few shots at f/1.8 but the depth of field was simply too shallow and I didn’t like how the row of lights behind the lever spread out like a long yellow fan. There was one other major problem too: the lighting.

This picture is simply too cluttered, and there is no clear focal point on which the viewer is supposed to focus. What’s the point here? Is it the lever, the rows of lights in the back, or the green and yellow buttons in the foreground? My solution was simple: Have Gina and Kristi help me alter the lighting conditions just a bit. We found another lever that was in the opposite position (I wasn’t about to go pulling levers or pushing buttons on my own), Gina held my iPhone on Flashlight mode above and just behind the lever, and Kristi helped me with some tips on positioning. The added light allowed me to shoot at f/2.8 (albeit with a still-very-slow-for-handheld shutter of 1/20 second) and helped bring the focus of the picture squarely on the lever. I really like the final result, and looking at it makes me think just for a bit that I’m on a giant spaceship in a galaxy far, far away…

Here’s something that might look a bit strange or even silly to someone who doesn’t live in the American midwest. What you’re looking at is a tornado siren, and it’s not an uncommon sight around Oklahoma and many other parts of Tornado Alley though the exact shape and appearance of the sirens varies greatly depending on where you are: back home in Nebraska these sirens looked more like outsized bullhorns, but in Oklahoma they often resemble forty-foot-tall honey dippers. Most of the year these sirens stand watch, sentinels of the prairie ready to let loose a piercing wail if a twister threatens to close in on the community. This particular siren is a few blocks from my house and my wife and pass by it several times each week when we go out walking or biking with our kids, and I thought it would make for an interesting photographic exercise: how to capture the slightly surreal nature of this object with a 50mm lens?

When we went out on a recent walk I had no particular intention of taking a picture of this thing, but since I had my camera with me (as I usually do when we go on walks, thanks to my recently-acquired Black Rapid Curve) I decided to go for it. The problem, as often happens with a 50mm lens on a crop sensor camera, is that it’s hard to fit much in the frame without standing way, way far back from your subject. In this case I could have taken a picture of the whole siren pole by standing halfway down the block, but that would have reduced the giant obelisk to just another feature on the horizon since many other trees and houses would be in the shot as well. I also tried shooting up close, but it made for a very confusing image to just see the siren and nothing else.

Thus my dilemma, and one I keep coming back to on this blog: how to imbue a photographic subject with a sense of context. In this case I wanted to demonstrate the sheer size of the siren, so I deliberately framed the object next to a tree. Even if you have never seen a siren like this, seeing it next to a tree should give you a clue as to its height as well as its overall diameter. I also wanted to make room for the sky in this picture because it conveys (I hope) the man-vs-nature dynamic at work here: when storms rage and tornadoes threaten, this siren will warn the neighborhood and give us time to take shelter lest we all get swept away.

As for camera settings, I kept it simple: F/4, ISO 100, and 1/750 second shutter. No shallow depth of field or other photographic tricks were required, and in a way I kind of like that. Sometimes simple is better, and after I shot this I put away my camera, ran to catch up to my wife and kids, and just enjoyed our walk.

Unlike most of the photos I post here on Weekly Fifty, this one actually has a bit more personal significance beyond “Here’s a cool photo I took.” What you’re looking at is a popcorn maker, a jug of popcorn kernels, and the lynchpin that binds the whole operation together: a small jar of coconut oil. For years my wife and I have made homemade popcorn to share while watching Netflix after a busy day, and we have tried all sorts of different methods to tweak it and improve the taste. Not that there’s anything wrong with a bowl full of puffy popcorn by itself, but we have learned a thing or two about getting it just right. One evening recently when we made yet another batch I thought it would also be an interesting picture, and the result is what you see here. But before I get to an analysis of the picture itself, here’s a few things I have learned over the years to help you arrive at that perfect batch of homemade popcorn:

• Use a West Bend Stir Crazy popper

• Use coconut oil instead of traditional vegetable or canola oil

• Use Orville Redenbacher’s original kernels. Never go with Jiffy-Pop or other off-brand kernels

• Use real butter instead of margarine

That’s about it, really. Sometimes I like to dress up popcorn with seasonings and flavored oil, but to be honest the best is really the simplest. On a recent evening after our kids were in bed, dishes were done, clothes were folded, and plans were made for the following few days, we sat down to watch another episode of Prison Break with popcorn and our favorite drinks: Izze sparkling juice. Before I plugged in our trusty popcorn maker I wanted to capture the scene with a picture, so I grabbed my D200 and took a few shots at f/1.8, ISO 400. Since there wasn’t much light and I didn’t want to turn on any more lest it wash out the scene, my camera metered a shutter speed of 1/20 second for a good exposure which is not very good when shooting handheld without image stabilization. To ward off any potential hand-shaking-induced blurriness I took several shots hoping one would turn out, and lo and behold…one did :)

I did move the background elements a bit in order to get a better overall composition, and I purposely left the white balance a bit on the yellow side when I adjusted the RAW file in Lightroom. I wanted to evoke a comfortable homely mood with this, and I hope I succeeded. And as I type this I’m getting kind of hungry for another batch of popcorn. Time to bust out the popper!

This picture is so simple there’s almost not much to say: it’s a jar of peach syrup given to me and my wife by a friend of ours. She and her family spent a Saturday morning not too far from our town picking peaches, and a few days later she had several jars of syrup as a result. Originally she had planned on making peach jam but accidentally used the wrong kind of pectin which meant the sweet concoction would not set up properly. Not one to let things go to waste, she went ahead with the jam-making operation and instead ended up with several jars of syrup instead, and gave a couple to us. Since we’re big fans of homemade pancakes at my house we certainly didn’t mind having syrup instead of jam one bit :)

Something about the way the morning sunlight hit this jar struck a chord with me, and I thought it would make an interesting study in photographic minimalism. I liked the long shadow being cast from the low sun, and part of what I hope to convey in this picture is a sense of warmth and comfort as the sun rises early in the morning. (I’m not sure if that comes through or not, but it’s what I was going for.) Two weeks ago I posted a picture of a girl dancing next to an indoor sculpture and mentioned that such a situation was not very well suited to a 50mm lens on a crop sensor camera, but this shot is almost the polar opposite: a small jar on a table is an ideal subject for the ol’ nifty fifty. What you see here is almost exactly what was captured in camera, with no cropping of any kind. A wider lens would have put too much of the table in the shot and a more telephoto lens would have isolated the jar too much. But that 50mm lens in a situation like this…oh man, it’s smooth as butter. Or jam. Or possibly even syrup :)

I want to end this post with a bit of a challenge to anyone reading this (or listening to the audio feed): take a picture of an ordinary everyday thing, but try to do it in an interesting or compelling way. Post your results in the comment section below and let’s see what we can all come up with :)