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

It’s a bit tricky to get photos that represent Christmas here in Oklahoma, or at least the traditional snow-covered-evergreens, kids-skating-on-ice, carolers-singing, mug-of-cocoa-by-the-fireplace Norman Rockwell-style version that many people think of at this time of year. While it is not exactly uncommon per se to get a storybook White Christmas around here, with highs anywhere in the 30’s to 50’s throughout December it is generally more the exception than the norm. So my challenge for this week, then, became one of capturing an image that represents Christmas given the constraints, not only of geographical location but of time, that I was facing. My solution was to shoot a picture of some decorations on our Christmas tree, but soon found that it was easier said than done.

I wanted to get a picture that felt cozy and evoked a sense of warmth and comfort, and to me this was best represented by a close-up image of our Christmas tree. I wanted to shoot it in the wee hours of the morning so I could get the glow of the lights without any other ambient lighting, and even though I was pointing my camera straight at some of the little colored bulbs I still had to use a tripod since the light output is so low. A few photos later I realized that shots of just the lights were not all that interesting, so I looked for a few ornaments to more or less anchor the photo and give the viewer something on which to focus. I liked this felt tree ornament, and shot it from a low angle to give it a more commanding presence in the frame. My hope is that the first thing you notice is the tree ornament, then the lights, and then the branches of the (fake) tree around it.

Taking this photo made me think of the artificial nature of everything around us, particularly at this time of year when we give, and ask for, so many man-made things. The Lord says in Matthew 24:25 that “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words shall never pass away.” It’s ironic that when we celebrate the birth of our savior Jesus we often do it with man-made gifts that are ultimately going to turn to rust and ashes, when in fact the true meaning of Christmas is all about a relationship with our Lord. It’s an eternal gift He gave to us that will outlast anything we can possibly have here on earth. I hope, then, that this photo is just one tiny reminder of Christmas and the real meaning behind it all.

I suppose some might consider this a companion piece to the chalkboard photo I posted a few weeks ago, though that was not my intention when I shot it. I was out walking around for a bit, with my camera over my shoulder just looking around to see if anything caught my eye. Soon I came across what appeared to be an abandoned USA Today newspaper dispenser, and it struck me as a bit of an oddity in today’s ultra-digital, hyper-connected world. The slogan “The Nation’s Newspaper” was almost a bit sad, as this is clearly no longer the case as readership of the venerable news outlet has continued to slide in recent years. What struck me even more was the context in which this vending machine was placed. It’s resting humbly under the balcony of one of the older dormitories on campus, and you can clearly see some visual cues here that show its misplacement in our modern world as well: tile on one wall, rock on another, and angled support braces. They just don’t make ’em like this anymore, and when you look at more modern architecture, it’s easy to see why :)

I believe this is only the second black and white picture I have posted to Weekly Fifty. I like to use this technique sparingly, and with a specific purpose in mind. In this case I think the lack of color hearkens back to heydays of both the paper and the building. I wanted to create a specific mood for the viewer that just didn’t quite work in color, and I hope it works. You can see the colorized version here, though it also lacks some of the other visual tweaks like radial filter adjustments and a bit of highlight/shadow adjustments too.

On a bright day like this I would normally shoot at f/4 or smaller, but I wanted just a bit of DOF to show the position of the vending machine relative to the vertical support on the right-hand side. No need to use anything higher than ISO 200 either, and I am quite pleased with the end result.

I’m not sure what these ledges are that stick out from below each window of this college dormitory, but something tells me they were once used to hold window air conditioning units. I have no idea if that’s true or not, but the mystery of the ledges is one that I think I would rather not have solved, thank you very much. Sometimes not knowing is even more compelling than the opposite :)

I thought it would make for an interesting photo to capture the shadows cast by each of these ledges in the late afternoon sun, but as I went out to photograph the building I noticed that none of my pictures looked all that compelling. You could see the building, the ledges, and the shadows, but somehow they all seemed bland and empty. Turns out the solution was right in front of me the whole time: use a tree to frame the shot. The idea of framing your subject is something that took me a while to learn, and I still need a great deal of practice at it, but this is an example of how adding another element to a picture can serve to enhance your subject instead of detract from it, as you might think.

And the name? Well, for some reason the ledges reminded me of a massive outdoor staircase, which in turn reminded me of a line Bill Murray said in Ghostbusters that always makes me smile.

I tell you, one of the coolest things to do as a photographer is to help capture moments in the life of a family that they will have with them for years to come. It’s a humbling thought, really, to know that you are responsible for freezing an image in time of someone’s child that they might look back on decades later and treasure for the rest of their time here on earth. But as a photographer, that is exactly what you get the privilege of doing, and it’s a thought that rattles my nerves probably more than it really should. On a crisp autumn morning I met this family at our agreed-upon location and quickly got to work taking photos before the sun rose too high and their baby started to get fussy. Turns out my fears of the latter were a bit unfounded, as the boy was the picture of happiness all morning long, and we had a fantastic time just walking around and taking photos.

Thanks to lessons I learned on previous photo sessions I knew to shoot most of the morning at f/4, ISO 400, with the 50mm lens on my D7100. This was great for individual shots like this, but even better for group photos of the whole family. Using a much wider aperture might get a tad more background blur, but you run the risk of someone being out of focus thanks to shallow depth of field. Honestly, even though you all know how much I like my 50mm Prime lens, most of the session could probably have been shot with a kit lens, so let that be a lesson to you: you can probably squeeze more out of the gear you already have than you might think.

I try to make it a point to have my D200/50mm combination with me at work, because I never know when a photographic opportunity will present itself. (It’s one of the nice things about working on a college campus–there’s always something going on around here.) On this particular morning I drove my car instead of riding my bike, and as I walked past one building on the way to my office I saw this series of lights that looked like it make for an interesting depth of field illustration. With the sun rising low on the eastern horizon the street and surrounding architecture were lit up just barely enough to have kind of a nice warm glow, and these lights served as a nice accent to the coming daylight. I shot this at f/1.8 to get a bit of depth of field, and my idea was to show how the lights got progressively out of focus as they receded into the background. I’m not sure if it worked quite like I hoped, since the other four lights in the photo kind of melded together into one extended yellow blur, but combined with the street lights I think you get the idea. Some of the shots I have posted to Weekly Fifty recently could easily have been taken with a kit lens, but not this one. To get nice blurry backgrounds like this, you really need a big ol’ aperture–unless there is a good deal of distance between your subject and the background, in which case a smaller aperture would work fine.