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

Each year the fraternities and sororities at Oklahoma State University construct elaborate decorations for our annual homecoming celebration, and on Friday night before the big football game everyone in town heads to campus for an event called Walkaround. It really is a sight to behold, with fifty thousand people milling around, live music playing, vendors selling all sorts of food, games for the kids, and of course the massive decorations–many of which feature animatronic moving parts. The Alumni Association bills the weekend as “America’s Greatest Homecoming Celebration,” and while I can’t verify that claim with authority, I can say that it sure is a cool experience.

This year I went down on Thursday night as the final preparations were being made, with the intention of getting a few pictures as the decorations (or “decks,”) were being assembled. I had hoped to get a shot of someone welding so I could get spark trails, but it was not meant to be–the welding was all finished at this point. Instead I captured this shot and a few others like it, which were intended to show some of the preparations as well as the hustle and bustle of the evening’s activity. I don’t know that this picture does a good job, especially since you can’t really see what the two guys on the lift are actually doing, but I was pleased that I was able to capture the light trails from the passing car as well as a general sense of what it’s like on a nighttime construction job.

On a recent rainy day I took my D200 out to see if I could get any good photos and even though I had nothing in mind per se, I knew I wanted to take advantage of the overcast light as well as the drizzle gently falling to the ground. After walking around for a few minutes I spotted this chain attached to a couple stantions and thought it might make for an interesting photograph. I wanted to get a picture of the water drops hanging off the chain links, but there were other elements to consider too: what angle to shoot, where I should position myself, what else to have in the frame, what exposure settings to use, how little depth of field I wanted, etc. Having taken similar pictures in the past I knew that I wanted to focus the viewer’s attention on just a couple drops, which meant I had to find a way to get a shallow depth of field without going overboard. It’s tempting to open up the aperture on your lens for shots like this because to get ultra-narrow depth of field, but sometimes that can backfire by eliminating the other elements of the picture that give your subject a bit of context.

For this picture I used an aperture of f/4 which might not seem all that wide, but because I was positioned less than two feet from the water drops it gave me just the right effect I was looking for. It gave me the added benefit of using a slightly slower shutter of 1/250 which allowed some of the raindrops to show up as little streaks–a nice added bonus. The only thing I don’t like is the black pole in the background sticking right up through the middle chain link. It’s distracting and if I had paid more attention to the other elements in my picture besides just my subject I could have fixed it by scooting an inch or two to the side. But hey, I learned something and will try to fix it next time, so in that regard I consider the day a success :)

One of my photographic weaknesses is street photography: I just can’t seem to get comfortable taking photos of strangers in public places. Something about it feels strange, as if I’m invading their personal space or doing something illegal. In truth, most street photography is perfectly legal and most people don’t mind having their picture taken at all. It was with this mindset that I approached OSU’s recent International Expo, an annual event wherein student groups from countries all around the world sell food and do various cultural demonstrations. It’s a fantastic event and a great way to not only get some photos, but give your taste buds a sort of instant passport to the world.

Armed with my D200 and 50mm lens (not the best combination for this sort of thing, btw. A wider lens would be much better), I took a few dozen photos during my time at the event but was only happy with this one. I’m just not comfortable getting up close and personal with strangers, and as a result most of my pictures looked boring and uninteresting. I wanted to find a way to capture something happening instead of just static images of food or people standing around. To that end, I kept my camera at F/4 or F/2.8 and tried to get close enough to get good shots without being annoying. And like I said, most of them just didn’t work out. The images I got had no sense of emotion, personality, or even humanity, and many were poorly composed to begin with. This one, though, turned out quite well: I like how the subject is framed, and how he is clearly engaged in some sort of meaningful dialog with the guy in the red shirt. I shot this at f/1.8 which gave me a bit of depth of field even though I was several feet away, and the overhead lighting was at just the right angle to make things interesting. Even though you can’t really tell it’s an international food fair, I think it does a good job of capturing a bit of the energy and activity of the event.

Each year we see these spiders pop up around our house en masse around the start of autumn, but they still surprise me a bit when I first encounter their massive webs. The one in here is about two inches in diameter (including the legs, not just the body) and while I’m not sure if it’s poisonous or not, I’m still more than a little inclined to maintain a respectful distance. I saw this spider when I was taking out the trash one morning, and of my reaction was something along the lines of “whoa.” The web’s proximity to our outdoor flood light made for a really cool backlit effect, and even though I was holding my infant son in one arm I ran to get my D200 and tripod to see if I could get a decent shot. And I did, but it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. Truth be told I kind of forgot about my new spider friend until that night when I was working in my garage and noticed that he was not only still hanging around, but had his legs fully extended which made for a much more interesting picture. This time I put the 50mm lens on my D7100 so I would have more flexibility if I needed to crop the photo, and could also take advantage of its higher ISO capabilities. Instead of a tripod I just used a stepladder, and tried several angles to get the shot I was looking for. The tricky part here was getting my metering right–I tried Matrix and Spot, but those ended up either too dark or too washed out. Center-weighted got things just how I wanted them, and even though I did have to do a bit of Lightroom finessing (yay for graduated radial filters!) I came very close to nailing the shot I wanted right in camera. Turns out I didn’t even need the higher ISO of my D7100 since I shot this at ISO400, but still, it’s nice to know it’s there if you need it.

Since I work on a college campus I get to see a variety of different technologies put to use in all sorts of classrooms. Interactive whiteboards, iPads, 3D printers, mobile instructional robots (seriously, it’s kind of weird), but sometimes I forget that it’s the tried-and-true methods that can be the most effective. The other day my coworker asked if I would come with her to a classroom to investigate an issue with the interactive whiteboard, and I was struck to see this chalkboard sitting a few feet away from thousands of dollars of computer technology. But more than that, it looked like it had been used recently for actual classroom instruction. It took me back a little bit, to a simpler time when education wasn’t as flashy or interactive but somehow a little more comfortable or, possibly, homely. I don’t know that things were better with chalkboards, slates, or even stone tablets, but a part of me was glad to see that things like this still remain at least somewhat useful and relevant in our modern hyper-connected classrooms.

I was also thankful that I had brought my D7100 with me, as I had to shoot this at ISO 1600 which would have been the upper limit of my D200 but is relatively clean and noise-free here. I shot at 1/90 to get a clear image, and stopped down to f/3.3 so as to get a relatively wide depth of field. I was super pleased with the lighting in the room, which created sort of a natural vignetting though I did do a bit of burning in Lightroom to amplify it a bit.