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

I took this picture eight days after one of the worst ice storms in a while, but you would almost never know it unless you look really carefully. After a week of intense cleanup most things on campus, and around town, are almost back to normal. There are piles of tree limbs and branches on almost every curb, but most of the debris is gone from campus thanks to the tireless efforts of the groundskeepers and cleanup crews. If you look carefully at the red tree you’ll notice that it seems incomplete, almost like someone took a pizza slice-shaped chunk out of the top. That is most likely a missing branch that broke off in the ice storm, but other than that this seems like a pretty normal scene for this time of year.

With one exception: there are no students. Not just an absence of pedestrians in the image, but an absence of evidence that any students are here at all. To be fair, I did shoot this picture at 7:25am (though if you look at the EXIF data on Flickr it probably says otherwise, since I had not yet adjusted my camera clock for Central Standard Time) but even so, it’s clear that this sidewalk has not seen much traffic. During a normal school year you would never see one of the main walkways on campus covered with so many leaves! That only happens when there are no people walking around to shuffle them around, but such is the nature of college during COVID. If this picture makes you feel a sense of calm or peace, that’s pretty much how the entire school year has gone. There’s a low hum of activity, but it’s a shell of what we normally see around here. Not that it’s a bad thing, and I’m glad both students and professors are finding ways to adapt to education during a pandemic. It’s just different, and something I’m still finding it a little strange to adjust to.

As I write this it’s about seven years after I got my D7100, which is the camera I used to get this shot. It’s really interesting to me how well that camera has held up over the years, and while I certainly prefer my D750 for image quality and D500 for sports and action, that D7100 remains a formidable photographic force especially when paired with some good glass. Or even average glass, as is the case here with my trusty ol’ 50mm f/1.8 lens. I kind of wish I had something a bit wider for this shot, but in hindsight I think the constrained field of view of a 50mm lens on an APS-C sensor fit just right.

Hope you’re doing well, and here’s to a better 2021 and the hope that we will get a vaccine soon.

I shot this on a Monday afternoon while my wife and I were out on our usual walk with the kids–the same walk, on the same route, that has netted several Weekly Photos this past year. The air was chilly and the rain was falling, and little did we know it but our state was about to get hit with the worst ice storm in a long time. When I shot this photo we didn’t know any of that was coming though, and all I was thinking about was how the lightly falling rain just bordering on sleet would make for some interesting photo opportunities. Unfortunately I didn’t really see anything until I noticed this lone read leaf as we were making our way back home. My wife and the kids went on ahead while I paused to see if I could capture a good shot, and I think it worked pretty well.

One thing I ask myself when taking a photo, almost any photo, is what I want the viewer to focus on. If the answer isn’t immediately apparent, it’s usually not a great photo. (Though not always, as there certainly are exceptions to this.) I saw a lot of trees, leaves, branches, twigs, and other things on our walk that looked interesting in person but didn’t make for great pictures. Without a clear subject, or contrasting elements between the subject and the other elements, nearly all the things I saw just didn’t turn out to be great photographs. This one leaf sure did though, and by itself I think it would have been just fine but the rain and ice added a bit of a shine to it (as well as subtle touches to the surrounding scene) that elevated the image to a better place. At least in my opinion anyway.

I didn’t have long to take this shot since I didn’t want to make my family wait in the rain and cold, so I had to make a few quick compositional and exposure decisions on the fly. I shot it so enough of the leaf was against a green background to make it really stand out, especially the bottom tip with the drop of ice. I also shot this at f/2.8 to get a good compromise between sharpness and background blur, and when I looked at my two or three version that I shot at f/1.8…sure enough, the background was smooth but the leaf was just a bit too blurry. I also got this with my trusty D7100 and 50mm f/1.8 combo, and as I have said many times recently it’s still fun to shoot with that even after all these years.

I don’t mind being more than a little out of the loop. I’m usually not the first person to jump on new social or technological trends, and I can’t really tell the difference between a DVD and a Blu-Ray. It’s nice existing relatively free from the one-upsmanship that sometimes exists in other circles, but this photo is kind of a very small example of how it’s a little weird at the same time.

I was biking to work on a cool morning in mid October when I saw the fountain outside the Low Library on campus filled with…pink ducks. Why pink ducks? I dunno. Strange things happen on a college campus sometimes, and you just have to go with the flow or go mad trying to make sense of it all. I didn’t really try to make sense of it or figure out these ducks’ raison d’être, but I did think that the scene might make an interesting photo. I hopped off my bike, busted out my Classic Combo (D7100 + 50mm f/1.8) and got to work.

One thing I didn’t want to do was create some type of artificial scene. I’m not sure exactly why, but I felt like it wouldn’t be right to pose the ducks or otherwise alter the scene just to get a photograph. Even though the entire ordeal was artificial, I wanted to essentially just work with what I was given and not create some type of false photogenicity. (Is that even a word? If not, it should be.) I looked around to see if I could spot a single duck isolated from the rest, and soon I settled on the one you see here. As luck, and time of day, would have it there was a bright yellow bulb in the background which showed up as a really cool bokeh ball when shot with a wide aperture. Really the only thing I changed in this picture was the aperture; I didn’t move my camera forwards or backwards, and once I lined up my shot in Live View (because I had to set my camera on the edge of the fountain which made it tricky to see through the optical viewfinder) the only question was which aperture to use. I cycled through the old standbys: 1.8, 2.4, 2.8, and 4 and wasn’t really sure which one I liked best. It never hurts to have some options though. In the end I ended up picking the f/1.8 image because the silky smooth background was just too good to take a pass on. The other shots were fine but the more the pink ducks in the background became clearer as the aperture got smaller, the more distracting they got and the less interesting the composition became.

My only regret with this image is that I didn’t take the duck’s reflection into account. If I had been more careful I would have scooted my camera back an inch or two in order to get the full reflection in the frame, but I’m just glad I got its eyes.

Side note: A week later I did find out why these ducks were in the fountain. The OSU Wellness Center organized an event to raise awareness for breast cancer, and I happened to stumble on the scene right before all the ducks were cleaned up later that day.

For a good long while now, one of my favorite subjects to photograph on an annual basis is (are?) magnolia seeds, particularly those on the periphery of Theta Pond on the OSU campus. It’s almost like shooting fish in a barrel, because it’s almost difficult to not get a good picture of these brilliant red and brown husks: just point your camera and press the shutter. The brilliant reds contrasting with the rich browns, with deep greens in the background, almost always come together to create a brilliant composition of light and nature. My challenge, then, becomes one of growth and change. How can I take a new look at a similar subject and turn the familiar into something a little more interesting compared to what I might have photographed in years past?

Part of the answer lies in something I have been using more on my DSLRs lately: Live View. Traditionally I have relied on the optical viewfinder to compose my shots, finding the Live View to be a bit clunky and in some ways not exactly a good representation of reality. Plus, Live View on DSLRs (generally speaking, that is) just isn’t up to speed with traditional Optical Viewfinders in terms of autofocus and some other aspects that often matter to me. But I’m learning that for still subjects, particularly those found in nature like flowers and, well, magnolia seed pods, Live View holds some highly compelling creative possibilities. In fact, Live View is what made this shot possible.

What separates this particular shot of a magnolia seed pod from other similar photos I have taken over the years is the attention I paid to the background. Not just the blurriness, but the specific areas of light and shadow–particularly the bright white circles framing the seed pod on the left side. If you know what to look for (and I have, to some degree, learned what to look for) you can look for the conditions that will create these light artifacts and then shoot accordingly by using the optical viewfinder. But the thing about an optical viewfinder is, you can’t really see what you finished shot will look like until you check it on the rear screen. The OVF simply doesn’t show a true representation of what the final photo will look like because the aperture of the lens changes from the time you focus your shot and the time you take your shot the very next instant. Because of that, Live View becomes exceedingly useful for situations like this and it’s one reason the transition to fully mirrorless shooting excites me so much.

To get this shot I first found a seed, then found an angle from which to shoot it, then used Live View to compose my shot, and then adjusted my aperture to f/2.8 to retain subject sharpness while still giving enough background blurriness. It also helped that I could hold my camera above my head to get the shot, whereas the optical viewfinder would have required me to hold my camera up to my face instead of at arm’s length. The result is an image unlike any other magnolia seed I have shot, not because of the seed but because of everything surrounding it. The background is what makes the shot here, and even the foreground to some extent. It was a fun picture to take, and it gives me some creative ideas about how to get more shots like this in the future.

I’ll give you three guesses as to where I shot this photo, and the first two don’t count. Unless Theta Pond was one of the first two, in which case, you win! Not sure what you win, but I’ll let you know when I find out. This was taken about 50 feet away from last week’s image of a duck sitting on the sidewalk, and even though it’s not actually that great of a picture I wanted to use it here on Weekly Fifty because I just like taking shots of things in the rain. There’s something about the way everything in this image glistens and sparkles that, despite the relatively monochromatic nature of the photo, gives it a sense of life and vibrance. Normally I would prefer that the subject, in this case the seed on a Cypress tree, would have something to make it stand out from the rest of the composition. A different color, certainly, but maybe a greater sense of contrast or even a bit of kinetic energy. Something, anything, besides a green ball against a (mostly) green background.

Even so, I like to see even mundane pictures like this as a chance to grow and learn, and usually there is something to appreciate even if it doesn’t always present itself right away. In this case even though this is not one of my top ten (or even top 200) photos I’ve ever posted here on Weekly Fifty, I do like the bright spots of light on the left side and the streak of brown going across the middle. Almost like it’s bisecting the image, and in some sense the blurry dots of light almost make it seem like the picture is shimmering. If you look close enough you can even see some very tiny spider silk threads around some of the needles.

It’s just that the picture as a whole is so…unremarkable. But it was enjoyable to take, and it gave me a chance to use my camera which is always a good thing.