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

Some days you’re in the right place at the right time, and that’s definitely what happened here. This was on a hot Sunday morning in mid August and my wife and I were doing our best to shoo the kids outside, load them in the car, and head off to church without being too late. The boys and I made it out to the driveway while my wife was wrapping up a few last-minute things inside when I spotted this tiny little mushroom right next to the driveway. The top was no bigger than a dime, and with the sun poking over the horizon (as well as our departure for church being imminent) I ran through a couple scenarios in my head: ignore it and go about my day, grab my camera, or hope it was still there after church.

I chose Option 2, and ran inside to grab whatever camera my 50mm lens happened to be attached to. Turns out it was my D7100 which was fine, even though I like the tilt-up screen on my D750 for low-to-the-ground shots like this, but I didn’t want to take 30 seconds and switch lenses. The clock was ticking! I quickly screwed my +10 close-up filter on to the lens and ran (literally) back outside to see if I could grab a picture before it was time to leave.

I knew that shooting with a +10 filter was going to be a bit problematic in terms of depth of field, and I also knew I had to think quickly about composition and lighting, so I didn’t get to sit and ponder this shot as long as I would have preferred but I think it turned out fine in the end. I took a few shots at f/8 and then, after reviewing them on the camera, realized that I’d need an even smaller aperture to get enough of the mushroom in focus. I stopped down to f/11 and, since I was using Aperture Priority with Auto-ISO and a minimum shutter speed of 1/200 second, ended up with ISO 400 which looks great on a D7100. My boys helped me with picking an angle to shoot from and as luck (or perhaps divine intervention) would have it we got a few more shots, hopped into the car, and made it to church before the opening hymn.

After we got home my kids and I reviewed the shots and I found this one to be my favorite, partly because of the lighting but partly because of the blue in the background that helped the mushroom top to really stand out. It’s quite similar to another photo I posted earlier this year with a similar blue color in the background which, in both images, is our 2007 Toyota Matrix. Originally I didn’t really like the idea of my car in the background but after looking at the picture closer, especially on a smaller screen, I thought it did a real nice job of bringing out the subject in the center. I think the bright spots and dew drops in this other image are visually compelling as well, but the mushroom blended in a bit too much with the streak of yellow in the background.

I shot this photo on the morning of August 7, 2019, which was exactly 12 days before the start of the Fall semester at OSU. Things are always so interesting on campus at this time of year, with the excitement and activity of a new semester just around the corner while the last wisps of summer begin to slowly evaporate in 95-degree yeat. You can almost feel the impending return of students to school and yet, the day I made this image, it was just like most days for the past few months: relatively quiet, mostly empty, and generally kind of low-key and relaxed. But not for long.

As I stepped out the door to hop on my bike this morning I turned around and grabbed my D7100 and 50mm lens just in case I ran across a photo opportunity. And would you know it, I did! Or, rather, with my mind and eyes actively seeking out a photo opportunity I ended up encountering not one but two. Both were right on campus near my building, and while I’m not sure if the other one is worth posting here I did quite like the results of this picture.

One of the fun things about shooting pictures in the early morning is the way the light takes on an entirely ethereal quality for a very short window. The sun had just crept over the horizon and was poking through the leaves of the cypress trees, which you can see in that blob of bubbly bokeh in the top-middle part of this image. The bright spot of light at the end of the purple plant is a light near the edge of the path by Theta Pond, as is the other yellow spot just to the left-of-center. Ten minutes later and the sun was too bright, and too high in the sky, to get the background like this and the lamps were turned off as well. So while the subject of this image isn’t all that interesting, the background and overall lighting kind of elevate it to something else altogether.

And that’s the fun of photography–you can take familiar things and see them transformed before your very eyes :)

This picture is a good example of why I set up this blog so many years ago. The photo isn’t all that remarkable on a technical level, nor is it going to win any awards for creativity, but when I saw this little grasshopper sitting on top of a roll of painter’s tape I knew I had two options:

1. Leave it be, and go on with my work
2. Get my camera and take a picture

The first option is much easier and requires almost nothing in the way of added effort, whereas Option 2 would mean putting down my painting supplies, going inside, getting my camera, attaching a close-up filter, and actually taking some photos. It’s not a lot, but things like that are enough of a barrier for me to, more often than not, choose solutions like Option 1.

So I chose Option 2.

While this isn’t a life-changing photograph or anything really noteworthy of its own accord, the simple act of taking it was a fun, quick experiment with close-up photography and, it turned out, a brief but welcome distraction from my work in the garage. The grasshopper didn’t seem to mind my (relatively) gigantic camera and lens being thrust in its face, and was mostly content to just hang out on his blue perch for a minute while I fiddled with some settings to get the shot. I think I used the +10 filter for this, but I don’t remember for certain, and shot at f/8 to get a depth of field that was wide enough to clearly see the subject but shallow enough to have a bit of background, and foreground, blur. Shutter speed was 1/30 and ISO was 6400, which still impresses me on my D750 even years after getting that camera.

A few heartbeats later and this grasshopper had clearly had enough of my photographic shenanigans, so he/she/it hopped away leaving me to return to my painting. Thanks little buddy for letting me take your photo. It was fun :)

In September 2018 a new park opened up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, called The Gathering Place. It was the culmination of years of work to turn a blighted stretch of riverfront into a center for kids to play, adults to walk, and people of all ages to learn, grow, and explore. It wasn’t until the summer of 2019 that we finally made it to this park and we were certainly not disappointed. My family was there for several hours and I would guess we saw about one-third of the park, and we are already looking forward to our next trip where we can hopefully experience a lot more of what The Gathering Place has to offer.

That brings me to this week’s photo, which you would never know was shot at this particular location. It could have been taken almost anywhere and nothing about this indicates that it’s part of a much larger recreation area, but I think that’s what I like about it. The picture is kind of a metaphor for the park as a whole: it’s a spot of calm in the midst of a sea of urban activity, and within that park this little butterfly (moth, perhaps?) found its own little nexus of peace and quiet.

As I often do, I had my Fuji X100F with me and immediately put it in “kind of close-up” mode, which is to say I dialed the aperture to f/2.8, made sure the Manual+Electronic shutter was engaged so I could shoot with as fast of a shutter speed as I needed to, and made sure Auto-ISO was set with the proper minimum shutter speed (just in case!) to freeze motion. I learned a while ago that shooting close subjects at f/2 on the X100F is kind of a nonstarter because the lens loses a lot of its sharpness, and f/2.8 mitigates most of that while still giving you plenty of background blur so you can focus on your subject. While this is certainly no macro lens, it does let you get decent shots like this without too much effort.

I know it’s a bit of a cliché to take pictures of fireworks, but this was the first time in my life I actually got the opportunity to do it so I was pretty excited to see how they turned out. The thing is, most years on July 4 we put our boys to bed around 7 or 8 and then watch Netflix or do household chores (that laundry isn’t going to clean itself, after all) before heading to bed. We don’t live close enough to the spot where our city has its big fireworks display, and while I have taken pictures of the sparklers and ground bloom flowers we light in the driveway it’s a far cry from a big display of aerial explosions.

This year we were visiting some friends over Independence Day and we took the opportunity to do something special by letting our boys stay up late for the big show. Our friends live a few blocks away from the park where most of the city gathers to see the fireworks, so I thought it would be a fun opportunity to get some shots of the action. Having never done this before I didn’t really know how to set up my camera or how things would turn out, but I was pretty happy with the results.

First, my camera settings: F/16, ISO 200, 23mm focal length (which, on the Fuji X100F translates to 35mm equivalent), and shutter speed of 10 seconds. I quickly realized after the first few shots that longer shutter speeds would result in messy streaks in the sky compared to what you see in this photo, and for the rest of the event I hovered between 8 and 13 seconds.

I also want to note that I was standing directly behind my kids and next to my wife. I didn’t want photos of the display to detract from the experience of seeing fireworks, so I mostly just watched and ooh’d and ahh’d with my kids while pressing the shutter casually.

The reason I like this particular shot isn’t necessarily because of the fireworks, but because of the moon peeking over the trees. It felt like our celestial friend decide to stop by and watch the bombs bursting in air in a show of celestial patriotism :) The moon moves pretty quickly though and a minute after this picture it had gone behind the trees again, almost as if it stopped by to pay its respects and then continued on its journey.