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

I promise this wasn’t processed through some type of Instagram-style photo filter. The sky really did look like this on the morning of January 10, 2019. When I pulled out of my driveway on my bike I could see that the sunrise was, for whatever atmospheric reasons cause these sorts of conditions, going to be especially rich and beautiful. As I rode past the vacant lot just south of my house I paused to take a few shots but they didn’t really do a great job of capturing the scene, especially with my D7100 and 50mm lens. So on I went until I got to the parking lot behind Hobby Lobby with an empty tree-filled field just to the southwest. I looked behind me to the east and it looked like the sky was positively blazing.

The tricky thing about photographing sunrises and sunsets is that it’s almost impossible to get the vision in real life to translate to a digital facsimile. Colors are never as vivid, and vistas are never as scenic, as when you see them in person with your own two eyes. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try though, and even though I only had my 50mm lens I figured I would do what I could to make the most of the situation. I shot a couple images with trees in the foreground but then realized that eliminating them altogether might result in a more interesting image, even though a picture of the sky alone kind of removes the possibility of context. And you know how much I emphasize context… :)

To capture the richness of the colors I underesposed the image by two full stops, and here’s what the RAW file looked like as a result:

Even in this picture the clouds are such a deep red that it’s almost difficult to believe unless you saw it with your own eyes. I didn’t want to lose those colors but I did want to punch up the sky just a bit to make the final image more accurately represent what I actually saw. I promise I didn’t adjust the saturation levels at all, and most of the editing was just adjusting the brightness of the dark areas as well as a bit of cropping on the bottom.

A few minutes later, as I turned to look behind me while waiting for a stoplight to change from red to green, I saw that the scene was almost entirely gone. Instead of a rich amber glow the sky was now a much more normal shade of blue and orange, wholly unremarkable. It’s amazing how quickly some photographic moments pass, and I’m glad I was able to capture just a bit of this one while I had the chance.

This was a fun picture to take partially because of the bit of challenge it presented, but also because it was just a really enjoyable day to be out at the lake with my camera. As my wife and I were walking around the lake here in town while our boys rode their bikes, I paused a few times to get some pictures just like this with various brown plants and leaves as subjects. The weather conditions were kind of unique in that there was virtually no detectable wind whatsoever, and no clouds in the sky, combined with temps in the 40’s or 50’s which made for really fun photo conditions. On the south side of the lake I got a couple shots like this but with grass instead of…whatever this thing is…and while they worked out OK the lighting wasn’t that great and the subjects were a bit unclear. I was shooting with my Fuji X100F so it was difficult to isolate my subject in the frame, but when we got to the south side of the lake and came across this scene I realized that it was just what I was looking for.

I knew I wanted this withered flower to be right in the center of the shot as opposed to on either side, but two big questions ran through my mind:

1. What aperture should I use?
2. Where should I place the horizon?

I really wanted the background to be blurred out but nevertheless discernible, but I wanted the subject to be nice and sharp as well. Shooting subjects close-up at f/2 is not exactly the X100F’s forte because that lens gets pretty soft in those specific conditions. F/4 didn’t quite give me the background blur I was aiming for, so I settled on f/2.8 even though the subject is a bit fuzzy around the edges. It’s a compromise I’m quite happy with.

As for the horizon, I wasn’t really sure what to do so I shot several different versions of this picture. Some were like this, some had the ball (or whatever you want to call it) right in the middle of the horizon, and some had it much lower. I ended up liking this one the best but not for any specific reason that I can articulate. It just looks the most interesting to me. I really liked that the lack of wind resulted in a glassy smooth lake surface, and even though this picture is awash with blue tones I hope it feels at least a little warm and inviting because that’s certainly how it felt on this particular day :)

The local Botanic Garden here in Stillwater often has family events throughout the year, and one week before Christmas last year they invited the public to come out for snacks, crafts, and a bit of a bonfire as well. They recently installed a model train on the premises which runs a few times each month, and because we knew they would have it operating during their Christmas event I made sure to bring my Fuji X100F and little Gorillapod with so I could try a few long-exposure shots and see what happened.

I set up my camera and tripod on one side of the train display while our kids ran around looking at the lights and trying to keep up with the trains as they completed their circuits around the tracks. My goal was to catch the trains in motion but also have a shallow depth of field to create a sense of foreground and background, which meant I had to shoot at f/2.8 with an ISO value of 200. This left me with a 2.5-second shutter speed in order to get the right exposure, though in hindsight I could have activated the built-in ND filter and gotten about seven seconds or possibly even more. I manually focused on the rocks because I wanted them to be nice and sharp, and I wasn’t too worried about the trains not being super well focused because I knew they would end up looking like blurry streaks anyway.

After getting one or two shots that I wasn’t quite happy with, I realized that I could use the burst mode on my camera to get five photos in succession and then just pick the one I liked the most. This resulted in several mediocre images but a couple ones that I really like, especially the one posted here. I always like the sense of motion that light trails give a shot, and it was neat to hear my oldest son ask me how I got the trains to move so fast. In reality they were chugging along kind of slow, but the motion trails here make them look like some kind of supersonic bullet trains.

After spending just a few minutes here I put the camera away and joined my wife and my boys at the hot chocolate station where we also met up with some friends who happened to be at the same event. It was a clear starry sky on a crisp December night, and having this photo is a nice way to remember it all.

To those of you who shoot film…I salute you.

I took this photo this when my wife and I were on a walk at Arcadia Lake just northeast of Oklahoma City, and as I knelt down on this leaf-strewn path I thought about my buddy Ryan who has taken some absolutely breathtaking images similar to this, but with a lot more mountains and water, using nothing but a light meter, some math, and a film camera. I had no such tools at my disposal and instead went with a decidedly modern approach: I shot this with my Fuji X100F which, despite looking kind of like an old-school film camera, is all ones and zeros on the inside. And as such I let the camera take care of all the heavy lifting. I was using Auto ISO with a minimum shutter of 1/125 and shot the first version of this at f/4 which, thanks to the ability to see the final image on the LCD screen on the back of the camera, I realized had a depth-of-field that was much too shallow. So I dialed in an aperture of f/8, focused on the tree  halfway down the path, and took the shot you see here.

Then when I got back to my computer I used Lightroom to edit the RAW file to my taste. The entire process was digital from start to finish, and while I’m certainly happy with the results I wonder what I would think if had shot this on film. Even something as simple as nailing the exposure would have been difficult because of the mix of highlights and shadows, and I almost certainly wouldn’t have gotten the composition to look how I wanted with the green mossy rock slightly out of focus in the foreground and horizon neatly bisecting the image just above the lower third.

Film shooters…you have a tricky job and I appreciate the work that goes into capturing images without a digital safety net.

What a blast from the past this was! I haven’t seen a stereo like this in years, so you can imagine my surprise when I was biking home from work and saw this old thing lying by the side of the road about a hundred yards west of a drainage ditch. It practically screams 1997 with a CD player, tape deck, analog radio tuner, and even an FM antenna wrapped around the handle. Just seeing this thing brought up all kinds of memories from high school and sitting in my basement listening to music while playing Zelda: Link’s Awakening on my Game Boy.

When I first biked past it was cold and the sun was rapidly setting, so I made a mental note to bring my camera and get a picture of this music machine on the way to work the following day.I figured my Fuji X100F would be perfect for the picture though I thought about bringing one of my DSLRs, but the picture I was envisioning was really better suited to the lens on the Fuji as opposed to any of the lenses I have for my Nikons. I knew I wanted to get a shot of the stereo and some of the surrounding environment, and the Fuji along with my Gorillapod proved to be just the ticket.The next morning the boom box was still there so I parked my bike on the boulevard, got out the camera and tripod, and took a few minutes for indulging in my photography.

To get a really clean image I set the ISO to 200 (I normally use auto-ISO, max 6400 with minimum shutter speed of 1/125) and opened the aperture up to f/2.0, but also activated the ND filter so I could get a longer exposure of 1/2 second. I was hoping to get some light trails from passing vehicles and when I was satisfied that I got the image I was hoping for I packed up, pulled my gloves back on, and went on my way to work.However, while I was looking through the photos I noticed something that I did not expect. The image I envisioned, that of the stereo in the grass with car headlights in the background, was decent but it paled in comparison to the image I ended up selecting for this week. See for yourself:

Do you notice the difference? While the second shot does indeed have a mark of light on the left side, the entire picture feels dull and lifeless compared to the one at the top of the page. Unbeknownst to me, I had inadvertently taken a picture (that I ended up using) with an oncoming car behind me whose headlights were casting a really nice yellow glow on to the stereo. It gives the subject a sense of life and vibrancy that’s totally missing from the second image, and really goes to show how much lighting can impact the overall results of a photograph.

On my way home later that day the boom box was gone, perhaps picked up by a passer-by or maybe just thrown into the trash. Either way I’m glad I was able to capture it for one moment as a fun trip down memory lane.