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

One of my fondest memories from childhood is that of making fires in our living room fireplace. My dad would get a big fire going at the drop of a hat, and we would burn all sorts of wood in there: old fence boards, scrap lumber, logs from felled trees, and even trash. Yes, as weird as it might sound, my dad often used the fireplace as a sort of homebrew incinerator and it was not uncommon on a cold day to find the wood in our fireplace augmented by discarded papers, used plastic bottles, or anything else that might otherwise find its way to the landfill. I think this tendency came from the days when my family used to live in Minnesota where, as I understand, it was fairly common for residents to dispose of trash by burning it in their yard. Or maybe it was just my dad. Either way, when I was a kid I figured this sort of thing was normal. Then again, my family also rode unicycles in parades so I might not have had the most typical childhood :)

When my wife and I bought our house nearly eight years ago I was delighted that we found one with a fireplace and for a while both of us enjoyed burning fires during many cold, and even not-so-cold, days throughout the winter months. Once we had kids we kind of got out of the habit because they required a lot more of our attention, and the last few winters here haven’t really been cold enough to warrant a blazing fire. A few days maybe, but the times when we had an opportunity to make a fire never really lined up with days that were cold enough to do so.

It was with almost giddy excitement, then, that on a chilly morning in January 2017 after a fresh snowfall which resulted in OSU and all public schools being closed I rushed outside to gather a big load of wood from out back and make a big ol’ fire just like we used to. I started it in the morning and we kept it fed throughout the day, and my boys (ages 5 and 3) were thrilled at the prospect of having the fireplace lit up all day. In what might have been a bit of longing for my own homeland of central Minnesota, my wife and I got out all their snow-based storybooks and huddled up by the fire to read about snowmen, sledding, and a perennial favorite, a hedgehog who ends up wearing a hat.

This being Oklahoma the show and cold weather did not last long and the next day temps were in the mid-30’s, and the day after that one would be hard-pressed to find any evidence that it had snowed at all. To capture a bit of the day I took this shot after the kids were in bed with my D750, 50mm lens, and a tripod. I shot it at f/5.6 to get the image nice and sharp while getting a bit of background blur, and used a 10-second exposure to get some flames and sparks too. This was one of about ten shots I took and while some had more flames and others more sparks, I liked the cozy feeling of this particular photo the best. I’m not sure when another day will come around that we can build a fire, but I’m glad we had the chance to do it and my kiddos got to help out a little bit too. Who knows…maybe one day they will get to do the same thing in houses of their own. Just hopefully with wood and not trash :)

One of my favorite types of picture to take in the last few months has been close-ups of flowers, thanks to my +10 and +4 filters, but the trouble with shooting photos like that in the winter months is the relative lack of color and greenery. Such was the case when I took my camera out on a mini photo-taking expedition (read: a five-minute walk out in the cold) one afternoon in late December. I was determined to find a photo opportunity despite the relative lack of color and interesting subjects, and it wasn’t too long before I came across this wilted yellow flower.

The first few shots I took were from almost straight above, but the more I looked at these the less interesting they became. They didn’t have any depth or character to them, and the image of a wilted flower from above just wasn’t all that compelling. I soon knelt down and shot this from the side, intentionally composing the picture with another flower behind and to the left, and then it was a matter of which exposure settings to use. I have long since realized that my favorite filter is the +4 (I save the +10 for rare situations where I need to get reeeealy close to my subject) and I like the way it lets me hone in on a subject without getting too crazy, while also having a nice degree of control over depth of field. For this image I used the +4 filter on my 50mm lens at an aperture of f/4, and focused on the center part of the flower to get it nice and sharp. It worked pretty well except for one thing: the foremost wilted petals are not in focus. A quick check of my LCD screen on location would have told me as such and I could have easily stopped down to f/5.6 or f/8 and gotten almost exactly the same image without the blurry yellow petals…but alas, that’s how things go when you’re taking pictures. You always realize the one thing you could have done to kick your image up to 11 after you’re already finished. Well, maybe not always, but sometimes it feels that way. And in those situations it’s best to learn from your mistakes, enjoy the pictures you got, and promise yourself you’ll do better next time.

I mentioned at the top of this post that when I set out to take a picture I didn’t think there was much in the way of natural photo opportunities available, and one thing I have learned over the years is that it’s often these types of situations when my mind tends to get a little more creative. If ample photogenic situations present themselves readily in a given setting, such as on a walk through a park on a summer afternoon, I tend to find myself shutting down and retreating to a place of mental incapacitation. If, as the saying goes, everything is a good photo opportunity then nothing is. Or so my mind tells me from time to time. So ironically I have found that in situations where I have to work harder and look closer for pictures, it’s those times when I find myself seeing things I would not normally notice. It’s a fun experiment to try and I recommend it the next time you think you are in a situation with nothing interesting to photograph. Grab your camera anyway, look closer at the world around you, and see what you can find :)

The idea for this picture came to me when I was showing my soldering gun to my two boys recently, and letting them see how the solder melts and drips when exposed to a heat source but soon afterwards becomes cool to the touch and quite strong. To illustrate this I brought out a piece of 1/4″ plywood I had lying around and let them watch as I dripped some bits of solder on to it, which they thought was pretty neat. As we sat there on the floor of our kitchen I realized that the drips of solder might make for an interesting picture so the next morning I got out the same board and a few balls of solder that were still left, put them on the counter with some task lighting shining down (this was about 5:45am, long before my wife and kids were awake), and busted out the ol’ D750, 50mm lens, and set of close-up filters. The result, what you see here, is not really all that cool and a big part of me didn’t even want to post it here because it’s kind of a blurry mess but I figured I would anyway because it fits with the spirit of Weekly Fifty which is all about getting out there and taking pictures, trying new things, and not letting my camera collect dust on a shelf.

The main issue I have with this image is that I had to get super close to the solder drops, which meant I had to use a +10 and +4 filter, which then meant that I had to use a wide enough aperture to get any decently-large depth of field…but I was shooting handheld so all this was quite challenging. On a tripod in a more controlled environment I could have used a self-timer along with a small aperture and lower ISO and not worried about shutter speed at all, but as it stands this picture was taken at f/9.5, ISO 2000, at 1/125 second to minimize handheld blur. Even then the depth of field was, as you can see, about 1/8 inch and I would really have liked to have it be much wider but a smaller aperture would have meant a slower shutter or higher ISO–neither of which was something I wanted to do.

In my mind this picture is less about the photo itself but more about the process required to get it, and someday it would be fun to revisit this with a lot more control over the elements. Until then I’m going to keep shooting away, hopefully trying new things and keeping my camera off the shelf, and see what happens :)

Working on a college campus is nice for so many reasons, and one of my favorites is how things always seem to be in a state of flux. Visit a campus at any time of the year and things are likely to be quite different from the previous time you were there. In the fall the whole place is buzzing with excitement and anticipation; in the spring students are anxious and eager for graduation; in the summer you are likely to hear sounds of marching bands practicing, sports teams playing, or the steady rhythm and honking of construction equipment moving earth and pounding steel. However one of the most interesting periods is that time when fall semester ends but spring semester has not yet begun. Traffic is light, students are sparse, and staff are busy finalizing documents and preparing for spring while professors huddle in their offices trying to finish up grades or hammer out the finishing touches on a research paper.

It was during that time when I went out on a chilly afternoon with my D750 + 50mm lens combination for (you guessed it!) a quick walk around Theta Pond, determined to get a few pictures of…something. I wasn’t quite sure really, but given that the sky was overcast and the students were gone I thought I might as well try and get a picture just to keep the creative juices flowing. I came back with several, which may or may not show up here on the blog in the coming weeks, but one stood out to me for a reason that I did not expect. It was two cypress knees nestled in a bed of brown needles, and it seemed very much like two people offering comfort to one another on this chilly December day. Something about the image really hit home but I was also bothered by the composition since I was not quite happy with the background and, since I shot the original at f/1.8, the two roots which formed the subject of the picture were not in focus due to a crazy shallow depth of field. In short the photo was good, but a few steps away from one that I really liked.

To remedy the situation I grabbed my buddy who works down the hall and the two of us went back to Theta Pond with the sole purpose of taking a picture of the cypress knees, but done properly. I knew exactly what I had in mind and had a much better sense of the exposure settings I would need, and the result is what you see here. To me it looks like a scene of sorrow, and while I don’t intend to bring anyone down by reading this, that’s just how it comes across to me. It’s a wife being comforted by her husband, with a small crowd of mourners and sympathizers (most likely friends and family) in the background who are there to offer support but know that this couple needs a minute to themselves. I don’t know why the couple is sad, and I’m not sure if they are looking towards the camera or away from it, but I like the intimacy of the picture and the sense of comfort it conveys. Well, to me anyway, but your own interpretation might vary.

I wavered a long time between posting the f/2.8 and f/4 versions of this photo but eventually settled on the former. This meant that there is just a slightly smaller depth of field than I would prefer, and as a result the foremost part of the shorter root is not quite in focus, but the tradeoff is a higher degree of background blur which helps separate the subjects from everything else. Often I find myself taking pictures of something that looks fun, interesting, or even just a bit artsy but this particular image meant something (or illustrated something) that was a bit more than just a pretty-looking picture of nature. I don’t know if it does the same for you, but I hope you at least enjoy it :)

This isn’t a traditional Weekly Fifty post, but kind of a public service announcement letting you know about a new show I’m doing with my brother Phil. (Perhaps you could say it’s an advertisement? Except I’m not selling anything!) It’s a monthly video, also available as an audio podcast, where he and I talk about a particular camera-related topic. Both of us are fathers, and both of us enjoy photography, so we thought we would put our heads together and do a show involving both of these elements of our lives:

Camera Dads

One thing we want to do is make input from the community a part of our show, and on the right-hand side of the website you’ll see the topic that we are going to discuss on our next show along with a way for you to provide input. If you have anything you’d like to say, or questions to ask, about the upcoming topic we’d love to hear from you! And of course if you’d like to leave us a comment on the current show we always welcome those too.

Thank you!