Yes This. Unfortunately, This Party Is Long Gone.

wonderful!

Olivia Wright whole, 2008

OLD SLIK broke up. Got this today via UPS. Looking froward to using it… thing is built like a tank! Not the  BENRO, MANFROTTO, or GITZO I'd like, but very solid so far.

The backstory

Funny story about these orchids: I got one of the centerpieces from our student design show reception in April. It was the end of the night, and we were cleaning up the area, and there was a remaining orchid after all of the students and guests had theirs, so one of my colleagues said that I should take it home for my wife.

I know very little about flowers, but what I did know was that orchids were supposed to be finicky. It was a cold night, so I warmed the car. There was a support clip that the orchid stems were attached to a small rod on, to train them up. I set it carefully in the cup holder and began to drive home.

As I turned right at some point, my elbow hit the plant, snapping the stems almost in two in two different places. Aaagh! If not for bad luck I'd have no luck at all!

So I ran into the house, and grabbed some packing tape, wrapping it around the stems, propping them up. Yeah..that should work I thought to myself. Using the logic of a mischevious six year old, I brought the plant in and showed it to my wife.

She also was disappointed about my careless elbow, and slightly amused at my packing tape "cast." But we figured that we'd give it a go anyway. After about a week, one of the stems showed signs of dying, so I pulled it off and tossed it. The other seemed to be OK though, so I kept it in the sun and kept on watering it. 

It appears to have come through OK (knock-on-wood). You can see in the top pic the areas where both stems snapped, and the one surviving stem thriving with two flowers, and a new "bud" forming behind them. The tape is till in place (afraid to remove it for fear of breaking it again).

The photos

On a rainy Wednesday, I thought I'd photograph this survivor for kicks. Put a cheap poster board v-flat behind it, and propped it up on pizza boxes. Used only window light (which admittedly wasn't much on this very gray day).  

I also wanted to see under similar conditions what I could get out of the old iPhone 4 camera I have (5 mp). The bottom two shots are from the iPhone. They are a bit more contrasty, and have some noise in the bgnd, but look really good in average light conditions. There is also a bit of the flat and tape that got caught in the shot as the angle of approach is different with the phone (tried to smooth the tape on the flat out, and looks sad I know). The data on the iPhone shots is saying they are f2.8, and 1/120 to 1/60th of a sec? What that means on a lens that is a few mm is pretty relative, but still impressive. I imagine the Samsung and the iPhone 5 would look even better. 

Oh...and guess what happened next? The flimsy V-flat fell onto the plant. But alas— alive and well still. That thing is like ROCKY.

"SELFIES" I had setup some T5 fluos with a white muslin backdrop, and needed to fire off some test shots for this. [sidenote: tons of issues with the color and light until after editing I realized one bank of the T5's was at a different color temperature than the others--which totally throws the whole thing off as far as color/exposure consistency… be sure to match up your kelvin and kill any stray ambient fluos in the room. For mine, even the gray cards were inconsistent on these tests].

I am loathe for self-portraits. I don't like shooting myself– I have the same insecurities just about everyone else does. I prefer shooting inanimate objects or others who are portrait or model material. But a setup… I can deal with that out of practicality. No one will see that.

My family is pretty much the same. I'll fire off some head shots of my wife or kids when they are around that look AMAZING , and they usually dictate that "these can NOT wind up on the net… or anywhere for that matter!" Funny, because they ARE very photogenic.

So of late, I always see these "self-portrait-a-day" projects, and I think they are utterly amazing. I rarely feel like I have the time for such things, but also  really don't like confronting myself. Even the "filter" of drawing myself offers me more comfort than photographing.

So earlier this year, I settled on the "selfie-a-month-or-so" project instead. Nothing like minimal commitment, huh? Some of the selfies I have taken with the old  iPhone 4. Others with the macintosh's built in  camera. Only time will tell if I have the time or guts to stick with this. These low-res versions of the file (72ppi for net at 5 x5) also seem to lose some punch, although that can't be pinned to the camera or the lights. I'll have to check the resampling setting in Photoshop to see why.

Plastic shopping bags have become a fixture of modern life, but despite their convenience, their impact on the environment is tough to ignore. 

In his Plastic Bag Landscapes series, photographer Vilde Rolfsen draws attention to the issue by using colored lights to transform the bags into abstract images. See the rest below!

Plastic Shopping Bags Transformed Into Abstract Images

via AnOther Mag

6 uses for high ISO settings you may not know about Jeff Meyer, digitalcameraworld.com

Most photographers appreciate the relationship between image quality and low ISO settings, and will endeavor to stick to the lowest sensitivities possible at all times. In his latest post, Matt Golowczynski explains some of the times when i…

High iso for what?

WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?

Given the means--I'd spend time in every nation.

old photos the top shot was me experimenting a bit with strobe: softbox/umbrella  mixed. The intent was to do photos ala the "long form" interview head shots. Digital, used the T2i, 55mm. Funny, because the subject is the same person as the bottom shot.

Bottom shot was taken with a medium format twin-lens Rolleicord. I believe 93 or 94? Reflective metered. I developed it in a darkroom (kids--remember to ask your parents about "darkrooms" and "chemical stabilization").  The photo was lost years ago, but not before I scanned it on an old 300ppi desktop scanner. I wish the scan was a bit better.

old photo

Only have the low res version from FB (reclaiming some of my FB shots). A random creepy "sky-before-the-storm" cloud shot-- don't recall if this was Camera or iPhone. I do recall tornadic conditions, so likely springtime or early summer a year or two back.