My grand plan of catching up my my backlog of work is not going quite as planned due to the press of “real” work. I did take a few minutes away from a business trip this week to shoot in Washington, D.C. Not quite my core genera of nature photography, but I like how a couple of these images turned out.
This started as a so-so color photo of the Washington Monument at sunset. But with the interesting pattern of clouds and the lines of dark trees on both sides of the image, it works much better in monochrome.
More images after the jump
Continue reading Washington D.C.
Every once in a while I enjoy breaking out of the outdoor photography (ok, ok, and family photography) rut. In that vein, here are some water droplet photos that I made the other night. These depend on using the (very, very short) duration of a flash pulse to freeze a water droplet in mid-splash. The shutter speed on the camera isn’t all that high, but (assuming ambient light levels are low) all of the illumination comes from the flash. (Strobist tutorial here). Nature photographers use the same technique (often with several synchronized flashes) to freeze hummingbird wings.
Anyway, I am pleased with these images. I’ll have to break out my setup again one of these nights and experiment with more variables (strobiscopic flash? lower camera angle? a 2nd light?).
More images after the jump.
Continue reading Water Droplets
I am (every so slowly) making my way through the substantial backlog of recent images. Here’s an image of a Spiny-tailed Iguana from a recent trip to Belize. The trip was primarily a family vacation, rather than a photo safari, so I did not make that many images other than shots of my kids frolicking.
I particularly like this image for the challenge presented by the Iguanas. Being cold-blooded, there was no sign of them in the sweet light — they only come out in the harsh sunlight. Making matters worse, they seem to spend most of their time on the ground — and on the heavily-developed “utility” areas of the resort to boot, making attractive backgrounds a challenge. (Iguana on trash pile anyone?) For this image I found an iguana sitting on a wooden fence. Not the best perch, but better than most. I used the longest lens that I had with me (my 300) to isolate the iguana against a small patch of foliage in the background. (Most of the available background was either white sand — to0 bright — or bushes — too busy. I used a polarizer to knock down the glare on the foliage, and also to bring out the color in the iguana. Then I had to add a little fill flash, since the shadows were fairly hard by this time of day. Voila.
I have been incredibly bad about updating my blog lately. I’ve also gotten way behind editing the (many) photos that I’ve shot over the last couple of months. The largely unedited shoots (Belize, Arches National Park, an early morning “photographers only” shoot at the local zoo, some nice fox kit images, etc.) are starting to pile up. So, I’ve resolved to get “caught up” in the next week. In that sprit, here’s an image from a shoot this morning in a wildlife refuge near Boulder, Colorado. It’s just an Eastern Kingbird, not the most exotic species. But I like the perch, the action, and the clean background.
Back to work editing images . . .
