[Photo Series] "Time - Part 1" The first 2 images.

Over the past two weeks i've been thinking of ideas for a new photo series. I eventually settled on the theme of time. I intend to take a collection of photos each incorporating a pocket watch or clock. Currently there is no set story for the project and it's meant to be more of a collection of similar images than an actual story. 

The main goal of the project as of today is to use these images to create various pieces of wall art. Since im still in the early stages of the project a lot can still change. That being said I would still like to share what I have so far. 

I've set up a gallery page for this project. Once more images are finished they will be posted to the gallery as well as on this blog. 

The two images below are what i've finished so far. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. 

[Photo] "10:05"

I few days ago I had an idea for a photo series involving pocket watches. This image may or may not be used in the final project. I still want to post it just because it looks cool. 

[Photo's] Infrared Landscapes 7/3/15

Below are images i've taken on my yearly family vacation to the eastern shore of Virginia. While I was down there I decided to use the opportunity to take some IR landscapes. What you are about to see is the result. 

Due to the fact that I processed them on a 6 year old laptop, I may or may not go back and retouch these images at a later date. 

Even though it's not infrared im going to include this picture of a bird, just because I can. 

Photoshop Effects - Solarisation

After seeing a few images online I decided to try out the solarisation effect. 

Below are three older images of mine that I solarized using adobe photoshop. 

Infrared Photography - Day 3 - ULTRA WIDE ANGLE

In preparation for my yearly vacation I decided it would be a cool idea to bring a wide angle lens with me. So far it's been a lot of fun, but one thing I was eager to try with it was infrared photography. Since my last few attempts at infrared photography ended in bitter failure as well as a good chunk of money wasted I made sure that this time would be different. After playing around with various white balance settings as well as a few new techniques i've picked up, I can finally walk away with an image I am happy with. 

Below are the results of my test's for today. The first image is just a close up of the headlight of my car. Shot in infrared of course. The second is just an experiment to see if I finally understand the color conversion.

Overall I am very pleased with the outcome of the first image. And I cant wait to take this thing on the road with me next week.  

[Photo] "Ice 1-3"

The following is just a few test shots of some ice cubes. I wasn't really trying anything specific here. Maybe soon ill use these ice cubes for something, but for now this is what i've got. 

[Photo's] Testing Out Colored Gels "Orange/Red Bubble 1-3"

After having fun with last week's project, I decided I would test out some more studio lighting techniques. Today I thought it would be fun to add some colored gels into the mix and take a break from black and white. 

I went out and bought a few different gels. I got one huge orange gel to attach to my soft box as well as a kit of gels to attach to my flash. The results are shown below. 

I really didn't have anything specific in mind for this shoot. I just wanted to play around with the gels and see how the color would affect the shot. Hopefully now I can use these gels to get some interesting shots in the future. 

The setup for this shoot is very similar to the one used last week. For more info check out last week's post. 

[Photo's] "Crystal Clear I-IV" - Having Fun With Off Camera Flash.

Today I decided to try experimenting with camera flash for the first time.

Over the past week i've purchased a few new pieces of equipment. Specifically an off camera flash or speed light from Flash Point. I also purchased a wireless transmitter that will allow me trigger the flash without it being attached to the camera. With these new pieces of gear added to my collection I figured the perfect way to test them out would be to stop some action. Specifically freeze water in mid air. I know i've already done similar shots to this before, however I used a rather inefficient method that wasn't worth the hassle. The method I used this time was amazing. I was able to get four amazing shot's in the same amount of time it took to get one using the old method. It was also took a lot less time than before. 

Ill go into more detail on my setup in the future, as I intend to make a video explaining how to freeze water using a flash. However I basically started out placing a mirror on a table with an old film projector screen as my background. I than placed two soft boxes adjacent to the subject and placed my flash under the table pointed at the screen. I was shooting with my canon T3i with my Canon 75-300mm lens set to 75mm at f/11. My ISO at 100, and my shutter speed at 1/200th of a second. Attached to the camera I had my trusty cable release as well as my wireless transmitter. The whole thing was than plugged into my laptop which I than used as a preview window. I than stood next to the glass dropping various fruit into it trying to capture the water splashes. After about twenty minutes I had what I was looking for. 

What you see below are the results of the shoot. Overall I am quite pleased with them and more importantly I now have a good knowledge of how to use this new flash. Obviously I still have some learning to do, but that's all part of the process. 

In the future I hope to do even more with this setup. Im even looking into buying some colored gel's to create some scenes with different colors. And I do have plans to show this all on video so be patient. That all will come in the next couple of months. 

Enjoy the photos. 

-Nick

 

Crystal Clear 

 

Crystal Clear II

 

Crystal Clear III

 

Crystal Clear IV

[Photo] 5/29/15 "Hand V2"

Today I decided to recreate an older shot of mine with a different technique. 

A few months ago I tried my hand at double exposures. The results were pretty good, but I thought I could do much better. Today I had a few really great shots as well as a few failed ideas. 

Below is the result of today's shoot.

This is a huge improvement from the last attempt. I specifically like that in this image there is still a lot of detail in the skin as apposed to just a black outline of a hand. 

Here's a comparison of the last attempt vs. this one.  

Infrared Photography - Day 2 - "Dreamland".

Today I went out with the soul goal of taking infrared landscapes. Unfortunately right at the start of my shoot I dropped my infrared filter on the ground and broke the glass. That just goes to show you how careful you have to be when handling your equipment. I did however manage to get a pretty nice waterfront landscape before I broke my filter. Out of all the infrared shot's i've taken so far this is my favorite. 

 

"Dreamland"

ISO - 100

50MM

F/11

Shutter Speed - 40 sec

It's going to be a while before I can take more infrared shots. Im going to have to buy another filter, but hopefully I will be able to go out on another shoot and further perfect my technique. In the meantime im going to link a few other images just because I can.

The following image is another infrared test I took yesterday. I was just trying to see if I could get the post production process right. I think I was successful. 

The final image im going to link to is just an image of some flowers I took after I broke my filter. Even though it's not infrared I still thought it was worth sharing. 

 

"Escape"

Infrared Photography - Day 1 - Test 1 - 4/29/15

Over the past few day's I've had an urge to try out Infrared Photography. So I purchased an IR filter for my lens. What you are about to see is the result of my first few hours messing around with this technique. I wasn't going for anything special in these shots. I was just trying to see if I could get a useable image. 

It turned out to be a little more difficult than I expected. For example I tried opening up to f1.8 attempting to get a faster shutter speed, as it turns out that is a really bad idea. Every shot I took at f1.8 f2.8 etc was loosing a ton of data. It seams as if this filter reduces sharpness by a considerable amount. As a result all of my shots with a wide aperture were completely unusable. However my shots at f11 worked out just fine. 

The shots below are the finished product from today's test shoot. Hopefully next week I will be able to go out and shoot some killer infrared landscapes. 

 

Test Shot #1:

ISO - 100

Focal length - 50mm

F/11

Shutter Speed - 30 sec

 

Test Shot #2

ISO - 200

Focal Length - 50mm

F/11

Shutter Speed - 20 sec

[Photo] 4/28/15 "The Watchful Eye Of The Haunted Grove"

Here we see a photo of an old statue sitting in the woods. I really didn't have a plan when I took this, I kind of just thought sticking this statue in some underbrush would look cool. After playing around with it in Lightroom I realized it looked really creepy. Hence the rather long title. I feel like you could tell a really creepy story with this photo. Which is why I plan to play around with it further and make it even creepier. But for now here it is. 

I also tried to play around with the colors a bit. The image below is what happened. 

[Photo's] 4/20/15 "White Daffodil"

I stumbled upon this while taking a walk in the woods. I thought a lone flower blooming in a in a forest that was still mostly brown was interesting. I personally thought this one worked better as a black and white, but I think ill post both because their both pretty neat. 

[Photo's] 4/14/15 More 35mm Film Photos.

I decided to scan the remaining film images that I have yet to scan. These were originally taken in the fall of 2014, I just never got around to scanning them. The first image is just a typical shot of some shoes. The last two shots however, are an experiment with a few darkroom techniques. 

I was attempting to see what would happen if I layered two negatives on top of one another during the enlargement process. In order to make things interesting I looked through a box of poorly developed negatives, and found one that looked like it was damaged in the development process. I than layered that on top of a rather boring yet properly developed shot, and this happened. 

[Photo] 3/27/15 Off The Path.

This is just a quick snapshot of an idea I had. I originally wanted to do something with old playing cards. I thought it would be a good idea to attach one to the spokes of a bike like in old cartoons. I even went through the trouble of staining the card, however it's not very noticeable in this shot. I will definitely try some more stuff with these stained playing cards. In the meantime heres a picture of a bike. 

[Photo] 3/24/15 Out of Place II.

This idea came into my head out of the blue. I thought to myself "You know what would be cool, shoes on that old staircase in the basement." Than after a few minutes of throwing stuff on the ground this happened. I definitely need to work on the composition of this one some more, but for all intents and purposes its a pretty cool snapshot. Who knows maybe I can use it as a base for something else. 

[Work in progress] Grape Fanta Bottle.

A while ago I took a photo of a Strawberry Fanta Bottle, at the moment it is one of my favorite shots that Ive ever taken. I came up with the idea to do an entire series similar to that photo. The idea was to take a shot of every single flavor against a background to match. With strawberry being on red, grape on purple, lemon on yellow, and of corse the original on orange. I recently tried my hand at the grape bottle and the result is shown below. It's a start but I definitely will revisit this one and perhaps try it again. Although it's not finished, I just wanted to post it so that it wont go unseen. 

[Photo] VW Emblem

Another snapshot I took with my phone. After posting this to instagram, I decided that I liked this shot. I than took the original photo into lightroom and made some improvements. The following is the result. This is another photo that was taken "Just For Fun".