Photoblog 2.0

Bright Lights Big Leaf, photo by Harold Davis. Click to view larger.

A reader writes:

Man, I love how you photograph water!

And someone else asks:

How do you do this? I am so jealous…wink, wink!

Of course, I appreciate the compliments (who wouldn’t?). But without being overly modest, I think photography is more about seeing than about technique. It’s easy enough to describe the tools and techniques I used for these photos:

Nikon D70 manual, Lens Baby 2.0 +14 macro filters, ISO 200, f/8.0 aperture ring, shutter speeds of 1/320 of a second (upper photo) and 1/400 of a second (photo below). Post processing included adding contrast gradients in Photoshop and extreme sharpening of specific elements, but was otherwise routine.

But knowing how I did it doesn’t mean that I could ever do it again (or that you could do it, no offense). Mostly the issues are being there and seeing:

• Being there with a camera in the first place with one’s head in a “taking photos” frame of mind.
• Seeing the photo twice: once in the camera viewfinder as something special, and once more when looking through the photos one has taken.

In these days of digital photography, I think it helps to learn to see with the possibilities of digital post-manipulation in mind when you start to compose the photo.

Now, here’s a question: a while back after a couple of readers requested it I started adding meta information about the tools and techniques I used on each photo. Do you find this helpful, or not? Please let me know.

Click to view this photo larger.

Trawling the Gulf of the Farallones, photo by Harold Davis. View this photo in a larger size.

To appreciate this photo, I think you need to view it larger than shown above (by clicking the link under the photo).

The fishing boat, perhaps after crabs now that the strike is finally over, is headed out to sea across the usually fog-bound Gulf of the Farallones. The light from the setting sun hits the boat. You can see the Farallon Islands in the upper right of the photo.

Meta information: Nikon D70 Raw capture, AF-S VR-Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED at 70mm (appx 105mm 35mm equivalence); handheld using VR (vibration reduction).

Exif: ISO 200, 1/1600 second, f/4.5.

Focus: Automatic, at infinity.

Post: The Raw file for the photo was processed twice (once for the ocean and once for sky and clouds) and combined using a layer mask and a gradient. Once the layers were combined, I did some cloning work on the clouds, added a lens flare using the Photoshop Render > Lens Flare filter, and performed routine level adjustments and sharpening.

Keep on Burning, photo by Harold Davis. Click to view this photo larger.

A reader writes:

I like some of your lens baby shots, but you are getting carried away again! The Lens Baby thing is a trendy gimmick. Please get back to normal photography.

Not since my Iris photos have I head so much feedback from readers–both pro and con–on a group of my photos. It’s true that I do tend to worry a photographic theme and obsess over it–but unlike the Irises or the Figs, the Lens Baby is a piece of hardware rather than specific subject matter such as a kind of flower.

A piece of hardware is a tool. In the hands of an artist, a new tool can be inspiring, fun, playful, and lead to different ways of looking things. Which is what photography is really about: new ways of seeing our world.

Sure, there’s photographic life beyond Lens Babies, and a Lens Baby is far from appropriate for use in every photograph or every situation. Like any tool, there is a place for my Lens Baby–and places where the Lens Baby should not go. “Worrying” a tool to obsession is a way to learn about good places and bad places for the tool, just like photographing a specific subject in many ways is a way to learn about the subject.

What do you think? Have I gone overboard with my Lens Baby and its macro lenses?

Meta information: Nikon D70, Lensbaby 2.0, no aperture ring, +14 macro filters, ISO 200, 1/200 second, dark blue contrast gradients added to the perimeter of the photo in Photoshop.

Point Bonitas Light, photo by Harold Davis. View this photo larger.

This photo shows another view of the Point Bonitas Lighthouse. The viewpoint is the same as the one from which I took this image of sunset in the clouds and this view of the Farallon Islands.

From this viewpoint, to the left and around the point is the Golden Gate and the channel under the Golden Gate Bridge.

Today the world of the Bay area is socked in with cloud, wind, and rain. Certainly, the Marin coast today would live up to its reputation as dangerous, shoal ridden, and fog-bound. So its good to remember that only a short time ago this fog-bound shore was, well, not fog bound.

Meta information: Nikon D70 Raw capture, AF-S VR-Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED at 70mm (appx 105mm 35mm equivalence); handheld using VR (vibration reduction).

Exif: ISO 200, 1/60 second, f/6.3.

Focus: Automatic, at infinity.

Post: The Raw file for the photo was processed twice (once for the ocean and once for sky and clouds) and combined using a layer mask and a gradient. Once the layers were combined, I performed routine level adjustments and sharpening.

Shell Monster Jaw, photo by Harold Davis. Click to view larger size.

These photos are of shells very close up, using my Lens Baby with macro lens (which intentionally creates a very shallow “sweet spot” that is in focus). The photos are part of an experiment I’ve made of raising the ISO to 1,000. Theoretically, this should increase the noise in the photos. The benefit is that dialing a higher ISO into my camera allows me to use faster shutter speeds. The process of finding the sweet spot is really finicky, and I think being able to use higher shutter speeds is great–well worth the added noise, with manifests itself as a kind of grain-like effect.

Close up, these shells reveal fantastic imagined things. The Lens Baby takes care of the background–everything is out of focus, so one can concentrate on what the foreground reveals.

Above I have a pre-historic monster jaw (actually, a starfish about one inch long). Here’s a shell version of Artemis Ephesia, a goddess found at Ephesus with about one hundred breasts:

Here’s a mountain, perhaps in some realm where sacrifices litter the route to the summit:

Last, a starfish itself has a starfish on its back:

Meta information: Nikon D70 Raw capture, manual exposure, Lens Baby 2.0 with +14 macro filters and f/8.0 aperture ring. Lighting was a combination of ambient daylight and a colored Tungsten spot. ISO was set to 1000. The shutter speed in each of these photos was between 1/500 of a second and 1/1250 of a second. I accepted the default settings for Raw conversion, and did essentially no Photoshop processing.

Leaf Critter, photo by Harold Davis. Click to view large size.

To me this photo looks like a cute, beguiling leaf creature. I like the way you can see magnified leaf veins through its “eyes.”

Meta information: Nikon D70, Lensbaby 2.0, no aperture ring, +14 macro filters, ISO 200, 1/250 second, minimal post-processing in Photoshop.

Wet Rose, photo by Harold Davis. Click to view larger version of this photo.

This photo of a Cecil Bruner rose in our garden following the rain the other day was done with my macro-equipped Lens Baby and the f/4.0 aperture ring (exposed manually with an ISO of 200 and a shutter speed of 1/320 of a second).