Tow Truck

I could talk about a number of things with this picture.

I could talk about how I've driven past a million times, and thought "I should stop and take a picture of that."  But never did until today.

I could wonder about if it is art or not (not the picture, the truck, the picture is mostly a record shot I suppose).

I could discuss the post-processing involved to get the sky and truck both at reasonable levels from one exposure. Then I could lament that I didn't feather the layer mask enough, and the truck looks a little cut-out in places.

I could completely ignore the picture and talk about the hand-held field recorder I bought this weekend because of a strong need to learn something new.  Heck, I could even wonder why Firefox shows the sky as aquamarine, but every other application shows it as blue.

But, I won't.

I'll just tell the locals who may not have seen this were it is.  It is on 97 between Gettysburg and Littlestown.

Small Model

It isn't often I will photograph something like this.  But, I was thinking about it for a number of reasons.  Someone asked me about photographing smallish objects on white.

I also spent some time this weekend looking for a particular kind of model.

I wanted to find a cowgirl model that was at least 54mm.  I was looking for a female version of the "man with no name", a couple of six-guns, hat, a long flowing duster, cotton button-up top, jeans, boots. I couldn't find what I wanted.  It seems most of the sculpts that are produced of cowgirls leave out important details, like most of her clothing (Seriously? Who is going to wear chaps without pants?).  Fortunately, it wasn't a completely fruitless endeavor, I did find other figures that are interesting to me like this crusader.

I ended up getting out some of my finished models, remembered the question about photographing on white and thought I would give it a go.  I think for this kind of figure using a grey background might be better.  The particular lens I was using also doesn't deal with the light off the background well.  It washed out the figure quite a bit under proper exposure.  I could bring it back in post by upping the contrast, but in a picture that should be all about showing off subtle color blends it largely fails.  I'll try again on a neutral grey background in the future and see if I can use a better lens.

For those curious about the model:  It is part of a gaming line called Warmachine by Privateer Press.  It is in the "scale" of 28mm.  This particular figure stands about 15mm tall I guess.  It probably took me about 15 hours to paint.

Weekend Light

There are many reasons I like the weekend.  One of them is that I am home to see the light that comes in the bedroom window, bounces around a little "hallway", picks up the warm color of the carpet and falls softly in the middle of some dressers.  Its a neat light. Its like a huge softbox.  But, the light isn't completely soft. It shows the textures, folds, and colors of clothing.  It makes skin glow.  The weekend is generally the only time I get to see it.  This weekend it was perfect, and Carly spent part of the early afternoon running about in it getting ready to take Kathryn on a shopping trip.  As always, I stayed in the way.  I also made some pictures.

Carly ixnayed my favorite picture from being posted, and no, it is not NSFW or anything of that sort.

Sir Tobias, Dragonslayer

I like fantasy novels. It doesn't matter to me if they are "serious" epics like The Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, or if they are completely silly yarns like Asprin's Mythadventures, or if they are something in between like Edding's The Belgariad.  The authors generally find a way to say something thought provoking about people in the midst of all the dungeons, dragons, swords, and sorcery.

At the moment Tobias likes knights.  He was very excited to find this costume today.  He needed a picture. When he puts the costume on I know he sees himself like the knights in his picture books, or maybe in movies.  I tried hard to make the plastic toy costume feel like metal in this picture.  I wanted him to see the picture he has in his head, and not a photo of a little boy wearing a few plastic bits.

I hope in the near future he and Kathryn will sit still long enough to listen to me read The Hobbit or one of the Narnia books to them.

Little influences

My kids are the largest creative spark makers in my life lately.  Above is Kathryn at her Christmas production dance.  She was pretty excited.  Enthusiasm is inspiring. Tobias and sat around and drew pictures a couple of weekends ago.  His use of language is also quite interesting at the moment, and sometimes the funny things he says are even intentional.

Around the web I have largely been looking at blogs and sites that seem to have a strong photography component, but are not about photography.  The first is the Sartorialist.  It is created to share pictures of interesting looking people or outfits.  The photographer, well, he describes his motivations very well in the "Bio" section of the blog.  The other blog, Kendi Everyday is generally about the everyday style and clothes worn by the "protagonist", and blog author, Kendi. 

Clothes and style aren't really my interest, which judging by my outfits, is probably the understatement of the year.  However, there is something very interesting in those two blogs.  Sometime in the future I'd like to blend those two ideas and follow the everyday style someone I know.  It shouldn't be hard to find someone with a greater sense of style than me. 

Short Goodbye

This is an image of my great aunt Edna that I made last year during a trip to North Carolina.  Is it the best picture in the world?  No, not really.  But it is the last one of her I will ever have the chance to make.  I had almost talked myself out of leaving the camera in the bag.  I would be disappointed now had I done that.   I'm glad I made the picture, even though it made me nervous, even though the light wasn't perfect, even though I didn't think I was going to share it with the world.

It is strange even though I wasn't around her for any great length of time I feel if  I could find all the words I could probably write for a while about Edna.  Most of my time spent with her was when I was fairly young.  Even though my memory is very good, recalling those times brings up pictures and the feelings of my surroundings, and the going ons of the moment -- I can replay the scenes, but these things aren't easy to make sense of in words.  But I will leave you with some small things that are easily said: she was an amazing cook, a lady who cared greatly about other people [ she showed it through hospitality amongst other things ], and she will be missed.

The Band

It seems like every photographer wants to photograph a band.  I'm not sure why that is exactly.  Maybe it is because we feel like musicians are kindred spirits.  Maybe its because they are performers and aren't afraid of a camera in their face.  Maybe its because music is simply amazing, and so are the people that make it.

No matter what the reason, I think its true.  Photographers have fun making pictures of bands.

The thing I don't quite get is you can tell a picture is of a band simply by looking at it.  The look has grown somewhat cliché.  However, I think it is used so often for a reason.  It does look good, and does say "BAND" loud and clear.  I thought I would give it a try the look and see how it felt to build, even though I don't have a band handy.  I'll break down what I tried and why it maybe used so often in real life.

1.  The "flying V" formation seems rather popular.  I can't say exactly why, but if you have seen pictures of people standing in straight lines looking at the camera you realize how dull that is.  This is an easy way to avoid that particular composition.

2.  Hard light.  This helps create an edgy feel.  It doesn't matter if the band sings songs titled "Deathbringer!  Smasher of Ants" or "Look at All the Happy Daisies", the picture needs to have some sort of an edge to it it seems.  Hard light seems a good starting place.

3.  Backlight.  Again, it helps add to the edgy feel.  And I needed it or our band would be floating in space.

4. Slightly desaturated look.  This one I'm not sure why its done, but it looks nice.  Perhaps it adds to the edgy feel, or perhaps it is just trendy.  Either way, I like it, so that is how I approached my shot.

5. No instruments!  You can already tell it is a band from the stylized look, instruments would simply be redundant.  Besides, have you tried to find a guitar small enough for an action figure?

Okay, perhaps I'm having a little too much fun with post.  I do like the pictures that are currently being made.  However, I do think it has become a bit formulaic, I definately noticed a pattern.  As I looked at pictures of muscians thinking about this post I really liked what I saw from the sixties and seventies.  It is a different.  If I get a chance to shoot a band I may try to work with those older ideas, but I will also try something like what I tried here.  It seems expected, and it is a lot of fun to make.