Lucy’s Quiet Place
This is Lucy, sitting next to the rain barrel. I’d guess that she was just looking for a little quiet time, which is a bit out of character for her, but who can say for sure.
Grasping Photography
My triumphs and tribulations
Posts Tagged ‘ champaign ’
Jungels Dance Party
Every once in a while we get the music playing and just kinda let ‘er rip, as much as 4 girls 7 years old and under and “let ‘er rip.” We call it the “Jungels Dance Party.” My girls are still young enough not to be embarrassed by my lack of dancing skills, but time’s ticking on that clock. So, I need to enjoy it while I can.
At the Park
Just some pictures of the girls at the park. The picture of Norah, below, makes her look a little cross-eyed (or boss-eyed from “The IT Crowd”).
It has occurred to me that Lucy seems to be missing from in front of my lens lately. I’ll have to try and grab a few more pictures of her.
Stella looking odd
Stella looking odd
Okay, I’ll grant you that she is looking a bit odd in this picture. And I’ll even grant you that given the black of her eyes you could even say she looks down right freaky. But I still like this picture. To me it’s got this sort of Victorian quality that I really can’t justify or describe. It’s just what I see I suppose. I’m definitely going to mark this one for printing.
Shot on TMAX 400, 35mm.
Hard light portraits
I’ve been thinking about some Yousuf Karsh pictures lately. He has amazing portraits done with hard light. I know that we’re “supposed” to use soft light, but I think that some hard light portraits might be a nice change.
In order to kind of dip my feet in the hard light water, we quickly got some pictures of Norah. This was taken outside on a partly cloudy day. The sun was moving in and out of the clouds, and judging by the shadows in the picture, it was probably overcast when the picture was taken. I used a small speed light on a light stand, camera right, as my main light. If I remember correctly it was set for 1/4 power. I shot at f/5.6 @ 1/100 sec.
Aesthetically, I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. You can see the hard line of the shadows under Norah’s arms and on her legs. I’d say the she could be sharper, but she was very antsy, so I was lucky to get what I got.
Turning around, we decided to put Norah on our wooden bench. The light is now camera left, and behind Norah. You can just see a bit of rim light on her right side. It’s a bit of a deviation from what I had originally set out to do, but not too bad. I wish that I had thought to bring another light with me in order to get a catch light.
Overall not too bad. I’ll have to try some more standard portrait work with the hard lights and see what I can do with that.
Weekend Favorite
This is, without a doubt, my favorite picture from this weekend. I’ve been trying to get a satisfying picture of that piano for quite some time. Turns out I had to put a little girl in front of it. Go figure.
A bit unusual for me lately, but no strobes used. It was a bit later in the afternoon so the sun was giving us the nice long shadows. I used a diffuser to soften the light on Stella.
Another one I like of Norah:
Technorati Tags: photography, kids, portrait, portraiture, brown, sunset, piano, pink, Norah, Stella, Champaign, Illinois, IL
Around the Sandbox
I developed a roll of film two days ago and yesterday was my first chance to look at the negs. I never remember what’s on one roll or the other. It’s a surprise every time. I remember seeing this picture. We were all around the sandbox in the backyard (with me lugging around my C330). At the time it was the reflection in her eyes that made me want to take a picture. Looking at it now, it seems to be a secondary draw in the picture. Luck favors the bold I suppose.
I also managed to grab this picture of Sarah and Norah. I quite like it. But, of course, I’m highly biased. I say grabbed, but really there’s no grabbing a shot with the Mamiya. It takes me forever to focus!
Finally, this was our attempt at a group shot. Suffice to say that I had many hostile models that morning.
Technorati Tags: photography, champaign, illinois, family, tmax, 400, xtol, mamiya, c330, black, white, film
Goal!
Goal!
At school Lily has a folder that will hold all of her writing. She has to decorate the folder with pictures of her choice. Yesterday she specifically asked me to get a picture of her scoring a goal so that she could put it on her folder. Perhaps she’s just a bit too comfortable with a camera always pointed at her. Bad parent, bad!
And my alternate “Goal” shot:
Technorati Tags: photography, soccer, lily, champaign, il, illinois
Night Clouds
Looking North at Night
The weather has been working for me photographically lately. First the double rainbows and now the moving clouds. Our house is near a major interstate highway, and I believe that the orange reflected on the bottom of the clouds is from both Champaign proper and the headlights of the cars.
Looking East at Night
I don’t usually do a whole lot of night photography, but I do follow a bit of it online. The ones that I like have a different color to them. It’s hard to explain, but these pictures captured just a bit of that. There are odd blues and oranges and such. It’s just different.
Technorati Tags: photography, night, clouds, champaign, highway
Double Rainbows
Double Rainbows
Odd weather here in Champaign lately. This past weekend we saw a double rainbow looking out our backyard. The bottom rainbow was as complete as I’ve ever seen one. I used the widest lens I’ve got (17mm) and still couldn’t get it all in frame.
This, naturally, led to a series of rainbow pictures….
Northern End
Single Rainbow
Cloud and a bit of Rainbow
Technorati Tags: photography, rainbow, weather, champaign, il, illinois
Information
Change this sentence and title from admin Theme option page.
40D
100
400
3200
and
arboretum
B&W
baby
background
birthday
black
c330
camera
canon
champaign
child
children
christmas
club
color
county
delta
digital
efke
film
food
fun
garden
high
house
il
ilford
illinois
iphone
kid
kids
lake
life
lighting
LIghtroom
lights
lily
lucy
mamiya
night
norah
outdoor
park
photography
piano
pink
planting
playing
portrait
portraiture
processing
rhubarb
rodinal
shawano
sofobomo
stella
still
strobe
sunset
tmax
tmy
tomatoes
tri-x
tulip
university
urbana
white
wi
wisconsin
xtol
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | ||
Grasping Photography 