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Posts published in “Photography”

McCarren Park – 03/07/2009

March 9, 2009 |

Galleries and Photography

We had our first Spring day here in Brooklyn on Saturday so what else to do but take the rabbit and go to the park for a little while?

Here are a few of my favorites.

And here’s the entire set.

I’m really growing on the 85mm f/1.8. I’ve had a hard time learning how to use it effectively since it’s a focal length I don’t normal go toward, but I really like the dreamy quality it imparts to pictures when it’s wide open and you’re shooting things that are far away from you. Even the severe chromatic aberration it shows wide open doesn’t bother me. I bet that if I spent 1500 bucks or whatever the 85mm f/1.2 L costs, that the chromatic aberration would go away, but who cares? It’s a great little lens for what it is. I also like that it forces me to find the composition from where I am, or move, rather than try and create it as I would with a zoom lens. It’s a good exercise when I’m not on the move or in need of the most flexibility possible.

And damn, it makes nice pictures.

Photo tally for 2009: 1904/5000 (note, this includes a load of photos I shot while in CA but haven’t posted yet.)

> Continue reading...McCarren Park – 03/07/2009

Secret Lounge Party – 03/06/2009

March 9, 2009 |

Galleries and Photography

My friend Jermaine asked me to photograph a party he had coming up at Secret last Friday. I’d never heard of the place before, but, knowing Jermaine, I knew that the party was probably going to be worth shooting. Here’s the beginning of the set. I have some thoughts about the shoot after.

If you’re coming here because I met you at the party and gave you my URL, welcome! I hope you like the photos.

Here are the rest of them: After Dark at Secret 03/06/2009 Gallery – Note that there are some potentially non-work-safe photos toward the end of the set, so you have been warned.

So, it feels like my camera has a warm up time. I’m not talking about the typical 50 or so frames it takes me to warm up when shooting situations like this, but that the camera itself seems like it needs to be broken in a little bit each time, like stretching before exercise (not that I know anything about that). It’s weird, and I might just be imagining things, but it really feels like there’s a period at the beginning of a shoot, especially under difficult conditions, when the camera just doesn’t respond like it’s supposed to. It’s extra strange that I don’t have the camera set to use any automatic settings; everything is manual. You would think that with everything in manual the response time would not be an issue, but it was. In the long run, it doesn’t matter. It’s just an idiosyncrasy I’ve noticed over the last few shoots.

Another challenge for this shoot was photographing black people in the dark. It basically meant that my metering was not useful. Once I had set a good exposure for inside though, I just went with that for everything since most of the light was coming from my flash anyway. Even worse was that the ceiling in the club was black, so no bounce flash for me.

Furthermore, I keep getting weird skin tones with the camera set to a high ISO (1600+) while using the flash with the orange diffuser. I experienced this with the Metric System party and I see it again here. It’s reflecting REAL hard off some lower layers of skin or something and make people look really yellow. Fortunately, setting the highlight recovery to a modest 20 in Lightroom completely removes the harsh yellow cast and allows normal skin tones. You know, thinking about it, I had the same issue when shooting How To Disappear Completely for the photos shot under the stage lights. Maybe something is happening with colored lights and skin at high ISOs? I mean, there’s no maybe about it—there is definitely something happening. I just don’t know what it is. At least it’s easy to fix.

Overall, I feel this was a very successful shoot for me. It was wildly different than anything I’ve shot before and a lot of fun. I hope that I can come back and shoot this again and that these things open some doors for me because I would love to shoot more events like this, especially when I’m given sort of free reign to shoot how I like to shoot as I was this time. The one thing I learned was that I need business cards. And probably to set up josephdillingham.com as a more professional counterpart to the wild bastion of heathenish debauchery and immorality I have set up here.

> Continue reading...Secret Lounge Party – 03/06/2009

Prime lenses

January 19, 2009 |

About Photography and Photography

Prime lenses are a total inconvenience. Not being able to zoom is a complete pain in the ass, and having to switch lenses to change the focal length is even worse. I have to carry around multiple lenses to cover a variety of settings, instead of just throwing one zoom on and going for it. They are a real hassle.

If so, then why do I love them so much? It is so much nicer taking photos with my 300 dollar 85mm f/1.8 prime than it is with my 1100 dollar 24-105 f/4 zoom that I almost never even reach for the zoom anymore. The only instance when I throw the zoom on is when I know I’m not going to have time to switch lenses, which itself doesn’t take all that long and can be accomplished with light weight primes one-handed with a little practice. The rest of the time I just leave my two primes, a 28mm and a 85mm, on the body and go from there. I also have the 50mm f/1.8 in my drawer, but I never use it not because it’s inconvenient, but because it feels cheap. I just don’t like it. I’m going to purchase the 50mm f/1.4 in the next few weeks and then retire the f/1.8 version.

I think that what I like most about the primes is that they are solid, sharp as hell, and wonderfully bright through the viewfinder. If you’ve never seen the difference between a lens with an f/4 maximum and a lens with an f/1.8 maximum through a viewfinder, trust me the difference is remarkable. It goes from a dingy, dull image at f/4 to a bright, clean image at f/1.8 which unconsciously gives me a better feeling for the moment happening in front of my lens. It’s just a lot nicer. I feel more connected to my subjects, better equipped to capture the moment as it happens.

The ability not to change focal lengths is freeing from the endless possibilities of a zoom lens. Too much choice is no choice at all. For all the time spent while I’m dicking around zooming in and out trying to get a good composition, the moment has passed. Remove the option to zoom altogether and you find yourself unfettered by choice, able to take the photos presenting themselves to you. Besides, if you really want to get closer, just move your ass. It’s not hard.

Of course, there are times when you need to be run & gun with your photography or for whatever reason you can’t move forward or backward to get the right shot, but for the majority of the time I feel like shooting with primes is just better. That is really true for all the shooting-in-the-dark I do. Every little bit of aperture counts.

As a side note, I took my first daylight photos with the 5d Mk II today, after more than 800 photos in the dark. It does just as nice a job outside in daylight as inside in artificial light.

> Continue reading...Prime lenses

Welcome, Lightning!

January 15, 2009 |

Galleries and Photography

Last Saturday was a cold, snowy day here in Brooklyn, so what did Juli and I do? We went for a walk. Obviously. We went for bagels and then to the bookstore and then to get hot chocolate. All in all it was an adorable day. Then she asked, “Can we go up and look at hamsters? It’s kind of a long walk…”

To which I replied, “Sure. Let’s roll.”

So we went up to the pet store on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint to look at hamsters. We saw little hamsters and black hamsters and gray hamsters and pregnant hamsters and a few hamsters that were the size of small dogs. But in the end, Juli settled on a little black hamster that was only a few weeks old. We decided to name him Lightning because A) that’s an awesome name and B) he has a streak of white down his chest. He’s been very nervous the last few days, so we’ve avoided picking him up or disturbing him too much so he can acclimate to his new environment better. He’s very little and has been hiding, but is growing more adventurous and less timid.

Here is the first photo I managed to take of him.

Here’s a more clear photo.

Here are the rest of the selects.

Isn’t he little? I have tremendous faith that he will turn out to be a very special hamster.

Photo tally for 2009: 23/5000

> Continue reading...Welcome, Lightning!

The Metric System – Naïveté party photos

December 30, 2008 |

Galleries and Photography

The ultimate yield from the party photos I took was something like 441 usable photos. In the selection process I basically only rejected photos that had some major technical defect (soft focus, bad exposure, horrible). Usually I only pick and process photos I like, which would have probably cut this set in half or even a third, but since these pictures are for The Metric System to use as press I went ahead a left in a bunch of technically fine, artistically lacking photos.

Because there are so many, I’m only putting the first 35 into this post. A link to the whole set follows. I encourage you to check it out since the real party pictures don’t start until well into the triple digits.

The Metric System – Naïveté @ Flickr

> Continue reading...The Metric System – Naïveté party photos

How To Disappear Completely

December 9, 2008 |

Galleries and Photography

On Saturday, Juli, Jesse, and I went to see our friends perform in a musical/dance/multimedia/burlesque extravaganza called “How to Disappear Completely”. I figured it was a good time to put the 5d Mk II through the ringer a little, so I did.

Here is the set with a few random photos at the end.

You can view them in high res here: How To Disappear Completely @ Flickr

Some thoughts on the low-light capabilities of the new 5d Mk II—awesome. About half of the play was shot at ISO 1600 and the other half at ISO 3200. Those two settings are effectively unusable on my old 20D so it was with some trepidation I threw the camera in 1600 to shoot. It was just too dark and my focal length was too long and there was too much movement not to use a very high ISO. It was a grand experiment and, based on the sample shots I’ve seen from the 1d Mk III and 1ds Mk III, I was reasonably confident that it would work out in my favor.

Well, it worked out and then some. Besides some fairly minor chroma noise at 3200, I have absolutely no objections to the amount of noise coming through. What’s more is that the lighting conditions were FAR from ideal—severe pools of light and dark, wildly shifting lighting, colors like you wouldn’t believe—yet I was able to capture images at a decent enough shutter (1/30ish) at a good focal length (200mm IS) wide open (f/2.8) and still get sharp as tack photos. Are you serious? That is so fucking awesome it hurts. It absolutely does away with any complaints I had with my 20D not allowing me to take the photos I saw in my head. I don’t feel limited by my camera which is really nice.

There is one strange thing I noticed though. Early in the shoot I had the camera set to Highlight Expansion mode and I noticed on the RAWs some very strange effects, almost like the air boiling around very bright areas that were next to very dark areas. It’s pretty obvious around Brian’s arms (on the left) in this photo. You might have to look at it in full size to really see it. I will post a real full size crop when I get home to demonstrate the effect fully since I resized the images for Flickr.

20081206_howtodisappear_0014

It’s not really that bad, and would be easily removed in PS if I were so inclined, but it is strange nonetheless. When I turned off Highlight Expansion, I didn’t see it again. Now, it might be some weirdness because Lightroom does not yet have a proper profile or even real support for 5d Mk II raws, but it might also be an issue with the camera. When I get home tonight, I will check the original CR2 in Canon’s raw converter and let you know what I see. Only minorly annoying, and since I can’t really be sure of the cause, we’ll have to wait and see what happens when full support is available. At least it’s not like that horrid banding noise on the 20D at ISO 1600.

More to come!

> Continue reading...How To Disappear Completely

The Theme of 2009

December 7, 2008 |

About Photography, About Writing, Photography, Thoughts and Writing

In theory, New Year’s resolutions are a good idea. It is in the realization of these resolutions where we discover that, in fact, they don’t always work out. How many New Year’s resolutions have you made in your life that you’ve never followed through on? How many people have you heard make resolutions to do whatever the hell it is they think they should be doing but then never do? If you’re like me, the answer to both questions is “A lot”. Sure, some people have success, but I’m willing to bet that the ratio of successes to failures is skewed toward the latter.

What are some of the problems with New year’s resolutions? Well, for one, they are often short sighted, setting a goal for the immediate to near future and not often considering 4 or 8 or 12 months from now. They are also generally too specific, not allowing for the person making resolutions to change their minds or to adapt to changing situations throughout the year. People and things change, so it’s stupid not to be able to adjust your goals accordingly.

A few years ago I decided to pick a theme for the upcoming year (2004, I think?) and stick with that for the whole year. The idea was that the theme should be broadly applicable with recognizable short term goals. That might sound contradictory, but hear me out. I wanted something that would provide many opportunities to express itself in easily accomplished situations, something that could apply to many things yet all fall under the same heading. Thus the idea of a “theme”, rather than a “resolution”.

Since putting this into motion, I have had a few years of success and a few years of not-success. Let’s look at some examples, shall we?

  • The Year of Trying New Things—This was my first theme and esaily the most successful. It exemplifies everything a year’s theme should be. Broadly applicable to many things (what new thing am I trying? It doesn’t matter, so long as it’s new) and provides short term goals (try it).
  • The Year of Writing—This year was moderately successful for a while but ended up being too broad. There were no goals to set except “to write”, which was enough for a while, but not strong enough for me to keep my focus.
  • The Year of Finishing Things—What? Serious? I broke both my guidelines here. Too specific and too long term. No good. Next!
  • The Year of Self-Care—Again, moderately successful since it was focused mostly on figuring out what I needed from my life, but not a great theme since it lacks clear short term goals.
  • The Year of Focus—Seriously? What the hell? Horrible.

For 2009 I am determined not repeat my past mistakes, but to really work on keeping myself occupied outside of work with personal creative work. And now that I have this blog running, I have something to keep my honest and not let myself slip into complacency as I am prone to do.

After a lot of thinking, I have decided that 2009 will be:

The Year of 5000 photos and 50 Short Stories

Right? It’s good, I think. It has short term goals (stories, photos) and is broadly applicable (stories about what? Photos of what?). It’s also enough to keep me busy throughout the whole year, but not so much that it is daunting. Originally, it was going to be The Year of 10,000 Photos after I was inspired by Bryan’s photo count on his site, which, if you have not seen, you should. But then I realized it didn’t carve out a space for the other craft which is important to me and not addressed professionally—writing. So a little bit of calculation was done to establish reasonable goals and the theme was changed.

But, you ask, what constitutes “a photo” or “a short story”? Well, I’ve thought about that too and here’s what I think.

Photo – a photo is counted when it is part of a set that was deliberately taken. I am not limited only to my selects from a given shoot, but at the same time, test shoots do not count toward the final tally.

Short story – a short story is any piece of narrative writing between 1500 and 10000 words. It can be about anything at all, but needs to fall roughly within those two limits. The upper limit is looser than the lower. 1500 words is a bare minimum, but ok since, once I get rolling, I’ll bang out 1500 to 2500 words in a sitting.

And you, Black Laser readers, will help to keep me honest! Follow my progress over the next calendar year. I will be posting every photo and every story to this site for you to enjoy. I also hope to make periodic comments on my status and how I’m feeling about my progress. Stay tuned, intrepid readers!

You can check my progress with this link: The Year of 5000 Photos and 50 Short Stories. It will link you to every post with that tag, which will be every post I make with a story or photos. Let’s do this.

> Continue reading...The Theme of 2009