Free Tea!

Free Tea!, a photo by midnightrook on Flickr.

Enjoyed some free tea!

That is all. Have a happy Friday!

Insight, Definitions, and Therapy

So I’m sitting here thinking and can’t stop the thoughts. I’ll go ahead and share my thoughts with you, my kind readers, in the hopes it’ll be appreciated in some way. This’ll also bring down my stress level because this is my form of therapy.

Photography is a means of communication. It transcends time, distance, and memory. An image, or series of images, can bring you closer to someone else’s country, town, kitchen table.. smack dab into the middle of their lives. Through social networking sites, we can watch someone’s pet or loved one grow up. On Flickr I follow many proud dads and moms that bring their kids up in the social network spotlight. I see their kids as THEY see their kids. I see the good and the bad, the cute and the sad, as well as the surreal. I learn how to improve my photography by seeing amazing photography. Furthermore, by seeing others put their hearts on the line I’m less afraid to do so as well.

For the street photographer, documenting those ordinary moments puts the entire world into perspective. The interesting strangers they encounter become my characters- the scenes are their stories. There’s a fine line to street photography’s delicate simplicity. If the image is too simple there’s no story; too much disorganized chaos and there’s no story either. The images that just ‘work’ have a scene, story, and its characters. All these parts coming together form a balance that puts me, as the viewer, both as a spectator in the scene and a participant.

The macro photographer, like the street photographer, also documents ordinary moments. They need to look for an interesting character, a scene, the right light, and a story. For my macro, I try to find that sense of personality in my subjects. They may be tiny insects, but it’s not until you see them face to face that you realize how inquisitive and intelligent they are. Not to mention fast! Like a street scene, these moments come and go in an instant. If your eye can align the frame into a weighted composition, followed by your finger pressing the shutter, then there’s a proud moment indeed.

I really enjoy looking at photos. Before I started this visual/documentary hobby, I collected automotive photos. I loved the sleek lines, the motion, and how the photos gave such life to these inanimate objects (as opposed to living/breathing organisms). I still look at thousands and thousands of photos every month. I love the scenes and the stories, whether they are of the photographer’s mind or literal in nature. I look at the beautiful, the ugly, the dangerous, but am always moved most by the surreal.

So, how do I define surreal? Well, let’s start with what I don’t mean. I’m not talking about taking different images from different photos and making something new. This is definitely surreal, but basically in the ‘unreal’ realm. There’s no right or wrong, and there are many photos like this that I like. As far as not being surreal, I’m don’t get excited by things that you can tell are staged (such as forced perspective). Again, not that it’s wrong or bad, but that’s not what moves me the most.

Jean-Pierre’s (that’s me) definition of surreal: The scene, character, and time of day are all normal each by themselves. Everything in the image, on an individual basis, would be perfectly normal. It is moment in which the world aligns itself so that everything shows up within one frame at the same time in a way that’s not contrived, only captured by an astute eye, in an easy to digest way. The photo depicts where, who, and how, but makes you question them all the same. You are still asking yourself the why: why are they there? Why is the scene so integrated with the character? Why is this mood depicted, and why isn’t there any other mood?And that’s really it, a surreal image is a strong composition that creates a particular, storylike, otherworldly mood.

So all these meandering thoughts and words.. but to what end?

Your guess is as good as mine. But if you see the world any differently, or if any of this makes any sense, I think typing all this out was well worth the effort. I’ve just a learned a bit more about myself, and my photography, through this stream of consciousness article.

Thoughts, concerns, disagreements? Let the world know in the comments below.

As usual, thanks so much for taking the time out to visit my site and read my article.

Little Spider

I finally had a chance to sit outside to try out the light modifier I put together. The front yard was a bust, but after a little while sitting in the back I noticed this tiny guy/ gal. I wasn't sure at first if it was just a bit of dust, so I checked with my camera and saw it was a creature. I moved the leaf it was on to get it in a better position and light. At first she was a bit scared and was covering her face. After a short while they saw I was no threat so they scurried back and forth trying to see what I was doing. This was my favorite photo from the ones today.

Thanks for stopping by!

As I mentioned at the end of my last macro post, I had something that I wanted to share. If you have stopped by my FLICKR, you may have already seen that the photo above was featured on a research article. I had set this photo to be re-blogged for one of the Flickr groups, and it just so happens that someone used featured my photo to talk about a lab study on the same morning I had input that option. Out of the thousands of photos of Drosophila, they somehow found and liked mine.

For me, this is an awesome thing. I want my photos out there because I want people to see how cool the subjects I photograph really are. The Drosophila above was friendly, they let me get very close (within two inches). They would fly away when I would get close now and then, but would always return. They found some sort of tiny morsels and I was able to get this photo.

Photography is about learning, collecting memories, and sharing them in an interesting way. We all have a unique perspective, and I hope that I continue to become better at achieving consistent results so others can learn alongside me. 

Macro Photography Journey- Part 2

Life size is a matter of perspective. We see tiny leaves and insects all the time, no big deal. To the naked eye, we see these subjects like an astronaut might see the Earth from space, or a person looking up at the sky and seeing a disc-shaped moon. With macro, I have a newfound love for nature with all its life that goes mostly unseen. Seeing creatures as they really are is a singularly rewarding experience. There’s an interaction with these little life forms, I have questions about them and they’re just as inquisitive about me. They have so much personality; macro photography lets me see them as they are. I’ve gone from stargazer to astronaut.

My final setups involved using a clamp to hold the lens and tele-converter together (donated by my Dad) and a little bit of tape to keep things in place. It took a couple of attempts to hold them together, the first time the 35mm wasn’t perfectly straight so there was distortion. But my third lens setup was truly the charm. At roughly 1.4x magnification, I have enough close-up ability to get details in tiny bugs, but not so close that I can’t get some of their environment in the photo as well.

My issue now has to do with light and depth of field. Wide open at F3.5, I have about half a millimeter in focus, no kidding. At F8 I have a decent amount in focus, with F11 and F16 being better in terms of depth of field but with slightly noticeable diffraction. These are the apertures set on the lens, but the amount of light hitting the sensor is even less because of the modified tele-converter. I’m thinking that the amount of light is still halved, so F8 is like F11, F11 is F16, etc. An external light is critical; I have no off-camera flash and am still challenging myself to not spend money.

All of the macro photos you have seen have been with the on-board flash. Playing around with different flash settings has yielded decent results, but I wanted to have the light coming from the side (and not straight on). I set out to build a diffuser, and after cutting up rolls of paper towels, Styrofoam cups, and small boxes, I’ve ended up with something decent. Using an elongated can, a cupcake plastic holder, tape, and aluminum foil, I’ve created mini Frankenstein flash unit. I haven’t had time to experiment with it much, but it does give the photos a more natural feel. A co-worker donated the last piece of the puzzle, and I hope to put this setup to use over the coming months.

I have one post left in this series, something I’m very proud of that I’d like to share. Thanks for stopping by, and please feel free to leave comments, critiques, or follow via RSS feed.

PS: If you have a chance, please stop by my new Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/ef40stm/

Tiny World 1.0+

 It has been one and a half months since my last confession.

This blog, for me, is a confession of sorts. I get to say what I’ve been doing, haven’t been doing, and what I should be doing better. Discussing different topics that mean something to me is a beautiful, double-edged source of release. On one hand, I get to get things off my chest. However, I always feel like moving on to the next experiment once I’ve posted on my blog. There’s always the next subject. This isn’t really bad, since it keeps me on my toes and trying to learn as much as I can. But at the same time, I would like to concentrate on one subject at length to truly gain an understanding, a deeper connection if you will, of myself as a person and my subject as.. well, as something more than a decent image.

Most of my time has been spent making nature photos. Part of that has to do with nature not complaining or yelling at me when making its photo. Nature sits still but is always changing, so each day holds something new. It’s fun to take scenes out of context; I like to develop characters out of inanimate scenes. With all that said, this post is the first of many regarding this subject, but I have a separate project in mind as well.

On my path to create new images and move beyond what I’ve already done, I started Macro photography a couple of months ago. In photographic terms, it’s where the subject of your photo is depicted at life size when compared to your sensor, or larger than that. An insect that is 5 millimeters long would be 5 millimeters long on your sensor; this would be 1:1 or 1x magnification. One attractive aspect to Macro photography is that you can find subjects in your own house or backyard. A few square feet of grass or shrubs can yield dozens of photographic subjects, or even on your front stoop!

My only issue when starting was that I couldn’t afford to buy a new lens dedicated to macro. I challenged myself to spend no money in the pursuit of this new genre. After a considerable amount of research, I opted to use my vintage lenses to get the magnification I needed. I started with a 35mm lens reversed onto a 135mm lens, which resulted in roughly 3.5x magnification. The results were instantly intriguing. A few millimeter-long insect/arachnid now filled the frame. This was incredible, and I knew I was on the right track. After experimenting with this setup at different focus ranges and apertures, there were two issues. First, the depth of field was ridiculously shallow. At decent apertures I had maybe 1 to 2 millimeters in focus. This made it beyond difficult to get little creatures in focus. The second issue was that the 135mm I own is a pretty beat-up lens. It has very large blemishes, scratches, and is extremely soft. At this magnification, those imperfections are also magnified.

Jumpy the Spider

As you can see from the above photo, I needed a setup that yielded better optical results. I own a 2x Soligor tele-converter that cost $12 at a flea market, but the results were awful. The single piece of glass in there was, quite honestly, piss poor. I got the idea to try and remove that glass. Internet searches were made in vain; I was on the verge of hammering out that glass. My phone has a video-recording feature, and part of the feature is to record with the flash continuously on. With this, I used the phone as a magnifier to take a closer look at the tele-converter. With this method, I saw there were two notches at opposite ends of the lens element. I used a tiny pair of needle-nose pliers, each side pressing into each dot, and rotated the lens until it was out. So now my tele-converter is an extender (I can now focus even closer to my subjects with no optical loss, only less light hitting the sensor).

My first tries were with a 50mm screwed in; this yielded the first photo in this blog post. Not 1:1, but neat nonetheless. All of this was with one goal in mind: to reverse the 35mm lens onto the modified tele-converter to hopefully reach something a little bit better than life size magnification.

On my next post I’ll be discussing what I ended up with as my lens setup, photo samples, work-arounds, and the light modifier I built.

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Lunch

Had an awesome birthday lunch with my co-workers. Celebrated three birthdays for our team. Great food, awesome cake, incredible company!