Gifts from Above

Many times we overlook things close to us and don't see the beauty in our own yard. Our 15 yo son woke us up at 11:30pm to say he thought an animal was injured in our back yard. I had heard an owl hooting somewhere in the back yard earlier but didn't think much about it. The next morning, our 13 yo son told us that there was an owl up in the Tulip Poplar tree and had fought off an "eagle". Sure enough, there sat a Great Horned Owl about 15 feet off the ground. I grabbed my Nikon D2X and 200-400 and shot as I worked closer and closer. I noticed that it didn't try to fly away and finally noticed that it's left wing was injured. We contacted our local raptor rehab center (they're actually in town  http://creso.acs.ac/CRRC/CRRCMain.htm) and they came over and captured the injured male and are going to try to save him. While I was waiting, I managed to get a number of great images. So don't ever overlook what can be found in your own yard. God does provide us with wonderful opportunities close by when we are receptive.

Take time to explore your own backyard and don't get caught up in having to venture afar to create great images.

Bill

BCPB#6

At long last... Bill is back running his blog and photographing. This spring and summer has been a rather difficult time personally and this has greatly impacted my photography for a while. I am now starting to dig back out from the morass of difficult experiences and finding the joy in my photography. When I teach about the 4 components of creating a great photograph, component number 4 is conditions. We usually are thinking about weather (wind, heat, cold,etc) but I always finish with the thought that our emotional state can greatly influence our creativity. I experienced this full force this spring and summer, but things are starting to get more on an even keel.
Pellissippi State Technical Community College (where our oldest son has decided to go for the time being just out of HS) has a balloon festival every fall. I haven't been in about 12-13 years (back in the days of film) and was pleased that the festival was held on a weekend without away soccer tournaments (I coach and our youngest plays). I was able to shoot the "glow" on the opening night. If you read this today (Saturday Sept 29) the festival is still going on with tethered balloon rides. The weather and lighting is great. You might want to visit Clay Thurston's Photography booth in the Arts and Crafts section while you are there.
I will be posting much more regularly now. Thanks.

BCPB#5

Now that things are settling down a bit after NANPA (www.nanpa.org), I have worked some with a few of my light paintings from Joshua Tree. This is one of my favorites and larger views display the thousands of stars visible in this image. To bring out the number of stars, I had to composite one image derived in ACR (Adobe Raw Converter) for the stars and another image for the tree. Both were taken from the same RAW Nef file (Nikon RAW file). I then dragged one on top of the other and then used a layer mask to create the combination.

Light painting is not that difficult with digital, it just takes some practice. You will need fresh battery(ies), a flash light ( I use a Maglite with colored gels, a Brinkmann QBeam 2 million candle power spot with filters that come with it, and Streamlight Stylus lights for small work), a cable release with long exposure capability (I use a Nikon MC-20 with my D2X), camera and tripod.

Put your camera into Manual mode and set your aperature to your desired depth of field. Make sure that Long Exposure noise reduction is active on your camera. Choose a time (start with 1-3 minutes) for your exposure. It should be short enough to exclude whatever ambient light is around (or not if you want a different feeling for your image). Then paint with your light over your subject. Keep the light moving, otherwise you will get a hotspot where it lingers. Wait for your image to process. Check you painting technique on the camera's view screen and modify as needed. It will take some practice to use this technique, but digital makes this so much more fun than when we did it with film. The only drawback is not having REALLY LONG exposures with digital (I mean 1-4 hours at night for great star trails). I am working on ways to capture star trails with digital, but if anyone out there has any ideas, let me know. Until next time, keep shooting out there.

BCPB#4: More Lessons from the desert

NANPA Summit and Joshua Tree NP were my focus for last week. Our tour for NANPA into JTNP went well with Rob Shepperd, Jim Clark and myself. It was lot's of fun to share that area with other photographers and especially help them out in the evening learning about light painting. I'm hoping to get images back from everyone and create a slide show to demonstrate their creativity.
Speaking of creativity, after I thawed out a bit (it was 7 degrees F one morning in JT), I was exploring different ways to express the feeling I had being in the desert with the Joshua Trees. I decided to walk around with a 12-24mm Wide Angle lens and try different looks. I was walking around helping participants on our morning shoot when I thought about getting really close to the trunk of the Joshua Tree and shooting up against the blue sky. Blue sky is need for this kind of image so the "tree limbs" don't get lost in the sky. I was rather happy with this view of the Joshua Tree because it is different from most of the views you normally see.
NANPA was a blast and is scheduled of Destin, FL next year at the end of Feb/ beginning of March. I am proud to be a member and tell people that NANPA is like a family and every year I go to the Summit, my "family" gets bigger as I meet more people. This year was no different and I got to meet some really nice people and have more to put in my list of friends. If you get a chance, check out NANPA at www.nanpa.org.

I'll be posting a light painting from JT later this week and describing the technique.

Bill

BCPB #3: Lessons from the desert

NANPA is in Palm Springs, CA this year and I just finished leading a tour for the pre Summit with Jim Clark and Rob Sheppard. We scouted for a couple of days looking for the right location for 30+ people to shoot. I arrived to record cold in the CA Mojave desert with Sunday morning getting down to 10 degrees by the thermometer on my car. My personal goal was to find a way to represent the wild beauty of this Mojave wilderness that is rock and sand and Joshua Trees. Naturalist tip: Joshua Trees ( Yucca brevifolia) is actually a yucca and not a tree or cactus. It belongs in the Lily family which has surprised a number of people. I finally decided to do some light painting at sunset to show off the trees. Light painting is easy and fun and I will write about it later. If your interested in more light painting, go to Dave Black's website at www.daveblackphotography.com. I hope to take back some spectacular images to show to my family to make up for missing Luke's 14th birthday.

More later from NANPA. -- Bill

BCPB #2: Never wait till later

I woke up this morning to my wife saying it was snowing and it was a good chance to get some snow images on the Cumberland Plateau. I got ready and snow was still coming down hard with already an inch or so on the ground. As I walked out the door, at least 6 male cardinals were sitting in one of our trees, waiting their turn at the feeder. I weighed my options and decided to get some images of the birds in the snow. After an hour, I packed everything up, got in the Suburban, and headed toward Wartburg and the Cumberland Trail. By the time I got to Coalfield (half way there), there was no snow and it was starting to rain. I was really glad that I had stopped to get some images while it was still snowing. This brings up one of my credo, whenever an image or situtation presents itself, never say-"I'll shoot this later." Because later may never come. The light will be different, your subject might be gone, the snow might have melted (as it did by the time I got back to Oak Ridge). Rule #1, if you see something worth taking a picture of, stop and get your image because you may never get a second chance.

Bill

January 7, 2007

As the holidays come to a close and I prepare to depart to CA for NANPA's yearly summit, I thought I would share a few interesting tidbits I picked up. Since Santa was so good to me and I am now a proud owner of a iPod 30g video (Actually this is a BirdPod, but more on that in a later post), I wanted to share some cool things that iPod videos will do. With the latest version of ProShow Gold 3.0, you can convert your slide shows to a version that can be displayed on an iPod. You can then share it with others on a TV (or projector) with the iPod AV Cable. For instructions on how to convert your slide show to your iPod, go to http://www.photodex.com/training/howto/feature.html. Once you have your slide show on your iPod, connect your cables to your TV. If you just try to play the slide show, you will hear the music, but not see any images. Now go to your iPod>Video>Video Settings>TV Out and click in "on". Now you can play your ProShow Gold slide show from your iPod and share it with several people on a TV. If you want to see this in action, see me at NANPA and I will show you. For info on NANPA (North American Nature Photography Assoc) go to www.nanpa.org.
Until next time, enjoy any time you get to shoot.