...from the Worlds of Visible and Invisible Light

Photo Comparison - iPhone and a "Real Camera"

2011-12-10T10:47:00.007-05:00

Staten Island, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

These two shots of the Staten Island Ferry terminal were taken within minutes of each other, the first with an iPhone 4S camera that automatically calculated the settings, the second with a considerably more expensive Nikon D300 with the exposures chosen based on metering and experience. Which one do you like better?
What are the differences?
1) Settings: iPhone shot is f 2.4, 1/20 sec, ISO 250 and the Nikon is f 3.5, 1/200 sec, ISO 3200.
Just as a brief review, the f stop is how large the opening of the shutter is (and therefore how much light is allowed in), similarly the lower the denominator of the shutter speed the longer and therefore more light is let in, and the ISO is how sensitive the sensor in the camera is to light, the higher the number the more sensitive (and therefore more light). So, the darker the scene is the lower your aperture, the lower your shutter speed denominator, and the higher your ISO. That all sounds great, except by pushing each of these to maximize light entry you lose in f stop by decreasing the delpth of how much of the image is in focus, you blur motion, and you add noise (speckles) to shots.
The new iPhone 4S is much better from the previous version for low light because the sensor has been made more efficient in capturing light without adding significant noise and the aperture is larger (1 f stop) without losing sharpness. There's a nice review of the iPhone 4S from a photographer's perspective with more details on this at Time Techland and another one with even more technical detail here at ars technica.
In these two shots, the iPhone version is fuzzier, but most of this softness comes from the 1/20 sec exposure compared to 1/200 sec from the Nikon-- a much longer time of shutter opening required to get the same amount of light.
2) Lenses: The iPhone lens has remarkably good resolution given its small size (1/2 inch diameter and made of polymers) compared to the Nikon's about 2 1/2 inch version that is actually a series of glass lenses and prisms working in concert with each other.-- more here on that. The better Nikon lens also contributes to the better sharpness of the image.
3) White balance: If you remember from high school physics, white light is actually a combination of all of the other colors in the spectrum, so white is rarely purely white and light hitting an object is also rarely pure white-- light on a sunny vs. cloudy day, tungsten light bulbs vs. fluorescent light bulbs will be different. You can manually set white balance on the more expensive cameras or let the camera calculate it. Generally the less expensive the camera, the less customizable and the less good the camera is at figuring it out. The 4S has improved white balance calculation algorithms. You can see in these shots, that the iPhone found the lighting to be more blue than the Nikon did (and my remembrance is that the Nikon color is more true to what my eyes saw) but they are pretty close. Last summer, I goofed when I took this shot, Kitty Jan, by mistakenly setting the white balance to fluorescent instead of daylight, but it worked out-- the camera added in purples to the already purplish sunset because it thought it was compensating for fluorescent lighting that has very little purple light.

So, which shot do you like better? For this scene, I prefer the iPhone version. The Nikon version is technically better and more sharp, but for these rainy evening with diffuse light and people hurrying for the ferry, I like the little bit of fuzziness of it.

Tips to maximize your images in low lighting: 1) keep the camera as steady as possible-- propping it on something, steadying your arm on something, or using a tripod 2) shoot stationary objects (unless you want an artistic blur) and 3) maximize the available light by looking at light coming from buildings and light posts, incorporating that into how you compose your shot.

Shooting Water

2011-06-22T08:48:00.010-04:00

When making decisions about photographing water, consider how you want the water to look. Both of these waterfalls were shot in Southern Iceland within an hour of each other in early evening, but have radically different looks. In the bottom one, "Horse Tail", the Seljalandsfoss (foss means falls), the water looks creamy/feathery because there is a long shutter speed (8 sec) allowing for a higher volume to pass by during the capture. In the top one, "Tumbling Waters", at Urriðafoss, the water has spikes as if frozen in motion because of a fast shutter speed (1/125 sec) that stops motion. Both were shot with an aperture of f22 at ISO 200. If my math is right, 1000 times as much water flowed by at a given point in the second than in the first.
Both effects are nice, but give a different feeling. In the slow capture, it is closer to what the eye sees and is dreamier. In the top photo, you have much more of a sense of how frantic and hurried the water seems as it rushes over the rocks. Getting the fast capture is easy and is probably what you will get by putting the settings on automatic. The longer exposure requires more work. To lengthen the time the shutter is open (shutter speed), you will need to decrease the amount of light-- use a small aperture (f stop) and either shoot at near dusk or dawn or add a filter that decreases the light entry (or both). For this one, I shot in the early evening and used a 4x (reduces the light to 25%) neutral density (ND) filter, courtesy of Tony Prower at Iceland Aurora Photography.
If you want to go low tech and using your iPhone or a point and shoot, you can use sunglasses to cover your lens and it will help. Also, thanks to Tony who guided us to these beautiful waterfalls and gave me many useful photo tips.

Thank you Nilda and Carrie...

2011-04-05T18:56:00.003-04:00

Ode to Lost Futures, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

At your suggestion, I entered this photo into The National Photography Competition and it is one of 50 finalists to be included in an exhibition at the von Liebig Art Center in Naples, Florida that will run from May through August. Stay tuned to see how I fare in the final round. Sadly, I won't be able to attend the opening reception in May to hear the announcement of the grand prize winner and a lecture by the judge, Harry Benson. I admire his photography.
This photo is one that I took on one of my recent trips to DC. It is of the a reflection of a path towards the Washington Monument, reflected in the wall of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. The wall is made from gabbro, a mineral chosen from its highly reflective quality. Enscribed on the wall are the 58,175 names of US forces killed or missing in action from the war.
I took the photo with my Nikon D300 (handheld because the park police frown on tripods on the mall) with a small aperture (f 16) to have a long depth of field to get as many names in focus as possible and a shutter speed of 1/125 (ISO 200). I got lucky with this shot and had to do very little processing in Photoshop.

Getting the Most from Your iPhone (Part 4) - Turning Bad Light Into Interesting Light

2011-04-03T19:46:00.005-04:00

Interesting Light, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

At the most basic level, photography is about capturing light. Imagine that light is being painted onto objects and that you are capturing a moment in time-- the first light of sunrise onto the side of a building, light streaming through a window onto a floor, or a scene fully illuminated by the midday sun. Sometimes, it seems that the light is "bad", on a day where it's cloudy, rainy, etc. In this photo that I took when traveling to DC to photograph cherry blossoms in what I hoped to be scintillating spring sunshine, I instead found myself dodging raindrops and making the most of it with occasional sunbreaks. This photo, Interesting Light, of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, shows how to maximize less than ideal light for interesting effects.
First: I used the ProHDR app (described in a previous posting) to make the most of the available light and even out the bright areas and the shadows.
Second: I maximized the use of reflection. By including the reflection in the Tidal Basin to essentially "double" the light. By having the bright patches of sky appear twice, it lightens the photo. Reflections in general add interest to photos.
Third: Include elements with high contrast, especially white objects, e.g. in this the dome of the monument and the cherry blossoms on the trees. These also serve to multiply light by having additional elements reflect light back to your eye.

Getting the Most from Your iPhone Camera (Part 4) - PhotoPad, a Versatile App for Adding Effects

2011-03-27T19:03:00.002-04:00

As you can see from these two photos, there's a wide range of things you can do with your photos once you've taken them. Both of these edits were made with the PhotoPad app. In the top photo, I wanted to make the regular photo of a scupture at Gettysburg National Park have a more vintage appearance. In the second, I wanted to add a caption to the photo of apples. In the first, I used the "chromaticity" tool under the buttom with the symbol showing sliders. In the second, I used the paintbrush tool under the button that looks like a suitcase. There's also options for cropping, rotating, and red eye reduction. The edits are a little tricky on the iPhone because of the smaller screen, but it works well on an iPad.

Getting the Most From Your iPhone Camera (Part 3) - A Fun App, Color Splash

2011-03-25T19:57:00.005-04:00

Now you're getting the hang of what you can do with your camera, you have basic photos and you want to have a little fun. So, now I will give a series with a few apps towards that goal:
Today one of my favorites, it is Color Splash: This app allows you to have selective color on your shot, with the rest turned to black and white. The app starts by converting the entire picture to black and white and then you use your finger to paint back in areas of color. The photos above, Red Roses for You, are the pre- and post- using Color Splash. It works best with photos where you have a something in the photo with bright colors (like the roses and the cat's eyes) that accentuating would really add impact. There's a video review here that has a tutorial.
Feel free to download pictures from my Flickr to play with if you want to play with the app without having to take pictures. All you do is go to a photo, click on it, then use the + sign on the upper right hand corner to put it on the lightbox. Then click on the "view all sizes" button, again in the upper right hand corner and choose a size to download. The "medium500" is probably just about right to play with on an iPhone or iPad. My suggestions for ones to try are: Joy, Pas de Deux, S Curve, Water Play, and The Thinker.

Getting the Most From Your iPhone Camera (Part 2)

2011-03-17T21:23:00.002-04:00

Restaurant Vista al Mar, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Before shooting a lot of photos, you're going to need to outfit your phone with the right apps. Apps will help you take better pictures and allow you to edit them once you have them. My workflow is that I take the picture and if I need to do much editing or I want to take a closer look before uploading, I transfer it to my iPad and then edit and upload it from there. In this blog, I'll cover basic shooting and editing apps.
Apps to take a different kind of picture:
My favorite is Pro HDR. It's the app that I used to take the picture above. I have more on HDR in a past blog, but basically: most cameras cannot capture the full dynamic range that the human eye can see. Even with the best camera, there are areas that are too light and others too dark and you lose detail in those areas. In HDR, there are multiple images (usually at least 3) with underexposure to capture the dark areas (but losing the sky) and overexposure to capture the light areas (but the darker areas lose all detail. Software then smart averages the images to create the best. For this you could spend $100 for your desktop or $1.99 in the app store. Pro HDR requires holding the camera still while the camera analyzes and then takes two shots (one under and one overexposed) and then blends them. You can do final edits. It adds a cool look to a lot of different scenes but is essentially in those tricky lighting situations. Don't expect to get moving objects those because moving objects can take on a ghost like appearance (which in itself can be cool).
Apps for photo editing: I use Photogene or PS Express in my iPhone and Photo Pal or PS Express on my iPad. In these, you can crop out areas (remember that trash can from the previous blog?), adjust the lighting and other special effects like adding frames or captions. Most photos require a little sharpening-- making it look better focused than it is available in all of these apps. Auto-leveling is available in all of these too, which you can make adjustments to bad exposures without having to know a lot about photo editing. These apps also have options to take the picture and upload from within the app to Facebook, but I usually upload through the Facebook app on the iPhone or Friendly for Facebook on my iPad.
In my next blog posting, I'll cover apps to do more fun and special apps.

Getting the Most From Your iPhone Camera (Part 1)

2011-03-16T21:50:00.008-04:00

For all you Verizon people that just migrated to iPhone, I'm going to post a series of blogs to help you get the most of your iPhone camera. It's really quite remarkable for a cell phone camera and has higher ratings than the competition. I'm assuming that most of you don't have a lot of technical knowledge about cameras, so I'll review some of the basics about cameras as well. Over the last 247 days of my iPhone photo a day project, I've learned where I can push the camera to do more than you would think (like the photo above). For this blog, I'm going to focus on the difference between this camera and other entry level point and shoot cameras and cell phone cameras.
First of all, how is this camera different from one of the point and shoot cameras you could buy at Best Buy that would cost around $100? Well, obviously they can't also make phone calls or immediately text or email the picture you just took to someone and you usually can't edit pictures within the camera (more in a future blog about that), but there's more than that. This blog has all the technical specs for those of you who are interested in numbers.
The iphone camera has a fixed lens, not a zoom (the button on a camera that makes it so you can get closer or farther from your image without actually having to move your feet). You can make it look like you're zooming in on something but tapping the screen (a box appears) and then sliding the bar at the bottom. But, you aren't really zooming, you're just magnifying the image . This is important, because the image is going to look fuzzier. With a camera with a zoom, the optics change so you won't lose as much resolution, i.e. it won't get as fuzzy. That being said, the best solution is to move your feet and yourself closer to the object so that what you want is in the frame-- not the garbage can next to the object of your desire or the random person smoking in your shot. The size of the iPhone lens after all the math is done, makes it compare to a 28 mm lens. This is a fairly wide angle lens, similar to the widest angle of most point and shot cameras you'd buy.
iPhone 4 has two cameras-- one on the back for taking pictures (and videos) and one on the front so you can project your face into the world. The front facing camera is not of the same quality as the rear facing camera and should only be used for Facetime/Skype/etc. or if you don't care about having poor quality pictures of your face.
iPhone 4's light sensitivity is better than the previous models and similar to most Best Buy entry level cameras. Light sensitivity is important when you are shooting in areas where the light isn't great. If the light is poor, the camera works hard to capture the available light by maximizing other settings with a result that the image is grainy (little dots in the picture, especially in darker areas) and with a slow shutter speed (making motion visible for instance someone waving may look like she has a flipper instead of a hand). There's a flash on the iPhone 4, but I haven't found it particularly useful. It tends to wash out the photo without adding any real illumination. A remedy for low light graininess and movement artifact: turn on the lights in the room-- another move involving your feet rather than technology! The photo above of a sailboat on the island of Molokai in Hawaii was taken just before dawn, showing just how well the camera performs in low natural light. The sun is a little washed out, but there's still good detail in the dark areas of the boat.
Does size (of pixels) matter? Yes. Pixels are the electronic sensors that capture light. Most consumer point and shoot cameras have about 10 megapixels, the iPhone has 5 megapixels-- previous iphones had 3-- the bigger DSLR cameras have 10-15. The pixel count, size, and quality determine how large you can blow your picture up without it getting grainy and blurry looking and how sharp it will look on the screen. While the iPhone has only 5, Apple uses superior technology to others so that density and size is maximized, similar quality to 8 megapixel point and shoot cameras. In head to head tests to other cameras it consistently performed as well or better.
So, how does all of this matter? For people that just want to post to Facebook or text their photo it probably doesn't matter too much. For people who want to have the option of printing their photos (probably a max of 5x7, maybe could get away with 8x10's), the iphone is superior to most other camera phones and is going to be at least as good as an entry level point and shoot. What this means is that you don't have to buy another camera or if you already have one you can leave it home and not have to stuff your pockets with gear. Also, most people tend to carry their phone with them, but not always a camera.
In the words of Chase Jarvis (a famous photographer), "The best camera is the one with you."
In the next blog, I'll talk about some apps you can use to enhance your picture taking experience and results.

Kalaupapa National Historic Park

2011-01-25T15:54:00.004-05:00

St Philomena Cemetery, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Kalaupapa, on a peninsula on the north shore of Moloka'i (Hawaii) is former leper colony that for over 100 years was forced isolation (until 1969) for patients with Hansen's Disease (leprosy) in Hawaii. In 1969, the isolation was ended, but remaining former patients who chose to live there still reside.
The cemetery, at St. Philomena's church on the Kalawao side of the peninsula has marked graves on the left for members of the Sacred Heart order who ministered there, but the larger field contains hundreds of unmarked graves of patients who died. Their condition was exacerbated by the harsh conditions of the area and many died of pneumonia, tuberculosis, and gangrene.
Leprosy was introduced into Hawaii in the early 19th century. With no treatment, it quickly became a public health issue with no clear scientific answer other than isolation. Initial efforts, mishandled by government officials, to isolate patients in Honolulu failed with the facility turning into more of a prison than a health care facility. Anarchy reigned, there wasn't enough food, and very little health care was provided. People with leprosy were so afraid to go there that their illness was only discovered in late stages after infection had already spread to others. It was also easily visited by families and by others who then went on to complain about the conditions.
The solution was to move many of the patients to an isolated area on the next island over, Molokai, on a peninsula that could only be reached by boat or by traversing down sea cliffs that are the highest in the world. Patients were "settled" in a valley that wasn't even used in the winter by native Hawaiians due to its harsh winter weather and 100 inches of annual rain fall. The patients, many with advanced disease, were expected to farm the area to grow their own food and had construct housing from tents and materials they could find. The result was more anarchy with the strongest patients preying on the weakest for available resources.
It was into this that Father Damien went in the late 1860's to minister to the lepers and ended up creating some order, actually provided health care to the patients (and contracting leprosy himself) and getting the message out to the world of the need for more resources. The colony became a cause celebre back in the US with various celebrities taking on the cause (much like Brad Pitt and George Clooney do today only it was Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling). Father Damien was not popular with Hawaiian or church authorities who felt that he was seeking fame and they blocked much of his efforts.
As he was dying, Mother Marianne Cope, a Franciscan mother superior in Syracuse, NY decided to go to Hawaii to help the lepers and recruiting a number of sister nurses to accompany her, making a prophesy that none would contract leprosy-- she also instituted strict infection control measures. She continued Damien's work after his death soon after she arrived and is credited with bringing order and modern facilities and medical science to Kalaupapa. The colony was moved to the other side of the island, a hospital and housing were built and a school/orphanage for the children of the patients who had died or were too sick to care for them.
Today's Kalaupapa is a National Historic Park and designated as a place for learning the lessons of the past on how this vulnerable population was treated and as a place for reflection. Fewer than 20 former patients still live there with the only other residents being state public health officials to help care for them and national park personnel to maintain the grounds and facilities. You can reach it by flying in (my choice), hiking in, or by mule ride down the cliffs. If in Hawaii in Molokai, Maui, or Oahu it is a must see.
This photo is Infrared taken with an infrared converted Nikon D70, settings: 1/200 sec, f 11, 24 mm. For more photos of Kalaupapa, Moloka'i, and Oahi, go to my Flickr feed.

Blending Techniques

2010-07-28T21:29:00.002-04:00

Barksdale's Brigade, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

This photo, an infrared HDR shot of the Mississippi Monument in Gettysburg National Historic Battlefield Park blends a variety of techniques. First, it was shot with an infrared converted Nikon D70 so that they only light hitting the sensor is in the infrared spectrum. That gives the white grass and leaves and the enhanced darkness of the monument stone. The cottony quality of the sky reflects early morning with a combination of low sun and the fog not totally lifted.
The second technique is HDR with 3 shots taken: one overexposed to bring out the features in the statue and the house that was in the shade, one normally exposed, and one underexposed to bring out the texture in the sky. I used a tripod to keep all of the images aligned. combined the images in Photomatix, and did more work in Photoshop for the final effect. They were shot at f/16 with shutter speeds of 1/40, 1/80, and 1/160 respectively at an ISO of 400.

Add dimension, find an interesting angle...

2010-07-12T17:48:00.005-04:00

HMS Barn, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

When shooting during travel photography, there's a natural inclination to try to document what you have seen by lining up right in front of it and clicking the shutter. Voila, an image that anyone could have captured and one that is immediately recognizable to someone casually walking by. Ironically, though, by documenting you may not be informing. Try finding a more interesting angle, from above, below, obliquely, etc. In these two images, both of the same barn near Norwich, NY, the first one is a straight on shot, but the second, I think, is a more interesting angle and shows much more depth. Photographers have the option of going for a higher angle (use a ladder, climb a tree) or lower (lie on the ground). In this case, I was lucky and just walked down the small hill leading up to the barn. Remember, with any shot, you make choices about what to include and what to exclude (in this case, by choosing this angle, you lose the silo).
Both of these photos were shot with a Nikon D300, f11. 1/125 sec and 1/160 sec respectively, ASO 400 with a wide angle lens, 18 mm and 27 mm respectively. The images were then processed in Photomatix for an HDR effect. The bright sunlight and interesting clouds were luck.

If You Find Yourself in Nashville...

2010-06-09T20:50:00.002-04:00

Whatever Floats Your Boat, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

This summer at the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens in Nashville, Tennessee, the landscapes have been transformed with environmental art-- floating in the pond, erupting from the ground like plants, scattered along the landscape, replacing the water in fountains. The Gardens, even without the blown glass is beautiful, but the addition of Dale Chihuly's art really makes for a special trip. On Thursday and Friday nights, the glass is illuminated. "Chihuly at Cheekwood" is on display through the end of October. Visit Nashville if you can, they are really struggling after the recent flood.

Textures

2010-05-31T18:59:00.002-04:00

Seaside, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

When composing a photo, consider how different textures might add interest to the photo. In this photo, Seaside, taken in the pool area of the Gallows Point complex in Cruz Bay, St. John, US Virgin Islands, there are a variety of textures. There is the smoothness of the palms and the cotton candy sky, the shiny metal of the chairs, the backs of the chairs that are semi-transparent so that you can see yet another texture behind it, and the choppy texture of the water (both of the ocean beyond and of the small area of pool in the foreground).
This photo was taken with an infrared converted Nikon D70, mounted on a tripod to get the maximal depth of field, f 18 and a shutter speed of 1/80 sec. The image was then processed in Photomatix to givea high dynamic range (HDR) image to mimimize the differences in lighting in the various areas of the shot.

Swim With the Fishes

2010-05-24T14:43:00.002-04:00

Swim with the Fishes, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Somehow, still images just didn't capture the rhythm of this school of fish as they swam along the reef.
These photos were taken with an Olympus Tough, a point and shoot camera for up to 15 feet deep. I took a combination of still and video and unfortunately left the power cable home, so these will be the only pictures from this camera. Luckily I have a back up camera assuming there are no more equipment malfunctions (or packing malfunctions rather).
I'm still working on figuring out how to best take underwater pictures, so stay tuned.

Worth the mosquito bites?

2010-05-22T20:39:00.002-04:00

Gallows Gazebo, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Often times there's a moment when the rest of the world fades away. This moment with the sun setting behind this gazebo was so ethereal that I unfortunately did not notice the swarm of mosquitos that had landed on my legs. Oh well, it was worth it.
This shot, Gallows Gazebo was taken at Gallows Point on St. John, US Virgin Islands. The view is looking over Cruz Bay at the British Virgin Islands.
I shot it on manual settings of 1/6 sec, f10, ISO 400 (on a tripod) with my Nikon D300. Then I processed it with a little bit of HDR in Photomatix to bring out the colors of the sunset but also still have some detail in the gazebo.

Patience is a Virtue

2010-04-22T16:26:00.003-04:00

Happy Landings, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

This shot, Happy Landings, of a hummingbird, took approximately 40 shots to get one good one. For most of the snaps, the hummingbird was either out of the frame, the wings looked funny, or was at an angle that wasn't quite right. Luckily, I had the leisure to just stand in one place for a while, shooting when it seemed right, moving to another spot to do a few more, etc.
To set up the shot, I knew I wanted a fast shutter speed (1/500) to best capture him. Faster than this, I probably wouldn't have had enough light in this spot under the umbrella of tree leaves and I wouldn't have been able to "stop" him but still get a sense of motion in the wings. I wanted to blur the background, because the hummingbird was the main event, not the leaves behind him, so I used a large aperture (f 5.6). I let the camera choose the ISO, 3200 in this case. I used the maximum zoom on my lens of 200 mm and used a 1.4x teleconverter. I would have liked to have been closer, but I seemed to scare them away at closer distances.
I shot this at the Boyce-Thompson Arboretum, Superior, Arizona (about an hour northeast of Phoenix). It's part of the Arizona State Park System and the University of Arizona.
Want some hummingbird trivia? They are among the smallest of birds and the only ones that can fly backwards. Like bees they get nectar from flowers, but need to eat insects to get enough protein. They have the highest metabolism of all animals and their heart rate is 1250 beats per minute and their wings beat about 3,000 times per minute. Their nests are held together with spider silk and although most don't make it past the first year, they can live up to a decade.

The oddest national park site I've ever been to...

2010-04-09T20:22:00.005-04:00

Alien Landing?, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.
Casa Grande National Monument* is what's left of the ruins of a Hohokam village from about the 14th century. It is rumored to be the largest prehistoric (our history at least) building in North America. "Discovered" by Spanish explorers in the late 17th century and again by American archeologists in the late 19th century. Graffiti from several centuries of adventurers is carved on its walls (and it is now illegal to add your signature). In 1932, someone decided that it needed a roof to protect it from the elements, despite having survived 7 centuries without one. The roof is termed a "Ramada" and was built by the Civilian Construction Corps. It sits on a one mile square parcel of land set aside by presidential decree in the town of Coolidge, Arizona. (The town of Casa Grande is some miles east.) The structure is visible from miles as you approach the town.

This shot was with a Nikon D70, converted for infrared, f16, 1/320 sec, 45 mm.
*National parks are by act of Congress, while national monuments are by presidential executive order.

The Best Camera is the Camera that You Have

2010-03-27T14:39:00.004-04:00

Palm Star, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Sometimes you find something nice, but don't have your camera with you. Most people have a camera in your phone these days, but then what to do with it? If you have an iPhone, it's easier and there are a number of apps that can help you to process the photo to fix it up a bit before using it or posting it. In this photo, I used "The Best Camera" app which has quick "fixes" with filters with cool names such as "Paris" that I used with this photo, "Jewel", "Candy", etc. To get more typical photo processing tools such as cropping, color and exposure adjustments, etc. I use "Photogene". Contrary to the hundreds of dollars you'll spend on Photoshop, these apps are <$5.

This photo is of a palm tree in Orlando that I took. I'm attending a conference and took a lunch time stroll outside. My first thought was "I wish I had a camera, the light is so wonderful" and then luckily I remembered the iPhone in my pocket.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

2010-03-21T20:13:00.003-04:00

Race!, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

With unexpectedly good weather for the weekend after a punishing winter, it was time to head to Kelly Drive. I was thwarted in planning to go to the Art Museum grounds by a regatta, so decided to go with it and photograph it instead. It was challenging because the background was more typical of late winter, but the action was all spring/summer.

Settings: f11, 1/250 sec, 200mm

The Value of Getting Close - Zooms and Teleconverters

2010-03-14T14:41:00.005-04:00

Galapágos Tortoise originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit. Using a zoom or walking close to the item being photographed really works out. The subject of interest is the tortoise, not the background, which was just a dirty enclosure filled with other very similar tortoises. By getting close, you get a much better picture of the textures and colors.
Because getting inside the pen with the tortoises was really discouraged by the folks at the Darwin Research Center (Santa Cruz Island, the Galapágos), I used 3 ways to get closer. The low tech way was to lean as far over the fence as possible. The rest was optical: a zoom lens, in this case a Nikkor 18-20 VR and then to get even closer a teleconverter. I bought a Kenko N-AF 1.4X teleconverter specifically for this trip. It snaps on between the regular lens and the body of the camera. It extends the maximum zoom of the regular lens (200mm) to 340mm. Caveats are that because it is essentially putting a magnifying glass in front of your camera body, it also magnifies light and I had to use exposure control of about 1.5 to compensate and the exif data for the camera won't reflect the increased zoom.

Diego, the Stud Muffin Tortoise

2010-02-24T16:47:00.009-05:00

Diego is a Galapagos Tortoise at the Charles Darwin Research Center in Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz in the Galapagos, Ecuador. The Galapagos Tortoise is the world's largest tortoise and lives only on the Galapagos (and in zoos). Initially numbering over 200,000 when the islands were "discovered" by traders and pirates, they are now endangered and some of the sub-species are extinct. Sailors from passing ships would take the tortoises to use as food. Tortoises could survive for up to a year without food or water, so they were stacked in the hold of the ship to be used as needed for food. Another reason for the decline in their numbers is the introduction of non-native animals which steal and eat their eggs.
The Darwin center has a breeding program in an attempt to increase the success of turtles hatching from eggs. The baby turtles are then re-introduced to the islands where they belong. "Lonesome George" the most famous of the Galapagos tortoises, is the last of the tortoises from Pinto Island showed no inclination to reproduce. Diego was one of the 15 remaining tortoises from Espanola and was located at the San Diego zoo. He was brought in to service female tortoises-- and has single handedly contributed to ensuring that the Espanola tortoises will not become extinct.
This photo is an infrared photo taken with my IR converted Nikon D70, f 4.5, 1/125 sec, 105 mm. The lighting was challenging because it was early morning and foggy.

Diabillos

2010-02-18T15:27:00.003-05:00

Diabillos, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

In Ecuador, instead of mardi gras, they celebrate a hybrid of Catholic and Huarangas traditions. What results is a four day weekend celebration where families go to the beach and in small villages, children referred to a diabillos or little devils chase each other with water. In the original huarangas tradition, people throw water and flowers were tossed to show admiration, but the updated version is more about water balloons and shaving cream. Older teens drove to a nearby river and filled large tubs of water which they would then douse people with from the backs of pickup trucks.
I shot this photo from inside a car (with closed windows) in a small town, Cotacachi,as we drove by these two girls and the youngest one was trying to decide whether or not to spray us with shaving cream. Settings were f 6.0, 1/640 sec, 60 mm, ISO 400. Because I was shooting through a car window, I cleaned it up in Photoshop.

Trying Something New

2010-02-12T19:00:00.003-05:00

Angelfish, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Today, I combined two things I love-- swimming and photography to a good effect. Yesterday, I learned to snorkel and was dying to take my camera but decided I should work on the breathing through a tube and navigating through the water first. Today, I tried out a point and shoot camera, the Olympus 550WP designed to be waterproof up to 10 feet down that I got on clearance mostly to have something take out in when it's raining. It seems to have worked. This set of photos is from underwater off Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos and are of schools of angelfish which were everywhere. There was also a shark sleeping in a cave that it was too dark to photograph and I didn't want to wake him up with flash. The guide assured us that he was harmless, but I didn't want to push it.

The camera does everything automatically, even has a "underwater" settings, so the camera did all the work of calculating exposure of f 1.3, 1/60 sec. The conditions weren't optimal because there wasn't much sun and the images were washed out looking, so I cleaned them up in Photoshop.

Capturing a Moment in Time

2010-02-11T22:39:00.002-05:00

Mother and Child, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Sometimes, you just get lucky-- you witness an incredible scene and have a camera in your hand. Today, we set out by boat for a 2 hour ride from the main island of the Galapagos, Santa Cruz, to the island of Santa Fe. The entire island is a national park. We spent some time on the beach watching the Galapagos sea lions that are everywhere and very friendly. There are no predators here for most of the animals, so they don't show any fear despite people wandering around them snapping their pictures. There were newborn sea lions (pups) nestled in the rocks and this slightly older one was trying to get the mother to lie still so he could nurse. He won and she started nursing him a few minutes later.
We then went back to the boat and donned snorkeling gear and then went swimming with them. Underwater, they would swim right up to you and then quickly turn after being only inches from your face. I think they were fascinated by the mask.(The difference between sea lions and seals is that sea lions have ears.)
There was nothing very complicated about the photography today-- lots of sun, so could shoot at a fast shutter speed and have a reasonable depth of field. This photo was shot at f 18, 1/250th of a second, 180mm (using a teleconverter). Tomorrow, I'm going to try underwater photography now that I have the basic of snorkeling figured out.

The Chase

2010-02-09T22:57:00.002-05:00

The Chase, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Balancing aperture (f stop) and shutter speed can be tricky. Shutter speed stops the action (or conversely slows water down to make it look more velvety). Aperture determines how much of the scene is in focus-- narrow depth of field will have sharp focus on one plane of the scene with the rest blurry while a wide depth of field keeps everything in focus. F stop is represented as a reciprocal, so a high number (16) is 1/16th of the shutter open and provides everything in focus, while a low number (4.5) is 1/4th of the shutter open and therefore spreads the image of a wider area of the lens and makes only a small amount in focus. The more light available, the higher number f stop you can use and therefore have more options for choosing depth of field.
In this shot, "The Chase", I wanted to stop the action of this Ecuadoran boy reaching for the birds in the Plaza San Francisco. I also wanted to keep him, the birds, and the wall behind him in focus. Because it was fairly sunny, I had good light I chose depth of field f 13 and sacrificed a little bit of motion with a shutter speed of only 1/200th of a second. I stopped the boy's motion, but not the pigeons'.

It's all about perspective...

2010-02-08T14:42:00.002-05:00

Flight Delay, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

One could view having ones vacation delayed and foreshortened by a day by snowmageddon or one could view this as an opportunity to visit Miami and wait there for the next available flight to Ecuador-- and live vicariously through all the elated Saints fans who are everywhere. This isn't the worst option and now we're finally on our way for the last leg of the trip.
This shot, Flight Delay, shows more about relative sizes and composition. One knows that the plane is bigger than a palm tree, but in this shot, the plane almost looks like a toy. Having the tree cover a portion of the plan tells the eye that the plane is behind the tree and at some distance in the background.
Infrared photo from a Nikon D70, f 10, 1/400 sec at 66 mm, ISO 200.

Using Wide Angle Lenses

2010-01-18T19:44:00.005-05:00

This image, Rocketship to God, is a good example of the result of using a wide angle lens, i.e. a low number of mm. Your eye gives you a panoramic view of your scene, but the camera lens/sensor is only able to capture a small portion. If you zoom in , you get a close up view as if you were walking toward the object. Zooming out (as if you were getting father away) is more complicated optically. Because you are not truly getting father away, the lens compensates, but does this with distortion so that the items in the edge curve towards the center. To measure the amount of distortion, draw lines on each edge that should theoretically be parallel (rectilinear) and you will see that they converge (called barrel distortion).
In this photograph of the St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square, New Orleans, it appears that the spires have rotated inward. The large object combined with how close I was and by me shooting upward emphasizes the wide angle effect. While this can give a dramatic effect, it doesn't always work well with all scenes. Be especially wary of using wide angles when photographing someone's face. With most digital SLR cameras, using a focal length of anything lower than 42 mm will give some barrel distortion.
This photo was shot at 18mm at 1/320 sec, f18 with a Nikon D300 and Nikkor 18-200mm zoom lens.

Composition - Choosing What to Put In and What to Leave Out

2010-01-14T21:40:00.008-05:00

In this series of photos of the statue of Andrew Jackson in Jackson Square, New Orleans all of the photos are of the same thing, but are very different. Before clicking the shutter, the photographer needs to make a decision of what the photo is about. Is it to give a landscape view of the park or might someone be more interested in a close-up view of the statue. For someone who has never been to the Square, looking at the close-up view wouldn't be very satisfying in getting a picture of what the square looks like. For someone who really doesn't care about the square, but is an afficianado of "Old Hickory" (Andrew Jackson), the close-up view is going to be more interesting.
You can also see by these three shots, that even though they are of the same thing with the same lighting and camera, there is a very different feeling in each. Placing an object in relation to other objects can sometimes inform about relative size (as in the top view) or be distorting as in the middle view where the statue looks almost as large as the St. Louis Cathedral.
Even though you're shooting digital and don't have to worry about "wasting" film, take some time before you click the shutter. Walk around the area and view the scene from different angles to see where the best light is, assess the whole scene, and think about what story you want to tell.
The top photo, Jackson Square, 1/320, f14, 32 mm, and the middle is Place D'Armes,and bottom Old Hickory are 1/250, f13, 52 mm. All 3 photos shot with an infrared converted Nikon D70.

Compare and Contrast - Infrared HDR and Color HDR

2010-01-11T20:20:00.003-05:00

Both of these shots were taken at about the same time of the same fountain in Bryant Park, New York City. Both are processed as HDR from one raw shot (see this blog). In the bottom shot, taken with an infrared converted Nikon D70, an infrared filter blocks out most light other than in the infrared spectrum, giving the surreal quality to the ice/water and providing greater contrast. In the top shot, the full spectrum of color is seen (minus infrared since most digital cameras are fairly insensitive to infrared light).
Both shots were processed in Photomatix and Photoshop CS4. The top shot is 1/80 sec, f 7.0 28 mm, ISO 400 and the bottom shot is 1/150 sec, f 4.0, 29 mm, ISO 400.

January Morning

2010-01-03T17:43:00.003-05:00

January Morning, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Sometimes it's the simple things in life. To the left of this shot is a busy street with cabs rushing by and to the right is a skating rink packed with skaters. In between, is a quiet walk among the mostly closed kiosks in Bryant Park in New York City-- kind of a serenity sandwich. And yes, it was as cold as it looks. It was in the teens with the wind chill and most of the water in a fountain nearby had turned to ice.
(1/250 sec, f 4.5, ISO 400, 52mm processed first in Photomatix with HDR generated from a single raw and then in Photoshop)

Attention to Backgrounds

2010-01-02T10:59:00.009-05:00

In these photos, having a busy background works out by giving the appearance that the showers of light are coming out of the trumpet (instead of from lights in a tree behind the figure). Sometimes, this doesn't work out so well when it can look like a statue is coming out of someones head or a tree branch out of someones ear. Framing a shot in photography should include not only what you want in your photo, but also what you want to exclude and how you want to line your main subject up in relation to background objects.
These photos are from Rockefeller Center in New York. The bottom, Hark the Herald was shot in color and converted to black and white to highlight the interplay between light and dark. The exposure settings were 1/80 sec, f 4.0, ISO 1600 at 38mm zoom. In the top one, Trumpet Shower of Light, color becomes more of the story. It was shot with similar settings to the first.

The Photographer's Helper

2009-12-21T11:27:00.003-05:00

This young man graciously agreed to help me get my lighting set up for photographing kids at our annual Christmas party. He's the son of one of my co-workers.

Photo Manipulation Toys and Map Makers

2009-12-02T19:03:00.006-05:00

States I've Visited

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

Go to the Big Huge Labs site to make a variety of interesting things including creations from photos on your hard drive, phone, or things you've posted on line-- or like taking your passport photo and making it more interesting. The second image is one of states I've visited. I guess there's not been much to draw me to the Midwest and I guess I'll have to go to Idaho to fill in that corner.

Storm Clouds with the First Winter Storm of the Season Approaching

2009-10-29T00:45:00.004-04:00

Courthouse Butte, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Courthouse Butte is south of Sedona, Arizona on SR 179 as you enter Sedona from the south (from Phoenix). Today, the day started with not a cloud in the sky and by late morning, the first winter storm of the season had rolled in. Several hours later, the skyline was gone and it was snowing. This shot is an infrared shot taken with my newly converted Nikon D70. Most of my infrared shots were taken with an infrared filter on the outside of the camera, with an IR conversion the filter is placed inside the camera near the sensor. This allows for being able to preview the shot through the lens and allows more light in (therefore allowing more flexibility with aperture and shutter speed). This was shot at f16, 1/200sec, ISO 200.

Grand Canyon Lodging Guide

2009-10-26T23:50:00.003-04:00

Raven + Moon, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Hi, I'm called a common raven, but I really don't view myself as particularly common. For instance, look how I managed to line myself up so nicely for this shot with the moon in the background. And I did serve as an extra in Ken Burn's National Park film, don't you recognize me?
I'm here to be your guide to travel to the Grand Canyon National Park. I only hang around on the South Rim, but I can give you some advice. First of all, avoid summer travel because it's really hot then-- and in the winter there's snow so you may not be able to get here. April-May and Sept-Early Nov are nice. If you can, stay inside the park. Outside the park are a bunch of chain motels, pizza places, and an IMAX theater, but is that really why you came to the Grand Canyon. There's a list of park lodges at Grand Canyon Lodges.
My first choice is the Kachina Lodge-- basic accommodations, but killer views of the rim. After that, there's the El Tovar Hotel which is an historic landmark and a classic, beautiful national park lodge. Few of the rooms have a view of the canyon though. After that, my next choice would be the Bright Angel Cabins. They're very basic- but also right on the rim but also few with views- if you reserve enough in advance you can get one of the prime cabins with a rim view. After that, would be the Maswik Lodge, on the other side of the tracks (literally) but still an easy walk to the rim. Last choice would be the Yavapai Lodge-- very Motel 6, but still within the park. Everything is easy to get to because there's a shuttle bus system in season and you can drive in your own car from December through late spring. Well, enough on lodging, more on scenic spots in another post.

Prime Lenses

2009-10-22T21:50:00.005-04:00

New Lens, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Most lenses sold these days are zoom lenses-- they zoom in and out so that you can compose your shot without even moving your feet. They are convenient (especially when you can't move closer to a subject because of a barrier, distance or perhaps it's a bear that you don't want want to get too cozy with). Prime lenses are for only one focal distance. The advantage of prime lenses are that the optics are designed exactly for that focal distance, while a zoom lens needs to have the "flexibility" for a wide range of focal distances but with a trade off of being less sharpness, especially at the extremes. The prime lens will give you a sharper picture, but you have to use your feet to zoom.

This photo was shot with my new prime lens, a 50 mm f/1.8 D. The f/1.8 designates that is also a fast lens and that the f stop goes all the way down to 1.8. (f stop means how much the shutter opens to let light in). I was able to shoot this photo without a flash at a shutter speed of 1/124 sec with just ambient lighting (bluish natural light coming in from the window and a halogen light on the ceiling providing the warmer yellow light).

Homage to the National Parks

2009-09-28T18:05:00.004-04:00

Yosemite Valley View, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

This week PBS is running the Ken Burns' film, The National Parks: America's Best Idea. So far, it's a beautiful series showing the history of the national parks in an historical context. It has wonderful music and provides images of a broad cross section of America's national parks.

This photo, Yosemite Valley View, is shot in Yosemite National Park, the first national park. The view is from the entrance road to the Yosemite Valley (from the west) and features El Capitan prominently on the left and the iconic Half Dome in the middle. To see a collection of my national park photos, go here.

Tropical Textures

2009-09-13T15:26:00.005-04:00

Languor, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Infrared photography done in good light provides for sharp contrasts and all the shades of gray in between very black and very white. Palm trees are the perfect subject with IR because of the intersting textures and angles. These shots Palm Bouquet and Languor were taken at the El San Juan Hotel in Isla Verde (outside of San Juan), Puerto Rico with an Olympus 2000Z and a Hoya R72 infrared filter.

Isla Verde is one of the few places in the San Juan area with sandy beaches since the city of San Juan itself is on a rocky coast. Isla Verde, although with nice beaches and nightlife (pluses and minuses to that), doesn't have the charm of Old San Juan.

Homeless Haiku

2009-09-02T17:44:00.005-04:00

Homeless Haiku, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Garden within the Forbidden City, Beijing, China

Men line benches
Grayjing fog
Becomes a pillow

All through Beijing we found men lying on park benches sound asleep. This seemed rather odd given how tidy everything was in general and how the poor were kept from view. There was even an orderliness to it as each building had only one sleeping homeless man. This photo represents so much about Beijing-- the sleeping man in a t-shirt on the porch of a centuries old building, the gray sky full of pollution that locals referred to as "weather", and the murky green water below. There's an illusion of wealth on the avenue with modern skyscrapers yet these random homeless men who had come into town for day labor jobs. The illusion of progress yet most days having sky filled with pollution so dense that the sun shining brightly above was mostly blocked out.
This photo uses HDR technique from one RAW image to bring out details in otherwise poor lighting: f4.5, 1/125 sec, ISO 250

Cowtown Rodeo Here I Come

2009-08-16T23:08:00.005-04:00

Making a Break, and Ride'Em Cowboy originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Here's pics from the Cowtown Rodeo in Pilesgrove, NJ. The rodeo was quite an experience for lots of reasons and certainly you should visit a rodeo at least once in your lifetime-- a bucket list item?. The photography was tricky because I was pretty far back and had to shoot over a fence with only the available lighting of the stadium lights. This photo was shot at 1/320, f4.5, 200 mm at ISO 3200. The high ISO is what gives it the grainy look which I'm pretending is an "old west" effect.

Interesting Sponsors

2009-08-16T20:10:00.006-04:00

Seen at the rodeo..., and "Evening the Playing Field" originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Seen at the Cowtown Rodeo in Jersey, these sponsors made me wonder a little. I guess if your name is George Sparks (click here for the photo on Flickr to see the full width of the photo) you would of course become an electrician and the rhino linings are for trucks and have nothing to do with the zoo. The M&S Pet Removal business, offering "Private Cremations" surprised me, seems like a bit of a niche business to be advertising in an arena.

Both of these shots were taken in the evening with the sun setting, but shining right onto this part of the arena giving it such good illumination, f 4.5, 1/320 ISO 350 at 100 mm

In the Clouds on the Great Wall 慕田峪

2009-08-04T07:11:00.001-04:00

In the Clouds, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Here we are on the Great Wall in the Mutinayu section, about 50 miles north of Beijing but obviously not out of the pollution that surrounds the area. There's only been one day of blue sky in our week here. We only hiked a short segment because of the elevation, bad air quality, and 90 degree heat/ 90% humidity, but it was amazing to see.

China's Past and Present 天安门广场

2009-08-03T18:08:00.001-04:00

China's Past and Present 天安门广场, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

This photo at the entrance of the "Gate of Heavenly Peace" (translated means Tiananmen" is at the northern end of Tiananmen Square and leads into the Forbidden City. Everywhere we go, there appears to be conflict between the old China, both imperial and communist times, and the more westernized modern "hip" China of electronics stores and nightclubs that appears to be their future. Yesterday, we were still among the very few Westerners we saw and a number of people stopped us to ask to have their pictures taken with us.

Just Playing Around-- With Swords 太极拳

2009-08-03T02:26:00.001-04:00

Tai Chi Challenge 太极拳, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Senior citizens here are mostly quite active. Tai chi in the park, walking, etc. This photo was taken yesterday while there was still sky to see before the smog rolled back in.

Global VIsion

2009-08-02T20:34:00.001-04:00

Global VIsion, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Here is one (and probably the cutest) of the 13 million residents of Beijing. We're quite an oddity here and get a lot of stares, especially in the part of town where the conference was and there weren't many tourists. Adults and children alike stare because we're not part of a tour group and so are unexpected. We've been stopped by a couple of "unofficial" sorts to inquire what we're up to.

Welcome to Beijing

2009-08-02T02:54:00.001-04:00

Red Bridge, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Finally, the conference is over and the sun is out. It's a beautiful sunny day in Beijing. This photo is from a park on the way from the hotel to the Forbidden City. We walked to the gates of the Forbidden City and then were intimidated by the masses of weekend crowd, so will defer until tomorrow.

Surreal in Beijing

2009-07-31T23:24:00.001-04:00

The Cube, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

This is "The Cube", the place where Michael Phillips won all his medals. From the outside, it looks as if the wall itself is filled with water, but it is an illusion. By the way, Facebook is blocked here, so the only way I can post is put a photo on Flickr, blog it to blogspot (which is also blocked), and blogspot automatically transfers to my Facebook I'm assuming). Also, for some reason the Philadelphia Inquirer is blocked (but not the New York Times). The first day here, he went to the convention center next door in a Kafkaesque experience to register for the conference. The building was filled with a convention of magicians so everywhere we went we asked "Medical?" and we were told "Magic, yes". Now, I know doctors are sometimes thought to do magic, but this was a bit odd. Every hallway we were sent down had people doing magic tricks-- rabbits from hats, disappearing coins, etc.. Apparently a national obsession here in China right now. Jet lagged as we were, we kept trudging along, but the trick was on us, because our conference was actually in a different conference center across the park, where indeed there was little magic happening.

Bird's Nest

2009-07-31T21:53:00.001-04:00

Bird's Nest, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

This is the National Outdoor Stadium, aka the "Bird's Nest" on the Olympic Green in Beijing, China. You might be able to tell about the incredible amount of haze from the sky from the smog. I've only been able to make out the sun once briefly at noon. It made it almost impossible to get any daytime shots. For this evening, I loaded up my equipment (the conference and our hotel is across the street from the Olympic complex) to go take some night shots and arrived only to have them turn all the lights off at 10:00. So this shot was made with reflected light from the security lights, on a tripod with exposure of 0.5 sec, f 4.5.

Hello Faux Kitty

2009-07-25T18:10:00.004-04:00

Hello Faux Kitty, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Count the number of cat statues in this shot from Eastern State Penitentiary. The cat statues depict the semi-feral cats who roamed ESP during the time that the prison was closed and then re-opened. A volunteer visited several times a week to feed them and check on them. (There are 4 - click here to go to Flickr and see where they are)

Doors

2009-07-22T08:03:00.003-04:00

Two different doors, one open and one closed. Both of these infrared photos are from the Eastern State Penitentiary, in Philadelphia, PA. The bottom is a bit of an anomaly because it's on one of the cell blocks which otherwise appears so impenetrable, yet here is this simple door to the outside. I particularly like it because of the loose panel where light is filtering in. A color version of this door is here. The top door is to a small area (seen here) where prisoners were taken to get sunlight and fresh air for a brief time each week. The inmate was brought with a hood over his head to ensure that he didn't see any other living soul and was left in the "courtyard" to further reflect on his crimes in a solitary way with the belief that this "solitude" would bring insight into his life.
Both of these photos taken with an Olympus 2000Z with an R70 Infrared filter, ambient light 1/15 sec, f/2.0 and 1/30 sec, f/2.0.

Variations in Light

2009-07-19T23:04:00.000-04:00

Eastern State Penitentiary is open to the public after restoration and serves to educate the public about how prisoners were treated in the 19th to early 20th centuries. This wind is only partially restored with the paint on the walls flaking and debris scattered. Prisoners were placed alone in cells to silently reflect on their crimes in the hope that this "penitence" (hence penitentiary) would lead them to an understanding of their crimes and to a path towards correct behavior. Later, in the prison's history, the cruelty and lack of efficacy of this extreme isolation was realized and a more social environment created. The site is open for self-tours with audioguides on Fairmount in Philadelphia. The website has a coupon worth $1 off. They charge an extra $10 to use a tripod, but the fee is good for the entire year.
This photo is a HDR created from 3 raw images, shot with a Nikon D300 using only ambient light and handheld 1/125 sec, f 5.0

Invisible Light and Shadow

2009-07-07T14:05:00.004-04:00

Norwich in July, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

This photo in Norwich, New York (my hometown) is another demonstration of the surreal nature of infrared photography. The shot is in the park at the corner of Broad and East Main Street and at first glance looks like winter and a fresh fallen snow. On closer look however, the people on the bench are dressed in shorts and you can see the texture of grass in the "snow". This shot was at noon with the light bright enough to still show detail in the shadows with the sun directly overhead. The IR filter decreases the amount of available light by filtering out non-IR light, so capturing detail in shadow can be difficult. Taken with an Olympus 2000 Zoom, f 2.0, 1/100 sec with an R72 infrared filter, hand held.

Court House Perspective

2009-07-03T10:28:00.001-04:00

Court House, originally uploaded by Cocoabiscuit.

Shooting up from a low position can make a photo that has lines that are already fairly imposing appear even more so. For this shot, I sat on the grass and shot up (and got lucky when the cloud positioned itself just right). The wide angle of this shot adds a little bit of curative to the edges that additionally makes the shot more interesting. Shot with a Nikon D300 f11, 1/500 at 18 mm.

Ground Zero

2009-06-16T21:33:00.003-04:00

Construction site at Ground Zero, New York. Formerly the site of the World Trade Center with this link showing where the buildings were prior to 9/11/2001. It is the future site of the National 9/11 Memorial Museum and a new world trade center complex. This photo is a composite of 3 shots processed as an HDR image. Go to Flickr for the full view of this image cropped to fit on the blog.

Higher Ed? - Seen on a steet in Seattle

2009-06-08T22:00:00.007-04:00

I found the ad for "Earn While You Learn" at this strip club in Seattle to be less than enticing and wonder exactly what one might be learning. I guess it's part of the "stimulus" plan...
Taken with my D300 on manual settings (f 4.5, 1/320, ISO 3200). I used the light meter to get an approximation of settings, but it was too light, so gradually decreased the shutter speed until I got the desired effect (and a sharper picture).
For more of this photoblog, go to www.bluemoonbeam.blogspot.com

Reflections

2009-05-31T11:04:00.004-04:00

Still water with morning light shining almost parallel to water can create the most interesting reflections...
(Images from San Juan Island, Washington, Infrared with an Olympus 2000Z, Hoya R72 filter)

Morning Light Can Turn 2-D Into Almost 3-D

2009-04-21T23:36:00.003-04:00

This image of steps leading into the US House of Representatives with the Capitol Dome in the background is an example of how light can increase dimensionality (is that a word?) of a photo. I took it at 7:30 AM, soon after sunrise, so that the light was coming almost parallel to the ground. This creates areas with bright highlights and dark shadows, adding to the depth.

US Grant Memorial

2009-04-16T18:26:00.003-04:00

This dramatic memorial, at the base of the US Capitol steps in Washington, DC, looking out over the Mall, is in honor of Ulysses S. Grant. Built in 1902, it is the 2nd largest equestrian memorial in the world. The central figure is Grant on his horse, guarded by lions at the base of the statue. At either side is a grouping of cavalry soldiers seeming to leap out of the metal they are made from, charging into the middle (and perhaps down the mall for a swim in the reflecting pool). The high contrast between shadows and light in these photos are from the strong morning light shining almost perpendicularly.

How the seemingly ordinary can be extraordinary

2009-04-15T17:36:00.002-04:00

Robert Adams, an American photographer, is the latest winner of the Hasselblad Award. Here's a story and some of his pictures on NPR. Adams photographed the "New West" as it was described in the 1970's when suburban sprawl started to become a dominant theme in previously sweeping landscapes and gas station signs began to compete with cactus. His images are a mixture of man made and mother nature's adornment to the landscape.
The award is from the Hasselblad Foundation,based in Sweden and a collection of his works will be on exhibit there this summer. Previous American winners include Ansel Adams, Richard Aveden, and Cindy Sherman.
Hasselblad's fame is in producing high quality medium format cameras that are a favorite of nature photographers, including Ansel Adams. Medium format negatives are 600 cm wide (compared to the 33 mm film size familiar to most). Advantages are images with great detail and little noise, but the cameras (and film if non-digital) are very expensive.

2009-04-04T12:28:00.001-04:00

Photo show at the Marketplace at East Falls

My new website and a new logo...

2009-03-22T16:50:00.003-04:00

I've finally made the leap from using Flickr and this blog as my websites. It's still under construnction and needs some tweaking, but here it is: Blue MoonBeam Studio

Photographing People - Exploitation or Celebration?

2009-03-03T20:56:00.004-05:00

While walking through the medina in Marrakesh, Morocco, my new traveling friend Peter, encountered a man who was upset that he was taking a picture. Peter tells me that he takes photos of things to later paint. Peter tried to show the man that he was photographing a building and no person was in the shot, but the man was still upset.
Our guide explained that people sometimes feel that they are like animals in the zoo, with crowds of foreigners going by and taking their pictures. He felt that these pictures ended up in publications in the West making them appear exotic and other. We were also told that some of the people believed that you would bring them bad luck by singling them out to take their picture.
This conversation has really made me think about my photography. I take a lot of zoo pictures, so I had to consider how this was different, because it feels different. My feeling is that if someone doesn't want their photo taken, I certainly am not going to photograph them (even if it feels compelling artistically). My goal in photography is always to capture a feeling for someone viewing the image of having been there. Too few people have the chance to go to Morocco and experience the scenery, the light, the people. I think that without seeing through photos, it's easy for Americans to view Muslims and many foreigners as the enemy and potential terrorists rather than as just people like they are. The clothing may be different and they may have donkeys instead of cars in some places, but essentially we're all under the same sun on this rotating orb just trying to make our way. My photography is not about trying to find the exotic and point out the exotic, but instead to show the common humanity.
In the top picture, Berber Biker, substract the desert background and he could be on the Sahara or a boy down your street. In the bottom picture, Donkey Parking Lot, the gentleman by dress and surroundings is clearly not in the US, yet his face and his expressions, his sense of purpose seems so familiar.

More on perspective

2009-02-22T15:18:00.004-05:00

Shooting from different angles can give you very different looks. In these two shots, the bottom one Joe Camel and Friends is a typical vacation picture. Someone stands with a camera and shoots upwards at the subject with the dual purposes of showing the person(s) of interest and enough of the scene to give context for someone looking at the picture to know where its taken. In this shot, further interest is added by including (on the right), the shadows of the subjects of the photo and the photographer. The top photo, Caravan, is more interesting and artistic, taken by the person on the camel pointing forward at another camel (and the camel driver). It's more fun, presents a different perspective, but doesn't show the folks back home who is actually on the camel.
Both of these shots were taken on the Erg Chebbi Dunes on the Sahara in Morocco.

Perspective

2009-02-12T16:27:00.007-05:00

Sometimes, rather than photographing a building from a traditional perspective, it is interesting to get low and shoot upwards as in this photo, Toledo Textures or shoot from high above downwards. This shot is of the train station in Toledo, Spain. The building was interesting, but it was difficult to get far enough away to get the whole building in the picture, but this one is more interesting.

Night Photography

2009-02-06T15:59:00.005-05:00

Night photography can be difficult because of the long shutter speeds required to capture the light. It is almost impossible to do this without a tripod, and even then, if the image is moving it may be blurred (or at least without the sharpness that you would see with normal daylight photography). To maximize your photo: 1) Use a tripod 2) Set the ISO* up to the highest that your camera will allow without resulting in a grainy image 3) For moving objects, shoot them as they are coming towards you rather than as they go by because then the motion will be minimized and 4) Use the largest aperture and longest shutter speed that will still give you the desired effect. Shorter shutter speeds will capture action, diminish movement, but may not be possible in low lighting. The settings for this photo, Spectramagic, a parade of lit floats at Disney World in Orlando Florida were: Shutter: 0.013 sec(1/80), Aperture: f/4.8, ISO Speed: 3200

*ISO (also called ASA) is the setting that sets light sensitivity (and is a holdover from film photography). ISO with film referred to how sensitive the film was to light and could be adjusted in the process of making the film. With a digital camera, ISO sensitivity refers to how much light the sensor will collect. If you turn it up too high, it will collect your image, but also a lot of light "noise" leading to a grainy image. Generally, in good light, shoot at 100 ISO for the best saturation and the least amount of noise.

Tricky Lighting

2009-01-14T17:47:00.007-05:00

Photography at the extremes of daylight (dawn and dusk) can be the most rewarding, but also difficult. Light at these times is often more colorful, in this photo, of Yosemite Falls taken in Yosemite just before sunset, the light is golden/brown. The advantage, other than color, is that the sun at the horizon acts like a spotlight and illuminates parts of the scenery that in a direct overhead light at noon might not be well seen as the light rays pass in parallel. The tricky part is that there are also more shadows in other parts of the photo, as seen in these photos. Metering the area in the spotlight will usually give you the best result. You can also "cheat" as I did in these, by bringing out the shadow areas better using HDR (see a different posting for more on HDR). The falls were really the point of the photo (being the highest falls in North America and quite beautiful), but if I had metered the light in the area of the falls, the detail in the area of the golden light falling on the granite cliffs would have been lost by overexposure.

Composition: Rule of 3's

2009-01-02T11:46:00.004-05:00

Composing for photography, as a rule of thumb involves "3's"- both vertically and horizontally. Divide your scene into thirds looking horizontally and vertically. In this photo, Launching Pad, a viewing place on Sprague Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, the platform occupies roughly the middle third looking both horizontally and vertically, Horizontally, additionally, there is the sky with the treeline, the frozen lake, and the ground at the foreground. In some photos, you'll want to vary the thirds or do interesting angles, but especially in the beginning of thinking about composition try to divide the scene into thirds.

Haunted Hotel?

2008-12-28T10:48:00.006-05:00

The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado is rumored to be haunted and this photo seems to lend credence to that belief. The hotel was Steven King's inpiration for "The Shining" and the mini-series was taped here. Ghost tours held at the hotel (we skipped that). The hotel was originally built by Stanley, of Stanley Steamer fame. He traveled to Estes Park to recover from tuberculosis and found the mountain air so refreshing that he built a house (and later a mansion which became a hotel) there.
Estes Park is the gateway town to Rocky Mountain National Park.

Polarizing Filters

2008-12-26T17:36:00.004-05:00

Light reflecting off from surfaces such as water or metal can appear diffuse and fuzzy. Adding a polarizing filter (much like polarizing sun glasses) only allows light to come in at one angle. Skies are bluer, haze is reduced, and colors appear more saturated because there is less glare. Reflections on windows and water are reduced so that you can see through to whatever is inside/below. Go here to see with and without images on Wiki. Think of light coming through shutters on a window. This photo, Escape Route, is of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park in California. The wind was blowing the water across the lake in ripples and with a polarizing filter it takes on an almost velvet appearance near the top and the corduroy near the bottom.
Hetch Hetchy is a controversial reservoir that resulted when the Tuolomme River was dammed up to provide water and power for San Francisco. John Muir, among others, led a losing battle to preserve the Hetch Hetchy valley. While they were unsuccessful, the experience of the loss of the valley gave fuel to protests that prevented a dam that would have filled the Grand Canyon.

2009 Calendars Available at Zazzle

2008-11-30T22:21:00.005-05:00

Burst of Light by Jill Foster
Make a custom photo calendar at zazzle
Browse other Travel Hobbies Gaming Calendars

and a selection of Infrared Photography

...into the World of Invisible Light by Jill Foster
Other Calendars on www.Zazzle.com
See other Photography Calendars

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park

2008-11-30T21:21:00.010-05:00

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park, part of the Philadelphia public Fairmount Park System has clearly fallen on hard times. These buildings are part of what was built for the 1926 Sesquicentennial Celebration, with the top building originally a Russian Tea House and more recently a boathouse. The bottom building is a gazebo representing Japan. Now, there is garbage floating in the lake, partially eaten bones left behind by vermin, and the remains of a campfire on the floor of the gazebo. Jets are seen in their final approach to the nearby airport and I-95 is seen across the lake. The sports complex is next door, so apparently the park is used more by people parking for Eagles games than for enjoying the park.

Philadelphia: The Cradle of Liberty

2008-11-27T16:59:00.002-05:00

This shot is titled, "The storm over liberty is clearing." I took it yesterday while downtown and realized that despite having thousands (?tens of thousands) of photos on my hard drive, I don't have any of the iconic Independence Hall. For those of you unfamiliar with Philadelphia, Independence Mall is in downtown Philadelphia and while getting this shot, a hundred feet to my right was the Liberty Bell. When I took it, I found the inclusion of the people intriguing, but without some HDR treatment, it really didn't work. It was a particular Blue States/Red States kind of day on the mall yesterday. Young people from the marching bands that would play in the parade today were swarming the area amidst Philadelphians on their lunch break-- Ohio, Alabama, other places. It made me think of the recent election and, watching their enthusiasm gave me hope for a turn around in the country. Band kids are interesting. Few people realize what work and discipline it takes for the kids and their families to make it to a parade like this-- months of fund raising, hours of practice, try-outs, local successes, and then a very long bus ride to a strange place-- just so they can get up at the crack of dawn and march a couple of miles in near freezing weather to entertain a crowd (and show their stuff).

Philadelphia Mural Arts Project

2008-11-26T17:58:00.003-05:00

Mural from the side of the building at 707 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. There is more on the Philadelphia Mural Arts Project go here. Scattered throughout Philadelphia are hundreds of murals depicting everything from famous Philadelphias (Dr. J), to historic scenes, to ordinary people. Each mural is "awarded" to a neighborhood based on developing and theme and requires community input. This mural is in center city, but murals are present also even in neighborhoods filled with urban decay and blight. Bus tours are held from April to November.

Cowabunga

2008-11-02T22:35:00.007-05:00

So, this is what you can do with a "long" lens. This shot, Hanging Ten was shot from a pier in Ocean Beach (near San Diego) looking down on surfers using a zoom lens at its max, 200 mm. It was shot with the shutter speed at 1/1000 of a second to get a nice sharp image of the surfer caught in motion with good sharpness. The only downside is that the water is also stopped in motion showing individual drops which makes it look less natural.

Bokeh

2008-10-28T08:15:00.002-04:00

Bokeh is the use of depth of field so that different parts of the photo in focus. Typically, foreground is sharp and background is blurry. Changing aperture (f stop) on the camera allows you to make a large aperture (low number, e.g. 2.5) which gives you more bokeh or vice versa. In this shot, the center bird is sharply in focus and the farther back you go, the less sharp/more blurry the birds become. In this photo, Bird Bokah, depth can be conveyed by relative sizes (the farther birds appear smaller) and by selective focus (bokeh). Some photographers use Lens Babies to artificially create bokeh, but I prefer to not manipulate bokeh.

212 Steps Down a Cliff

2008-10-26T23:11:00.004-04:00

Breaking in my new D300 while at a conference in California. This photo, Autumn Surf is from Torrey Pines State Natural Preserve just up the coast from San Diego. To get down to this beach required hiking down and back up the Beach Trail, including the 212 steps and a fairly rigorous incline. It was worth the trip though as the day was beautiful and the beach was busy with both people and seagulls. The shot looks fuzzy because it was quite foggy.

The Night of the Show - The Nova Crew

2008-10-23T18:10:00.003-04:00

Thanks to the Nova crew for a wonderful evening at the combined grand opening and photography show.

Back on the blog after the summer recess...

2008-09-14T18:05:00.005-04:00

Utah by Two Different IR Cameras

2008-06-16T23:21:00.003-04:00

Both of these shots: The top is Quail Creek Canyon and the bottom is "Orson Adams House" are from the Red Cliffs National Recreation Area, outside of a small town called Leeds, about a half hour north of St. George. The cabin is from the original Mormon settlers of the area is on the road that leads up to the park. Quail Creek Canyon is a slot canyon that was about a mile from the park entrance, uphill through a sandy path in 100 degree heat. The best time to photograph slot canyons is noon since the light shines down most vertically illuminating the walls the best. The top picture was taken with my Nikon D70 and the bottom is from the Olympus 2020Z. Although the bottom picture looks a little sharper, the image size is jpeg only and is of a small file size so is not able to be enlarged significantly. The top image was shot in raw and then converted to duotone. The shutter speed is quite slow (since I didn't want to hike a tripod in as well) so not quite as sharp.

Color vs. Black & White

2008-06-15T15:08:00.006-04:00

Both of these shots of petrified sand dunes in Zion National Park are processing of the same image. The top one has all of the color desaturated to leave only the lines and textures, while in the bottom one, the color is so bold that it becomes the story (with the textures becoming the subtext). The bottom one was done first in Photoshop and Photomatix with HDR processing, then the color was used in the "Black and White" command in Photoshop.

The photo was taken along Highway 9, just before the Zion-Mt. Carmel tunnel (heading west). These are sand dunes that were once buried and became petrified. Even though the ripples look like wind blown sand, it is solid Navajo Sandstone.

An IR Kind of Day in Utah

2008-06-13T23:12:00.005-04:00

I'm channeling Ansel today. This shot is of trees along the Virgin River in Zion National Park in Utah. I'd like to think that if Ansel Adams was around today, that he'd be shooting IR (infrared). Ansel was known for his landscapes in western national parks (especially Yosemite) and used sharp contrasts and depth of field. He, of course, shot with wide format cameras on film with long exposures and using a tripod, but I'd like to think that if had the option of infrared, he would have loved it. It is also little known that near the end of his life he also shot in color, which leads me to believe that he would have also used all the tools available to him, including HDR photography and digital cameras.

This shot was with my old Olympus, only 2.1 megapixil and non-DSL. The light was perfect and at this moment the wind was rustling so gave some of the leaves a bit of a feathery look while the higher leaves were more still and clearer.

A Fun Flickr Game

2008-05-31T14:18:00.004-04:00

Here's a fun game to play on Flickr. This mosaic was made using FD Flickr Toys by searching on Flickr with the answers to questions below and then using a photo from the first page of the search results to form each tile of the mosaic. Here are the questions:

1) First name 2) Favorite Food 3) Your high school 4) Favorite Color 5) Current celebrity crush 6) Favorite drink 7) Dream vacation 8) Favorite dessert 9) What to be when you grow up 10) What do you love most in life 11) One word to describe you 12) Your flickr name Go to the photo page to see a better description of the steps to make it and the url's of the pictures that make up the mosaic. See if you guess what my search terms were...some are easy.

Arlington National Cemetery

2008-05-26T11:19:00.001-04:00

The Promise of Spring

2008-05-11T21:36:00.007-04:00

Let the gardening begin. This is a collage of a number of flowers, mostly from home, but a few from travels. I've used an effect in Photoshop called posterization to make them more distinct when viewed from a distance. The distortion can help when your image is a little blurry, but making it look like you intended it that way. :) Click on the top flower to get a magnified view of posterization. Posterization reduces the number of color tones to "simplify" the image. Too much of it, like most things, goes beyond being a good thing (unless you want to mimic Andy Warhol).

Our Iberian Odyssey, Day 1: Madrid

2008-05-10T16:55:00.006-04:00

Our journey began in Madrid. After arriving early morning from a red-eye flight, we checked in at the Room-Mate Alicia Hotel and headed to the Retiro Park. Despite being February, it was unusually warm and with beautiful blue skies. We chose the Room-Mate chain for both Madrid legs of the hotel for their upscale, quirky hotels in good locations and the best value that we could find for our weak dollars.

The hotel was off Plaza Santa Ana which had a lot of charm and was in the theater district. Along the perimeter of the plaza were outdoor cafes and sports bars. It's my favorite area to stay in Madrid, easy access to everything else and enough off the beaten path that it's not too busy. It's tourist friendly, but with a nice mix of Madrilenos. At one point, while a soccer match (I guess I should say football) was being broadcast from a bar, a group of men and boys started playing soccer in the plaza, as cabs sped around them. We ate tapas at the Cafe Miaw (yes, their logo is a cat) across the street and then collapsed for an early bedtime in prep for our next morning's flight to La Palma.

Both of these photos are from Retiro Park, more correctly known as Jardines del Buen Retiro. It's a very Central Park type park in the middle of the upscale section of Madrid, down the street from the Ritz Hotel and La Prada, near the Puerto Espana. The park is almost 400 years old and was originally part of royal estates, but has been open to the public since the mid-nineteenth century. We entered the park through the gateway in the second shot and walked up the path, Avenida de Argentina. The plants that are blooming look like mums from a distance but were more like ornamental cabbage on closer examination. At the end of the walkway, we could see a monument in the distance, but to our surprise when we reached the wall in front of it, there was a lake that was filled with boaters. I call the first shot "Oarplay" because all the teens were in single sex boats and manuvering around eachother in a very elaborate dating ritual. The "older" folks got to mix genders, but the teens were clearly segregated and courting.

Day 2: La Palma (Canary Islands)

2008-05-08T21:54:00.004-04:00

La Palma is the furthest west of the Canary Islands. The climate is "forever spring" with the northern end most influenced by the colder, wetter Atlantic and the southern end by the more arid Africa. The island is basically a large (mostly extinct) island, so there is a 5,000 foot mountain in the center and the rest of the island sloping down to the sea, ending in most places as cliffs. The mid-point of the island is mountain ranges and a caldera (from the oldest volcanic area). The soil layer is fairly thin over black lava rock. Throughout the entire island are walls, fountains, buildings constructed out of chunks of the rock crafted into puzzle pieces to form smooth even surfaces (as is shown in the top picture).

This building, in the town of El Paso, mid-point on the island, is typically canarian architecture. Bright colors, white trim, and lots of small porches, railings, shutters, and other ornaments. The fountain is in the town square.

On La Palma, we stayed at the H10 Costa Salinas in Los Cancajos. The main tourist area on the east coast of La Palma is between the airport and Santa Cruz de la Palma (the capital). The entire island is only 70 miles long and 30 miles wide but has a 5,000 foot peak in the middle. One road bisects the island (through El Paso) while most of the roads snake along the cliffs on the edge.

Day 3: Tazacorte

2008-04-28T17:28:00.009-04:00

Tazacorte is on the west (and warmer) coast of La Palma. It was only about a 45 minute drive from the east coast area where we were staying, but very different from Los Cancajos and the terrain of the east coast. It is partially blocked from the trade winds by a mountain range, so is warmer and sunnier. This area (the puerto) in Tazacorte is the main port area and was the original area where Spanish explorers landed. The deeper port is now replaced by a much shallower beach/swim area and is the main tourism area for the western coast. There were lots of options for lodging, although more condos and guest houses than big hotels. Here's a webcam from the Atlantis, one of the hotels. Outside of this area, was a charming city (the pueblo), and the rest of the land (85%) was cultivated with banana growing. It was really amazing how every available piece of land had banana trees. More shots from the Atlantis site, show the terrain and banana trees. Some of them were in structures with plastic and frames that formed a temporary greenhouse. If you look at satellite shots on Google Earth of La Palma, you will see large areas of land that appear white. These are the banana plots.

Both of these shots are HDR with the saturation turned up slightly to really bring out the colors on the beach and of the buildings.

Day 4: Nogales and the Northeast Coast

2008-04-28T17:17:00.004-04:00

These two shots were taken along the northeast coast. The first is at a roadside vista point with a sculpture to honor those making the highway (I think). There was no notation of who the artist was.

The second is a view of Nogales Beach. One of our guidebooks noted that Nogales Beach was a "short and easy" walk from the parking lot. After driving down quite a highway snaking along the cliff, we arrived at a parking lot that offered a beautiful view and a trailhead. 30 minutes later after climbing down 276 steps and a series of ramps we arrived on the beach. The view was beautiful and the beach was almost deserted. The sand, like most of the island was black sand.

Both of these shots are infrared, shot with the Olympus. As you can see, the day was overcast, so it made photography challenging, but with interesting sky at least.

Day 5: Tip of the Island - Fuencaliente

2008-04-27T14:38:00.006-04:00

First photo, Abandoned Faro, the old lighthouse at the southern tip of the island. The second photo is of the salt paddies, adjacent to the lighthouses.

The southern tip of La Palma, in contrast to the northern tip is quite dry and almost desert. In the mid-eighties, there was a sudden volcanic eruption that spilled lava over about 1/3 of the southern part of the island. Now, the area has been rebuilt and farmers are growing crops, including grapes for wine, out of the shallow dirt on the hillsides.

We traveled down to this area to photograph the lighthouses, but were quite surprised to fine the sea salt "production" in these salt paddies. Sea water is pumped up from the water below. The whole area is on steep cliffs. These shallow pools are carved out of the black lava rock. When the water evaporates, the salt is "harvested" into piles and more sea water is pumped back in. Then, two elderly gentlemen in blue jumpsuits and rubber boots collect the salt and take it into a little shack within the area. There, they bag it. They advertise that the sell the salt and we bought some (at only a euro for a bottle of it), but the two gentlemen have to stop their work to sell to the tourists. Quite an incredible find that doesn't appear to be in any of the guidebooks or advertised.

For every 1000 grams of sea water, only 35 g of sea salt is produced. It's constituent minerals vary by location, but may include calcium, sodium, iodine, and other mineral chlorides.

Both of these shots were taken with a Nikon D70 - no HDR or any special processing. The light and sky were perfect for photography that day.

Day 6: Hanging Out in Los Cancajos

2008-04-10T21:36:00.005-04:00

Infrared view of Los Cancajos on the bottom and color at the top from a cliffside path looking northward. Los Cancajos is La Palma's eastside tourist lodging center. Here's the Trip Advisor guide to lodging. Most of the eastside hotels, condos, and aparthotels were located in this area. It's about a five minute drive from the airport. The area is carved into the hillside, so has steep streets and offers dramatic views of the ocean eastward. Further north up the shore (and in the distance in the color shot) is Santa Cruz de la Palma, the capital. Many of the people staying in our hotel walked into Santa Cruz, but we chose to drive.

Day 7: Hiking the Caldera

2008-03-31T16:31:00.014-04:00

Caldera de Taburiente National Park:

In the middle of the island of La Palma is a national park that is comprised of the caldera left over from a volcano from. A caldera is a depression left when the volcano "collapses" on itself. Much of Yellowstone is a caldera. The area is now completely forested reflecting how long it's been since the volcano erupted (unlike the lower end of the island that has fresh lava exposed everywhere).

The top picture, A Dandy[lion] View looks southeast into the valley near El Paso The clouds move in from the east to the west with the trade winds. This creates dramatic landscapes from up high on the mountain, looking into the valley to see the clouds creeping across. As the day went on, this view was almost completely obscured. This shot is HDR.

The second photo, Forest Path, shows hikers on a path ahead of us. This trail was labeled as "easy", but that was by European rather than American standards. It took us 2 hours and wound down into the caldera, along a narrow ridge, and then up a steep cliff by switchbacks at the end when we were already tired. This shot is infrared, by instead of being with my Olympus 2000 Zoom (see below), is with my Nikon D70. I was lucky that it was fairly light, so was able to capture the scene with a fairly low shutter speed.

Day 8: Adios Espana

2008-03-02T17:38:00.005-05:00

For the grand finale of our trip, we finished with a night in Madrid (prior to flying out the next morning). We stayed at Room-Mate Mario, on Calle Camponmanes (view from the room in the top picture above) in Old Madrid, a few blocks from the Opera and the Palacio Real (Royal Palace). We found the Room-Mate chain to work out quite well. They are well located, relatively inexpensive for Madrid at about $150 per night (breakfast included). The rooms are small, but well appointed and with modern (aka funky) decoration. The breakfast area was a bit odd with bright green walls and space age transparent plastic chairs. A bit hard on the eyes before caffeine.

We dined al fresco in Plaza Mayor (second picture above). It was warm for a winter night (about 60 degrees) which made the Madrid residents flee inside for warmth and only tourists who were escaping the winter cold from home ate outside. Plaza Mayor was built in 1617 and is now mostly residential the first floor and above and with stores and restaurants on the ground floor. In the past it has been used for bull fights, public meetings and executions during the Spanish Inquisition. See some shots from our previous trip when the courtyard was filled with booths selling christmas items.

Both of these night shots were taken with the camera hand held (due to previously mentioned tripod issues), using the automatic night-time settings on the Nikon D70. PS 3 was used with the raw images to clean up some of the noise and adjust the white balance a bit.

Same Building, Different Techniques

2008-02-13T21:08:00.004-05:00

Both of these shots are of Trinity Church in Boston. The first in infrared and the second in HDR. Both shots done within a few minutes of each other, but with very different look and impact. I think the infrared gives a timeless sense to the scene with just a hint of the current day by the context of the surrounding buildings. The HDR version appears magical with the reflection of sky in the windows giving it a semi-transparent look. The HDR is shot with a wide angle lens, so the buildings beside it appear to be curving inward. Also note how the clouds and sky look different in the two shots.

There Will Be No Super Bowl Parade in Boston

2008-02-04T00:01:00.000-05:00

Everything is bit topsy turvy here in Boston. They are calling it the biggest upset in history-- or maybe they are just really upset. I'm in town for CROI and thought I'd be photographing a Super Bowl celebration parade, but I guess not. I'm glad I got these shots of skateboarders in Copley Square today before the depression set in. They were literally doing back flips in anticipation. Once the game started, the streets were deserted, the restaurants were empty. I'm anticipating a lot of depressed people tomorrow.

Here's to Normal Light (well, mostly normal)

2008-01-27T17:47:00.000-05:00

These two shots were taken at the same time as the infrared below, but with color digital photography (a Nikon D70). The first is a regular shot and the second is the same shot, but processed in HDR (high dynamic range). There's a good discussion on HDR here on Wiki, but basically the idea is to correct for lighting challenges. For example, without bringing lighting with you, there are going to be areas in the picture too dark to see detail and if you expose for your main subject, the sky will likely be washed out. For true HDR, you need patience and a tripod. Take one picture with the appropriate exposure, one or two under-exposed 1-2 F stops, and one or two over-exposed by 1-2 F stops. Then process them in Photoshop or even easier with Photomatix. There's free trial software at their website to play with. It leaves a watermark until you pay for it, but you'll get the idea. Faux HDR is done (the bottom shot) by processing the raw image so Photomatix does all the work of creating the other exposures. With experience, you can fine tune it to your preference. On a Mac, it's super easy-- just open the raw image in Photomatix. On a PC, you need to first create and save under and over exposed images in Photoshop first when you open as a raw image and then load them into Photomatix as if they were separate shots.

These two groups on Flickr have more examples: HDR and HDR from A Single Raw

Here's to Invisible Light

2008-01-13T18:21:00.001-05:00

Here's my most recent upload of a picture that showcases the advantages of what can be highlighted in a scene using infrared photography.

"Growing Storm" There was a nor'easter heading this way with a dramatic sky, so it was a must shoot day.

This shot demonstrates the high contrast between white clouds and a dark sky, the shades of black/gray from bark, and the bright white of leaves. Cement and stone is mostly unchanged with IR, but it ends up having a very smooth texture compared to the high contrasts and textures of the rest. The lawn in the background which still has grass despite it being winter looks like snow but it's just grass.

More later, on how to do IR photography, including what equipment, how to shoot, and how to post-process.

Greetings from the Worlds of Visible and Invisible Light

2008-01-11T10:48:00.000-05:00

This first blog is my jump to the blogosphere from living in the virtual world primarily on Flickr. I have previously only been known as Cocoabiscuit . Visit my page there to see that alternative universe. My plan for this is to feed my new photos in here as I post them, especially with a bit more of commentary to go with them. I'm especially interested in near-infrared photography, so the future will hopefully include some tutorials on how to do it. My other interest is in playing around with HDR work, so hopefully we'll have some fun with that as well. Looking forward to the experience.