Photography

[Surf314]

I wasn't originally going to start a new thread, but then I realized that photography takes quite a different skill set then art so here is a catch-all thread for photo geeks.

I used to do some creative photography, one of my favorite things to do was night photography and light painting. Now that I have a new camera and some free-time I was going to get back into it. Taking what I learned last time I have an idea mapped out and was wondering if any other photo geeks had some input. What I want to do is a photo series on mythological characters. I think I'm going to start with characters found in astrology first for reasons I will get into later. Here is my plan so far:

I'm going to get a wooden board, some black felt and steel wire. With the wooden board I'm going to attach a picture of the astrological figure and then outline it with nails. Then I'm going to bend the wire using the nails as a guideline to shape it. I have zero artistic talent so my plan was to essentially duplicate the figure as closely as possible. After I have my wire figure my plan was to polish it and then set it up against the black felt. I can then shine a bright light on it and take a picture. The plan is to overexpose so that the wire becomes a glowing outline. After that I was going to fill in certain areas by photographing whatever I want there. What I'd end up with is a composite photo with the glowing outline and then the interior image. My plan right now is that the glowing outline will be the main element to the picture and that the fill in images will be very dark in comparison. I also don't think I want to fill in the entire figure, just parts I want people to focus on (face, hands, etc.). But I might go all out depending on how it looks and actually try to do some costumes or whatever.

My fall back plan is to make a more or less "life-size" wire frame and just use it as a guide to trace out the more complex figures in the air. If I do this I will probably also need to make a stand and some interior supports. I have a friend who is a legit artist and I think also has welding gear, I know he'd want to do this with me because we did a light of my earlier light painting works together. The only shitty thing is he lives a 50 minute drive from me.

[Surf314]

Here is a decent photo I got of boats in Miami. I didn't have a chance to do much here because I didn't have a tripod with me at the time. I used a step ladder and my phone/other objects to position the camera.

[Surf314]

Just talked to my friend, we are going to build large wire frames and do it that way. He has all the tools we need and he is a great artist when it comes to physical stuff.

[Didzo]

This sounds like a very cool project. If possible, document the process of creating the wire frames. I always find the process of creation interesting and depending on how you go about creating the wire frames, you could end up with some nice sculptures in addition to the photos.

[Azure_Angel]

Here is a decent photo I got of boats in Miami. I didn't have a chance to do much here because I didn't have a tripod with me at the time. I used a step ladder and my phone/other objects to position the camera.
*snip*

That's a really beautiful photo. I love night shots like that. I hope your project turns out well. I've never been able to get the light art down. Shit's crazy when done freehand.

Here's some photos I've taken over the years

[at0m]

Most of my photography is NSFW

[Surf314]

My favorite are the second third and last ones Azure. I've been pulling out some of my best photos (that I haven't lost) here are a few more.



(wish that one had better focus)


(hummingbird sticking it's tongue out at me)

[Surf314]

Batch 2:


(the most dangerous frog in the world)

(wild horses)

(the most adorable little snake)

(can't stop here, it's bat country!)

(didn't take this one, that's me)

[Surf314]

Batch 3 (mostly hands):

(I think either my wife or friend took this one, it looks like it should be on a billboard)



(I have another copy of this one where I desaturated it that I think looks much better)

(another night shot)

[kaese]

I'm a sucker for night photography and yours look great, Surf. From Azure, I like 1,3,and 5 the best.
I'll dump some of my old photos here too.








^this one is just for fun (and I was inebriated when I took it), can anyone see the big dipper?

[Surf314]

Your moon photos are awesome. Also star photos are such a pain in the ass, I haven't figured out how to do it right yet. Me and a friend got adapters to hook up our cameras to a telescope and tried to get some moon shots. There were some issues we did not iron out, but some of the photos are still kinda cool:


The moon moves super fast that zoomed in (issue #1), it's super hard to focus manually on the telescope (issue #2), and the shutter opening/closing adds enough vibration to mess with the photos (issue #3, the most solvable but we still didn't figure it out before we gave up).

[Azure_Angel]

Kase, how did you get such clear shots of the stars and moon? Like Surf said, they're a bitch to get. I've tried several times and all I got was a glowing orb that's supposed to be venus.

[kaese]

Kase, how did you get such clear shots of the stars and moon? Like Surf said, they're a bitch to get. I've tried several times and all I got was a glowing orb that's supposed to be venus.

For stars, I live in an area with very low light pollution so I just crank up the long exposure and wait patiently.
For the moon, I aimed for the shortest amount of exposure since it does end up looking like a glowing featureless orb if the exposure time is more than a second. Post-processing is your friend for moons since you can adjust the brightness and contrast levels to enhance the details (craters).

[matter11]

@surf

were any of the snake/wildlife pictures from the everglades? I think that'd be a really cool/convenient place for you to develop as a wildlife photographer.


also I really like your photo of the beach Kase; the water's texture/color looks awesome.

[Surf314]

@surf

were any of the snake/wildlife pictures from the everglades? I think that'd be a really cool/convenient place for you to develop as a wildlife photographer.

They were from Costa Rica mostly. I dunno if you know much about the everglades but they are not a fun place to spend much time. There are gorgeous shots to be had there but it takes more dedication and tolerance for pain, mosquitoes, and icky things than I have. There is a famous photographer that lives in Florida that takes everglade photos. He uses large format film cameras and gets incredible shots. I got a chance to meet him and he described some of the stuff he did to get some of his photos. Talking weeks in the swamp in waders looking for a ghost orchid bloom and often not finding one. Here is his site:
http://www.clydebutcher.com/

Edit: If you go to the journal section you can get a pretty awesome perspective on how he gets his photos.

[Azure_Angel]

[quote author=Azure_Angel link=topic=6402.msg248358#msg248358 date=1340822797]
Kase, how did you get such clear shots of the stars and moon? Like Surf said, they're a bitch to get. I've tried several times and all I got was a glowing orb that's supposed to be venus.

For stars, I live in an area with very low light pollution so I just crank up the long exposure and wait patiently.
For the moon, I aimed for the shortest amount of exposure since it does end up looking like a glowing featureless orb if the exposure time is more than a second. Post-processing is your friend for moons since you can adjust the brightness and contrast levels to enhance the details (craters).
[/quote]

How long of an exposure did you do for the stars? Like general time range? Also, what lens do you use?

[kaese]

[quote author=Käse link=topic=6402.msg248360#msg248360 date=1340823296]
[quote author=Azure_Angel link=topic=6402.msg248358#msg248358 date=1340822797]
Kase, how did you get such clear shots of the stars and moon? Like Surf said, they're a bitch to get. I've tried several times and all I got was a glowing orb that's supposed to be venus.

For stars, I live in an area with very low light pollution so I just crank up the long exposure and wait patiently.
For the moon, I aimed for the shortest amount of exposure since it does end up looking like a glowing featureless orb if the exposure time is more than a second. Post-processing is your friend for moons since you can adjust the brightness and contrast levels to enhance the details (craters).
[/quote]

How long of an exposure did you do for the stars? Like general time range? Also, what lens do you use?
[/quote]

Lens is a Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS (the stock lens)
Exposure is 30s
I forgot to mention that it helps to manually focus your shots since the stars are so small and far away that your camera will probably have difficulty autofocusing. My technique is to zoom in as much as I can to the general area I want to photograph and manually focus so that most of the stars are sharp. Then I zoom out to my desired distance and take the pic.

[Azure_Angel]

[quote author=Azure_Angel link=topic=6402.msg248373#msg248373 date=1340830666]
[quote author=Käse link=topic=6402.msg248360#msg248360 date=1340823296]
[quote author=Azure_Angel link=topic=6402.msg248358#msg248358 date=1340822797]
Kase, how did you get such clear shots of the stars and moon? Like Surf said, they're a bitch to get. I've tried several times and all I got was a glowing orb that's supposed to be venus.

For stars, I live in an area with very low light pollution so I just crank up the long exposure and wait patiently.
For the moon, I aimed for the shortest amount of exposure since it does end up looking like a glowing featureless orb if the exposure time is more than a second. Post-processing is your friend for moons since you can adjust the brightness and contrast levels to enhance the details (craters).
[/quote]

How long of an exposure did you do for the stars? Like general time range? Also, what lens do you use?
[/quote]

Lens is a Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS (the stock lens)
Exposure is 30s
I forgot to mention that it helps to manually focus your shots since the stars are so small and far away that your camera will probably have difficulty autofocusing. My technique is to zoom in as much as I can to the general area I want to photograph and manually focus so that most of the stars are sharp. Then I zoom out to my desired distance and take the pic.

[/quote]

Thanks! Plan to try this tonight.

[Luinbariel]

Here's some stuff, I guess.

A spider's web in the morning

An abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere

Some stuff

Some flowers

Actually from my iphone...

A spider

[Surf314]

Durrrrrr

This deer was not cooperating.