Election Night 2010

It's true, the election was nearly a week ago. Finally I've been able to get a few photos from the South Dakota Republican party site posted. I was assigned to that location to help SDPB radio cover the election. When I was waiting for an individual to become available for an interview, I made a few photographs.

Congrats to all participants in the 2010 elections, win or lose. Thank you to those of you who threw your hat into the ring and good luck to those who gained their respective office.

Fall

I don't remember getting much opportunity to truly photograph the fall season last year. I was chatting about this with a lady while waiting for my take out lunch. She agreed. Last October was chilly and the trees just dropped their leaves before autumn really occured.

This year has been wonderful!! Native Amercian Day weekend, or Columbus Day if you live anywhere but South Dakota, has been full of gorgeous weather. My husband farms, so I helped him move some equipment between fields. When we were done with that I stopped to create some photographs. I also headed over to a local state park for my own photo hike yesterday.

My husband is still harvesting, I think that some evening photo sessions may be in order if he's working late tonight. The temperature is so mild, even when the sun drops. How could a person resist?

Please enjoy a few of my photographs!

Pinhole Photography

I read a blog entry about making a pinhole lens for a SLR body. I had tried something like this with my DSLR, that didn't work so well. I later read that the small sensor in a DSLR interferes with the sharpness that one may hope to achieve. Others have had better luck with full frame DSLR cameras or film cameras. So, I got my Canon Elan 7E body back out, picked up a Willy Wonka candy tin and made a pinhole lens.

I will post a pic of that contraption later.

I didn't have very good luck with acquiring sharp images of any sort. It seemed to work best if I were close to the subject, like flowers. Though in other images with similar distance, it didn't work at all. Landscape images didn't work so well, but I think that I like them anyway. I don't know if I'm trying to justify a poor image, or if it is actually 'artsy'.

They remind me of impressionistic images, but some with even less detail.

Here are a few of the images in a slideshow:

Dandelions

I don't remember how this idea got in my head. Seeded out dandelions are such a nuisance, but visually they're interesting.

I thought that it would be cool to try to use them in a photo illustration. A tiny figure came to mind. I think that I was imagining illustrations that I've seen regarding Le Petite Prince (vaguely). Follow this link to learn more about the story.. Sidenote: We read bits of it in French 101. I have a copy in french, but am unable to read it without having a dictionary by myside. I would like to acquire an english copy sometime so that I may read the whole story myself.

Anyway, I imagined a small person on something like a dandelion head. It is a subject that seems other worldly. I also wanted to use my self constructed holga lens - it distorts an image and creates a soft photo.



I used to have two holga 120 cameras. I kept one whole. I ripped the lens off another after seeing that someone else did it on another website/blog.

I already had a body cap that I had used to attempt pinhole DSLR photography. That didn't work, so I hot glued the lens to the cap.

The camera has to be about 10 ft away from the subject for it to sort of be in focus.



Photo taken at approximately 7:30 p.m. I imagine that the lens is set to be about f8. That's what the diameter looks to be anyway. Since it is a toy lens, I can't change the aperture. This causes a bit of a problem. I would like to have included some light from the setting sun, but it was too much light and I couldn't work fast enough to not contribute ghosting in the image.



After twenty two photos I got one that I really liked. It was tricky to get the stencils placed just right. I would prefer that the sky wasn't so blank. I may try the photo with a different lens. Then I can frame it differently and have the ability to add more elements to the image. Having the option to change the f-stop would be very helpful too.

Still, I do like the blurriness of the image due to the lens in this particular case. The only tweaks that I made in Photoshop were to boost the levels so that the grass would be a little more visible.



Thanks for looking.

Spirit Mound

I've been planning for YEARS to do a star trail image at night of Spirit Mound. I have tried once or twice previously with my film camera. Those results weren't quite what I'd hoped for. Still, season after season goes by and I didn't get out there. In the summer when it's warmer the sun may set at 9:30, but the stars won't come out well enough until 11. Plus, the mosquitos are miserable out there. In the winter it gets dark early, but it's also really really cold. AND, it's kinda spooky out there at night by oneself. So, a person can see how it's easy to put off a project, no matter how appealing it may be.

I've been more resolved to do projects like these this year. It helps that I participate in the Vermillion Camera Club and I want to have images worthy of showing to the group.

Yesterday we were treated to gorgeous weather. Instead of going for a walk in town, I headed for home via Hwy 19 and stopped off to hike up Spirit Mound.

Clear skies were forecasted for the evening, so I wanted to try my idea again. Fortunately my husband was able to finish up with the work that he really needed to accomplish and could join me. Our dog also decided that she would 'tolerate' the car ride so that she could go on the adventure too. I wish that I had a decent picture of her from last night.

It takes so long for the stars to rise in the northern sky. So, I tried a couple photographs with some still standing stalks from the previous year's vegetation.



Finally we could see stars right above Spirit Mound. I wish that we could see them a little lower in the sky. The area is quite rural and the stars are bright, but we still have problems with light pollution. I did two exposures. Here's the first one that I did, I prefer the amount of lighting in this one. The image was made in the camera. I tweaked it abit to adjust the color balance and a little bit of the brightness/contrast.



You may visit my Scenic Photo Album, there is a link in the column on the right.

Lunch Hour Photo Outing

One of my friends who shares an enthusiasm for photography (and cycling) got a new lens and tripod this week. Of course whenever a person acquires a new gadget/toy/tool, it is necessary to try it out immediately, if not sooner. She suggested meeting at the Shrine to Music Museum across campus to see what captures our imaginations.



While it wasn't a highly social outing, we did regroup to compare notes and see what the other was doing. I haven't visited the museum often, but it was a nice break from the day to explore a place in our backyard. If you enjoy music at all, I would suggest stopping by. I've done the audio tour before and would give it a thumbs up as well.





I haven't seen Cathy's photos yet, I'm looking forward to them! She was working with the harps and a couple of the pianos. I'd like to go to the museum again, an hour just isn't enough time.

This one's my fave from the outing:

Fun with Holga

I had come across photographs used with a Holga camera a few years ago. I purchased two from Bhphoto.com. I thought I could keep one as is and eventually make modifications to the second. I have yet to take photographs with the cameras themselves. I have been using a holga lens on my DSLR camera.

Others have hacked a holga to create a lens for their DSLR cameras. Here's a tutorial. Here's the approach that I took when I made my lens.

I've been experimenting a bit. The point isn't to create a perfect image - that isn't really possible. You can't adjust focus and you can't adjust the aperture. Just mounting it to my DSLR gives me two controls that I wouldn't have otherwise: shutter speed and an adjustable ISO setting. I haven't figured out the sweet spot for focal distance. I'm sure that there's a mathematical formula that I could use. But, I actually prefer to guess.



It doesn't really work to take photos of things far away. For instance, geese flying away from you aren't ideal subjects, though they are fun.



I'll keep working with this for awhile, I think. It's something different. Sometimes the image seems 'artsy' sometimes it just looks like a poor photo. I don't have one that I want to enlarge yet.