I have a bit of uneven exposure on the left side of this photo, and I am not sure why.

Jen & Giles

Kirk said he was taking a couple of weeks off from his blog to finish writing his latest technical photography book, which is to be on the topic of LED lighting. After a week of absence from the web I guess he needed a break from writing the book, and it seems he went out and bought a new lens, hooked up with a model, and shot a few thousand frames to see how the new lens would perform.

This resulted in two posts in quick succession on his blog, both being some of the best writing I have seen from him. These articles really connected with me. So I felt a need to share links and quotes here.

The first article appeared to be on the topic of lens testing. From my perspective however the central message of this post was not really about lens testing, but photography in general, and something every photographer needs to remember, you cannot take a nice picture unless there is something nice in front of your lens.

In the context of lens testing this is about getting out, and using a lens out the the real world. In the general context of photography it is central to understanding how to take beautiful pictures. Buying the latest most expensive camera equipment does not make good pictures, finding interesting subject matter to photograph is the first, and likely the most necessary requirement to make a beautiful photograph.

Kirk’s second post was a bit of a rant but it was again really about how to take beautiful photographs, and a key message being it is you who has to decide what is beautiful, not some external judge or jury. You need to follow your own lead, and do what you want to do, not what somebody expects you to do. The second post is the source of the quote at the top of this post, my blog post, about Kirk’s blog posts. And it is the answer to so many questions that people ask me such as why don’t you sell your pictures, why did you take that picture, and why are you carrying that tripod?

So why do I do all of this photography stuff? Why don’t I spend time trying to monetize my photography? Why am I shooting the way I am? Why am I writing this blog? In the end I am just making myself happy.

Island in the fog, Aug 20, 2010

So here is Saturday’s photo. I went out with my friend Craig and we shot some more waterfalls in the Hamilton area.

Tews Falls, Icicles, 57a/365

And another from the same day:

Tews Falls, base

And on my birthday I went took the day off work, as is my tradition, and amongst other things that day took a few photos around the area. The best is probably this one:

Barber Mill

There were a couple more that day that turned out ok:

Tree

Badlands

The first image is the remnants of an old cup and saucer found out back of one of the old homesteads.

Cup and Saucer, 50a/365

And the second I could not resist, it is layer upon layer of ice formed as the water has been draining away.

Ice on Ice, 50b/365

Now don’t complain I posted two photos for one day here. I was extremely busy this week, I went for a few days with very few hours of sleep, as we worked through a network jeopardy situation in repeated maintenance windows each night for most of the week. With all this going on, I did not have the time to shoot during the week, and when I saw two great opportunities today, I was not going to pass them up just because there is only supposed to be one photo a day. It is my photo blog, my personal photography exercise, and if I want to shoot and post multiple photos in one day, then I say I can do so.

Day 49: Saturday marked Callum’s 11 month birthday, so as usual he gets a day to be the subject of the PoTD. In this case I used my handmade wide angle camera with my 90mm lens. I pre-focused to 3 feet, but Callum was very interested in the camera, and scooted up to me so quickly that he ended up in front of the focus area, and is thus a little blurry.

Callum – 11 Monts old, 49/365

Day 43: Today we had some friends over for dinner, and has now become the custom after dinner we had a quick sitting for a portrait. Even with the flash being almost inline with the camera I still should have used a reflector for some fill on the left, and it would have been better to have them another foot in front of the background.

Mother/Daughter, 43/365

Day 42: While I was making dinner yesterday I had Callum in the kitchen with me, in his high chair. He started out interested in the activity around the stove, but a few minutes later he started to head bob, and them fell asleep.

Callum nods off, 42/365

Day38: Gemma & Declan are taking skating lessons, and we are only allowed to take pictures on two occasions. Apparently due to the complete misrepresentation of Canada’s Privacy laws the instructors believe it is a violation of said privacy laws to take pictures of your own children learning sports in a public place.

This last Monday was one of the two occasions on which the privacy laws magically no longer apply . So I snapped a few photos with my DSLR, and then setup my big Bender 4×5 in the middle of the stands, and fired off 4 sheets. The exposure times were quite long, as the light in an Arena is not actually very bright, so as you can see we have a lot of motion blur. If I do this again I will consider pushing my film to iso 1600.

Gemma is the third from the right.

Gemma Skating, 38/365

Day 37: This is a repeat of one of the shots that on a previous occasion came out completely blank. This is a focal plane shutter capable of exposure from 1/10th of a second all the way up to 1/1000th of a second. I cut this out of an old 3.5×4.5 Speedgraphic. I am going to mount it into a lens board adapter to be a shutter for barrel lenses on my Deardorff.

Shutter 37/365

I was looking through pictures taken around Brampton that are posted on flickr, using the explore places function. And I came across this picture:

by Lone Primate.

It is a short portion of 2nd Line, which once upon a time was a significant road. But today this tiny bit is no longer connected to any road, and is only accessible by foot on a hiking trail. I find it fascinating to find abandoned spaces in the middle of all the urban sprawl.

After spending close to an hour last night exploring the associated set of photos on Flickr, I had decided this road would be what I was going to shoot next. I knew it would be buried under snow, but I had to get out there to see it for myself. I’ll be returning again to explore further, and think I’ll shoot in this area a few times as the seasons pass over the coming year.

2nd Line, 36/365

Skaters, 35/365

Yesterday I played with another veg picture. I think the stock pot I used for background worked really well on this one. I used continuous lighting so that I could clearly see the final composition, and not be guessing as to highlight locations etc.

Tomatoes, 34/365

Two days ago I shot a couple sheets of my new(old) focal plane shutter from an old Speed graphic 3.5×4.5 which is soon going to be my shutter to use with barrel lenses on my Deardorf. But once again I have two blank sheets. I’m perplexed as to what I did wrong. It is frustrating to fail, but especially so when there is no learning from the experience. Since I don’t know what went wrong I cannot learn to not do it again.

So the result here is a scan.
It is a scan of a print.
The print is a contact print.
It is an 8×10 contact print.
Which means it comes from a massive 8×10 negative.
And the negative was exposed in a homemade pinhole camera.
The image is the birch tree in my front yard, I thought the wide angle view of the pinhole camea would make it look majestic or something. I was wrong.

8×10, pinhole, contact, 32/365

“It’s like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.”
-Nigel Tufnel, “This is Spinal Tap”

What is the point?
Well the point is to enjoy photography. And I have to say I am doing that. I am enjoying taking things slowly and trying to find good pictures, not just snapping away and seeing if I get lucky. I am enjoying the moments when I turn on the lights in the darkroom and start pulling negatives out of the fixer. I am enjoying the excuse of this exercise to get people to sit for portraits. I am enjoying working on a single image a day (multiple exposures) and trying to pull the most out of it with the tools at hand.

I am enjoying working with the simple/complex camera that my Bender 4×5 is. Taking time to focus, and shifting the focus around the way you want it. Pushing movements to see when things start to go wrong. Composing in colour, but shooting in black & white.

I may be making lots of mistakes, but I am learning. I am learning not to make operator errors with the camera, but more importantly I think that I am learning to take better pictures. Practise is the key, and practise is what I am getting. Practise in moving slowly and seeing the image before you snap the shutter. Practise talking to real people and getting them to laugh naturally before the lens.

Is this costing too much?
I have self doubts about this exercise, why don’t I just use one of my digital cameras? Or if it has to be film, why not a 35mm camera where 36 exposure only cost $4. I don’t think these doubts can be completely overcome. But I am taking steps to keep costs down, for example I am developing everything myself, and HC-110 is really inexpensive developer.

But ultimately I will watch my costs, and if this costs “too much” I will stop. But in the meantime the results are worth it. The pleasure I get from looking at the prints on my wall makes it seem very worthwhile.

What about the Deardorff?
The Deardorff is not forgotten. The ribs are ready for the Bellows. This exercise has not lessoned my desire to finish the Deardorff. I am looking forward to using the Derdorff itself for this project. To be honest I am overwhelmed by the next step in assembling the bellows. I need pause to practise it in my mind, and I need not rush what is a complex process.