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Something Fishy

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Years ago I got something called a “fisheye converter” for one if my lenses. It fit right onto the end of my kit lens and I really enjoyed using it. I would shoot lots of architecture and landscapes with horizon lines. It was limited by the mediocre speed of my kit lens – and as I acquired faster lenses it fell out of the rotation for me. I was just a cool novelty. A couple of years ago I passed it on to someone starting out with the same system. I forgot all about that lens and moved on to primes and lenses that had a wider use.

 

I hadn’t even considered wanting a fisheye again until I saw that Olympus had a sale on their 8mm f1.8 Pro late last year. I have been experimenting with night sky photography and thought that a fisheye might be a good addition to my kit.

 

What I hadn’t counted on where the many interesting things I could do with this lens. It has become a regular part of my kit. I take it everywhere. I shoot all kinds of things with it. It lets me change the way I see things.

Kairn – notice how the horizon bends to my will
Doors – I like how the fisheye makes these car feel monumental
Hildy – The pugs oversized features become the focus as the rest of her body is minimized by the distortion
Big bend – Believe it or not, this low water bridge is a straight line.
Ant’s eye view. Shooting low brings the foreground close and pushes everything else back.
Slurpee – shooting just above this pup shows off his face but exaggerates his thin physique
Ram – shooting close to this hood ornament at the same level reduces distortion.
Pig – shooting downward at an angle magnifies the feature closest to the lens – note how the patio lines curve
Old Truck – shooting at eye level with a distant horizon makes the truck monumental in this vast landscape
Beaver Dam – Shooting slightly downward lets the dam seem fairly undistorted but gives the horizon the feel of the edge of the world.
Suzy – shooting very close to this three pound pup makes her look like the queen of all she surveys
Desert Car Lot – shooting further back lets the landscape curve slightly but magnifies the space.
Ruthy – shooting directly down at Ruthy makes her a recognizable caricature of herself.
Old Town – the fisheye makes the car in the foreground the star in a vast wilderness
Blinker – focusing close on this blinker lets the rest of the car curve away as an onlooker bends to match the horizon
Oscar – Shooting below eye level makes the cat huge in the space. Everything else is decoration
Haven Pup – Focusing down on this pups sweet face conveys how friendly and approachable she is.
Tail Lamp- focusing on this bright red lens almost level lets it be framed by the exaggerated curves of the fenders

 

Shutterbug Notes: You can control the amount of curve in your images by shooting close for more curve and further for less curve. You also can exaggerate the direction of a curve by shooting above or below it, to the left or the right if it. Using a fisheye lets you tell the viewer what you want them to see by curving around it or curving the subject itself – like shooting shallow DOF it lets you choose what stops the viewers’ eye. 

A Photographic Work Out

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There is no better place to flex your photographic muscles than a visit to a National Park.   You get a chance to shoot amazing wildlife, grand vistas, tiny details, and history. Really capturing the essence of these remarkable places requires more than a single set up. I carry primes, zooms, fisheyes and more. You never want to miss a shot so make sure to pack a kit that’s ready for action!

For me the Parks are a treasure – never short on adventure or inspiration. Let me share some of my favorite spots with you.

Wildlife – Shoot long.

You see it everywhere – even in the city park sites. Make sure you have a lens with lots of reach so that you can make sure you get the shot. Years ago I was frustrated trying to get a sharp image of a robin outside a visitors center and it pushed me to focus on shooting birds every single day for a year – this experience not only helped me to learn the behaviors of birds and the best techniques for capturing them – it taught be to think fast, to learn to adjust my camera without taking my eye away from the viewfinder, to capture action. It changed my photography. It made me a wildlife photographer.

 

Wild Turkeys – Great Smokey Mountains
Sitka Deer – Assateague Island
Big Horn Ram – Lake Mead
Seagull – Alcatraz
Draft Horse – Acadia
Black Bear – Great Smokey Mountains
Wild Ponies – Assateague Island
Raven – Olympic
Bull Elk – Buffalo River
Ponies – Assateague Island
Marmot – Rocky Mountain
Pelican below the Golden Gate

 

Vistas – Shoot wide.

Nothing is more American than getting out into the wide open spaces of nature. You need to make sure to carry a lens that will let you take in those big wonderful views – wide zooms or primes can capture it all. I recall thinking that landscapes were just not my thing, but each time I visited a spectacular place I longed to take something home with me to capture that moment of wonder. Landscape photography taught me to slow down, to use a tripod, to be a part of the vista even as an observer. Today I shoot some locations several times a year so that I can see all the opportunities that differing lighting conditions have to offer me creatively. It has opened my mind and my vision for my work.

 

Death Valley Sunset
Indiana Dunes Shoreline
Red Rock
Catherine Falls – Mount Ranier
Little River Canyon
Hampton
Wizard Island – Crater Lake
Weir Farm
Eagle Lake – Acadia
Cape Disappointment – Lewis & Clarl
Fence Line – Pea Ridge
Cabin – Wilson’s Creek
Scott’s Bluff
Shoreline – Acadia
Great Smokey Mountains
Painters Palette – Death Valley
Harpers Ferry
Assateague Islands
Joshua Trees – Mojave Preserve
Steele Creek – Buffalo River
Red Rock
Death Valley
Kelso – Mojave Preserve
Lenticular Clouds – Mount Rainier
Tulips – Independence
A view of Vegas – Red Rock
Fence Line – Gettysburg
Longmire – Mount Rainier

 

Details – Shoot close.

I love seeing beautiful details in a park. This is where I take out the macro lens or something that lets me focus close. There is always opportunity to discover pattern and color that you just don’t notice when you pass by what you might think of as just “ordinary”. There is alway more to see when you get close. Shooting macro and details has taught me to investigate things and to be present in the moment.

 

Chain – Golden Gate
Tulips – The Stone House
Canon – Monocacy
Wildflowers – Kitty Hawk
Buds – Olympic
Gears – Springfield Armory
Iris – Longfellow House
Canon Balls – USS Constitution
Daiseys – Death Valley
Joshua Tree – Joshua Tree NP

 

History – Shoot the angles.

Everyone has seen a shot of the Lincoln Memorial – right? When you see something so grand and recognizable it is a challenge to make the shot your own. Sometimes it’s the lighting, sometimes it’s the angle, sometimes it’s taking another tool from the kit like a fisheye to bend history to your own vision. Shooting monuments and historical displays makes me feel wonder at being so close to things we all share. It makes me want to show what they mean to me. They are common images of places that have touched me in uncommon ways.

 

Tomb of the Unknowns – Reverence
The Golden Gate from below inside Fort Point – Time
Kelso – Industrious
Franklins Print Shop – Bootstraps
Gettysburg – Little Round Top
The Lincoln Memorial – Perfection
Antietam – A Meaningful Monument
Ford’s Theater – Awe
Eternal Flame – Homage
Arkansas Post – Ancient
Saratoga – Victory
Kitty Hawk – Colorful
Rushmore – Serene
Jamestown – Wonder
Lincoln Memorial – Intimate
Hoover Dam – Monumental
MLK Jr Memorial – Powerful
Jefferson Memorial – National Mall
Changing of the guard – Humbling
Independence Hall – the start of it all
Longfellow House – Washington’s Headquarters

 

This summer – go out and see America! Be sure to take your camera with you!

 

Shutterbug Notes: I shoot mirrorless. I got into this format in about 2009 when the Olympus Pen first came out. I liked that it was compact and that I could easily use my old OM lenses with an adaptor. Mirrorless camera lenses are much smaller than standard cameras. I can get two cameras and 6-8 lenses in a backpack although I typically carry only 4-5 at a time. This kit has made it possible for me to have all the flexibility I like when I travel. It has allowed me the most possible creative freedoms when I shoot. No matter what you shoot, try to cover the bases. You need something long for wildlife, something wide for landscapes, something close focussing for details and something unique for shooting common scenes – this can be four lenses or maybe just one or two depending on what you have in your kit. Get to know your lenses capabilities and stretch yourself. 

 

 

 

What does the Fox Say?

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One of my favorite things about life in the Ozarks are the random encounters with wildlife. These encounters happen often up on my mountain – songbirds, squirrels, hawks, and deer all circle around the Stonehouse, careful to steer clear of the patrolling terriers in the lawn. A few years ago we had bear sightings up the road. I spotted a black mountain lion passing through one time. These occurrences are alway magical, but not unexpected anymore.

My friend Candy lives about a mile and a half from me on a golf course community called Holiday Island. You may have seen Eric Estrada pitching lots on late night infomercials a few years back. It’s beautiful spot carved out of the wilds of the Ozarks – but it’s considerably less wild than my mountain. They have restaurants, grocery stores, and a club house. One night Candy and I were driving from her house to mine. We were passing the clubhouse when we spotted some visitors. There on the parking lot next to the putting green were three little faces looking back at us. Candy maneuvered the car to give me some light while I took photos with my flash – oddly enough they were not at all bothered by the car, the flash, or me. At one point I was shooting two of them grooming each other when I glanced back and caught sight of the third one sneaking up behind me. Their curiosity overwhelmed any fear they had.

I’m Curiouser and curiouser
Three’s a crowd, buddy.
Can you move the car a little to the right?
As you wish!
Those paparazzi are blinding me!
Let me whisper in your ear.
I am ready for my close up!
You look interesting – what is that bright object in your hands?
I’ve got an itch!
My eyes are on fire!

Their manner reminded me a lot of my shy pup Kirby. They were cautious but curious. I almost wanted to just sit on the ground and let them come to me – but we were in the middle of a street in the dark in the middle of the night. After about 20 minutes they tired of us and moved on across the putting green. Something more interesting awaited them in the dark of the golf course.

Since that night I have seen them several times. I spent some time with them at the bank parking lot one evening, but without Candy there to point the car headlights at them I didn’t have enough light to photograph them. I saw them sleeping in a driveway the other day – soaking up the last of the warmth of our Indian Summer.

 

My Photographic Roots

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My interest in photography came from watching my mother take photos. She had an old Rolleiflex that only she understood. It was square and boxy with two lenses on the front and some knobs on the sides. The magical thing about this camera is that you had to look down into a prism to take the photo – before an LCD screen even existed, many photographers had grown to love the experience of framing their shots in that lovely square box – it was like watching a TV screen.

This camera is substantial in your hands. That texture on the sides is actually leather.

This camera is substantial in your hands. That texture on the sides is actually leather.

Mom’s camera was just a bit newer than this one – it was probably from the 1950s. One day in my early teens we were on a trip with some other girls and their moms when she decided to show me how it worked. It wasn’t something she trusted me to take off with it, but that day I saw photography differently – somehow in my mind it shifted from capturing snapshots to making something look great on that screen. With the Rollei you had to move – there was no zoom or macro settings – you moved until the object you wanted to highlight was in focus. I think that early experience is why I love to shoot primes today. When I studied photography in college, mom entrusted me with not only her Rollei, but her new Pentax to use in my classes. I think it was at this time that I really understood photography as art – not just in the shooting of images, but in the processing and developing of film – the making of images.

Now my mom was a super-talented woman who never saw herself as an exceptional. She was a master pattern cutter, seamstress, and tailor. I would show her two dresses I liked – I would like the bodice on one and the skirt on the other – we would go home and she would make me a dress that was the perfect combination of the two. Her doodles on the phone book looked like the sketches you see designers make when developing fashion concepts. She was an amazing cook. She would try something new and then go home and figure out how to make it. She was exceptional in so many creative ways. If I were to call her a photographer she would probably cringe – but I look at her shots and I know that she had some skills. These aren’t etherial landscapes or anything like that – just shots of family and friends.

My mother always told me to sit like a young lady – seeing this capture of my crazy legs, she was spot on in her assessment.
This shot of Max captures his thoughtful nature. He shares her love of reading and deeper thinking about the meaning of life.
I know that my mom loved the irony of my father playing “mountain man” in the shadow of the Montgomery Wards.
Ron was the one who loved to dress up, and mom always supported his love of style, but I think she may also have had blackmail in mind with this shot.
Mom took this shot of me after my new brother Max came home from the hospital, I think he is sleeping behind me while I make faces for the camera. Mom never let me feel like I was less important because there was a new baby.
Max sneaking and stealing Pop’s hat. While all eyes were on me running barrels, Max makes a little mischief and mom catches it. She took photos of me on a horse running that day, but this is the best shot of the day.
Mom’s sense of the silly or ironic would not let her miss this shot of me walking a skunk on a leash in a circle of teepees. This shot pretty much sums up the flavor of my childhood.
It’s really tough to get a nice blue sky in bright sun like this, especially when you are shooting a completely manual camera – nice exposure! Seriously, My mom had a sense of humor and she loved to catch guys like Rick acting like fools. Even so, it’s a good photo.
My brothers, one a thinker and one a little impulsive. I love this photo so much – she nailed it. Plus stopping action with the Rollei was not a simple task.
Why my mother loved to contrast me with large objects as a child is still a mystery to me. I also have a shot of me as an infant with a slice of ham covering me like a blanket. Big baby, big object…
Mom showed me what depth of field was on that first outing with the Rollei – she looked at shots with that in mind. Ron through the cage of the race car. Her little boy all grown up.
This is just a cool shot of a teepee with a sky scene painted on the flaps – I like how she lined it up so that the sky was in the sky – but I like her skill at capturing the sky and the foreground with equal detail.

This Mother’s Day, like all days I miss her. She left us far too soon, but her mark on our lives was indelible.

She’s always with you. She’s the sound of bacon crackling in a skillet on Saturday morning. She’s the aroma of the lilacs and magnolias in the spring. She’s your breath in the air on a cold winter’s day. She’s the sound of the rain on the roof that lulls you to sleep, the colors of the rainbow; she is Christmas morning. She is the place where you came from, your first home, and she’s the map you follow with every step you take. She’s your first love, your first friend, even your first enemy, but nothing on earth can separate you – not time, not space, not even death. 

Shutterbug Notes:

You can learn a lot from looking at old photos. As your skill grows you can appreciate the skill it took to make them work. You can also learn a lot about shooting from the heart – to not so much try to capture what something looks like, but what it feels like. It’s more that skill that makes a great image – it needs heart.

The Second Rule of Photography

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If the first rule of photography is to always have your camera with you, then the second rule must be about light. Light is everything to a photographer, without it there is no color, without enough of it you lose detail and sharpness.

Of course you can add light by using a flash, but that can create other issues – it can add too much light or create unwanted reflections. It’s essential to make some shots, but I wouldn’t use it just because your camera has one.

There is one kind of light that is almost magical – it is warm and soft and almost without glare. It’s that lovely light at the beginning or at the very end of the day – the golden hour. I’m not a morning person, so I prefer that soft light that starts about a half hour before the sun sets.

Over the course of the last week I have been practicing shooting sunsets at a local lookout point. On the way I travel through a residential neighborhood where the deer feed in the hollows and lots between houses. I find these local whitetails to be lovely and curious creatures. They are all about their dining, but any noise or movement from me gets them to look up at me. Sometimes they hold their gaze for several shots. They rarely flee.

Click through to see how expressive these whitetail can be:

Where’s Thumper?
Curiouser and Curiouser
Oooooooo! Nooooooo!
Wink! Wink!
Looking over her shoulder
Getting her green on
Garden Crashers
Is that food?
Talking Smack
Golden Hour Girl
That light in her eyes…
Watch the Birdie

After my first shot at these deer I began to give myself 10-15 minutes on my way to the lookout and I am never disappointed in these characters. In truth, it’s the light that makes these shots so intimate, you get a sense of the golden glow in their eyes, they emerge from the noisy backgrounds because there is enough light to get good focus. The details are mostly sharp because there is enough light for my camera to do the job I want it to do.

Shutterbug Notes:

I have found that your vehicle can be a good blind sometimes. Animals are often less threatened by a big box than they are of you approaching in spots where there is no place for cover. I have found that deer and antelope are naturally curious so sometimes a little movement makes them make eye contact with you – waving a bandana out the window or making clicking noises will often do the trick. When I do approach on foot I always respect the lines they set – if they huff or raise their tails I stop moving towards them. I want them to be curious and not frightened of me. 

Winter Weary

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Old Man Winter has been giving us all he’s got this year. He started in Autumn and it looks like it’s doing his best to drag things out into Spring. Here in the Ozarks, we typically get a light snow before Christmas and we have a cold and sometimes snowy January. This year we’ve been pounded by storm after storm. I’m tired of shoveling and I miss the sunshine. It’s hard on us humans, but I have to tell you that the birds at the Stonehouse are over it. Yesterday when  forecasted “light afternoon flurries” turned into 7 inches of wet sticky snow, I did what I always do. I took out my camera. My friends at the feeders have lost their sweet Christmassy look – gone are the noble poses with perfectly coiffed tufts and wings. Haggard cards and finches continue to feed, but clearly they are over this whole “polar vortex” thing. Don’t worry, my little feathered friends, Spring is on the way – it’s supposed to arrive on Thursday, but don’t count your chicks before they’re hatched.

Click through to see what the diners at the Stonehouse Buffet have to say about Winter 2014:

Vortex Schmortex
Next year I’m flying south…South America
Any chance you could heat this up for me?
It has finally happened – Hell has frozen over.
I can’t feel my feet.
Donner – Party of two.
My supper is getting cold.
Frozen dinners again?
I’m seeing red
Next year I’m not giving up the condo in Jamaica until after Easter.
I’m thinking the Caribbean sounds nice about now.
I need to get me some of those Smartwool Sox
Snowed in again
Schools are closed again tomorrow – my chicks will be in school until the fall migration.
I think I have frostbite
Enough already…Winter, you win.

 

Shutterbug Notes:

I have a weather sealed camera, but my bird lens is not sealed – I use a sandwich bag to give it a bit of protection, while still allowing me to focus in the weather. Shooting birds in falling snow is tricky, your AF will try to lock onto snowflakes so try focussing first on something at the same distance as your subject – I find that nearby branches work well – this makes it easier to fine tune your focus on your subject. When shooting birds I always focus on their eyes and I use the smallest AF target box that by camera has. I think the eyes help to capture their personalities. A motion blur on a wing can add to a shot, but a face out of focus is not a keeper for me. 

The First Rule of Photography

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Always take your camera!

I know I say this a lot. I take my camera everywhere. It is in my car when I go to the store. I carry it to work everyday. It is always by my side.

The case has been made that the best camera is the one that you have with you. In this day when there is an iPhone or Galaxy in almost every pocket, most of us always have a camera for those spontaneous shots. But if you have a good camera, a real camera, why settle for serviceable when you can have amazing. Your iPhone can’t stop a hummingbird in mid-flight or reveal the inverted image in a water drop. It can’t show you the structure of a snowflake. There are a few rare shutterbugs (like Allan) that squeeze every once of performance out of that phone, but the truth is that what most of us capture with our iPhones could best be classified as “snapshots”. You spent good money on that camera – why let it gather dust waiting for that next excursion. If you don’t shoot it often you are likely to miss the big shot because you are trying to remember how to use it.

Sometimes it’s not the rare creature or amazing sunset, sometimes the beauty in the mundane calls out to me. When you see something that clicks, you need to be ready to click.

I was ready to click earlier this week at the car wash…

Pre Wash
Window Wash
Rocker Scrubber
Scrubbing Bubbles
Roof Scrubber
Tri Color Protectant

As I sat in the carwash, I was frustrated that I had lost the connection to my satellite radio. I started to check my Facebook feed and looked up to see a sea of foam rubber orange and yellow sponges with soap engulfing me. I took a shot with my iPhone – it was in my hand after all, but the shot was noisy and couldn’t capture what I was seeing. I grabbed my fast 50 and started shooting. I did no color correction on these shots – you are seeing what I saw. The color of a sunset out my driver’s side window.

Shutterbug Notes:

For a split second I considered getting out the flash, but decided that the window would just bounce the light back at me. I shot in aperture mode and opened the shutter all the way. I had to turn off the focus assist to keep from getting a red reflection on the glass. I focused on the bubbles and hoped for the best. I only took 7 shots. All but one were keepers. Because I was very familiar with my camera I could make quick changes to capture something spontaneous without having to pay for a second run through the car wash.  

Tall Tales from the Big Fish

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Just some thoughts about my Pop on his 75th Birthday…

The King of Isabelle Avenue

Today my Pops would have turned 75. The King of Isabelle Avenue left us far to soon. And while I am wistful on his birthday, I like to remember the man for who he really was. He was a backyard adventurer, a big spender, a mountain man, an ear piercer, and a fabricator of tales of wonder. He could tell you something completely absurd with such conviction – I always worried that the one time I called him on something would be the one time it was all true.

In 2003 I received a call from my brother Max. He asked me if I had seen Big Fish yet. I hadn’t even heard of it. He said I needed to see it. A couple of days passed and my nephew called and told me the same thing – I had to go see this movie. They offered…

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The Little Bighorns of Boulder City

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I love to see wildlife in unusual circumstances. I recently entertained a chickadee in my house for several hours while it decided to avoid the bitter cold. Of course that lead to a photo-op and possibly a future blog post.

Over the holidays I went to Las Vegas to see family. My brother Max has moved to the Fruity Chicken full-time and I often find photo ops with his menagerie, but his wife Karen and I took a run out to Boulder City one afternoon. We went in search of the bighorn sheep that live along the canyons that make up the shoreline of Lake Mead. In my mind I thought we would be headed out to the wilds to capture those amazing beasts out in the desert where I had spotted them in my youth. No, we went to a local park where the bighorns have taken over the baseball field. They come out each day to graze and on the day we visited only the smaller sheep came out from the mesquite thicket. I framed my shots carefully to avoid the playground equipment and the tennis courts.

When we first arrived they were below us in the field, over the course of about 45 minutes they walked right past us and into the playgrounds. I actually shot some of these shots with my portrait lens!

Careful framing gives this shot the feel of the open west…
As the herd shifts you can see the cages around the trees. That is Lake Mead in the background. They had just moved across the field and were very close. I shot this with my portrait lens.
I shot this with my Fast Fifty – they were only a few feet away at this point
I moved back to get this shot, they didn’t seem to care that we were right there as they ate
I love the texture of their horns – this is a fairly young female.
The only reason to stop eating is to walk to a better place to eat.
A close up of that young ewe.
This youngster takes a second to look my way.
A little heated conversation before more eating.
This was the big man on campus. He was definitely the dominant male. As he matures his horns will continue to spiral.
Even the bossman takes a look at us.
Even with this closely mowed field there is plenty to snack on.
The big boy was really about the size of a small shetland pony, even so he stood out from the crowd
All the pretty girls seem to follow him around.

Bighorns fascinated me as a child. I used to draw them and worked really hard to get the horns just right. There was something about seeing them so near the playground that was pretty sentimental to me.

Shutterbug Notes:

I always carry at least three lenses. You never know what you will need, even when the plan is to shoot wildlife. My zoom would never have let me get those panoramic shots with the lake and mountains in the background – I was so glad to have my portrait lens in my bag. For me I need to have a minimum of a portrait lens, a macro, and a long zoom. When I travel I throw in a wide-angle. The variety gives me options and lets me make sure I get the shot I want.Â