Dying Tulip, Solarized, #2

Captured at the Missouri Botanical Gardens earlier this spring, this flower on its last legs caught my eye.  I like the way tulips fall apart to give you a cut-away view.  This is my second foray into color solarization of a flower.  It requires a quite a bit of trial and error preparation in Lightroom before using Nik Color Efex Pro to create the partial reversal, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.  At least I hope so, because I'd like to finish a series by the end of the year.

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f2.8 D

Exposure: ISO 200, f/8.0 @ 1/800s, handheld, RAW

Lighting: Direct sunlight 

Location: Missouri Botanical Gardens GPS

Processing: Lightroom 3 and Nik Color Efex Pro  

200mm-Micro Nikkor f/4

I took my new 200mm Nikon Micro lens out this morning for a test drive at the Zoo. This is a 200mm that will focus at a little less than a foot. The top image is at f/11 and the bottom at f/4. The lens is extremely sharp - even wide open - and a little smaller and lighter than I expected, but I guess I'm getting accustomed to the heavier glass. All in all I'm very happy with the performance, and this lens will get a lot of use shooting reptiles, amphibians, and insects.

Red Pistil

What happens when you take a picture of a beautiful, colorful flower, convert it to gray scale, partially reverse it, stain it red and crank the Lightroom grain engine up to 11?  Well, something like this.  

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f2.8 D

Exposure: ISO 200, f/11 @ 1/80s, handheld, RAW

Lighting: Direct sunlight 

Location: Missouri Botanical Gardens GPS

Processing: Lightroom 3 and Nik Color Efex Pro 

Dominique #4

This is another "between" poses picture like #3.  The motion blur here is more subtle, but there is still enough to give a hint of mystery.  I've been working on a "look" for this series that recalls Tri-X pushed to ASA 1000 printed on Agfa Portriga Rapid #3.

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f2.8 D

Exposure: ISO 200, f/5.6 @ 1/6s, tripod, tethered, RAW

Lighting: Two Calumet Quattro Fluorescent Beauty Lights 

Location: Grand Center Artist Loft Studios GPS

Processing: Lightroom 3 and Nik Silver Efex Pro 

Dominique #3

At the end of our session, Dominque started shifting poses very fast.  Rather than have her freeze, I tried an experiment where I shot the between poses, catching quite a bit of blur. Most of the shots were not usable, but I like the tension in this one.

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f2.8 D

Exposure: ISO 200, f/5.6 @ 1/6s, tripod, tethered, RAW

Lighting: Two Calumet Quattro Fluorescent Beauty Lights 

Location: Grand Center Artist Loft Studios GPS

Processing: Lightroom 3 and Nik Silver Efex Pro 

Dominique #2

While going through the Dominique shoot, I stumbled on this treatment and decided to do a short series.  This is #2, as the title suggests. More to come...

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f2.8 D

Exposure: ISO 200, f/5.6 @ 1/6s, tripod, tethered, RAW

Lighting: Two Calumet Quattro Fluorescent Beauty Lights 

Location: Grand Center Artist Loft Studios GPS

Processing: Lightroom 3, Photoshop CS5 and Nik Silver Efex Pro 

Dominique Contortion #1

After thumbing through a copy of "Deus Ex Machina" by Ralf Gibson, I decide to to revisit pictures from my session with Dominique with new eyes.  She offered up a number of interesting poses with twisted limbs like this one.  Gibson and Jeanloup Sieff both used pushed Tri-X grain to great advantage for their nudes, so I thought I'd try it out.

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f2.8 D

Exposure: ISO 200, f/5.6 @ 1/6s, tripod, tethered, RAW

Lighting: Two Calumet Quattro Fluorescent Beauty Lights 

Location: Grand Center Artist Loft Studios GPS

Processing: Lightroom 3 and Nik Silver Efex Pro 

Snow Plow Blades #1, Museum of Transportation

This is a detail of the blade on a snow plow used to clear train tracks on mountain passes.  It would not look out of place in a Giger painting or a Saw movie.  

Camera: Nikon D100 

Lens: AF Nikkor 24-85mm f/2.8-4D IF (my workhorse)

Exposure: ISO 200, 80mm @ f/5.6 @ 1/125s, handheld, RAW

Lighting: Daylight, Auto WB.

Location: Museum of Transportation, St. Louis, MO GPS

Processing: Lightroom 3

Lafayette Park Entrance #7

The oppressive heat and humidity, yellow quality air and long work days have me longing for my favorite weather, namely 38F with fog and drizzle.  So to, cool off via sense memory, I decided to revisit one of my earliest digital pictures (#245 to be exact, one month into my adventures with a DSLR) made under those ideal conditions. I've been through several generations with this picture, but I'm finally happy with this tightly cropped, high contrast, the sepia and blue split tone version.  The workflow for this involved quite a few steps, but hey, I can feel the chill...

Camera: Nikon D100 

Lens: AF Nikkor 24-85mm f/2.8-4D IF (my workhorse)

Exposure: ISO 200, 85mm @ f/16 @ 1/20s, tripod, cable release, RAW

Lighting: Dusk Daylight, Auto WB. Set to tungsten WB for day-for-night effect

Location: Lafayette Park, St. Louis, MO GPS

Processing: RAW in Lightroom 3, Photoshop CS5, Nik SilverEfex Pro.

Dominque, Nude #1

Here is another pick from our session with Dominique.  It has quite a few technical flaws, but I like the pose, so I might re-shoot it.  The color here is a split tone develop preset called "Sepia Blue Shadows"

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f2.8 D

Exposure: ISO 200, f/5.6 @ 1/6s, tripod, tethered

Lighting: Two Calumet Quattro Fluorescent Beauty Lights 

Location: Grand Center Artist Loft Studios GPS

Processing: RAW in Lightroom 3, Photoshop CS5, Nik ColorEfex Pro