Dominique #5

Here is another shot of our intrepid belly dancer, Dominique.  As before, this is really a moving shot, caught between poses.  Just today I realized this series is a stylistic mash-up of Jeanloup Sieff, Ralph Gibson and Robert Farber.  If I could just work in one more photographer, I'd have an influence Bingo!

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 

Sunday Morning with Man Ray

I've been spending a lot of time with Man Ray lately, as this impromptu snap of our living room hints.

Camera: iPhone 4 

Lens: iPhone 4 3.85mm

Exposure: ISO 100, f/2.4 @ 1/60s, hand held

Lighting: Natural window light

Location: My house

Processing: Lightroom 3

Avocado, HDR w/Nude Preset

First, let me mention the new theme for this blog.  I was re-reading "The Print" by Ansel Adams and he was of the opinion that photographs were best viewed against a dark gray wall.  This blog theme is starts with gray and adds colors from the Gitzo Basalt line of tripods.
For the Dominique nudes, I developed a Silver Efex Pro preset that I labeled "Grainy Nude", applied here to the avocado.

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8D

Exposure: ISO 200, f/22 @ 0.8s median of five 1 stop brackets, tripod, cable release

Lighting: Calumet Quattro daylight fluorescent lamps

Location: My house

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

Moon #6

Using the "Sunny 16" rule (for a sunlit subject, shoot at f/16 and the reciprocal of the film speed in seconds) works pretty well for the moon because it is, after all, a sunlit subject.  However, the surface is a dark gray basalt tone, so it is best to overexpose by at least one stop, as I did here, to get the naked eye brightness.  I used my old Celestron telescope, which is a Maksutov-Cassegrains design that, while acceptable for naked eye viewing, sacrifices compact design for sharpness.  To bring out more detail, I used Nik Dfine and Nik Sharpener Pro cranked up to 11.   

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: Celestron 1000mm Telescope

Exposure: Manual ISO 400, f/11 @ 1/400s, handheld

Lighting: Sunlight

Location: My house

Processing: Lightroom 3, Nik Tools

Avocado, HDR + Solarization

Who knew an HDR shot of an avocado sitting on frosted white plexi would be so dull?  Well, maybe everyone but me.  Actually, the HDR was pretty impressive in terms of detail and color range, but it smoothed out the texture of the avocado more than I expected.  Oh well, part of the learning curve.  To bring back the texture, I tried solarization and liked the result.

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8D

Exposure: ISO 200, f/22 @ 0.8s median of five 1 stop brackets, tripod, cable release

Lighting: Calumet Quattro daylight fluorescent lamps

Location: My house

Processing: Lightroom 3, Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro, Nik Color Efex Pro

Royal Crown Cola

I was shooting the Wittmond Hotel in Brussels, Illinois on Sunday. This shot is inside an old country store in nearby Golden Eagle, Illinois.

D3, Nikkor 18-35 f/3.5-4.5, 1/40 @ f/4.5, ISO 800, handheld.

Sun behind a flower

All of Preston's colorful and abstract images of late inspired me to dig into some old colorful abstract images as well. To took this photo years ago with my first digital camera ever, a 3 megapixel Nikon CoolPix. Aside from burning the edges a little bit, this is exactly how the image came out of the camera.

Camera: Nikon CoolPix (3 megapixel)

Lens: AF Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8D

Exposure: ISO 200, f/8 @ 0.8s, tripod, cable release

Lighting: Sun behind flower

Location: North St. Louis

Processing: Photoshop

Spartan #2

One of the first ideas I had for King Leonidas was to apply a red filter, but the effect was not pleasing.  Too much red can be numbing and dull.  For this shot, the background and front side light is tungsten balanced warm white fluorescent, while the front fill is skylight from a window.  The combination of warm rim light and bronze patina emerged to look like a combination of light from a blazing sunset and a splash of arterial spray.  Color Isolate Red develop preset eliminated the bright greenish yellow background.

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8D

Exposure: ISO 200, f/8 @ 0.8s, tripod, cable release

Lighting: Window light and warm fluorescent lamp

Location: My house

Processing: Lightroom 3

Solarized Spartan #1

 

This picture kicks off a series of pictures based on this plaster bust of a Spartan king Leonidas and continues the Man Ray homage.  

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8D

Exposure: ISO 200, f/8 @ 1s, 5 brackets, tripod (Gitzo Basalt GT2830 and Gitzo GH2781QR ball head)

Lighting: Window light and warm fluorescent lamp

Location: My house

Processing: Lightroom 3, Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro, Nik Color Efex Pro

Dominique Blue Solarization

After reading Man Ray - Taschen Icons it occurred to me that some of the pictures of Dominique might make interesting Rayograph style solarization.  This first attempt is a color solarization.  

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 Color Efex Pro 

1902 Worlds Fair Bridge, Infrared

This infrared capture has been through several rounds of processing since the capture in 2006.  I almost gave up on this shot after making a rather disappointing print last month because the inherent tone map yielded very flat images with pasty mid and high values.  However, I think I finally hit on a good combination of processing steps that preserved the long tonal range without clipping Zone VIII and above, which is so important for that silver image look.  

Camera: Nikon D100 

Lens: AF Zoom-NIKKOR 24-85mm f/2.8-4D IF 

Exposure: ISO 200, 24mm @ f/8 @ 1/5s, Cokin P007 infrared filter, tripod.

Lighting: Sunlight, late afternoon

Location: Forest Park, St. Louis, MO

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

Water Pool, Japanese Garden, MOBOT

The Japanese Garden at the Missouri Botanical Gardens is rich with small details that are off the main paths.  This small pool with a tiny waterfall is one of my favorites.

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF Zoom-NIKKOR 24-85mm f/2.8-4D IF 

Exposure: ISO 200, 48mm @ f/11 @ 1/125s, handheld

Lighting: Sunlight at Noon

Location: Missouri Botanical Gardens GPS

Processing: Lightroom 3, Nik Color Efex Pro

Japanese Bridge #2

The Japanese garden pond is especially green this Summer, no doubt due to the crazy hot weather, which frankly is not very pretty.  What the heck, I decided to make it all about green, leveraging the color shift of a Polaroid transfer.  It reminds me a little of the 1981 movie "Excalibur" from John Boorman, where they poured on the green lights.

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF NIKKOR 180mm f/2.8D IF-ED "Leni lens"

Exposure: ISO 200, f/11 @ 1/125s, tripod (Gitzo Basalt GT2830 and Gitzo GH2781QR ball head)

Lighting: Sunlight 

Location: Missouri Botanical Gardens GPS

Processing: Lightroom 3, Photoshop CS5, Nik Color Efex Pro

Ray with Nikon D3 Redux

This grab shot of Ray has become one of my favorites, so some alternates are inevitable.  This Fresson treatment created in Nik Color Efex Pro floats to the top for me at the moment.

A runner up is this moody interpretation using a green filter, HP5 grain and espresso toner treatment in Nik Silver Efex Pro.

Can I run with a straight shot?  Yes, sort of.  With some dodging, burning and cloning, this version is the basis for the others.  Below is the "straight" shot, cropped 1:1 in Lightroom, but otherwise untouched.  It feels too flat and high key to me (must check my Active D Lighting camera setting).  The near miss of the picture in the background is unfortunate and the bright hands are distracting.

Camera: Nikon D700 

Lens: AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f2.8 D

Exposure: ISO 400, f/4.0 @ 1/25s, handheld.

Lighting: Window Light

Location: Grand Center Artist Loft Studios

Processing: RAW in Lightroom 3, Photoshop CS5, Nik Color Efex Pro, Nik Silver Efex Pro