3 Stations East

I felt lucky.

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:52:12 -0500

Not very long ago Heather Champ started the I'm Feeling Lucky group, wherein she distributed 100 rolls of expired Chinese film for free. I felt really sad to miss the boat on the first 100 but when a second batch of 50 made it I signed up instantly.

I got the film last week and used it this past weekend during my shoot of Erika & Karl. The results? Surprisingly good! The only real issues were photographer error (fuzzy shots, there were a few) and random pink spots on many of the photos. But overall, not bad.

This also gave me a chance to borrow Jeani's SLR (a real, honest-to-gosh SLR) and it was kind of cool to work with film. Interestingly I also had to borrow her PowerShot A80 - my old camera - for the shoot as... my camera is broken. (welp) It went back to Panasonic for warranty repair today.

In the meantime, though, I'm really happy with these Lucky shots. Thanks again Heather!

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Alive

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 00:02:22 -0500

Allie No. 2

I've read more than once that one of the finer criteria of a good photograph is, "Is the photo alive?"

Well, when shooting my pals Allie & Jonathan this past weekend there was one photo that was incredibly, wonderfully alive. Here it is!

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Noisy Pictures of Shaving Cream

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 16:19:48 -0500

Brittany No. 2

On my last post about doing photos with my friends, my lovely and smart wife said:

I think pictures of people can go two ways -- capturing their personalities vs. doing artistic shots with the person more as a prop.

When I thought of working with Brittany, I instantly had a series of photos in mind: her smoking and shaving her legs in the bathtub. I envisioned them as black and whites but, they worked both ways pretty nicely so I chose color for this first group.

Brittany was great to work with and helped me realize the ideas in my head to great success. I have a good number more photos of her I'll upload to flickr but, instead of one big batch, I'll be spreading them out over the next week.

Portraiture is fun.

Other things I've realized: yes, my camera is noisy; and yes, Lightroom is awesome.

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Perhaps I Should Mention

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 08:58:12 -0500

Jacquie No. 4

They say that practice makes perfect. They are correct.

My portraiture needs more work. I'm not saying it's ever been bad, but it's been... low on the totem pole. I enjoy doing candid street shots in addition to my usual mix of power lines, buildings, and split walls... but I haven't included portraits much.

I'm attempting to change that. About a month or so ago I wrote to all of my friends and said, "Hey! I'm a photographer. You're a person. Can I photograph you?" The answer was a resounding yes. Everyone I asked agreed to do it. How humbling!

This past weekend, my long-time pal Jacquie was the first vic... er, subject. At one point when we were out she commented that the whole process reminded her of her senior photo shoot... I laughed, a lot.

When all was said and done, there were a couple hundred photos of varying quality and style. I didn't go in trying to emulate anyone other than myself, perhaps, and came out with a few dozen Very Good shots. I whittled those down to seven shots I thought were Really Good, and all of those are on flickr. #4, pictured above left, is one of the two I like the most - I go back and forth.

During the entire process I was genuinely excited about taking the photos. It felt way different than my usual photo shoots, and I enjoyed it a lot more. Jacquie was a ball to work with and was a great person to photograph.

There's more to come!

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Published: Schmap

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 08:22:34 -0500

The Schmap guide has decided that one of my photos was good enough to publish. All right!

Pendulum

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Today/Yesterday

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:21:26 -0500

Deserts taste funny

beard papa

NO THANK YOU.

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D50 Test Drive: Day One

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 19:54:15 -0600

Thanks to fellow local flickrite Paul, I was able to take a test drive of his Nikon D50 setup starting today. So I did what I usually do on Sundays: I went into the city to snap photos. (There are some now up on the flickr device.) Here are my first-day thoughts:

It's conspicuous. Something I'd grown accustomed to with the A80 and the S2 IS (even though it's relatively bulky) was being able to take shots without really being noticed. That's simply not possible with the D50, because like any DSLR it's big.
High speed ISO is no problem. Hallelujah! 400, 800, 1600 no sweat. I even inadvertently took a few shots out in daylight at 1600... came out fine (grainy, of course.)
DSLR photography is way different than regular ol' digital photography. I know that the end results can be similar if not identical, but it's a very different and more formal feeling I had out and about today. I thought more about composition, and of course shutter and aperture, before shooting.
I miss the long zoom. I had a rough time getting accustomed to the D50's lens, which is the kit lens: 18-55mm. It's a fine lens don't get me wrong, but when you're used to 12x zoom... my oh my. I guess I'll feel the same about the A80's lens. Definitely would need to get a long zoom lens, or something that can handle something in the ballpark of the S2's 36-432mm (equivalent - good golly!)
The photos were beautiful. Out of the 200+ I shot today, lots were just blown out and crappy. But the depth of field, oh my. I've really missed taking shots like this.
Controls are a little awkward, but not bad. I found adjusting the aperture to be a little more difficult than it ought to be, but then it's no match for cameras where it's buried in menus - that just blows.
My eye hurt. After a while I had a hard time keeping one eye closed whilst using the viewfinder. I sometimes shoot with both eyes open, but not normally.

All in all, I'm feeling spoiled right now. Going back to a non-DSLR for what might be a little while (lenses cost money) is going to be a trade off, but, not the worst thing ever.

One fun thing happened today while I was shooting near the Wrigley Building. I was composing a shot when two girls, probably 15 or so, walked by.

"Hey, are you a photographer?!"
"Yes," I said, still looking through the viewfinder.
"Do you do that for a living?"
"Not yet!"
"Keep at it, you'll get there!"

I thought that was sweet.

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Stripes

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 12:43:00 -0500

Those of you "in the know" might know that one of my photographs was scheduled to be printed in a book, Communicating with Pattern: Stripes. I got the book today and was thrilled to find that seven (!) of my photos are featured in the book!

The book itself is a really nice, inspirational design book. Lots of good stuff here and I'm honored to be amongst other great photographers.

Go get a copy!

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Earning My Stripes

nobody@vox.com(Paul) — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 07:17:42 -0500

This morning I received a letter on a subject I'd long forgotten about: one of my photos is being published in Communicating with Pattern: Stripes, a book compiled in part by Keith Stephenson.

Keith contacted me a while ago and asked me if I was interested in contributing. What else could I say?

The book comes out in August (though Amazon claims September), so keep your eyes peeled.

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