Available Light

Abandoned for another Internet mistress

2008-08-04T13:31:00.004-04:00

I doubt anyone will read this since I basically abandoned this blog a little more than a year ago. However, if you do stumble across this post and care to stay up-to-date with my snapshots, feel free to visit my Flickr home. Flickr is more what I wanted: a place to post photos, interact with other photographers, and not feel like I had to write so much about each photo (my weird quirk about having a blog). Anyhoo, feel free stop by:

Available Light's Flickr page

Cheers!
Ron

Rain

2007-07-21T12:15:00.000-04:00

I recently bought a very clean used Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L lens from a friend of mine. He wanted to upgrade to the new IS version of that lens so it was a win-win deal for both of us.

We finally got some rain here in central Indiana this week and Molly wanted to go out and play in it. I stood in the garage with my new lens and photographed her standing in the driveway.

Siblings

2007-07-04T00:33:00.001-04:00

Rose-colored glasses. . . er, contacts

2007-07-03T12:06:00.000-04:00

This girl had some freaky contacts. I'm sure I'm just clueless and all the athletes have them these days but it was a first for me. She said they're basically like sunglasses and no, the world does not look red.

Fastpitch

2007-07-03T11:47:00.000-04:00

I had the opportunity to photograph a fastpitch softball tournament last weekend and wanted to post a few shots that I had left on my CF cards. Most of the photos were uploaded to a PowerBook and I don't have them available yet (I need to get them from the guy for whom I was shooting). I used my Canon Rebel XT (350D) and a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L.

Wink

2007-06-05T18:29:00.001-04:00

Molly is getting very good at winking. Here she demonstrates her technique. . .

Random B&W Photos

2007-06-05T18:13:00.001-04:00

I usually don't photograph flowers or plant life very often. Normally it doesn't interest me as a subject. However, I saw this while I was photographing something else close by and thought it could be a nice image. I'm not at all impressed with the composition but my main goal was to convert it to B&W, testing some simple Photoshop techniques I recently learned using layers and masks. I still see room for improvement but it's not too bad for the small amount of time I spent on it.

This was just a quick snapshot of the front of a small town machine shop. I just like the contrast of the bricks and windows and the weathered look of the whole thing.

Yamaha M7CL

2007-05-21T19:54:00.000-04:00

Twice a year I'm asked to run the mixing board for music programs at my kids' school. I took this shot just before a performance. The result is a little less dramatic than what I had envisioned. I should have picked a more interesting focal point.

Nutella

2007-05-21T19:52:00.000-04:00

Molly enjoyed some fresh strawberries and Nutella for desert.

Grand Canyon 1978

2007-05-21T19:34:00.000-04:00

Wow, it has been a long time since I've updated this thing. In digging through boxes of slides from my dad last summer, I found a batch from the last time I hiked the Grand Canyon, again with my dad.

Vital Information

2007-04-03T12:19:00.000-04:00

One of my best friends and I went to the Jazz Kitchen Monday night to see my favorite jazz group, Vital Information. Steve Smith heads the group from behind his drums. He was the drummer for Journey from the late '70s through the mid-'80s. Also in the group are: Tom Coster (keyboards), Baron Browne (bass), and Vinny Valentino (guitar).

I recently traded in my Canon 17-85 EF-S USM for a Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 so I wanted to bring the camera along for some low-light test shots. Let me just say that I couldn't be happier! I thought the Canon lens was sharp; I didn't realize how much sharpening I had to do in post-production editing. The images here were all shot handheld at either ISO 800 or 1600, all at 1/45th of a second and wide open (f/2.8) or stopped down one notch to f/4. I've done no sharpening or post-production manipulation other than sizing them for the web. These are straight from Camera RAW to JPEG. For the lighting conditions, I'm impressed with the results.

And here is a 100% crop from one of the shots of Steve's drumkit. Again, no sharpening or manipulation; this is straight from the camera.

Alex and Molly Triptychs

2007-02-25T17:18:00.000-05:00

For Caroline's birthday this year, I wanted to do something special involving the kids. She just got a promotion at work, including an upgrade to her very own office. With all that fresh wallspace, what's a guy with a camera to do? Right — start shooting. I decided to do a little photo essay of Alex and Molly. Some not-so-traditional portraits. So, I annoyed them for an entire weekend (more than usual) by following them around the house with my camera. I decided to attach my 50mm f/1.8 and do everything with that. I enjoy the discipline of using a single prime lens in that it forces me to conform to what the lens will allow (in my case, a 50mm turns into an 80mm with the 1.6 conversion factor for my Canon's sensor size). I also wanted very shallow DOF and the max aperture of 1.8 makes that very easy to accomplish. The three of Alex and the three of Molly were matted in a horizontal line in two separate frames. I was very pleased with the final product, and so was Caroline. Unfortunately, looking at them here, they lose a lot of the subtle tones and gradations. I still need to work on my processing so photos look decent on the web.

High and dry at the marina

2007-02-03T17:04:00.000-05:00

I recently went poking around in some boxes looking for old negatives and contact sheets from school. Most of my favorite shots were taken with my Hasselblad 500 c/m. Unfortunately, my film scanner can't handle anything larger than 35mm.

This particular shot was taken in Monticello, Indiana. I was driving thru the area and noticed that this channel had been drained to make some repairs to a valve somewhere in the area. All the boats had to be floated out to Lake Shafer or pulled out altogether. I walked down the bank into the muck with my Nikon FE2 and Nikkor 28mm f2.8 lens and made a few images. I didn't stick around long for fear of losing my shoes in the mud! At the time, I had been shooting with Kodak Tech Pan quite a bit because I liked the high resolution it offered. However, I was developing it in diluted HC-110 instead of the recommended Tech Pan soup, so I always had to deal with very contrasty negatives. I tried to tone it down a bit but I still have a lot to learn about post-processing in Photoshop.

Midwest Classic Wrestling Meet

2007-01-07T13:32:00.000-05:00

A buddy of mine called me last week to see if I could help him cover the Midwest Classic wrestling meet at the University of Indianapolis on Saturday (1.6.07). It had been a while since I had photographed sports of any kind but I thought this would be a fun way to get back into it on a semi-professional level. My Canon 350D (XT) isn't what anyone would call a pro camera but I was excited to see what it could do in that setting. I made almost 500 photographs in the six hours we were there and everything worked beautifully. Since I only have two lenses for that camera so far (the 50mm f1.8 and the 17-85mm f4.0 USM IS), I borrowed my friend's Canon 70-200mm f2.8L. That was a fun lens to use! Beforehand, he rigged two Dynalite 1,000w/s strobes in the rafters that we each controlled using radio slaves attached to the hotshoes of our cameras. This worked out really well, except for us occasionally shooting at almost the same time. Whoever fired first got the light. The other guy got a really dark frame. Out of 500 shots, I think it only happened to me about five or six times. That's not bad since each of us were covering two mats that were in constant use.

I converted them to b&w because it reminds me of when I used to shoot sports on film... back in the day. Remember film? Black and white? Tri-X? TMAX3200? Anyone? Ah, yes, the stink of stopbath and fix on my hands. Those were the days...

Anyhoo, here are a few examples:

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T22:45:00.000-05:00

I hope this find everyone well and happy! I'm taking advantage of the holiday and uploading some long-forgotten images.

Here are a few random images from a hike up The Sangre de Cristo mountains in southern Colorado. I didn't realize it at the time but this is one of the longest mountain chains on Earth. It stretches from Poncha Pass, Colorado, in the north to Glorieta Pass, New Mexico, in the south. There are ten peaks over 14,000' high in the range, more than two dozen over 13,000'.

I was excited to see some snow remaining above the timberline, even in the first days of August. I can only imagine how deep it was during the winter.

One of those icy cold mountain streams they talk about in beer commercials. We filtered some of it to refill our water packs. Very refreshing!

An afternoon storm. This thing rolled in quickly! We were pelted with sleet but the most disturbing thing was the lightning. That's really nerve-racking when you're so high up and there's not much else for it to hit but you!

Just before sunset. Once the sun drops below the mountain tops, things get dark quickly. You can see a little smoke from our campfire at the lower left.

Sunrise the next morning. "Run to light from shadow / Sun gives me no rest / A promise offered in the east / Broken in the west" —Peart

Randal, Dad, and me heading out for the summit. Temperatures were still in the 40s but we knew the climb ahead was going to heat us up. We still had about 800 ft. left to go before we crossed the pass.

I was in awe of the vast landscape. Dad forged ahead...

This is what passed for a "trail" close to the pass. Breathing was difficult as we approached 13,500 ft. I can't imagine climbing Everest!

Finally, the summit. Well, the summit for us, anyway. We crossed the pass and headed down the other side. The wind up there was ferocious!

Looking back on where we'd been. It was amazing to see two lakes (one above the other) this high up a mountain.

A similar photo as one above, only this time we're heading down. I think I'd rather go up twice than down once. My legs and feet took such a pounding and my knees were so sore by the time we reached the bottom. I think I'm done mountain climbing for a while.

Looking west during the sunrise. I could really get used to this kind of scenery!

Pike's Peak Redux

2007-01-01T21:42:00.000-05:00

Seeing as how I haven't had time to shoot much these past several months, I thought it might be time to actually look at some of the Pike's Peak photos that I've been ignoring. I started this blog with a couple images from that mountain but simply ran out of time to upload any more. The drive up was breath-taking. I don't think I had ever been to that altitude before, at least not outside a pressurized airplane cabin. I didn't notice the thin air so much during the drive up but when we arrived at the top, I got out of the car and bent over to pick something up... that's when it hit me and I almost blacked out. Whew. It's a weird feeling to be standing still and be out of breath. Home for me is at 800 feet. Being quickly transported to over 14,000 feet is a bit of a shock to the system.

Most of these were taken with my little Nikon 880. I didn't feel like lugging anything heavier around if I wasn't really close to the car. Wimpy, I know.

Here we're looking down the south face of the mountain toward Colorado Springs. The view in every direction was amazing.

End of the line! Here are the buffers for the cog train. That is one stop I'd hate to miss!

Can you hear me now? Never one to be out of touch, Dad makes a cell call at more than two-and-a-half miles above sea level.

Ansel Adams takes another photo. Not sure about the crouch. Look for his retrospective, coming soon to a coffee table near you.

Isn't he just a little slice of sexy? Now I know where I got my good looks.

The Pike's Peak drive for us was very interesting. There are signs all over warning drivers to use low gears and stay off the brakes as much as possible. That's fine for you people with gasoline engines. Diesels don't have throttles like gas-powered cars, so there's nothing to stop air from entering the cylinders — no matter which gear I selected, we just went faster and faster! Thank goodness my brakes took the extra heat well and kept us from flying off the side of the mountain! On the plus side, the turbo spooled up quickly and was a lot louder at that altitude. Like music to my ears!

One of the many hairpin turns on the mountain. If you're a fan of racing (or a fan of insane driving), you owe it to yourself to watch the video of Ari Vatanen's record-breaking run in a Peugeot 405 T16 in 1988. We took it somewhat slower and didn't four-wheel drift nearly as much.

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2674471

And here's another photo of Crystal Reservoir, very similar to the one posted (way) below. However, the processing and treatment are much different.

Grand Canyon Hike: 2006

2006-12-23T18:21:00.000-05:00

Hello again! I realize it has been months since I've even looked at this blog so I thought it was time for an update. I have a few photos to post from my trip to the Grand Canyon back in the summer.

Here are Randal, Zach, and Dad heading to the South Rim. Notice how well they wait for me?

Randal sitting on a rocky point — probably contemplating the beauty of it all (and how far we have yet to go!).

Ansel Adams getting ready to take a photo.

Heading down some steep switch-backs.

Dad coming down the South Kaibab trail.

Yeah, but it's a dry heat!

Zach and Randal taking a break at Skeleton Point.

More wicked switch-backs. Note my shadow at the bottom of the image...

You can see the trail heading out to Plateau Point (a spur off of Bright Angel Trail) about a third of the way down the image.

Here we are taking a break in one of the few shady spots on South Kaibab.

The massive rock formations and deposits are so much more impressive in person. I wish my photographs would do them justice. Zach looks impressed, doesn't he?

Our first really good view of the Colorado River and the campground (that patch of trees just above the river). Even though it's a long way off yet, it motivates to know the end is in sight.

Dad and Zach cross the bridge to the north side of the river.

Looking back up.

The view from Black Bridge, looking down-river toward Bright Angel Campground.

Zach and a deer face-off. It's amazing how close we could get to some of the wildlife. I guess they're used to hikers and don't get too worried about us.

Our wonderful, air conditioned accommodations at Phantom Ranch. Dad is checking over equipment and getting ready to head out. We don't want any wardrobe malfunctions on the trail!

Refilling water bladders before heading out in the morning. You can never have too much water. From here it's a leisurely 9.8 miles on the trail and 4,460 feet straight up to the rim!

A couple of the wild turkeys roaming around the campground. They liked to spend time on the roof of the dining hall. Which ones are the real turkeys? Yeah, yeah. . . I get it. Very funny.

Heading out on Silver Bridge.

Dad making a photograph back across the bridge.

Shooting back toward the campground.

We followed River Trial quite a ways until we actually headed up toward the rim on Bright Angel.

We really liked the criss-crossing streams on the hike up. They provided much-needed cooling!

I never got tired of the views, no matter how tired I was of hiking and climbing. We were getting close to the half-way point here.

Indian Garden. We stopped for lunch and a little down time. 4.6 miles and 3,060 feet below the rim.

Almost at the top! I was getting too tired by this point to make many images. I think Zach and I had stopped to catch our breath and take a drink — this view of Indian Garden and the trail out to Plateau Point was a no-brainer. The skies were amazing but I was really wishing for some clouds to shield us from the brutal sun.

A ram, just off the trail. There were a couple others in the area but this is the only one I was able to capture.

And here we are, the morning after. I think I can speak for everyone in saying that we were sore and tired but also energized by the experience. After mountain climbing in '05 and hiking the Canyon in '06, I'm ready for something relaxing in '07!

Pike's Peak

2006-08-15T01:35:00.000-04:00

This guy was just coming down from the top of Pike's Peak on his Harley. I stopped to make a photo of the storm coming over the mountain as this guy came around a turn. He slid here and there but was really good at keeping it under control. We followed him all the way down the road until the pavement started again.

The second image was taken at Crystal Reservoir about half way up the mountain. The views were amazing, especially with the storm rolling through.

Welcome to my photoblog!

2006-08-15T01:05:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my photo site. I hope to have a lot more photos up here in the next few days. I'm still processing some of the images from the Grand Canyon but I hope to have a few up in short order.