Posts tagged as:

photography

Wizard Rock

by Cecily on August 25, 2008

A sampling of some shots I took during Sunday’s Remus Lupins (w/ The Whomping Willow) concert at Vancouver Public Library’s Central Branch.

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Another favorite shot from this weekend

by Cecily on April 28, 2008

They laugh constantly!

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flame of inspiration

by Cecily on April 27, 2008

 

  

flame of inspiration, originally uploaded by cecily.

I’m crossing into uncharted territory.

On Saturday, I did a photoshoot for my friend Jaime and her boyfriend Steve. This is the first time I’d shot a couple, and I’d be lying if I said it was easy.

It wasn’t.

I have a lot to learn about working with people and how to make them feel more comfortable. I also have much to learn about using a huge honking seventeen-pound 80-200mm lens (which I used for both photos).

Yet despite my reservations, I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Laughing with friends, snapping photos, and basking in the glow of two people who are very much in love.

jamie and steve

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old friend

by Cecily on April 26, 2008

 

     

old friend, originally uploaded by cecily.

It’s 1 AM, I can’t sleep, so what do I do? I start practicing photography techniques.

It’s a sickness, I tell you.

At any rate, to get this shot, I positioned the bear on top of a CD tower. The background is an old piece of black foam core that I bought from an art supply store for about $3.50. I positioned an off-camera flash — attached to a lamp with my Gorillapod SLR tripod, no less — at a 45-degree angle to the bear, camera right.

I set the D300 to Commander mode, which means the camera would control the output of the off-camera flash wirelessly. I didn’t set a flash mode for the on-camera flash because I didn’t want it to go off and ruin the light; instead, I left that setting blank.  I also set the speedlight up in the camera’s controls, and used iTTL metering. If you’re a Nikon shooter, you’ll know what iTTL means. 

Before I took the shot, I set the camera in program mode, and metered the bear using the camera’s Matrix metering (evaluative for you Canon shooters out there). I made a note of the suggested aperture and shutter speed, and switched the camera to manual mode. Then while in manual mode, I dialed down the shutter speed to 1/15 of a second and took the shot.  This technique is called “dragging the shutter”, and the best time to use it is when you want to keep background detail in your shot. This way, instead of the black foam core looking like a featureless black blob, it actually shows some texture, slight color, and detail. 

I set the flash to fire rear curtain sync because I’d heard you get better detail this way. I tried it with front curtain sync but couldn’t tell the difference in the light, but this shot came out better, so this is the one I ultimately used.

Post-processed with Wynona Robison’s Subtle Cross Processing and New Groove Photoshop Actions.

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The D300 has landed

by Cecily on March 29, 2008

Now you know as soon as I got my tax refund, I was bound to get my hands on one of these. I’ve attached the prerequisite ISO comparison photos to this post. From left to right, a shot at ISO 200, then a shot at ISO 3200, and finally, the ISO 3200 shot enlarged to 100%:

If I could marry a camera, I’d marry this one.

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I can haz photos?

by Cecily on March 17, 2008

It’s a little cheesy, but I still laughed:

ohhai
Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

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Yours truly, by Photojunkie

by Cecily on March 13, 2008

IMG_2105-2.jpg
(Photo by Rannie Turingan of Photojunkie.ca)

One of the many highlights of my trip to Austin was my photoshoot with Rannie Turingan of Photojunkie.ca. I don’t like being photographed (that’s why I’m usually the one behind the big black camera), but Rannie did an excellent job given the lump of clay he had to work with.

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links for 2008-02-29

by Cecily on February 28, 2008

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Buy My Book!

by Cecily on February 28, 2008

Finally, Blurb has introduced international selling for non-US residents!

If you’re interested in buying a copy of my first (and so far, only) book of photographs, follow the link below:

If you think I’ve priced the book too high (or too low), please let me know in the comments or via direct message at twitter

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On the campaign trail

by Cecily on January 29, 2008

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Michael David Murphy (AKA whileseated on flickr) is rapidly becoming one of my favorite photographers, and his blog 2point8 is rapidly becoming one of my favorite blogs. Murphy has been documenting the Georgia and South Carolina Presidential primaries lately, but when he’s not taking shots that showcase his unique perspective of the process, he’s writing about what makes campaign photography great — and not so great. As an added bonus, Murphy picks out some examples of campaign photography that goes beyond the typical “candidate stands in front of cheering crowd with arms raised” garden variety shots you see almost everywhere. Of the ones he linked to in his post, these are my favorites:

Of all the types of photography out there, photojournalism is what appeals to me most. Maybe one of these days I’ll actually listen to that voice in my head that keeps urging me to go for it.

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