Faceless at the Heard

Another no-face portrait. My son again, who hates getting his picture taken more than going to the orthodontist to get his braces tightened. Luckily, he was tired from walking through the Heard in McKinney, so I was able to catch this pic of him just completely worn out.

Spring is finally here, so I'm planning on getting out to the Heard soon for some new pictures.

AND, speaking of the Heard, they're about to be embroiled in a court battle over a sewage line. From their website:

The North Texas Municipal Water is suing the Heard for eminent domain. They want to put a 3,500 foot long, 42 inch diameter sewage line through the sanctuary prairie land and underneath the wetlands. They would also impact land of a total of 110 feet wide along the length of the 3,500 foot sewage line for accommodation of construction vehicles.

There would be short term and long term damage to the sanctuary including displacing animals that may never return, disrupting native prairie foliage, trees and grasses, contaminating the wetlands, causing a permanent odor, and disturbing the environment for regular maintenance visits and possible emergency situations with the pipeline.

No agreement has been reached and a trial date is going to be set. I think I can speak for the folks who really enjoy the Heard and say that I hope the Heard wins this fight. You can stay up-to-date on the latest news by signing up for their newsletter or following them on Twitter.

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Turtle Spotting

Home owners dilemma...you paint the bathroom and put up a border. You pick out some nice picture frames that look good with the color, then pick photos that look good in the frames. 

I took these at the Heard Museum when I had to get the kids out of the house while Mom was doing the painting. I don't do much landscape photography, but for whatever reason I took a couple of quick shots this day. The kids were hurrying ahead of me on the trail so I really didn't take any time to really look over the scene.

When I got the images home and looked at them, I discovered that I inadvertently caught an image of some turtles sunning themselves on branches that were poking out of the water. Upon closer inspection I discovered there were 22 turtles in all. See if you can spot them. This is the unedited image:

(click the image to enlarge)

Answers are here:

So who really cares about turtles anyway? The point is to look at what you're photographing. I probably could have gotten far more interesting shots if I had just taken a few minutes to look at the scene. With the kids rushing ahead of me I didn't really stop for too long. I got lucky catching what I did, but I know I could have done better. I also didn't realize I'd actually be using the picture to hang somewhere in the house.  It's in the bathroom, so maybe it'll be inspiring

This is the second picture which I made into an 11X14. Very tranquil. Perfect for the bathroom.

Old = New (Polaroids Too)

This rings true for lot's of things...fashion, architecture, cars and photography.

I've noticed a couple of trends. First, because the majority of photography is digital, people are starting to miss the look of their old, grainy photos that they're used to seeing. Now there are programs like Photoshop that can run plugins that will give you that old, faded look with one click. One that I especially like is called Color Efex Pro. There are many filters to choose from to alter how your photo looks and many of them will give you an aged look...just like those 30 year old photos in your photo album

For the pic above, I used a filter called "bleach bypass" and then lowered the contrast a bit to get this kind of look. Still very contrasty and desaturated. It sort of looks like an old faded photo.  

Another trend I've noticed is in advertising. Lot's of ads that use photography go for that "old photo" look as opposed to a crisp, sharp image that's so common in the digital world. To top it off, they are also starting to look like they came from a camera phone.  So much photography you see these days comes from mobile devices and it seems like advertisers have really recognized it's potential in selling products.

And Polaroid cameras are making a comeback next year. It appears people actually miss the look of those old instant prints. 

So now I'm guessing we'll start to see more and more software that can give digital photos that old look. Personally, I love the old look and it's one of the reasons I shoot so much black and white.

I wonder what people would think if I showed up at a job with one of these:

Super Shallow Depth

Still at the Heard, I used a 50mm f1.4 for this one. Not my lens, I'm still mostly working with my 24-200mm f4.0.

Got some great depth of field on this one. I used a little bit of flash just for some fill-in since this was a covered area. It was also about 85 degrees. Kayla was becoming uncomfortable wearing that sweater.

Argyle & Pigtails

The week before last I did a marathon photo shoot with Kayla, who has worked with/for me for a few years now. I also did her senior pics last year. She's getting ready to to move on to some big endeavors so she agreed to squeeze in one more shoot while she's still in town. More on that later.

Our first stop was the Heard Museum where we spent over two hours taking pictures. This was one of the first ones we did. I thought the ripped up jeans and pigtails against the wood screamed for some sepia. The argyle sweater doesn't exactly fit, but we weren't going for any type of theme and I didn't tell Kayla what to wear or what to do with her hair.

Uninspired at the Heard

So last Saturday I decided to go out shooting and I took the kids with me. I was hoping to get some outdoor shots at the Heard Museum that I might be able to use in my portfolio. As it turned out, it was a cold, cloudy, extremely windy morning. The kids were not happy about having to go out first thing on a Saturday morning and it definitely shows in the pictures I did manage to get.

The wind at times was blowing pretty strong and the sun was in and out. I was constantly fiddling with the camera controls while I made the kids stand there freezing and waiting for me to get it right. It was an uncomfortable situation for all of us and I wasn't feeling very inspired. Needless to say, I didn't get this pictures I really wanted to get, but did manage to get a few decent ones.

The one above was shot at 1/160 sec, f5.4, ISO 200 and lens set at 42mm. I added some vignetting in Photoshop and a small crop and I think the results are not bad. However, I can't use this in my portfolio because it's shot as landscape instead of portrait like everything else in my portfolio...multiple streams lack intensity. I haven't even tried making it black and white yet.

1/125 sec, f4.8, 38mm, ISO 200, fill flash

1/200 sec, f3.8, 20mm, ISO 200
Think he's cold?

1/200 sec, f5.3, 46mm, ISO 200, fill flash

1/200 sec, f5.3, 46mm, ISO 200

At this point the sun is becoming an issue. I think I forgot to adjust my ISO back down to 100 since I was using a fill flash when I needed it anyway. It didn't matter as the kids look pretty miserable in every picture. At least I captured their mood!