Time passes us by

I think one of the reasons I got into photography was that I have a very poor memory.  I know there were places I saw and things i experienced as a child but I have almost no memory of them. For instance when I was seventeen I was playing with the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra and we toured South America.  I have almost no memory of this place.  I have a fuzzy image of lots and lots of power lines in Buenos Aires, I remember a huge lake I could see from the hotel room in Montevideo, Uruguay, and just bright white blinding sand on the beach in Rio.  I know I was there, and if I saw it again I would remember it.  My family went to Hawaii back in 2007. I wasn’t into photography then, but even when I look at the snapshots, memories come flooding back into my brain.  Obviously the memories are there, but they are filed away in some recess of my mind.  

The image below stimulates all the senses for me.  It wasn’t that long ago that I had taken it but I forgot about the picture for a few weeks.  I was going through my backup hard drive when I saw it.  I remember the fear I had getting to the location not knowing if I was trespassing. (Turns out I was not)  I could feel the humid air of the oncoming thunderstorm, and could smell the stagnant water of the pond.  My boots were gathering mud standing beside the reeds, and mosquitoes kept attacking my ears.  The picture means so much more to me because of the emotions and experience I had creating the moment. For me, that moment in time reasserts itself when I see the picture.  


Use your camera, if you don’t have one, talk to Santa.  Memory is fleeting. Capturing memories you can relive over and over lasts a lifetime.

Nikon D800 Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 44mm f/8 ISO 100 7 image HDR

HDR Photography

High Dynamic Range photography is a technique I use often in the processing of my photographs.  It is highly controversial right now and examples of HDR processing can be seen all over the internet. Some photographers make fabulous use of  this technique while others take their photos to a level beyond surreal.

Why I use it:

Photographers measure the amount of light in “stops”.  The human eye can see variations of brightness measuring about twenty stops. The best cameras on the market today can capture five to seven stops of light. (varying degrees of brightness)  So in order to gather as much light as needed to fully illuminate a photograph the photographer could take the same picture multiple times and blend them together.  

Example:

In the picture below the sky is the brightest object in the photograph.  In one of the pictures I took the sky looked rich and vibrant with color, but the topiary and the flowers in front of the gate were pitch black.  At the other end of the sequence the flowers and statue had rich color, contrast and depth, but the sky was pure white.  Blending the different pictures together produces the image below.  Which is much closer to how I saw it, then any one picture could have reproduced.

HDR Photography

Nikon D800 Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 32mm f/18 ISO 100 7 image HDR

#TravelTuesday Grattan Bridge Dublin Ireland

The final night of our trip to Ireland we spent in Dublin. It had been a long day of driving across the island. We had left the Ring of Kerry that morning and pulled into our hotel hungry and damp. Evening was approaching and it had brought pockets of rain into the city. It was time to check out the Temple Bar scene. To get there from our hotel required a ten block walk and traversing the River Liffey which divides Dublin into North and South halves. We crossed on the Millennium Bridge which gave us this wonderful view of Grattan Bridge. The Grattan was first erected in the 1600’s but had to be rebuilt a few times due to flooding and maintenance issues. The bridge today dates from 1874. While we were searching for a place to eat the drizzle subsided, and for a few moments the sun poked through the gray sky allowing the picture you see here.

Grattan Bridge Dublin Ireland

Nikon D5100 Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 @ 11mm f/5.6 ISO 100 4 image HDR

Phoenixville Firebird Festival

Each year Phoenixville celebrates it’s namesake by burning down a three story wooden firebird. This was the first time I got to see the spectacle. Visitors come from neighboring cities to enjoy the event. There are street performers, plenty of good food (both from restaurants and vendors) a parade, live music,and a wonderful community spirit. Phoenixville’s original name was Manavon but in 1849 as the borough was incorporated it used the name of the town's biggest employer, the Phoenix Iron Works, to create “Phoenixville”. Since 2004, to celebrate it’s rebirth, the city has held the Firebird Festival. Clay birds are made weeks before the ceremony and placed inside the giant wooden phoenix. They are reclaimed Sunday morning after the burning. Some of the pictures in the gallery are of Spirit Wing, which performed just before the event, and of the Playing Mantis and Admo Ignis fire dancers, which were amazing. Please check out the FirebirdFestival website for more information, and put it on your calendar for next year.

Firebird Festival

Nikon D4 Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 with 1.4 tele @ 280mm f/4 ISO 400 1/320 sec

You can download the images for free but no printing is available