Some recent B&W images to share with you. Various cameras from iPhone to D200 add a little variety to the mix.

Wanted to show a few more recent photos from my 光 : Hikari project. The majority were taken at night and you can immediately see the dramatic difference it makes in the final images. Only wish it weren’t so cold so that I could go out and shoot some more night sets. In many respects, they could almost comprise a separate project on their own. Anyway, hope you enjoy these.

And one more based on daylight:

Moving along with my Out And About posts, I have a small batch of photos that were taken here and there with a couple of my film cameras, the Konica Auto-S and also the Canon Canonet QL17-GIII. These were from the summer, but the film sat for sometime before getting processed and scanned. I use an Epson V500 flatbed scanner and the results are nice for my purposes. Yes, there are much better and more expensive scanners available, but I don’t shoot the volume of film that I think would warrant their cost, and truth be told, reasonable-sized prints (8×10, 12×18 max.) look perfectly clear and clean from the scans I’m making, so I can’t find a reason to upgrade.

The photo above and the next few were mostly from a church festival here in town at St. Vitus Church we attended, and were shot with the Konica. Film was ISO400 Walgreen’s Color film (which is Fuji), though I converted most of them to B&W after scanning. The rest were with the Canon from various outings here and there, same film.

And now the Canonet:

Bonus Shot. This is from my G12 and not film at all, but take a look at how well the G12 does B&W compared to the film shots above. I find it very filmic in the way the images come out, at least with some massaging in Lightroom 3. If it only had a decent and usable optical viewfinder, it’d be a perfect substitute for the Canonet in many ways.

This is a follow-up to my prior post Out And About V.1. Finally got a chance to post as I’ve been sick for a bit and just felt too beat to work on much of anything. Good now though, so let’s get it on.

If you read the earlier post, I posted some photos I took a short while back from one of our trips to nearby Mill Creek State Park. Mostly it was of the wetlands and scenes from the Fellows Riverside Gardens area. Today’s photos are from an even more recent outing and are from the Lanterman’s Mill & Falls area of the park.

One thing I should point out is that often we go to the park on a whim without having planned to do so. That’s usually because we’re shopping in the area and have some time to kill so decide to get out in nature a bit. This time was no exception and so I had only had my G12 with me which is what I shot these with. Great little camera, the G12, and it’s more than capable of producing quality results as long as you know its limitations. The day these were shot was fairly warm, but quite overcast, so didn’t have to deal with the wide dynamic range that you’d get in full sunlight. You lose a bit of contrast and color saturation, but that’s natural and how the scene looked at the time, so it’s acceptable I feel. The G12 handles these kind of days nicely, and the proof is in the shots I’m posting here. Enjoy!

And for variety’s sake, an abstract taken on the same outing:

Haven’t posted much on personal activities lately, so today I’m going to start making up for that. With the weather having been reasonably decent over the last month or so, me and the fam made a few outings to our favorite spot, Mill Creek State Park in Youngstown, Ohio. As as a result, I have a few batches of photos to share which I’ll spread out over a few posts just to keep each one within a reasonable size.

Today’s batch was from a few weeks back. The weather was fairly comfy, but overcast, and I had the D3 w/ 80-200 f2.8 for the day. Unlike some photogs, I’m not one to carry a big kit with me when I shoot – at least not for unpaid, pleasure work. Instead, I’m usually one lens/one camera, and maybe a flash if I think I’ll be in a situation where I’ll need it. Any more than that and it becomes a hassle to me and also to my family as I’d be more worried about my gear than them or the outing. Besides, I’m lazy – shit gets heavy after 3-4 hours of traipsing around with my whole kit.

Anyway, like I said, this time out I had the long zoom on for a change because the reach is actually pretty handy when hiking near the river and also because I’m kind of bored shooting wide/normal all the time. Glad I made the choice because I had a few nice ops for candid shots that would have been impossible with the 24-70. I also processed the shots mostly as B&W as it was so cloudy the colors were crap anyway and B&W would let me get serious enough with the contrast to give them the pop they’d be missing otherwise because of the weather.

With that, here’s my faves from the day. Mostly landscapes, with a few candids thrown in for variety. But then, that’s pretty much Mill Creek in a nutshell, so there ya’ go. Enjoy!

You may have seen this photo before – last year in March I posted it along with some others in a post about me trying film again after over 10 years of digital only photography. Unfortunately, since this was first posted I hadn’t touched the camera until just last week when I finally got a battery for it (odd size, but easy to find -> BatteryMart). I had bought film a bit earlier, but just never got around to the battery. In case you’re wondering, Fuji makes film for these in three flavors – FP-100c, FP-100b, and FP-3000b. That equates to one color film and two B&Ws to play with.

Of the film I bought, I already burned through one of the color packs. Results were pretty decent once I got a hang of where to set the exposure dial, though it’s a bit blurry. I won’t post any of the shots because they are really mundane and were taken just to get a feel for the camera/film combo. My first real outing with it though was earlier today when we went to the Franklin Applefest in Franklin, PA. I took a few different packs with me to try, but ended up shooting just one pack of FP-3000b, which is an ISO 3000 B&W film with an extremely fast develop and drying time.

Results were pretty good for the most part, and sharper than the color film, but it seems really sensitive as to how you pull the sheet when you develop the print. As you’ll see below, it has a high tendency to unevenly distribute the developer and thus you get some unevenness in the final prints. I could say it was my rusty technique or a malfunctioning camera that was the real issue, but I had no such problems at all with the color film, so I chalk it up to the ultra-fast develop time (15 secs.) that makes it so touchy. That’s my hunch at least. I’ll find out with more certainty in the near future when I try the FP-100b B&W film that has a much longer develop time. In any case, I shot all ten pics in about 2.5 hours, which if I had had my digital gear would have probably been ten times that amount. Can’t say that’s a benefit as I don’t mind shooting a large number of frames if warranted, but I wasn’t trying to rush it today, and unlike digital, each shot runs a little under $1.00 a pop.

And here’s the results, scanned on my Epson V500 scanner, with no adjustments other than dust and bubble removal, which is a necessity. First one is dark from trying to get a bearing on the exposure comp needed. You can easily see the development unevenness in most of the shots, but that’s life and just adds character I guess you could say. One shot was snapped by the Ape, I’ll leave it to you to decide which one.

A handful of new additions to my “光 : Hikari” project. Movin’, movin’, movin’ along.

Got back earlier today from a short trip to Wilmington, Delaware to attend the opening of the RSVP  2011 show that I had work in. Since I had never been there before and since it would probably be the last chance for any kind of travelling vacation this year, I took the family with and we all enjoyed the few days away together.

RSVP is the first show outside of my local area I’ve shown work in, and being one of only twenty one artists chosen is pretty exciting. After arriving at the show and seeing the other pieces in place, I can understand how my work fits in and mingles with the other work. The show’s feel is fairly abstract, with work in a variety of media present, not just photography. There were a number of pieces that I found interesting, including photographs by another artist that I thought were very clever and well done.

The opening itself was an enjoyable event and also turned out to be part of the September Wilmington Art Loop event along with a number of other galleries, restaurants, schools and shops all displaying work from various local and national artists. After checking out the exhibit first off, we made the rounds and had an enjoyable time viewing the art, listening to music, and downing some much needed iced mocha lattes (it was a warm and humid night, so they really were a blessing). We then headed back to the show again and spent another short while there looking at the work and also enjoying a bit of people watching. The Ape also made a new friend and had fun being a bit rambunctious, though we had him tone it down a bit after a while. The people in attendance were a broad mix and constantly cycling in and out as the night went on. There were enough there to give it a lively feel, but not so many as to make it annoying and difficult to enjoy the art. Overall, we had a great time and it was good to have Taku experience some culture that he wouldn’t normally have access to at home typically.

Here’s a small gallery of pics I took at the show. Some are from the very start of the night, and then some from later on after things picked up a little. I didn’t try taking photos of all the work being shown, as these are more quicky snaps for myself and to show here to share with everyone.

Detail of above:

These last four were taken while doing the Loop.

I wanted to take a few moments to introduce a new project I’m working on called, “光 : Hikari”, which translates as “light“. I chose the title because that is essentially what these photos are working to represent – images of light itself as opposed to the more tangible subjects of typical photos. All the photos so far have been taken at various locations, with each one contributing its own unique signature to the photo created.

Why I decided to make these photos is somewhat difficult to put into words, but basically I wanted to see the light that makes up my world. I wanted to distill the essence of my visual world down to a point that would be able to be comprehended on a more basic plane of experience. Details are often distracting, so I thought I’d try and see my world without them for a change.

Regarding the technical details, all the photos are taken in one shot, with very little post-processing applied aside from some minor cropping and tonal adjustments. These are not multiple-exposures, light painting, Photoshop filter effects nor any other kind of digital manipulation/illustration. They’re pretty much straight out of camera, which I feel is essential to staying true to the concept that defines what I’m trying to accomplish. The technique I’m using applies to every camera I own, and I’m finding that it grows and changes as the project progresses, which is interesting in its own right.

How far this project will go hasn’t been decided yet. It’ll be done when it’s done and I can’t find any more reason to continue, but that won’t be for quite a while I’m betting. For now, have a look at the first steps, and if they strike a chord with you, then I’m very honored.