Happenstance Macro
I had a meeting tonight that fell through, and so in the next 15 minutes or so I explored the undeveloped back lot of some condos… I love to look. I love to explore. Tonight I found a Daddy Long Legs and MAN, are they UGLY! Plus, while photographing a pretty little buttercup, a fly happened to land on it for my enjoyment. It was great, except all of these are handheld and with a 200mm macro lens so I spent a lot of time trying to breathe slowly and not move a muscle (while wobbling in my crouched-to-the-ground position.) I don’t know how those sharp shooters get so well trained to slow their bodies… Maybe it’s just practice. Anyhow, take a look:
See these and more in the Fine Art Gallery.
Tourist Time!
Heather’s Mom is in town! As such, we’ll be playing tourist for the next week. Of course, I might just take my camera to play around. Here’s from earlier today…
PS – never you mind the miscellaneous odd-man-out thumbnail size. They’re s’posed to all be square, but I suddenly got to learn about RSS caching, and I haven’t caught up yet. (AKA, nevermind, hopefully I won’t screw it up again. Ha!)
PPS – woah – the latest version looks like it worked! nevermind the PS if all the thumbnails look correct!
Harrison B
Last week I stopped into the Rec Center to listen to Harrison B play a few songs while the new bose audio equipment was being tested. Initially I was trying to get some work done on my computer, but towards the end of the set, I decided to take a few pictures. Marc also took a few shots so I’m not sure which ones were taken by who, but I did all the post processing and was able to share them with the musicians and the Rec Center (for their facebook page).
Without further delay, here’s a few images:
Learning the Ropes
Technology is amazing. I’ve been playing with my new D4 for the past week and have been really excited about the potential it holds.
To start with, here are a few portraits at the office (cause I couldn’t wait to get home with it). I’ve run them through a bit of light post-processing. A couple black and white conversions, some noise reduction, and a smidgen of clarity and contrast adjustments.
This is Joel. And he’s strongly recommending that you attend his art show in July. See Harbors2012.com for more info!
And of course, this is Heather. She is amazing. Nuf’ said!
And me, in the comfy environs of my office. (Thanks Joel for capturing this image!)
And then, on my way to the car en route to an appointment I had to stop to notice the wildlife in the parking lot:
And lastly, I took it out for a morning with the birds, and found it to be quite the performer for it’s 11 frames per second… I joked with Heather earlier that it’s more likely that I’ll lose interest in the subject before the camera runs out of buffer to shoot! Here’s a (fairly rough) composite that I worked on this evening. 16 frames into one:
Needless to say, I’m excited about the camera and it’s potential in future weddings and other outings.
I’ve put up lots more from the bird and bug explorations. Take a look: http://photos.codyjbennett.com/fine-art/2012/
Stay tuned for more!
-cb
Irene
Meet Irene. Musician, student, friend.
She’s pretty amazing.
Last Saturday with the help of Nicole and Jayleen, we took headed out to the Ferry Terminal and then farther out the road. We didn’t have anything too structured planned, though we had talked about the idea of getting wet and muddy, even to the extent of dunking her in Auke Bay with a prop guitar for an unusual musical portrait.
Lucky for her she didn’t get submerged (for now), but we still were able to find several neat places to photograph at. I’m looking forward to the next session!
Enjoy!
Strings at the Shrine
I’m a lucky guy. I was asked to the be the photographer for the 26th Juneau Jazz & Classics festival. Today I was able to attend the Strings at the Shrine event with the Avalon Quartet. It was a beautiful day at the shrine, and wonderful to see so many smiling faces. The music (as always) was stellar, and with such a great location it’s hard not to be whisked away by the experience.
Anyhow, enough of my commentary. You’ll see these images on the Jazz & Classics Facebook page (go, quick, like them!) and I’m sure I’ll have more to share over the next couple of weeks.
Enjoy!
I Love Mud
For some reason, I’ve always loved mud. The best time for a mountain bike ride is when it’s a torrential downpour, and there is no possible way to return home without being caked with mud and dirt from head to toe.
Fortunately, UAS gives folks easy access to mud. This was a course that was set up by Tara Olson for the students to have a good time at the end of the semester. It seemed like a hit, and I certainly enjoyed photographing it!
The College Grad!
Just a quick post to share a few images from a recent portrait session with Doanh (pronounced ‘Dawn’), who is a soon-to-be college grad from UAA. Fortunately for me, she had been working as a student intern within the last semester here in Juneau, so it means that I got to make a new friend who will do some amazing things with her life.
Without further adieu, take a gander. Just like my wife, I’m sure you’ll exclaim, “she’s beautiful!”
Good luck, Doanh!
See Doanh’s final choices here: http://photos.codyjbennett.com/Portraits/Doanh/
Sleepless Nights
Most people accuse me of not needing much sleep. I’m not so sure I agree, but I am certainly aware that I have strange sleep patterns. Take tonight for instance: I went to bed at a ‘reasonable’ hour (I think it was around 9:30 or 10pm), and then I awoke at 12:15am without much explanation. I even tried to go back to bed, and after laying there for 45 minutes waiting to fall asleep, I decided it was time to just get up and go read or otherwise keep myself entertained.
I’m glad I did.
Facebook did me well tonight. A fellow photographer who has a knack for aurora images had posted an image showing proof that the aurora’s were out, albeit faintly. That was enough. I went out and spent almost 2 hours collecting images. The one below which “made the cut” is one that was approximately a 33minute exposure (f6.3, ISO 400, @14mm).
I finally decided it was time to go home when I couldn’t feel the tips of my fingers. I’d blame it on the lack of gloves, but mostly I think it was my half-hearted efforts to create a time lapse that had my hands out of my pockets every 10 seconds.
Enjoy!
Also, I’ve put this up on my Fine Art page where prints and other artwork are available for purchase.
Early Morning Outing
A couple weeks back I had planned to get up early in order to catch the deep cobalt blue of the sunrise on a lovely Saturday morning. I had looked at my favorite photography app (LightTrac) and determined a best-case-scenario for some excellent sunrise with substance photos.
Anyhow, I arrived at the Fisherman’s Bend dock in Auke Bay hopeful of the specific hue of blue I had been dreaming about, but alas it was too late in the morning to have the darkness I needed. Maybe these things are meant for sunsets alone?
Anyhow, not to be outdone by mother nature, I took a few shots in hopes that maybe I would come up with an HDR image of the sunrise that I as proud of… Not so much. But, the good news is that I enjoyed my quiet (and cold) morning out, and maybe next time I’ll be better prepared to get up earlier!
The one shot I did come away with follows. It is the combination of three images, processed first for noise in Nik’s Dfine, and then secondly in PhotoMatix Pro (a recent acquisition I’m pretty excited to play with!)
3rd Annual Calendar
For the past couple of years, I have taken on the task of creating a photo calendar featuring some of my work from the past year. It’s a fun project for me to look back and find 12 of my favorite images, and of course my mom loves it because she can now brag about the artist, but still get’s her annual calendar from her son! 🙂
In reflection of my 2011 images, I didn’t think I had a strong enough collection in one particular vein to have strictly a Macro, Wildlife, Scenic, or other theme. But with Heather’s help, we were able to get it done. You can call this particular grouping, “photos that made the cut”! Ha!
For printing this year, I decided to go with one of our partners, Kodak Gallery. In the past I had used iPhoto, chosen for their fairly simple process to get a large, quality calendar. So many places offer calendars but at some minuscule size (like 8.5×11) which, to me, communicates mass-market cheapness. I’m a big fan of quality over price.
After receiving the calendars last week, I can say that I like the product. The size is more than adequate –14.25″x10.9″– (larger than the iPhoto calendar –13″x10.4″– that I’ve had previously), and the print quality gets a 7/10 ranking because while the quality of the print & paper was mostly amazing (9-10/10), the downside was that their printer obviously had some issues as there were color bands across many of the images (5/10). I haven’t decided if I’m going to chase down their quality control offices and demand a refund (reprinting is too late in the game for Christmas Gifting.) They may be expensive to make, but it’s fun to share, and most people can actually use it throughout the year!
If you don’t get one from me by new years and you REALLY, REALLY have to have one, let me know. I’m happy to order more, but you’ll cover the costs. 🙂
Here are the images (in order of how they appear in the calendar). Click for a larger view.
Tara & Andrew: Married!
Okay, so it’s true that these two have been married for nearly 4 months (gasp!), but as I’m catching up on the blog, you get a nice dose of them entering the holidays.
I _might_ be biased, but I’m pretty sure I have the best Brides and Grooms. Tara and Andrew are an awesome couple. We had a blast hanging out with them for the wedding, and of course for the “Trash the Dress” Session, but mostly I just enjoy their joy of life. Tara is constantly in full cheek-to-cheek smile, and Andrew is the same. Every time I look through their photos I grin from ear to ear too. Their energy is contagious!
Anyhow, here are a few of the highlights, but click on the link to visit their event gallery with all of their images!
http://photos.codyjbennett.com/event/Tara-and-Andrew-Wedding
The New 300
I love new toys. Especially photography related ones. It might be a new gradient filter, or some other tech item like my iPad 2 (love it as a reader!) Recently I invested in some “Big Glass” which in photographer parlance suggests major reach and wide-wide aperture (in this case, it is a Nikkor 300mm f2.8). As I mentioned back in this post, I had been borrowing a 200-400 f4 and had fun with gathering a few images before sending it back to my friend, Herb. I’m hoping that my purchase of this lens will be a better choice for my style than the slower f4 option…
My rationale was multi-fold. The price point was more attractive than a 200-400 f4 VR II which sneaks in somewhere near the $8000 range, but more than that, I’m hopeful that the f2.8 will give me more light with decent reach for my early-morning wildlife pursuits.
Anyhow, because I was so anxious to try out the new lens, I get to add another category to the blog: sports! Here are a few shots from last night. They’ve been run through Dfine 2.0 to reduce the the high-iso noise, but otherwise are untouched out of camera. Overall I’m certainly pleased with the results and look forward to hauling the behemoth out periodically to capture the world.
Looking Close
Thought I’d take a moment to post a couple images from the hike last weekend. Macro is fun. I realized after the fact that my sensor or lens was ridiculously dusted because when I cranked down my aperture to f45, every little bit comes into focus against the soft background bokeh. I was pleasantly surprised to find the starburst come through the raindrop. Next time I’ll try planning for it!
See these and more in the 2011 Fine Art gallery.
West Glacier
I am ridiculously tired, but it was oh-so-worth-it. 🙂
Today I hiked out West Glacier trail to the face of the ice. After finding the first “cave” unappealing (aka boring), I decided to head farther up the ice and around the bend to find a fairly major cave. It was long enough that daylight was blocked from the entrance, and you were left with a world of blue. This is the first image that I’ll consider a finished product. It is actually several images stitched together to look down towards each end of a bend in the cave.
Enjoy!
Click here for a larger version, or to purchase a print!
Out Late
Saturday morning I snapped awake at 4am and suddenly realized that the northern lights might be out. I had noticed a stronger than usual chance of the aurora, so was enthusiastic to get up early to explore. I checked Facebook for the requisite comments about the lights and found several folks who had commented enthusiastically. So I set out… And found nothing but a sunrise. 🙁
Last night I opted to stay up late in order to look for the lights. A friend came along so we headed out to the Mendenhall Glacier in hopes of escaping the light pollution of streetlights. After checking out the horizon and not seeing anything of note, we continued to the shore of the Mendenhall Lake. Night photography is always something I enjoy and I had hoped that I might be able to capture some of that cool blue coloration of the evening sky and maybe even the Big Dipper over the glacier itself.
I thought the evening worked out well, photographically speaking. The Auroras came out for around 1-2 minutes at nearly 2:50am, and Joel can tell you how excited I was. I seem to have a knack for getting shots of the aurora the night after a great display. It works, but one of these times I’m hoping the timing will be in my favor.
Enjoy the photos…
This is obviously modified in post production - I had noted that my camera was able to capture the detail of the mountains and nearly give a daylight feel, but with stars. I should note that it is ~2:45am, and it is in fact dark to the naked eye.
One of the techniques I learned long ago was to turn around when photographing an interesting subject. Sometimes we get so immersed in what we "should" be photographing that we miss something even more spectacular that is happening behind our backs. Try it sometime. Oh, and regarding post production here: I simply muted the tungston lights falling on some of the tree branches.
Another instance of 'Turn Around'. If you look closely along the shoreline, you can see my friend Joel engrossed in his own imagery.
Proof of the Auroras. 🙂 Oh, and note the Big Dipper
See these and more in my 2011 Fine Art Gallery.
Tara & Andrew: Trash the Dress
Check out these images from yesterday. These two are a blast. First, some time in the woods off of West Glacier Trail, then a jaunt up (and in) Montana Creek. I think the hardest part will be trying to narrow down the keepers to just a few!
Swift Water Rescue
Yesterday, while out for a bike ride we sped by a handful of dry-suit clad students and a couple of instructors. It’s that time of year for UAS’s Swift Water Rescue course. Over the past several years, I’ve wanted to go out and get a few action shots, but for whatever reasons hadn’t seen them in action. Today I went out with camera in hand to see what I could find. It was a fairly strong rain for Juneau standards for the 2-3 hours I was out there; I was drenched, my gear was soaked, but it was a ton of fun. For spending multiple hours a day in 34˚ F water, these folks were pretty chipper!
Anyhow, take a look. We’ll see if I head out tomorrow. If I do, I’ll be sure to bring my raincoat!
UPDATE: Day 2 was much dryer (well… for me, not the students!) You’ll see an additional 10 images below. Enjoy!
Tara & Andrew
Man, I love weddings. I love the vows, the old folks dancing, the hope and excitement. I love it all.
Here’s a few shots from this last weekend with Tara & Andrew. They’re a blast to hang out with, and we’re looking forward to a post-honeymoon outing for a trash-the-dress session. So excited!
I hope you enjoy these as much as I do!
Early Mornings
In Juneau, during the summertime, we are blessed with more than 18 hours of daylight at the June solstice. Even now in late July, we get around 17 hours of daylight. I love these summer months for the bright early morning outings to spend time with wildlife. There’s something magical about sharing a look of curiosity with a purely wild creature. And, in the early, early hours of the day, you don’t have to fret as much about the most unpredictable species: humans. I am grateful for my quiet time in the wilderness before most people would even consider being awake.
This morning was another outing for me. There were a couple bears near the glacier this morning. I sat and watched one of them for nearly two hours; here are a few keepers…
And, I’ve been learning to appreciate fences too…
Oh, and there was a visiting eagle too. Man I love Alaska.
Morning Wildlife
This morning I was up by 3:15 and before the sun was up I had some breakfast and 30 minutes of reading under my belt (appropriately from Wild at Heart). Getting out the door at around 4:15, I headed out to catch up with my friend Bill for some bear searching near the Peterson Creek Meadows. On the way there, I saw four deer and a bear. Here’s a picture of one of the deer.
After my brief stop, we made it out to the meadows and wandered about through the woods hoping for bear, but there wasn’t much more than a single pile of scat. It’s was a beautiful morning, but woefully slim on wildlife save for birds chirping incessantly. Of course, on the way back, there was more wildlife right along the highway… This time, it was two different bears…
You can see more images from the day at http://photos.codyjbennett.com/Other/2011/
Magnificent Moss
I love macro shots because they help me to capture such great detail of something that we commonly overlook. It’s so easy to see a forest floor and recognize that it’s green in color, and might be soft to step on, but how often do you lean in close to see the individual ‘blades’ of the moss and how they catch light during a sunset?
For me? This was a first.
