resolutions

It's been a good 2007 - I started out wanting to take more pictures of people and really got on top of that this year. I still have a bundle of fears and apprehnsions about approaching strangers but I now understand at least that most of it is in my head. That's been a huge, fun lesson for me. It has made me more out-going, in general, and also let me meet plenty of interesting and fun people that I would never have spoken with before. The big resolution from last year, other than more pictures of people, was to finish the Ironman and that was a big part of my life at the start of the year. Exercise has taken a bit of a back seat through the rest of the year, initially from post race mental fatigue - I just couldn't be bothered - and now in the last 3 months as I've hurt my ankle. So looking forward, I'm going to get back into the training, try to do some more exercise, swim a bit and generally keep Amanda company while she gets ready to do Ironman Lake Placid in the summer of 2008. Photographically, I'm going to write and publish a book. At least one. Maybe two, now that I've started thinking about doing it. It looks so innocuous written down in a single sentence like that. 'Write a book' - that can't be too hard now, can it ? I've got the ideas ready to go for two, all I have to do is follow through... Also, take more pictures, spend more time catching up with friends and blog more. I think that's enough for one year.

I wasn't going to post any resolutions but MK asked.

International Solo Photography Book Month

Paul Butzi has come up with a really interesting idea over on his Musings on Photography blog. It is early days yet, but the concept of shooting and putting together a book in one month is fascinating. There are plenty of print on demand companies such as Blurb or Lulu that could be an ideal outlet for this kind of project.

In particular, what I like about this challenge is that the time frame is constrained enough that you have a chance of finishing it. Getting to the point of having a published, finished book, with the breathing space of it not having to be 'perfect' means that you might be able to break through the creative block of procrastination and perfectionism that kills ideas. Starting writing a book is a daunting task that can stretch out into the future, so far that it can stop you even before you start. Books are hard. They can consume your life, never quite being good enough or needing tweaked a bit more. The last time I tried this, it took me 10 years to get to 'the end'. So this idea of capping it at a month seems a great introduction to the fun of creating books. There is achievement in the completion, along with all the things you can learn along the way, that you don't ever find out until you actually say 'done'.

From what I've seen, blurb looks like it might be a good place to host or sponsor a project like this - they have the concept of a bookstore that the books could be sold together, perhaps even with them promoting the final results. The goal really isn't to sell a bundle of books, but to commit to actually finishing the project and then achieving that first completed draft, either as a PDF, website or physical book. I'm already brainstorming ideas for mine!

tree

Lensbaby, with star aperture. Felt the star was appropriate to jazz up the tree lights and put a star on the top of the tree. Focused set on the presents and locked on tripod, using a lensbaby 3G. 8 second exposure, painting with light to fill in the presents a bit as well. This sort of shot wouldn't be possible with the earlier lensbabies - probably the first time I've really used the locking features of the 3G.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, had just settled down for a long winter's nap, When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below, When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, and he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name; "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! on, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! now dash away! dash away! dash away all!" As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky, So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, with the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too. And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof the prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my hand, and was turning around, down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, and he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, and the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath; He had a broad face and a little round belly, that shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread; He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, and filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose; He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, and away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

amanda, tim & kate

Lensbaby, star aperture ring and some Christmas lights

christmas cactus

Merry Christmas from Texas! Took the lensbaby out this evening, with the star aperture and shot some Texan Christmas lights.

the westway method

A couple of readers have mentions the ads that have recently appeared on this blog. I'm not getting in to advertising in a big way, but I am helping to sell a product that I was involved in developing, over a period of five years. There's an instructional DVD available now and an e-book coming in the next few weeks. The Westway Method of Photography is a DVD created by a good friend of mine, Randy Kerr. Randy is a very successful wedding and portrait photographer, working at the highest levels in Austin, Texas. I met Randy about 5 years ago through a shared acquaintance and we've hit it off ever since. I have never met anyone with such an innate understanding of light and photography. Nearly everything I've learned about natural lighting for portraiture, I've learned at classes taught by Randy and that I now help him teach. He's also a bit of an unusual character, developing his portrait business in a field in Bastrop, Texas - about 30 miles outside of Austin. Living in a tent and working the land, he carved out a portrait studio, cutting back trees to suit the light in particular seasons, building features to use as backgrounds and planting wildflowers to provide foreground elements throughout the year.

The Westway DVD presents Randy's 10 step approach to photography, describing it in a very down to earth and non-technical way. There's a clear description and demonstration of camera basics along with some rarely documented fundamentals on finding and using natural light for portraiture. The subject matter ranges through landscapes, portraiture and wildflowers, with an ecological bent. The 1 hour DVD also touches on using lighting modifiers and teaching you how to work within the limits of your camera equipment, to get the best from your photography. I have to admit I also make a brief appearance in the DVD, working through the effect of depth of field and aperture on final images. I think this is a great instructional DVD to introduce the fundamentals of photography and light and really presents some hard to find information on natural light portraiture, in an understandable way. It would also make a great Christmas present! You can see an example chapter from the DVD in the video link below, at slightly reduced quality for web display. I particularly like the visual way it teaches how to identify mid-tones in a scene, to help evaluate exposure.

The DVD also recently won a Telly award for an educational product and was very well shot and produced by Bradley Helgerson. If you are interested, you can order the DVD here. There are also reviews of the DVD available from other owners, here.

me, myself & I

A quick self portrait. Haven't had much time in the last few weeks to take pictures but I did manage to make this shot. It probably looks more complicated than it really was to shoot - I had the basic idea of wanting the larger, straight-on self-portrait far down in the frame and then with that image made, it was just a case of printing and reframing/ reshooting until I had enough levels. Lighting was just a 580EX flash in a shoot through umbrella quite close to the camera and subject. Took about 20 minutes to shoot the whole series. I think it helps that my Epson R800 is such a fast printer! Fun to shoot and yet another use of the red nose. I still haven't quite got to using it for the portrait series that I originally planned to use it for, but still getting some mileage from it!

kate & tim

Another shot from the Big Bend adventure. Kate & Tim were looking for something festive and I happened to have the becoming ubiquitous red nose in my bag, along with a santa hat that we'd planned to use for our own Christmas card pictures. We were in Ernst Tinaja, a long, thin river cut canyon with amazing red-orange walls. The sun was high over head but the light was bouncing around the canyon walls. The last time I was in there I'd noticed that the light was beautiful for portraits and I wanted to try it out on this trip. I'd borrowed Sam's 10D for these shots and was just about familiar enough with the controls to get the shots I wanted. I like this particular one because I'd asked them to balance the nose between them and they just look so happy while playing around with it. The diagonal composition and the gaze works for me, along with the two bright red areas to keep the eye moving - even with the nose so centered in the frame and such a dominant colour - I think the splash of red in the hat offsets it a touch, balanced with the complimentary dark green patch in Tim's top. Similarly his dark hair balances the white trim on the hat - shapes are about the same size and shape, so an interesting colour and tone symmetry around the ball.

big bend

I love Big Bend - such a beautiful, harsh place. So many extremes and different landscapes in one location. Thanksgiving is the busiest time of year, so we tried to get in early. Left from Austin at 5am on the Wednesday and arrived at the ranger station around 1pm to find that almost all the campsites were already reserved. Luckily enough, we'd rented a 4 wheel drive Jeep so could access some of the more out of the way back country sites. We picked Gravel Pit 4, on the West end of the River Road. Not that inspiring of a name but we were told this was one of the better sites. It was down a long, rutted, gravelly and sandy road in a small copse of trees. The roads are fun in the right equipment but I wouldn't like to take a 2 wheel drive car down there - though some manage. On the first day it was over 80F. Hot. Dry. We set up our tents and went for a wander around. We were about 50 yards from the Mexican border - the Rio Grande river was just down a path from our camp site. The sun was setting as we started to make dinner, a clear blue sky overhead with the moon rising, close to full. Lovely.

That first night was windy, with gusts up to 41MPH and about a pound of dust dumped in each tent. I didn't get a lot of sleep as the tent was flapping around so much in the wind. Woke up with a light layer of the desert on top of us all. The temperature had really dropped over night but at least the wind died down. Another beautiful sunrise over the desert.

We had breakfast, broke camp and moved on. That morning we hiked in to Boquillas canyon and listened to Victor, the singing Mexican, serenading us from just over the border on the other side of the Rio Grande river. His tip jar is in the US and he sings from Mexico, sneaking across every now and then to pick up what might have been left for him.

After that we drove the fun and rutted Old Ore road to Ernst Tinaja. This is one of my favourite parts of the park - a narrow canyon with beautiful light and some really tortured rock formations. Saw a couple of rather furry tarantula spiders on the way into the canyon. We had lunch in there then moved on to the hot springs. Along the way, I talked to the guy behind the counter at the Rio Grande campsite store and found out that many tents had broken in the wind, the previous night. Somehow we all got lucky - though four of our group decided enough was enough and headed back home.

That night we camped beneath Nugent Mountain (site NM1)- beautiful sunset, amazing clouds, freezing winds and temps in the 20F range. Did I mention it was 80F the day before ?! Nugent mountain is a really interesting photo op - a dramatic silhouette. It was frigid the next morning. Cups of tea and coffee helped but eventually the sun rose over the Sierra del Carmen range and warmed us up.

We broke camp and drove into the Chisos mountains basin for the big hike of the trip. We'd packed as lightly as possible for an overnight hike. We climbed up the Laguna Meadows trail from the basin ranger station, up onto the south rim of the Chisos range (at around 7,500 feet). Carrying about 2 gallons (16 pounds) of water each on our backs, along with food, tents and lots of warm clothes. We had ended up in the furthest backcountry camp site (NE4) from the starting point and there had been a mountain lion sighting at the camp site just the day before (the ranger was really excited for us all!) The hike out up Laguna Meadows is beautiful - not too step and some great views. Once we were at the top, about 3 miles in, we stopped for a break and took in the view. I produced a red nose and used it to get a set of pictures of all the hardy souls we were hiking with that day.

Up on the rim, the hiking got a lot easier - a 4 mile stroll around the edge to the camp site. The views are breathtaking, over the edge to Mexico and the desert far, far below. We set up camp and were confused by a warm inversion that meant it was about 40F and calm/ comfortable up there at 7000+ feet. Spent probably the most comfortable night of the trip up there, watched an amazing sunset and woke up for an even more breathtaking sunrise. The site is a bit back from the edge and quite sheltered from the wind, but stunning vistas are only a few steps away. Happy and relaxed we broke camp and started our hike down.

Our group split at Emery point - about half of them went for the 2 mile round trip to the summit, while the rest of us headed down. My ankle is still bothering me a bit so I decided to go for the easier option. Sam and I talked about cameras and photography most of the way down - he'd been more crazy and brought a Canon 10D with him so I'd used it a bit through the day. My Panosonic DMC-LX1 proved a much lighter option and did quite well for a point and shoot camera (all the pictures in this post were taken with it). I do like the widescreen aspect ratio that it defaults to. Always wanted a digital panoramic camera and this the closest I can get to an X-pan. On the way down the Pinnacles Trail, about 500 feet from the basin and car park, we entered a cloud bank - a short while later it started raining. Half an hour earlier we were toasting in warm sunlight - not a cloud in the sky. We had watched the cloud pour in to the basin through the Window. Just as we reached the basin valley trail, the rain turned to freezing rain and the temperatures plummeted. About 10 minutes later I had a hard time opening my car door because it was frozen shut. Jumped in the car, turned the heating on and waited for everyone else to get down off the mountain - luckily enough we all eventually did!

Everyone got down from the hillside before it got too serious - we also made it out of the basin, down into the desert, before the road down was closed (I heard later that it was shut for over a day - so we were quite fortunate to get out). After that fun, we decided to head on home. Nobody felt like pitching a tent in the snow for the night! We drove along the road to Marathon in an increasingly fun blizzard, slipping and sliding around on the road. We managed to struggle in to Marathon and snagged the last two hotel rooms in the place. Settled down for the night in front of a roaring fire at the Gage hotel (well worth a visit if you can) and had some great steaks for dinner. Woke up the next morning and the sun was splitting the pavement - warm, beautiful clear skies, no wind. A perfect day in the desert, yet with everything covered in snow!

More snow was forecast but we high-tailed it out on the 'low road' back to Austin. Highway 90 follows the border to Del Rio then cuts back up to San Antonio and the snow disappeared really quickly on that route. Tim was thrilled to get to take us all through the border check-point and thankfully didn't say anything to get us deported. We made good time and got back to Austin in the early evening - exhausted from our crazy trip. I can't wait to go back the next time. Big Bend is a place of such dramatic contrasts. Each of the three times I've been has been really special yet wildly different. Get there if you can.

Big Bend

Just got back from a great trip out to West Texas for the Thanksgiving holiday. We camped in Big Bend National Park and had a great time, high mountains, nights freezing in the desert, snow storms, sand storms. Survived it all and got home this evening. This is a picture of the crew we climbed the Chisos mountains with. Took this about half way up the Laguna Meadows trail, as we hiked up to our campsite on the rim. I'll post more about the trip after some sleep!