The Streets

This past March, Liz and I had the opportunity to take 10 days and head off for a short jaunt overseas, fulfilling this year's quota (at least for now) of exiting the U.S. border at least once annually. We chose England because, Liz had never been (I have previously only visited once) and because one of Liz's close friends, Tori, is currently getting her master's degree at the City University of London. Needing no better excuse than a good deal on a non-stop flight from Denver and Tori's offering of free floor space to sleep on, we were on our way.

England is a beautiful country with London, serving as a particularly compelling, albeit bustling, centerpiece. On my last visit to 'Jolly Old,' I noticed the frantic pace that Londoners went about their daily (and nightly) lives. It's not that I'm not used to city life; I grew up an hour's train ride from "the" city (New York), and spent many a day and night there. However, London is somehow different to me. I'm not sure if it is the modern double-decker buses blasting by inches from a cross walk, or the fact that heavy traffic can move calmly but swiftly through a round-about at all hours of the day, but there is a difference to me. Perhaps it is simply the fact that what seems normal (drive on the right) is just different enough in England (drive on the left) to make me take notice. This visit, I felt compelled to try and document a bit of this hectic downtown city activity. So, in honour of my favourite [sic] British hip-hop group, I offer up this mini photographic study of The Streets.

Pre-rush hour, this "sub way" (literally, walkway under a road) downtown near Tower Hill had a bit less traffic than it would just a few hours later. My new 11-16mm wide angle lens let me capture the entire tunnel as well as the walking man, without being too conspicuous.

Detail of some of the suspension system used to hold up Tower Bridge.

St. Paul's Cathedral, after hours. London does a really great job of providing outside lighting for its beautiful historic structures (which are many in number). It reminded me of the way that Istanbul lights up its many famous mosques and other buildings. They are a great help to any photographer trying to capture a nice night time shot.

Interior of the upper level at St. Pancras International rail station. Lit with beautiful natural lighting, this clean and modern rail station still shows hints of its awesome, older and dingier days serving coal-powered trains.

Commuters walk along Westminster Bridge, ever under the watchful eye of Big Ben.

Man, waiting for the tube. I love photographing London's underground. Besides being a marvel of technology and design, it is a great place to take movement photos. The coloration of the cars make for great streaking shots. The tube is also insanely busy. I have ridden the tube as early as 4:30 AM, all the way to close well after midnight, and I have never seen a station or car empty. That being said, I am always a bit nervous when I whip out the camera and start shooting away. London is known the world over to be the "most watched city" on the globe. police and security CCTV cameras are everywhere, and additionally with the 2012 Olympics looming, I can never be too sure what might be perceived as overstepping the boundaries of what can and can not be photographed, especially in high traffic areas. Luckily, I have never been stopped or questioned, and have come out with some decent photographs as a result.

Post-rush hour shoppers just outside Angel tube stop.

Trafalgar Square shot from the base of Nelson's Column. The building at center is the National Gallery, which holds the largest British collection of art. The square is always hopping, especially in the evening, and the twin fountains help frame this beautiful city scape.

Double-decker bus tearing through a round-about. I had been trying to nail a decent movement shot of a bus all week, when finally on our final night in the city, I was able to capture this one. I really enjoy the buses in London. They are iconic, big, colorful, speedy, and make, what I think are very interesting photos.

Too Cool for School

Here are a few photos I took with Stevo's slick 50mm f/1.4 portrait lens while practicing for the wedding shoot. Liz looked too cool for school this afternoon out in the hay field where we took the photos. The depth of field on this bad-ass but simple prime lens is ridiculous. It also produces beautiful bokeh.

The Big Day

In this follow up to the previous sunset portraiture post, I present a mini-collection of some of the best photos that came from Stevo and Misha's amazingly wonderful Maui wedding. The sunset was the best I had seen it in 9 days, and to the delight of the 10 guests (ages one to one-hundred) and the happy couple, the weather was absolutely spectacular.


This shoot was full of interesting challenges. The primary challenge was to balance getting close enough to the couple to make a good shot, but all the time being mindful of the crashing surf and sea-spray that wanted to take out any of the camera equipment that was set up across the shore on tripods.

The second hurdle, which is always inherent in shooting sunset portraits, was to squeeze in all the shots within the 4-5 minute window of "golden light." Thankfully Misha's sister Kavita was available to help pose the couple (having gotten married the previous year she was in tune with the standard poses) and to help me hold the flash units while I was messing with the metering and compensation factors.

The final really big crucible was the need to nail the lighting. Misha's very dark skin next to Stevo's fairer skin would look very strange in the direct, super-harsh strobe. Our method of compensating for this was to shoot the flashes through a gel filter which would "warm" the strobe, turning the light into a more natural tone. The first gel I tried, seemed to do the trick, so we went with it! The end result was a perfect balance of skin tones which left both him and her looking stellar and natural.

The photos are the result of about a month's worth of practice and Stevo's generosity in agreeing to let me borrow his flashes and camera. Enjoy!

Strobist: The photos with flash were taken with 2 SB-600 slave units one to camera left (tripod mounted), and one to camera right (hand held), one with diffuser, and one with bounce card.

Practice Makes Perfect

I have always been interested in flash photography. The challenging but also daunting task of trying to manipulate synthetic light sources in a natural (outdoor) setting has been on my list of things to try and master, at least on a very limited scale, for quite some time now. As it so happened, my very close friends Steve and Misha asked me to be the photographer at their Maui, HI wedding this past December. The pressure of making sure their photos were a success originally caused me to decline their offer, but after some sweet talking on the part of Steve, I agreed to give it a go.

The wedding was slated to take place on a beach right before sunset, with photos of the family and happy couple to take place immediately after the wedding, during the actual sunset. I had about a month and a half to work out the multiple off camera flash system that I would need to pull off these shots, complete with commander and slave units. Thankfully, my wonderful girlfriend Liz agreed to serve as my model for a majority of the practice shots I took. My good friend Mike, also agreed to tutor me in a few lighting tricks that he learned while taking some university-level photojournalism classes at the University of Kansas.

While there was quite a learning curve needed to master the complexities of off-camera flash photography manipulation, I eventually got the hang of it and was able to pull off a few decent shots from several practice sessions. The biggest struggle was racing out to the field and getting everything set up before the sun went down completely! We must have looked like crazy-people running across the highway with camera bag and multiple tripods in tow trying to squeeze in a session in the 20 minutes between when Liz got home from work, and when the sun was completely set. All of the following were taken across the street from my apartment in Fort Collins, CO or just down the road at a lake in Loveland, CO.

The 50th

Over the holiday vacation, I traveled to Hawaii with my family, and in doing so, ticked off state number 50. My personal quest to travel to all 50 states has been completed (I'd been at 49 for about 3 years)! The trip was great, and one of the highlights was getting the chance to snorkel in the pristine waters off the coast of Maui. My dad and I purchased a crappy little point and shoot underwater film (gasp!) camera from a drugstore. I was really curious to see how the photos would come out. I've used these types of cameras in the past with marginal success, so I wasn't holding my breath. In fact, I've been shooting in digital, and with SLR's so long, I completely forgot how to work a point-and-shoot film camera! (wind, then click...repeat) Out of the 6 shots I snapped during our encounter with a green sea turtle, 3 of them came out fairly well. I've posted them here for your enjoyment. The top photo was of a little bugger whom happened upon me, more than I happened upon him. He was coming up for air, so I swam a wide circle around him, and closed in for a photo once I was at his front side. The other two photos (below) are of another turtle who was gliding thru the water at about 2 meters in depth. Long live drugstore point and shoots!

Impressions in the Sand

Recently, Liz and I traveled to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. As we walked around the nearly 30 square miles of dunes, we noticed the trails of animals and other impressions that were created in the sand. Often times the impressions would only last a few hours before the wind swept them completely away. Here is a small compilation of what we saw.

Our footprints on a Dune

Mouse Tracks

Grass tracks from the wind.

Shadowed footsteps on a dune.

Architecture

In the pursuit my travels I have been afforded the opportunity to see some truly spectacular architectural accomplishments. I'm always drawn to intreguing, intricately built structures, most of them religious in nature. One thing I have noticed is that the architecture that I find the most interesting is always old. In this sense, I mean 'not modern.' I wonder if that's just because everything in the U.S. is relatively new when compared with much of the rest of the worlds buildings...In the above photo we see the beautifully ornate Ortakoy camii (mosque) in Istanbul, Turkey. My friend Tyler graciously hosted me at his apartment for the week, and one of our first stops was this mosque just after sunset on the banks of the Bosphorus Straight.

Below are a few of my more memorable photos of architecture I have come across.

Hallway in Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, Turkey

Building Detail just before dusk, Istanbul, Turkey

Entrance gate detail to the Royal Palace, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Detail of ornate stupa flowers at Wat Pho in the town of Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand.

Faces carved out of stone at the Bayon Temple a part of the mega-temple complex of Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Large Buddhist Stupa in a Tibetan neighborhood of Kathmandu, Nepal. These sites of religious worship are kept immaculately clean, to the point where even the white dome is re painted on a monthly basis if need be. I inadvertently captured a pigeon in flight on the left side of the frame.