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KenElevenShadows

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Posts posted by KenElevenShadows

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    I'm also trying to find a host that I am happy with. Tried 500px.com but was not comfortable with the system. Now I am trying Smugmug. My Smugmug Page. Not quite there yet on my page layout. Any suggestions? My biggest goal? Posting my pictures should push me to take better pictures.

     

    Well, uh, I was gonna suggest 500px.com. :D I like 500px because of the way my photos look on there. They don't mess it up.

     

    A lot of people like smugmug, zenfolio, Flickr, and others. I post on Flickr because, if you want, there can be a thriving community with tons of participation. Same with Facebook (although FB absolutely destroys your photo). Facebook has some amazing photography groups where the interaction is really friendly, talented and knowledgeable, and you can't ask for a much better combination than that.

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    Very nice Ken. I'm a few miles from Cumberland Lake in southeast KY, also known as the houseboat capital of the United States. There are people here that spend half a million dollars on a houseboat but I have never seen anything like that ceiling in the middle picture.

     

    First of all, thank you for "resuscitating" this thread!

     

    All of these houseboats are handmade. I saw a Kashmiri carver creating a post. Wow. And he does it so quickly! Beautiful artistry. Kashmiris are known for their fine arts anyway, including woodwork. This is unfortunately starting to fall by the wayside, and there's a bit of a movement afoot there to keep it alive. But anyway, thank you for noticing the woodwork. It's really very cool.

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    I'll post something different from the photos I often post here, the night sky and long exposure photos (although I did those during my last trip to India as well, of course! :D ).

     

    I have a friend in Kashmir that some of you guys know about from some old posts many years ago. We redid the websites for them just now, with a bunch of my photos on there to try and show the beautiful houseboat and the hotel.

     

    The websites for Ajanta Palace and Queen of the Lake Houseboats and Hotel Green View have a fresh new look, and we are in the process of teaming up with Travel Guru to provide an easier method of booking your stay on Class A houseboats or hotel, all with the same attention to detail and family hospitality that this family has been providing since 1962.

     

    Ajanta Houseboat and Queen of the Lake Houseboat, Dal Lake, Kashmir:

    http://www.houseboatajanta.com/

     

    Hotel Green View, Dal Lake, Kashmir:

    http://www.hotelgreenviewkashmir.com/

     

    This is the Facebook page:

    https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kashmir-Houseboat-Ajanta-Palace/104660126320183

     

     

    http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/india2013-himalayas/images/partwo-dahhanu-kashmir-delhi/1046kenlee_india-kashmir-houseboatreflections.jpg

     

    http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/india2013-himalayas/images/partwo-dahhanu-kashmir-delhi/0196kenlee_india-ajantakashmirhouseboat.jpg

     

    http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/india2013-himalayas/images/partwo-dahhanu-kashmir-delhi/0744kenlee_india-kashmir-vegetablemarket.jpg

     

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    So last evening I was out shooting and on a whim decided to do some light painting (thanks for the inspiration, Ken!). I didn't have my remote shutter with me so I was limited to 30 second exposures, but man, this is a lot of fun!

     

    Canon 6D|f/8|30s|ISO 100|20-35mm f/2.8L @ 33mm

    Light painted with cell phone flashlights.

     

    13936527364_89f27e8607_b.jpg

    Light Rail by rpantaleo, on Flickr

     

    Cool!

     

    If I break a remote shutter release or forget mine, I will tape a pebble to the shutter button if I need to have it locked down while in bulb mode.

     

    Very nice. A smartphone is excellent for light painting, and there is even an app for light painting if you want to get different colors or shapes!!!

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    So Ken, is what you do with the star trails basically just going for a long exposure (i.e 20sec - 5 min - etc) or is this more like a time-lapse thing? Just curious.

     

    I do it solely to create star trails. If I wanted to, I could put the individual photos in iPhoto or something similar and make a really really short time-lapse video, but it's not something that interests me at this time.

     

    I was in the mountains with my wife this weekend trying to do longer exposure on the mountain streams trying to get a silky smooth effect on the water. How do all this affect either situation.

     

    I'm sorry, I don't understand the question.

     

    Also, if you don't mind, what other subjects lend themselves well to long-exposure shooting? Thanks in advance!

     

    Anything that is moving lends itself to long exposure shooting. This may include stars, moving water (waterfalls, coastlines, rivers and streams, etc. are a favorite of people who love long exposure photography), people moving in crowded areas, fireworks (this is another photography favorite), scenes in which the photography wishes to light paint (1. illuminating foreground subjects with an off-camera light source, 2.) shining a light source into the camera and moving it to create patterns or lights or whatever, and 3.) moving the camera while the shutter is open to create movement from light sources) etc.

     

    Another common use of long exposure photography is to photograph architecture. Sometimes, instead of clearing the street of people, a photographer will use a long exposure shot, keeping the shutter open while people are walking past. If people do not stop for at least 10% of the exposure, they will be rendered invisible.

     

    For people like me, this technique is particularly useful when I need to walk through the frame as I am light painting.

     

    Apologies for the late response, but I have been extremely busy and haven't been able to visit here much this past week.

     

     

     

     

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    Thank you to everyone for voting! I greatly appreciate it! We'll see how far it gets! And if I don't win this, there's possibilities for an editor's choice, I believe it is, or a panel of judges' choice, if I remember correctly. Regardless, it would be a great honor. I've won the Daily Dozen (National Geographic) and the LA Times Travel Photo of the Year before, so win or lose, I'm beyond flattered to be included with these other photographers.

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    Voted, and will also vote from work.

     

    I have not tried shooting the stars yet but hope to go out to our farm this summer and do some shooting away from the street lights.

     

    Cool. They're a lot of fun, and it's a great way of introducing movement into the photo.

     

    And thank you very much for voting!

     

    Back to the star trails for a moment...although you obviously get considerably more star trails when the moon is not out and there is little light pollution, it's surprising how many star trails you can get even despite a moon and light pollution. For a fun experiment that I wanted to show my students at the star trails and light painting workshop I did over the weekend, I showed them a photo of some star trails that I took in my backyard in Los Angeles in a cloudy day....in other words, far less than ideal conditions. And they were amazed at how many star trails there still were. Sure, the sky looked orange, but there were a lot of stars. You can barely see them with your eyes, but when you open up the camera like this to long exposures, it becomes considerably more sensitive to stars than your eyes are.

     

     

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    The photo below is now one of the finalists for the Smithsonian.com 11th Annual Photo Contest Finalists, one of 60 selected from over 50,000. This is for the Reader's Choice winner. Please vote for mine in the Travel Category if you are so inclined!

     

    http://www.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/photo-contest-finalists-11th-annual-180950372/?no-ist

     

    http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/borregosprings-2013august/images/3034_kenlee_borregospringsnightsky-scorpiongrasshoppermilkyway.jpg

     

     

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    Very cool!!! I like the church photos. Stained glass is always good. And the fireworks shot looks good!

     

    I taught a Star Trails and Light Painting Workshop in Borrego Springs over the weekend. Went really really well, and it was a lot of fun. It was a bit challenging in that it's basically two workshops in one, and there was a lot of material to cover, but I managed to break it down to its essence and cover some of the technical and approaches to composition without getting bogged down in jargon or math.

     

    The first part was the workshop, which was held at Borrego Art Institute. That's where we discussed star trails, how to focus at night, light painting techniques, composition, etc. The second part was out in the field, practicing the photography. We shot these amazing sculptures by Ricardo Breceda. I'll include some photos of sculptures I've shot here, although it wasn't in the same evening.

     

    Here's some photos I took that evening. I didn't take that many photos because I was walking around helping students. These were all taken after they had dispersed, after midnight. I figured I'd take a few before going to sleep. The moon had already set, so all these were taken in very dark light.

    http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/b/e/0/c/highres_350388652.jpeg

     

    http://photos1.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/b/e/1/6/highres_350388662.jpeg

     

    http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/3/c/f/2/highres_350355602.jpeg

     

     

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    Congrats Ken. Well deserved!

     

    Kenny, if you approach it like learning about oscillators, and filters, and envelopes, it might change your perception of photography. I've got a Canon T4i that I've had for a couple of years now. Most of my shooting is done on Automatic. If I'm feeling creative I might mess with an extended exposure setting (mainly to try to capture that cool "flowing water" effect). As Ken said too, if you don't enjoy photography then none of this will help change that viewpoint. I haven't posted any of my pics up here mostly due to these guys bust my ass. But you know, they also probably bust my ass musically as well. That is something I have to get past.

     

    Yeah, there's nothing wrong with automatic. Those automatic settings are often very good.

     

    The reason I suggested doing this on a DSLR or other exchangeable lens camera is this: the camera is good quality. It's responsive. I think it's irritating to use a camera that has shutter lag. Put some decent glass on that, such as a decent zoom lens, and you're all good. There you have enough quality that you're not going to have crappy looking photos, and you just simply set the automatic settings. Then, consider the rest of my advice and just keep having fun. It is supposed to be fun, y'know?

     

    As for sharing stuff regardless of perceived ability level, just go for it. There's always photographers or musicians that can mop the floor with you in one thing or another. That will never change. But who cares? Only a few people get to be the greatest, and even then, you know, it doesn't matter. I played guitar at a gig with Nels Cline, who can mop the floor with anyone. He came up to me after the show and - I'm not being overly modest in saying that I'm not a very technical guitar player and many people can play better than me, although I am inventive - paid me a really great compliment.

     

    And anyway, if all else fails, even if I'm not the greatest keyboard player in the world, there's probably a decent chance I can take photos better than Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman. :D

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    Congrats Ken! A well-deserved honor.

     

    And nice job on the wildlife photos Mike!

     

    I took an unbelievable number of photos over the last week to get these. 95% of them get deleted right away when shooting with the motion sensor.

    This brings up a workflow question for all the guys here: do you delete photos? I pretty much never delete any. I have a little server set up as NAS (currently 2 TB storage capacity) so storage space isn't an issue.

     

     

    If they're blurry, out of focus, generally unusuable or terrible, I delete them without a second thought. I save the screw-ups that look interesting.

     

    And I save the things that look just about as good but am not going to use right that moment.

     

    If the photo is obviously messed up, I delete it in the camera and don't even bother downloading it to the computer. I usually do this out in the field.

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    Wow, thanks everyone. I really appreciate the kind words.

     

    I look forward to the woodpecker and other ones that you are going to upload.

     

    Image 6661 is cool. You focused on the eyes. That's crucial, and you totally nailed this. They're all super great!!!!

     

    For animals, I think you have to shoot in volume. You have to know what you're doing, obviously, but it still takes a lot of shots to get some good ones because of how unpredictable they can be and how quick their motions are as well as how wary they are of you, how small they are, and all sorts of other reasons.

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    Wow, this is pretty big. I've been selected as one of the top ten finalists in the Travel category for Smithsonian Magazine's website!!!!

     

    "On behalf of Smithsonian.com, I am pleased to inform you that you are one of the top ten finalists in the Travel category o­­­f our 11th Annual Photo Contest. Your photograph of the sculpture garden in Borrego Springs was one of the best of more than 50,000 entries we received from all over the world."

     

    http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/borregosprings-2013august/images/3034_kenlee_borregospringsnightsky-scorpiongrasshoppermilkyway.jpg

     

     

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    I've never seen this thread before...or maybe just never payed attention to it. Anyway, I'm currently taking a Digital Pictures/Filmmaking class in school right now, and I absolutely hate it. Maybe it has something to do with me being "terrible" at taking pictures (by the course's definition, of course...), but learning about aperture, ISO, lenses, depth of field, ect., is just not my thing.

     

    That said, it's inspiring to see your photos, Mike. Fantastic stuff.

     

    This pertains to photography in general, and not your class.

     

    Do you enjoy photography? Not the course, but the whole experience of photography?

     

    If the answer is no, then don't read further.

     

    If the answer is yes, then here's my advice. For now, screw learning about aperture, ISO, lenses, depth of field, etc. Just don't bother learning it for now. I'm not saying they're not important to know, but that it's not important right NOW.

     

    Here's what I think you should do.

     

    Presumably you have a DSLR or other digital exchangeable lens camera. Great. Don't buy anything else. Simply go out with it, use the automatic settings, and shoot. Just have fun.

     

    After a while, you'll start noticing patterns in the settings, which is automatically recorded by all digital cameras. It records the aperture, ISO, shutter speed, everything. Look for patterns.

     

    For portraits, it might be that it uses a large aperture so that it has a narrower depth of field (a thinner "slice" of your image is in focus).

     

    Or you may notice that for action photography or landscape, the aperture is smaller, resulting in a wider depth of field....almost everything is in focus!

     

    Whatever. Just notice patterns.

     

    Don't change anything. Don't buy new lens. Keep using the automatic settings. Just have fun. When you start wondering, "Gee, if I had a new lens, I could do........." or you keep wanting to change the image slightly because it's not quite what you envision or it's not quite looking like a magazine photo you were trying to capture and it frustrates you slightly, then and only then should you start looking at lens and camera settings. If you don't find yourself doing this, then screw it, just keep using the automatic settings and having fun. Those automatic settings are pretty darned good.

     

    I talked to a National Geographic photogapher before, a guy in his '60s, a long time ago. I said that I was mostly using the automatic settings of my SLR. He said, "Well, you know, between you and me, those automatic settings are pretty great, and I use them fairly often, especially if I'm in a hurry!"

     

    If it works for a National Geographic photographer, it'll be just fine for you and me.

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/tronapinnacleskillbillchurch-2013july/images/2235_kenlee_killbillchurch3-mojave.jpg

     

    While I'm here, I should post another photo. This is a photo of the "Kill Bill" Church, featured in a scene where Bill had attempted to dispatch Uma Thurman's character in a bloody hail of gunfire.

     

    Aren't most of us intrigued by those desolate, hopeless desert scenes we see, thinking, "Where is that?" It conjures up different worlds. And true to form, the "Kill Bill" Church was desolate, nearby to nowhere.

     

    The church was also featured in "True Confessions" with Robert DeNiro, a movie based loosely on the Black Dahlia murders.

    The Big Photography Thread

    in The Big Picture

    Posted

    http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/tronapinnacleskillbillchurch-2013july/images/startrails-easttronapinnacles-50m-30sf28iso400-flat.jpg

     

    I took this long exposure star trails photo taken in the Mojave Desert in California, USA last summer.

     

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