Water drop photography

water drop photos - November 2010

I wanted to experiment with water drop images for a while and this past week-end I, along with photographer friend, Keith Misegades, decided to spend some time seeing what we could do. You can view more of the results at www.blackburnimages.com/albums.aspx.

The set up is pretty simple. Rather than replicate a bunch of information here, just check out the links below. Flickr also has a pretty large amount of images and information on the subject. I used a Nikon D300 with 70-200mm f2.8 lens with 20mm extension tube. My flash was a Nikon Speedlight SB800 that I triggered remotely with Paul Buff’s CyberSync transmitter/receiver. A sturdy tripod and a remote shutter release are vital for sharp images.

The basic idea is to let the flash be the shutter for the image. Setting the flash at a low power setting (in manual mode) will yield an extremely fast burst of light. With low ambient light not affecting the exposure it is pretty easy to capture the image. The trick, in our low tech set up, was to figure out the best time to trip the shutter and flash. You could get pretty elaborate with some sort of triggering device for the flash/camera, but I relied on the old “take a lot and I’m bound to get one or two decent ones” approach. I used a variety of colored gels, hand held in front of the flash, to experiment with colors. For all the images I used clear water except for a set when I dyed the water with red food coloring.

We tried capturing images with the flash in "stroboscopic" mode, but never could get the exposure and timing correct. That will take some more study and practice!

It was fun in the post-processing (Lightroom v3) to adjust the temperature and hue/staturation/luminance settings to get some of the dramatic effects.

I think my next attempts will be to try different liquids and to see if I can capture the “crashing” drops image.

Useful links:

http://www.amateursnapper.com/blog/post/photographing-water-drops

http://www.hypergurl.com/blog/photography/water-droplets-splashes.html

http://egablog.com/2010/01/how-to-photograph-a-splash-of-water-week-52/

Fall trek to the Smoky Mountains

Porters Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Fall sunlight highlights trees near Chimney Tops

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

See more images at www.blackburnimages.com

Sunday, October 24, 2010 – Arrived in Gatlinburg late afternoon and was amazed at the traffic coming out thru Pigeon Forge and Sevierville as we were going in. I’m glad we decided to avoid the week-end as I’m sure that everywhere was packed. After settling into our condo (The Highlands on Campbell Lead Rd) I headed to the Gatlinburg overlook to see if there would be any decent light at sunset. There were some nice clouds hanging around the peak of Mount LeConte, but the sunset was a dismal gray. I did meet a fellow photographer that actual lives in the area – Gordon Brugman (www.smokymoments.com) and he advised that the best color was to be found up on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Driving from Nashville we were amazed with the lack of color along I-40. This year just seems to be an “off” year for fall color!

Monday, October 25, 2010 – One thing I like about coming to the eastern time zone, especially this time of year, is that sunrise is so “late”. Official sunrise at 7:45a means I can get up at 6:30a and still make it somewhere in time for sunrise! However, this morning was a another “gray out” and so I hung around the condo and had a leisurely morning with Jamie. We headed out mid-morning as I wanted to drive up to Newfound Gap in hopes of some nice views of mountains and “smoke”. I wasn’t disappointed up at the Gap and captured several images of fog and muted fall colors on the hills. Driving “down” from the Gap towards the Oconaluftee entrance I was treated to some nice things happening around the Deep Creek trailhead. Waiting just a few minutes the whole scene (and feel) would change due to the fog moving in and out. We stopped at Mingus Mill, but most of the leaves were gone from the trees at that elevation.

We jumped on the Blue Ridge Parkway near the Oconaluftee visitors center and were treated to some of the best displays of color of the whole trip. I stopped several times and photographed everything from sweeping vistas to nice patterns of colors among the different species of trees. We exited the Parkway at Soco Gap and drove Highway 19 into Cherokee, North Carolina. A quick stop to scope out Soco Falls turned into a nice surprise for photos as I was able to get some nice shots with a 11-16mm wide angle lens. We re-traced our route back over Newfound Gap back to Gatlinburg. I found some interesting light on patches of trees neat Chimney Tops as this area seemed to have a good bit of color.

I tried some long exposure shots from our condo of Gatlinburg and the surrounding mountains well after dark, but nothing came out very impressive.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010 – We got up early as we had agreed to meet friends, Keith and Katherine Misegades, over at Big Creek campground for a morning hike. Of course, the morning I’m driving to be somewhere at a certain time is when the sunrise is magnificent! The sky was all kinds of pink and red as we drove thru Gatlinburg to pick up Highway 321 towards Cosby. At Cosby, we got on the Foothills Parkway and found magnificent views and lots of color. This will definitely be on the agenda for future trips with lots of possibilities for sunrise shots. We drove I-40 along the Pigeon River to the Waterville exit and parked at the Big Creek picnic area.

Keith and Katherine joined us and we hiked along Big Creek to Midnight Hole, a small waterfall with a big and deep pool. We continued on the trail into Mouse Creek Falls and spent time photographing the falls. The hike back out to the car gave me plenty of opportunities for different types of creek and fall color shots. We drove back via I-40 and the Foothills Parkway. We drove into the Porters Creek trailhead (past the Greenbrier campground) and I hiked in about a half-mile along the creek before some steady rain forced me to make a hasty retreat to the car. This is the trail where I had found lots of Spring wildflowers and the photo opportunities at this time of year didn’t disappoint me.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 – We knew rain was coming as the Midwest and west/middle Tennessee got hammered by some serious weather the day before. There had been a lot of wind during the night in Gatlinburg, but not a lot of rain (yet). After treating ourselves to breakfast out we headed to the Roaring Fork Motor Trail. We’d heard that there was nice color along the route. We hiked into Grotto Falls, but I didn’t even take my camera out of my backpack as there were lots of people and the rain had started while we were hiking back to the car. The rain continued steadily as we finished driving the trail, and were amazed at the number of cars… this is not the place to be if you are seeking solitude! We went back to the condo to dry out and decided to venture out again in mid-afternoon. Jamie wanted to drive the Little River Road and I decided to see if Cades Cove would have any decent photo ops. Again, we were amazed by the lack of leaves and color in Cades Cove. They must change earlier here. And, we were surprised by the number of cars driving the 11-mile loop. I guess everyone had the same thoughts of “getting out” after the rain stopped. We got back to the condo well after dark, and had a late supper.

Thursday, October 29, 2010 – I got up in time to catch the sunrise and once again nothing really dramatic happened. Just too many clouds to allow the first light to paint the sky with color. I did meet some more nice photographers at the Gatlinburg overlook (just down the bypass from our condo) and I enjoyed the early morning conversations. I did manage to get a couple of images with the sun just peeking over the mountain ridge and showing thru the small bound of sky between the mountains and sky. After cleaning up the condo we headed pack to Nashville and kept commenting about the lack of color (and remaining leaves) on the drive along I-40 back to Nashville.

All in all, it was another relaxing and enjoyable trip. I managed to get a few decent images and keeping thinking about some day in the future when I can do trips like this a much more frequent occurrence.

Bye Bye September...

The Blackburn Images crew at Blue Devil Invitational marching band competition.

Photo courtesy of Keith Misegades.

I guess I should re-describe my blogging as “monthly at best”… It just seems that writing a blog entry falls off the radar when I get really busy. I’m trying to better about keeping a presence on Facebook, but getting to this blog just doesn’t happen a lot.

Anyway, September was one of those super busy months for me and photography. I assisted with a wedding over Labor Day week-end, did group and individuals for the Independence High School marching band, and photographed 3 marching band competitions. All that amongst working my day job, and getting Jamie thru rotator cuff surgery for a nagging shoulder injury she has put up with for the past few years. Oh yea, and get a print, from my World Wide Photo Walk shoot in historic downtown Franklin, ready to hang with the “court of honor” at the Williamson County Library.

The wedding was at the historic outside of Gallatin, Tennessee. It was fun to shoot with my friend Donna, but I wondered why people schedule afternoon weddings outdoors in early September? It was hot, the wedding party was “glowing” with all the perspiration, and the guests looked fried. The light was very harsh with either blown-out highlights or dark, dark shadows. Luckily there was enough shadow near the historic home’s porch that the wedding party portraits could be taken in full shade. I know Donna was going to spend a ton of time post-processing in order to try and balance out the light in a lot of the shots we did.

The group and individual portraits for Independence High School band were fun as I shot 70+ band members in a little over an hour. We had to pose the group shots outside in the football stadium and once again, a cloudless sky was my enemy as I had to deal with bright highlights and harsh shadows. I tried bracketing in order to see if I could work some photoshop magic and get nice looking light on the faces!

The marching band competitions were a lot of work, but fun. My brother and sister came from California to help with one and my good friend, Keith Misegades helped me out on the third. We’ve posted about 20,000 performance photos on our on-line photo store (www.blackburnimages.com) and I hope that the sales are decent. We got a lot of good comments about our previous work at the competitions and I hope that translates to sales for this year. One thing I was I could convey to some people is that we don’t really have any control over who we photograph during a performance. We don’t avoid photographing some performers for any reason except that I know the type of photos that work well, have instructed the photographers to focus on those shots, and we do our best. Unfortunately, sometimes we just miss capturing images of some of the performers. I want to tell the parents, jokingly of course, to tell their kids to not wear the “don’t photograph me sticker” next time! Ha!

In all my free time, I decided to buy a new software package to run the on-line photo store and it seems to be working well. As a software developer I know the effort it takes to produce good, reliable software and the folks at PicturePros (www.picturepros.com) have hit it out of the park with their photo cart software.

I’m looking forward to October and getting out to do some fall photography. I’m heading to the Smoky Mountains late in the month and I hope that I’ve timed the peak colors correctly.

What I did on my summer vacation.

Two members of Music City Drum Corps (Chelsea Blackburn, Thomas Bowling)

express the satisfaction of a great performance at DCI World Championships.

Well, it really wasn’t a vacation! But one of the activities near and dear to my heart is music & music education. My whole family has been involved with the performing arts and especially with drum & bugle corps. I was part of a grass-roots effort in 2008 to get a drum & bugle corps started here in Nashville and have been heavily involved with the Music City Drum & Bugle Corps over the past couple of years. My role has included developing/maintaining their web site (www.musiccitydrumcorps.org), helping instruct their brass players, and helping document their activities and achievements with quality photography. It is a great activity, a great organization, and a great group of people to be around. It is truly amazing what these young people (all under the age of 22 years) do for a chance to perform in front of appreciative audiences all over the country during the summer.

I try to always have a camera with me when I’m around this group as there are always good photo opportunities. I’ve put together an album of photos from the 2010 drum corps season (starting with auditions in November and going thru the world championships in August) and kindly invite you to check out the photos. www.blackburnimages.com/albummaster.aspx?g=mcdc2010

To all the members, staff, and volunteers that are part of this organization, I humbly thank you for a great summer and many wonderful friendships that were formed. I just wish I could join you for the full summer, but as I always answer the “where have you been” question… “someone has to keep the real world churning”! Enjoy the photos!

2010 Worldwide Photo Walk

Church doors, downtown Franklin, Tennessee

For the second time I participated in Scott Kellby's Worldwide Photo Walk on Saturday, July 24th. This year I photographed in historic downtown Franklin, Tennessee. It was an extremely hot Saturday morning, but I joined 50 other photographers and walked around downtown Franklin capturing images. I really tried to force myself out of my usual photographic "box" and spent some time looking for images that would be out of my normal "repertoire". A bluegrass music jamboree was also taking place in downtown Franklin and I spent some extra time photographing the performers and spectators that were there for the music.

You can see my favorite images from the historic Franklin walk at http://www.blackburnimages.com/albummaster.aspx?g=wwwalk2010

There were 1111 official worldwide "events" with over 32,000 photographers registered to participate. You can find more information about Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photo Walk at http://worldwidephotowalk.com/

What a month!

Whew! It’s been a busy month for me and Blackburn Images. Family portrait sessions, graduating senior portrait session, helping with a local baseball league’s “picture day” (70 teams), team and individual portraits for a travel baseball team and learning all the new features of Photoshop CS5. And that’s just on the photography front. On a personal note, my daughter graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of fine arts from University of Evansville. All in all its been a fun month, but I didn’t really get to do as many personal photography projects as I was hoping for… oh well, there’s always next month!

The Great Tennessee Flood of 2010

I live in Williamson County which is the county just south of Nashville and we received our share of the tremendous rains this past week-end (May 1 & 2) that led to the massive flooding in Middle Tennessee.

We are very fortunate that our house is well elevated and we received no damage from flood waters. I did have a good amount of gravel was away from our driveway, but others suffered so much more. The cul-de-sac and street we lived on looked like a river with all the water and debris coming off the hillside and there were a couple of good size cascades where the water was pouring into the cul-de-sac. The creek that runs through our subdivision rose to unprecedented heights and the road into our neighborhood was closed a good portion of Saturday and Sunday due to the high water.

Yes, this would have been a great chance for some impressive photography, but I was sleeping… I got hit with cold/flu symptoms on Friday and spent most of the day Sat. laying on the couch in a cold medicine induced slumber. I did manage to take a few brief video clips out our window on Saturday and during a brief walk around the neighborhood on Sunday after the majority of the rain had passed.

Here's some brief scenes from our neighborhood showing some of the water: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8B0pz7yzcA

My thoughts and well wishes go out to those that suffered much more than we did during this is disaster. There are some amazing photos out on the internet of scenes from around Nashville.

First Greenscreen

Shareece & James - Photo by Blackburn Images

My son and his girlfriend were going to a prom recently and I’d offered to do some photos for them. I got the idea to try my hand at some greenscreen (chromakey) photography. This is where you photograph the subject in front of a green or blue chromakey background and then replace the background with an image. In this case the prom theme was “ red carpet affair” so I thought it would be cool to show the couple on a red carpet with paparazzi in the background.

I ordered an inexpensive green background, received it the day before I “needed” it, and went about trying to achieve some respectable results. A quick search on the web showed that the main elements to successful greenscreen shots is a wrinkle-free background, very even lighting on the background, and keep the subject a good distance away from the background to avoid getting green “spill” light back onto the subject.

In my first tests, I used only one off-camera flash (SB800) to try and light the background. My goal was to light it, but not so much that a lot of light reflected back off to the subject. I couldn’t get very even coverage with the SB800 so I tried a single strobe (White Lightning x800). Again, not very even coverage so I opted for two White Lightning x800 for the background through white umbrellas to diffuse the light. My flash meter said I was pretty evenly light across the background. I light the subject with another x800 with a 30x40 softbox directly in front of the subject and as high as my eight foot ceilings would allow it go. I set the main light to be about 1.5 stops brighter . My tests shots were still showing some green spill onto the subject, but I had to background lights down to their minimum power and the subject as far in front of the background as I could with my limited space (6 feet from subject to background).

The shots of the “real” subjects (4 couples) came off pretty well. I still got more green spill than I wanted on the subject. I used Photoshop (select/color range) to select the green background to drop out. I still had to do a good bit of “clean up” around the edges (layer/matting). I also tried the OnOne Mask Pro plug-in (Plug-in Suite 5) to see if it did a better job. I was a little disappointed with the Mask Pro results, but that was probably due to my haste in not defining enough drop colors and keep colors. I had some of the pixels in the black tuxes masked out.

Just like everything else in photography I’ve tried you can get results pretty quickly, but to really master a technique takes time, study, and practice.

Smoky Mountains - Spring Trip Report

White Trilliums, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

View additional images from this trip at www.blackburnimages.com

I went on a 3-day trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on April 16-19, 2010. While this was mainly a R&R trip with my wife, Jamie, she graciously understands my photography “need” and is very understanding and patient when I spend 30-45 minutes photographing a single clump of flowers or why I don’t leave after a sunset when everyone else does (10 minutes after the sun goes down) in hopes of getting that great color that looms in the twilight sky (and is sometimes hidden from our naked eye).

Here’s a brief recap:

Day 1 (Friday, April 16). Nice to wake up at 6:30a and still have it pitch dark outside (official sunrise was 7:06a EDT). I hadn’t planned on going anywhere for sunrise, but instead just enjoyed the view from our condo (Highlands on Campbell Lead in Gatlinburg). We hiked Porters Creek trail in mid-morning and found a good amount of trillium and spring beauty. The crested dwarf iris were just starting to bloom and we were fortunate (based on advice from another photographer working the same trail) to find two blooming plants of showy orchis. Most of the flowers were from the trailhead to the first stream crossing and at Fern Branch Falls. Fern Branch Falls don’t offer much in photo opportunities thanks to the footbridge that is place right across the middle of the falls. The first mile of the trail also would have some great fall/winter shots with the stream and color/snow on the trees.

We drove Newfound Gap Road looking for good places for sunset and decided that Morton Overlook provided the best vantage. I’ve become cognizant if having my landscape images have foreground, middle ground, and background elements (thank you John Shaw) and had difficulty finding anything to include as good foreground. I ended up shooting the sunset mostly with my 70-200mm and used a 2-stop graduated ND filter to help balance the sky. I tried to keep the exposure to capture the different tones of the mountain “folds”. Sunset here is “late” – after 8:00p EDT.

Day 2 (Saturday, April 17). Got up to shoot sunrise and saw that there was going to be heavy cloud cover. I set up to shoot from outside our condo, but got nothing but dull gray light. We drove to Elkmont campground and hiked the Little River Trail. There were a lot of flowers along the stretch up to the junction with Cucumber Gap trail. I got good shots of trillium, squirrel corn, wild phlox, wild ginger, and celandine poppy. The river is wide in this section and would also make some nice fall/winter shots with flowing water and snow/color in the trees. Next time it would be good to do the loop with Cucumber Gap and Jacks Creek trails back to Elkmont.

Driving back to Gatlinburg we stopped at one of the “Quiet Trails” on Little River Road and discovered a large number of wild phlox blooming along Fighting Creek. I spent time with a wide angle (12-24mm) trying to capture the vastness of the flowers as well as doing close ups with my 70-200mm lens.

We drove thru Gatlinburg proper and went to Bud Ogle’s cabin. Roaring Fork Motor Trail starts here, but the road is closed due to maintenance until late May 2010. Not many flowers here, but it is interesting to walk the short loop trail and think about how difficult it would have been trying to farm 400 acres here.

Day 3 (Sunday, April 18). No sunrise attempt this day as I enjoyed a leisurely morning with Jamie. We drove to Metcalf Bottom picnic area and hiked the trail to the Greenbrier Schoolhouse. From there we hiked to the Walker Sisters homeplace and this section of trail had lots of blooming crested dwarf iris. I spent time shooting the iris along steep banks and put the diffuser to good use once again.

We drove onto Miegs Falls and this would be a very nice fall/winter shot, but you really need a nice overcast day. There could be some shot opportunities closer to the falls if you could find a way to boulder hop across the Little River. Perhaps it would be feasible in fall when water level is lower.

We drove onto the Townsend “Y” and was greeted by great numbers of white trilliums and wild geraniums at the Chestnut Top trailhead right across the road from the parking area. This is a popular spot as folks can walk 10 yards from their car and take a quick snapshot.

Overall comments:

• Be flexible, just cause books or web sites report good flower sightings at one place doesn’t mean they’ll be there when you’re there. Go searching for yourself.
• Look around! It was amazing the number of times I stopped to look at a something and started noticing a lot of other things that I could have easily overlooked.
• Carry a guide field guide for flowers and trees. Luckily I had wireless connectivity at the condo and could confirm plant names when I was downloading my images each night into Lightroom.
• A macro lens would be a “nice to have” as well as a tripod with a post that can angle away from vertical for low to the ground shots. Also a macro focusing rail would be good to have for critical focusing.
• A LCD loop (hoodman) would also be a good tool for viewing the LCD in bright sunshine.
• I’m glad I brought the 24” 5-in-1 reflector/diffuser. I used it on about 90% of my shots.
• Newfound Gap and pullouts just into North Carolina could provide the best options for sunrise shots.
• Be nice to include moonrise or moonset in some of the shots.
• Take notes as you go… it’s hard to remember the details even if it is just the evening of the same day.
• Spend time thinking about how to get shots that are different from just another “postcard” shot. For me, that is getting away from the macro closeup shot and trying to incorporate the unusual setting or surroundings of the subject.
• Bring a point and shoot camera to record more of the activities, etc.
• A GPS is helpful, but doesn’t work too well with dense trees. I would like to start geo-tagging some of my photos.

Heading to the Smoky Mountains

This week-end I'm heading to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for some R&R with Jamie (wife) and hopefully for some good photo ops. This should be the height of the Spring wildflower season. I know it should be a good time for photography as the next couple of week-ends is when all the photo tours and workshops converge on the Smoky Mountains area.

I'll post a follow-up on my experiences, and hopefully with some good hands-on info. Here's a few links that I found helpful in trying to do some pre-trip planning.

Smoky Mountain Wildflower Report: http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/wildflowers_and_trees

Where to look for wildflowers in GSMNP: http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2009/04/where-look-spring-wildflowers-great-smoky-mountains-national-park

Go Smokies - a social forum with some useful posts: http://gosmokies.knoxnews.com/

GSMNP wildflower walks: http://www.nps.gov/grsm/naturescience/wildflower-walks.htm

Hope you're getting out and getting some shots! It's a great time of year.

Some good reading.

I recently picked up copies of Scott Kelby’s “Digital Photography Book” volumes 1, 2, and 3. I would recommend that anyone serious about improving their photography check out these books. I appreciate the way that Scott writes all of his books – straight forward, to-the-point of “how to do” without the long technical reasons behind why it works. All the situations that Scott covers are presented in one-page solutions and he also includes explicit directions for both Nikon and Canon DSLRs. Each book also includes a chapter of “recipes” on how to mimic certain techniques, and, again, it is done in a single-page, how-to approach.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321678737/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1GP1WVHQP13FV0XKD73X&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

Scott covers a wide variety of topics that any photographer will be able to find pertinent information for their favorite types of photos. I’ve taken to marking a lot of the pages with important points that I want to make sure I remember. I’ve also found myself referring to these books on a couple of occasions when getting ready for a particular type of shoot. I’m definitely the type that does better with hands-on reinforcement for things I want to remember.

I wouldn’t say these books are good reading for photography newcomers, but if you’ve been shooting for a while and definitely want to go to the next level they are a good investment. I see myself going back to these from time to time just to remind myself of some good ideas.

Enjoy!

Imaging USA 2010

I was fortunate to be able to attend the Imaging USA conference this week right here in Nashville! This is my fourth time to attend this event and it gets bigger and better every year. While the outdoor temperatures were FRIGID during the conference, the information was freely flowing during the sessions and the expo. I learned a lot from the various sessions I attended, especially the Adobe sponsored sessions on Lightroom and Photoshop.

The product expo was once again excellent and it seemed that photographers were opening their wallets to spend some of their hard-earned dollars. I especially enjoy the expo and the mini-sessions that the big exhibitors put on at their booths. I was really impressed with the work of Bill Farkes, Ami Vitale, and the other pro photographers that were showcased at the Nikon booth.

Once again, this show inspired me, but at the same time frustrated me. Inspiration came from a lot of new ideas and techniques that I saw. but frustrated with the fact that experience has taught me that I need to dedicate more time to my photography in order to become proficient with these new approaches and techniques.

Especially entertaining were the presentations by White House photographers J. Scott Applewhite, Paul Morse, and Rober McNeely and American West photographer Scott Bourne.

If you need some inspiration for your photography and great fellowship make plans to attend this conference in January 2011.

A good ending to 2009.

House, Franklin, TN

I was fortunate enough to have December 31st off from work and was joined by my friend and fellow photographer, Keith Misegades on an early morning shoot. We'd planned to try and get some shots along the Harpeth River hoping for some early morning mist/fog, but that didn't happen. So we went down to Franklin and just walked around looking for inspiration. I didn't record any great, but did manage to "see" a couple of good subjects.

2009 has been a whirlwind year and I'm amazed how fast the time flies by now! I'm hoping that 2010 is a good year and I'm hoping to have some more chances to shoot with friends.