The Wayward Celt

Since I began shooting with my new DSLR, I’ve been focused on moving my photography from the snapshot realm over to what I  (or others) could consider art. But that is far easier said than done. Subtle shifts in all variables can make such a dramatic impact in the final shot. Dialing the in finer points to perfection, has thus far eluded me.

While I’ve been making progress, I’m still finding that my shots are closer to what I  would consider snapshots than what I would frame and hang on my wall (bear in mind I may have a high standard since most of the art in my house are original watercolours done by my father and he is the one who taught me how to appreciate art with a critical eye).  I’ve changed subject matter, adjusted my aperture and shutter speeds, and jockeyed my ISO. I’ve shifted focal points, cropped tall and wide to short and tight, and become a contortionist to get a different angle… all to the same result: medium colour tones, over exposed sky or under exposed landscapes….. nothing has popped.

So I’ve changed my tactic a bit. Now, while I play with getting the images i want out of my camera, I’m taking the images I actually get and playing with some post-processing edits. I’m a bit more pleased with the resulting after-edit images, but still feel like I am a ways away from something I’d be proud to hang on my walls. I admit, I am no fan of post-process editing. I (shockingly I know) have a bit of a purist attitude to photography: if I can’t get it out of my camera, then it is not photography but computer art instead. Yes, I know most will disagree with me and point out that I am not using film so I am being a bit of a hypocrite, and you would have valid points. Yet I will stand my ground, but not to the point of never editing… just to the point where I will continue to push and challenge myself to get as close as possible from the camera itself without the need for editing after the fact.

That all said, I began playing with some edits in Google’s Picasa tool. Very basic, which is fine by me. All I want to do with editing right now is to mimic the capabilities I’d have in a darkroom if I were working with film. So I’ve limited myself to only cropping and adjusting light levels, nothing more. No fancy effects or gausian blurs. Just darkroom tools so I can pretend I am doing what I’d have done anyway….

So here you go, my first foray into post-process images. All the following were taken Sunday April 17th, 2011approximately 3:30-4pm, at Hill Cemetery just outside of Laurelwood, Oregon:

Any and all feedback welcomed. I’d appreciate a 3rd party perspective on what I may be missing to help be bridge that gap from snapshot to art.

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Warrior Rock Light (technically not a lighthouse as there are no attached quarters) is on the Columbia River, just north of Portland and east of Saint Helens on Sauvie Island. While the lighthouse is not visible from any roads, it is easily viewed from the water, and a little less easily viewed from land by way of a 7 mile round trip hike.

On Sunday Jean and I decided to go on the hunt for the lighthouse. Armed with my camera, we made the 3.5 mile trek to the North tip of Sauvie Island and shot a number of photos of the structures (now updated and automated, and the burned out husk of the keeper’s bungalow), as well as some photos on our return hike back to the car…

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My parents visited us last weekend, which prompted us to take some touristy day trips with them. Since I’ve been exhausted since then and work ramped up activity too, I wanted to at least get out some of the pictures from the weekend and get that weekly blog post done. I may write up something more, but for now it is just visual.

I present these mainly untouched photos (a few have been mildly altered) as the best of the weekend either by my choice or my Dad’s (as we looked through them and he pointed out his faves).

Evergreen Air and Space Museum, Canon Beach in Oregon, and North Head Lighthouse on the Southern Washington coast:

As always I welcome your comments critiques. I know there’s a LOT of photos here, so don’t feel the need to comment on any/all… I hope you enjoy them in their ‘raw’ state!

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Along with my love for lighthouses, I also have a soft spot for covered bridges. To my enjoyment, Oregon provides quite a few of both!

Call it an excuse to get out of the house, or an excuse to take my camera on a drive, Saturday’s sun made it the perfect day to get out and see some covered bridges in their wooden glory.

Using the information over at http://www.oregon.com/covered_bridges and armed with my GPS, Jean and I took a drive Saturday afternoon in search of as many covered bridges as we could pack into a day. All told, we got to ten of them within the Willamette valley, over the course of 270 miles. (To get to the rest will take a bit more planning and strategic execution as they are now outside a quick afternoon’s trip.)

The images below are just a few of the best photos from the day. All are relatively untouched as no cropping was done, but I did adjust the levels minimally as I tended to over expose due to the bright sunshine.

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… second largest by volume in the U.S. that is…

Yeah, I couldn’t either until about three weeks ago. Turns out, it is nearly in our own back yard! Willamette Falls is in Oregon City, -just- South East of the 205.  In fact, it is visible from a view point on the Northbound 205.

Mind you, it isn’t quite as picturesque as Niagra, nor is the drop as impressive (for that we have Multnomah Falls, the third tallest year round falls in the U.S.), but still, by water volume, coming in second is no small task…. 8th in the world is even pretty impressive.

The area, and falls specifically, are industrial in nature, providing PGE with a constant source of energy to transfer into electricity along with the paper mill on the banks of the Willamette.

Jean and I drove out to see the falls this past weekend, and check out the Highland Stillhouse to see if it really was as decent of a whisky bar as they claim (spoiler, it is). Of course, this gave me an excuse the break out the camera again and snap some shots. With the cloud cover and limited viewing points, I couldn’t quite find that perfect shot, but these should do for now, along with a bonus pic of Mt. Hood for good measure:

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A friend recently blogged on ‘disconnecting’ for the weekend and the freedom it gave her to become directly involved in her life, rather than observe through her camera lens and behind a blog.

Her post got me thinking about my own tendencies towards observation and interaction. From day one I have always leaned towards the role of observer. I tend to stand back, take it all in, process what I’m seeing, and record for later use or action. Rarely do I come to a point where direct interaction is appropriate or required. But, sometime in my 20′s I realized that being the observer was a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, in that if I always put myself in the role of the observer, action will never be required. In a journalistic sense, the observer/recorder should never be part of the action/interaction, lest they become part of the story (a taboo in the journalism world).

Once I realized this, I put down the camera  and tried to become more involved, living life rather than observing it. I found that I enjoyed myself much more, but over the years have realized that I missed capturing some of those moments and images. Striking to the heart of this post: as with everything in life, balance is the key.

Now is the time to find that balance. Time for me to be involved, and observant; to walk that tightrope between fully engaged but oblivious, and fully observant but detached and unaffected.

Of course, this isn’t JUST about photography either, the same balance needs to be reflected within my own social networking. Do I pause to tweet, Facebook, or blog so as not to lose the impact of the moment shared, or do I wait until later to share out and run the risk of not sharing at all when the moment begins to fade in importance and impact? There’s no singularly right answer here, as balance is the key again. Sometimes I’ll need to share out RIGHT NOW, other times I’ll need to wait, or to not share at all as I live in the moment for me and my own direct experiences. Each instance is its own choice to make to strike the right balance for me. Something to think on…

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I’d had the great idea of showing off my new photography skills by taking a short road trip and then posting some stellar shots to this blog. Jean wanted to go see the full-scale replica of Stonehenge about a hundred miles away in Maryhill, Washington, and that seemed as good a choice as any to put my camera through some if its paces and get some interesting pictures.

I shot around 150 pictures over the day, at Stonhenge, and on the way back home. Using both my 18-135mm lens and the fish-eye adapter as well to bring some interesting perspective to my shots; I had some great images in my head and in my viewfinder. Alas, it was not to be this time around. When I dumped all the images to disk yesterday in preparation to post here, I discovered the images weren’t as clear as I’d hoped/expected.

After some quick diagnosis, the problem was clear (even if the photos were not). I AM glad to report that my understanding of basic photography skills are still tight, as I was able to figure out my issue within seconds of spotting severe grain/sensor noise. Sadly, it was due to a simple and total newbie mistake: I had my ISO kicked way up at 6400, a setting typically used for ultra low-light shooting. While this IS the Pacific North West and we have a lot of cloud cover, low-light is not how I’d have classified the skies on Saturday. Rather, I should have been shooting down around ISO 200 or 400 as the sun was out enough to warrant wearing sunglasses. Sure explains why my F-stops and shutter speeds were giving me some surprises, but I just chalked those up to not knowing my camera well enough. Silly me.

So, rather than boasting about my improved prowess with capturing still images, I get to post about how I now have another lesson learned. A lesson, mind you, that I learned years ago when I first started shooting film: ALWAYS check your ISO settings.

All that said, here are the best shots of the weekend. I hope to see better shots soon, barring any other newbie level mistakes. Note, these are all posted unmodified/untouched, aside from resizing two of them.

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Information… give me looooooong distance…

Ok, enough Manhattan Transfer. While out antiquing a few weeks back, Jean and I happened upon a particular store which has a small specialty in restored vintage phones; the majority of which have been rebuilt with modern parts to function with today’s phone lines. While I love the idea, I just can’t bring myself to shell out the $200-400 wanted for such pieces, which are more novelty than truly functional due to the minimal feature sets.

So, while out browsing eBay once again, I happened upon a few fun vintage pieces which I looked at and thought to myself, “I could probably hack in some thing to make these functional”. So I bought them, and they’re now sitting in my garage awaiting inspiration to strike. You know, that moment when I can finally visualize how it will all go together. Mind you, I have ideas for each bit, I just haven’t really decided on an overall idea: do I want them to be semi-functional, 110% vintage, and stay wired? Or do I want to go wireless and maintain functionality if not 100% authentic looks. It all really depends on -how- I can make these work for me in my daily job, since I’d love to replace my desktop phone with a vintage hack.

So, until I decide and get a move on, here’s a quick look at the original pieces before any modification. I will, of course, post a write up with full details and photos once/if I complete the project and get a functioning system:

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A picture of a camera.

One of the two I obtained off of eBay for a steal. Neither function, but for what I paid, I wouldn’t expect them to. I got them purely for aesthetics. I love the design of TLR cameras, and while one was beaten to a pulp in a former life, the other (pictured below) is still gorgeous; obviously used, but gorgeous none-the-less.

Behold, twin lens reflex beauty:

The majestic Yashica-12 TLR

This particular TLR will have a space in the living room to sit on display next to my grandfather’s old Brownie Special. I recently bought a second Brownie special to modify, as I couldn’t bring myself to work on granpa’s, which is when I discovered the dirt cheap TLRs which I just had to have too. I may even modify the bruised and beaten one into a web-cam or something. Depends on where my mind takes me when I’m bored…

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When I was out in Denver with Kally and Debby, Kally was gracious enough to allow me to play with her Nikon DSLR. It had been a very long time since I’d used an SLR of any type, digital or analog. Over the course of that weekend, I solidified the need to upgrade my old Pentax K1000 and get into the world of digital SLR photography where I could control ISO, shutter speed, focus, and aperture settings manually.

I realized, after having had opportunity to actually use a DSLR for an extended time, that I truly missed more serious photography. While my Pentax was no slouch, I’d long abandoned it for the ease of m compact digital Powershot SD1000; the cost and time of processing colour film just wasn’t a priority. Realizing the ease of processing a digital shot, I’d long been sold on the DSLR for my needs and wants.  Take into consideration that film is a dying media, I do feel bad that I am contributing to that factor, but I simply can not deny that going digital makes it VERY easy to adjust my settings on the fly to get the image I want, without ‘educated guessing’ through an entire roll, only to get one good shot. No, digital allows me to educated guess, see the results, adjust on the fly, and get the shot in far fewer shutter releases and with much greater results than ever before.

So, yes, I was convinced years ago that I wanted a DSLR of my very own, and that weekend in early December solidified that I needed a DSLR… Fast forward to the end of 2010 and through the gracious selflessness of my wife, I was finally able to pick up the toy I’ve been longing for since I’d first learned of DSLRs. I pulled the trigger on a Canon EOS 60D.

It was a tough call between the Nikon D700, the Canon EOS 7D, and the 60D. I used a number of resources to help me in deciding (the main one being http://www.dpreview.com). For me, the deciding factors really came down to cost, personal preference, and knowing exactly how much I really needed versus wanted. While the 60D does have superior video that I’ll likely not be using, the cost of the 7D and slight image improvement really didn’t justify making that jump. The Nikon is a brilliant camera as well, but I will admit to being a devoted Canon fan and am willing to stick with a company who has treated me well previously when contacting customer service, as well as a company that consistently puts out top of the market products.

So now I get to learn a new camera platform, and begin dusting off those old exposure skills I built up in high school. Luckily aperture/shutter speed/ISO combinations haven’t changed in the interceding years and are coming back to me much like riding a bicycle.

You’ve already seen a few pictures from the new camera posted here and on FB… which I will caveat by noting these are shots taken prior to really having learned the features and settings available with the Canon EOS 60D and are also completely unedited/untouched. I am hoping that as I learn more, you will see a decided shift in quality of my posted images here. In the meantime, I’ll add a few more shots below as baselines with which to gauge my own improvement.

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