Stray Things Photography

Athenaeum – A study in fashion

jspotts — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 16:43:33 +0000

From the Scoundrelle’s Keep website: Scoundrelle’s Keep presents “Athenaeum – A study in fashion “, a showcase featuring Designer Tara Reich and headlining will be Heather Luca of Scoundrelle’s Keep premiering her fall line “Alkali”.

The event was held at The James J. Hill Reference Library in downtown St. Paul. This is the first fashion show that I have both attended and shot at. Friend and fellow photographer, Drayke of PhotoSynthetique was the principle photographer for the event. I was invited to be an extra photographer along with Carla of FairShadow Photography and Nic Abrego.

Because of the setting I had decided to bring along my Fisheye Lens to see about getting some interesting architectural photos inside the library. This turned out to be an excellent decision as I struck on the idea of shooting primarily with the Fisheye from the center front of the “runway”. The overly distorted effect of the lens and a low position on the ground has the nice effect of putting the subject in focus and drawing all of the attention to center. It also makes the model on the runway look a little larger than life, without being to cartoonish. I’m very pleased with the results.

Family – The Baby Shower

jspotts — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 17:25:51 +0000

Very soon now I will be an uncle, and I think I’m looking forward to it. My brother and his wife are close now to having their first child, a son. This will be the first grandchild for my parents and everyone is understandably excited. To celebrate, as most families do, my mother and my wife planned a baby shower for the expecting mother. My mother had the idea of decorating onesies and my wife, being the artist in the family, was responsible for helping everyone decorate. I was in attendance to capture the day with my camera and help out as needed.

I only used my 50mm lens (well not totally true, I did take a few with my fish-eye, but wasn’t to keen on the results) for the day, having recently reminded myself of how much I really loved the results it gave me. I was not disappointed. In total I took a bit over 400 pictures and ended up with almost a hundred total keepers. Did I mention that I really love my nifty fifty? Below you will find about 40 of the 96 photos I selected as keepers. The remainder can be found on Flickr at the link below.

For the full set: Family – Baby Shower

Obon at Como – The Japanese Lantern Lighting Festival

jspotts — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:15:37 +0000

Shots from my day at Obon, at the Como Conservatory.

Set on Flickr: Obon – Japanese Lantern Lighting Festival at Como Park

CONvergence 2011 – Around the Convention

jspotts — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 17:11:38 +0000

These are photos I took around the convention, the selection below being the highlights of what I photographed. This was the first year with my 7D at CONvergence and I was rather happy with the results. In years past the low lighting of the hotel and room party rooms had produced less than ideal images, especially with a standard kit zoom lens. Faster lenses would have helped, but in the past I only had my 50mm and taking photos in limited space with a 50mm on a crop sensor just doesn’t give you much image in frame.

With the 7D, lower light environments were not as problematic. The camera can shoot at ISO3200 and still produce a relatively low noise image, allowing more of the shots to work out. I’m sure it could be pointed out that a flash would have also helped, and I do indeed have and use mine; however I prefer shooting “natural light” (i.e. using the light that is currently available) as much as possible. This is a personal preference and not an endorsement for any one method.

To see the Highlights set on Flickr: Convergence 2011 – Around Con Hightlights

To see the Full set on Flickr: Convergence 2011 – Full Set

Shannon’s Tattoos [Probably NSFW]

jspotts — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:35:16 +0000

I count this shoot as one of the best works I’ve done to date, and I imagine it will likely stay in my top picks for a long time to come. I had worked with Shannon before on another shoot (personal project, not for public) and she and I had talked about getting her in for a Tattoo shoot some day. So when we finally scheduled this shoot, I was excited to see what we could create. Needless to say I was very pleased with the results, as was Shannon.

Shannon’s ink is amazing work, particularly her right sleeve. The only “blemish” (if you can call it that) is a wound that damaged part of her tattoo on her right arm. You can see in some of the photos that the unicorn’s nose was scuffed. Shannon plays football and an injury she received was responsible for the wound. She plans to have the ink repaired as soon as the healing is complete. On top of Shannon’s lovely ink work, she herself is a lovely young lady. Her reddish hair is strong marker of her fiery spirit and her composure is of someone with a deeper confidence. All together an amazing model to shoot.

This shoot was done on my Canon Rebel T1i, using a 50mm f/1.8 lens (aka the Nifty Fifty). Post processing was done to enhance levels and add a slight vignetting to the images.

View the full set here: Shannon’s Tattoos

CONvergence 2011 – Cosplay Mini Shoot

jspotts — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 17:34:47 +0000

Three different people, one quick shoot. This was shot outside of the Sheraton hotel, around dusk. Quick little shoots like this are fun to do and are good for exercising your gut instinct to get a good photograph. Of the almost 70 shots taken, over half turned out really well, with the final 20 (see below) being the top picks.

View the full set here: Convgerence 2011 – Cosplay Quick Shoots

MPR Wits with Neil Gaiman

jspotts — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 17:10:26 +0000

Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) produces a wonderful variety of on and off air shows for the Minnesota listening public throughout the year. One of their spring shows is a four part series called Wits, which brings together writers, musicians, and other entertainers for an evening of laughs and good music. The show is produced at the Fitzgerald Theater in downtown Saint Paul with tickets sold to the general viewing public. Each of the four shows have a different writer as the main guest, usually a musical guest, and the occasional call-in guest(s) all interviewed by John Moe, the host of the evening. New this year were the “Box Dwellers” ala Statler and Waldorf of the Muppet Show, whose jobs were to heckle and share in the bemusement of the evening. The show is live cast over the internet and recorded for future listening via the MPR website (links below).

For my show the writer/author was Neil Gaiman, musical guest Josh Ritter, and call-in guests geek extraordinaire and actor Wil Wheaton and Adam Savage of the MythBusters. The Box Dwellers for the evening were Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett of MST3K and RiffTrax fame. The show was a sold out event, which is no surprise given the guests, and was a wonderful delight. My group for the evening consisted of my good friend Eryn Sophia, our friend Jo, Joseph Scrimshaw and his wife, and Jerry. We also ran into a number of other friends and fellow geeks, which really is no surprise.

Before heading out I made the decision to bring my camera after learning that photography was ok during the show. This would be a great opportunity to once again shoot in the lower light of a theater, test out my newly acquired 7D, and maybe get some memorial moments on film. I decided on the 7D’s kit lens, a 28 – 135mm Canon, and my early birthday present, a Rokinon 8mm fish-eye for my lenses of the evening. The fish-eye was very new for me and as an all manual lens would be fun to test out.

Most of the evening was shot with the kit lens, especially during the show. The 135mm zoom was perfect for framing subjects on the stage, especially because was sitting up on the second floor balcony. Being able to also open wider to 28mm was also nice for the closer shots between and after the show. I only ended up using the fish-eye before the show and at intermission to produce some really fun pictures of the inside of the Fitzgerald. If I had had a tripod or even a monopod I would have probably tried for a couple of HDR shots, maybe next time.

Overall I was very pleased with the shots produced. The low light capability of the 7D, using a higher ISO, was rather nice and the final images came out with very workable quality. The ISO usually stayed around 3200, which is expected for a lens with a f/3.5-5.6 aperture, in low theater lighting. Someday I hope to replace my kit with a “faster” zoom, preferably something with a 2.8 or faster aperture. For now though the higher ISO performance of the 7D works just fine.

View the full set here: MPR WITS with Neil Gaiman

For more information about MPR Wits click here: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/programs/wits/

CONvergence 2011 – Lara Croft Cosplay

jspotts — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:14:58 +0000

This is a mini shoot I did for my good friend Thea cosplaying as Lara Croft. The makeup is by Holly Luckes and is a wonderful example of her skill as a makeup artist. This was shot while attending CONvergence and is just one of a few mini shoots that I did that weekend.

View the full set here: Convergence 2011 – Lara Croft – Thea

Harriet Island 4th of July Fireworks in St. Paul

jspotts — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:40:18 +0000

This was to be my first go at photographing fireworks. I picked the Harriet Island 4th of July show because I was familiar with the area, it was close to home, and I knew I could easily get a location that was clear with a nice background. With my sturdy tripod (a must for taking pictures of fireworks), remote shutter switch, and camera I set out for Harriet Island to find a spot to setup at. The Harriet Island fireworks are visible from a number of different locations around the Mississippi river, where it passes by Saint Paul, so I really had a lot of good options. I decided on Raspberry Island as my site to shoot from as it is located in the middle of the Mississippi and has a wonderful vantage point with the downtown to the right and an open river in front.

I was recently given a Rokinon FE8M-C 8mm F3.5 Fisheye Lens for my birthday by my wonderful wife and decided that this would make for the perfect lens to use. I’d had the lens for a couple of weeks already so I was familiar with its operation and settings. Being an all manual lens setting the aperture and focus are done on the lens itself, with the shutter speed and ISO set by the camera. Focus was easy as fisheye lenses have a rather extreme depth of field, even when completely open, and for this situation infinity was just fine. Following the advice from other photographers and techniques I’d read online I set my aperture to 11, which was a good match for the 200 ISO and 6 second exposure I was going to use. I think that my 6 second exposure worked perfectly for the majority of the shots, but for the more continuous firework streams or the end finale, a 2 or 3 second exposure with a slightly lower aperture would have probably given me a few more good shots.

Thankfully the insects that night did not make a meal out of me and in the end I managed to get a number of very satisfying shots of the show. My research leading up the evening paid off, which goes to show that a little bit of planning goes a long way. I think for the next fireworks show I shoot I want to find a location that will also give me more interesting architecture for the backdrop. I will probably also try shooting with a slightly narrower lens, something like 18mm just to see the difference in what I capture.

Below are the shots from the night. Most have been cropped in order to bring the focus in a bit and cut out the empty dark space. The one downside to a fisheye lens is that it really does capture a lot in its field of view, and sometimes that’s just a little to much.

You can find this set in my Flickr gallery here: 4th of July – Fireworks from Harriet Island. Additional photos will likely be added in the future to the Flickr gallery.

Up North at Grandfather’s Cabin – Nature

jspotts — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 22:45:31 +0000

Getting out of the cities can be a nice change from time to time. I particularly enjoy going up to my Grandfather’s cabin, near Hackensack, MN. Over the years the cabin has evolved from a fairly simple structure to a more modern home away from home. Up until just recently my grandfather would spend most of his summers up north at the cabin, knowing that family will always come up to visit. I’m certain once he is more fully recovered he will again be making the journey north and family will follow.

For my birthday, just a couple short weeks past now, my wife and I joined my parents and my brother and his wife up at my grandfather’s cabin. I took this as a great opportunity to photograph the cabin, the land around it, the lake, and the stars. In a future post I will explore in greater detail my efforts to create a timelapse capture of the sun setting and of the starry night sky. For this post however I have some of the nature photos I took. Most of these are macro level shots, with a couple of sunsets and a night sky shot thrown in for good measure. I am particularly proud of the Dragonfly I managed to capture mid-landing.

Two of the images in the Gallery below are HDR can you find them? (hint: the Featured Image for this post is one of them)