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I'll be posting some random thoughts here about my photography: my travel plans, technical information behind some images, stories about how certain pictures were captured, etc. The timing of the postings will also be random as my priority is capturing new images rather than writing about existing ones. I hope you will feel free to comment on any of my postings and I appreciate you taking time to read my entries.
Four Lenses and a StaircaseDuring my last road trip, I was tempted to remove some lenses from my bag to reduce the weight during long walks through cities. In the end, I carried my gripped Nikon D850, the 14-24 2.8, 24-70 2.8, 70-200 2.8 and Sigma 15mm fisheye. In addition, there was a teleconverter, various filters, extra batteries and a Gitzo tripod. During several of my architectural photo shoots, I used all of those lenses. Here's an example of four different perspectives (lenses) while shooting a staircase inside the Cleveland Public Library: 1- Sigma 15mm fisheye
New Mexico Road TripMy next road trip is planned for November, 2019. This trip will include mostly New Mexico locations. It will cover approximately 3,500 miles over 21 days.
Day 2: Springfield, MO - St. Louis Abbey Day 3- Oklahoma City, OK - Tulsa Day 4- Oklahoma City, OK - OKC National Monument, Skydance Bridge Day 5- Tucumcari, NM - Blue Swallow Motel Day 6- Santa Fe, NM - State Capitol, Old Santa Fe Day 7- Santa Fe, NM - Pecos National Historic Site Day 8- Santa Fe, NM - Bandelier National Monument Day 9- Taos, NM - High Road to Taos Day 10- Alburquerque, NM - Zoo Day 11- Bosque del Apache, NM Day 12- Bosque del Apache, NM Day 13- Bosque del Apache, NM Day 14- White Sands, NM Day 15- White Sands, NM Day 16- White Sands, NM Day 17- Las Cruces, NM - New Mexico State University Day 18- Roswell, NM - Carlsbad Caverns Day 19- Liberal, KS - Cathedral of the Plains Day 20- Kansas City, MO Day 21- Orland Park, IL Distribution by Lens -- Cooperstown TripNearly every time I return from a trip, I'm asked about which lenses I used to capture the images. At the end of a trip, I like to look at the distribution of shots by lens. Here's how it looked for my most recent road trip to Cooperstown. CLICK HERE to view my favorite images from this journey.
I used just one camera for the entire trip--the Nikon D850. 62% of my photographs were captured using the Nikon 14-24 2.8 lens. The reason for this is that the vast majority of the pictures from this trip are interiors. I visited many impressive cathedrals and libraries along the way. The trip included stops in Cleveland, Buffalo, Harrisburg, Richmond, Raleigh and Pittsburgh. The Sigma fisheye accounted for just 5% of the pictures, but it's a very useful lens for me. It's a specialty lens that I don't use a lot, but when I need it there's nothing else that can do what it does. Here are a few images from this trip with the fisheye:
"The Catcher" Wins Photo of the Day!This morning, my "The Catcher" picture won Imaging Resource's "Photo of the Day". CLICK HERE to view Imaging Resource's Photo of the Day page. This photograph is of a player who plays on the 12U travel baseball team that I coach.
This marks the 60th time that one of my photographs was recognized by Imaging Resource as its "Photo of the Day". A photographer is limited to one winning entry per month, so this series of winning images stretches back more than six years. Click here to view all of the winning entries over the past few years.
Four Lenses and a CeilingDuring my recent road trip, I found myself carrying four lenses in my backpack. This makes for a reasonably heavy load when you consider that a gripped camera, teleconverter, batteries, filters and more are also packed in bag. Of course, I also carried a tripod and ballhead. Yet, I was reluctant to carry less. During many of the photo shoots, I used all four lenses. Here's an example from the Pennsylvania State Capitol. From the floor of the rotunda, I started very wide and then worked my way up through the higher focal length lenses: 1- Sigma 15mm fisheye
The Last ShotTwo nights ago I wrapped up my road trip with a photograph of the Pittsburgh skyline. This was the final picture of my 22 day road trip (click here to view the itinerary for this trip). I captured this image from an observation deck off Grandview Avenue above the Monongahela River. Thankfully, the observation decks are still open. The surrounding sidewalks off Grandview Avenue are mostly closed due to safety concerns. The sidewalks are breaking apart and pedestrians are warned not to step on them or risk falling quite some distance. This observation deck provided a great view of the city. And, the clouds brought drama into the scene. My biggest concern was whether the storm would hold off long enough for me to capture the photograph in the best light. I could see the thunderstorm approaching from the northeast. You can probably see the lightning strikes at the horizon in the left portion of the frame. These are actual lightning strikes. I did not add them in Photoshop. The storm did hold off. I was able to navigate the tricky drive back to my hotel before the rain started. My hotel was located near the Cathedral of Learning on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. You can see the Cathedral of Learning in the distance. If you move along the horizon from right to left it is the second building that you first come across...a 42 story academic building (the tallest academic building in the Western Hemisphere). I'll cover more about this amazing building in an upcoming post. Once it started raining, it came down hard for hours. The severely saturated grounds were partially attributed to a freak accident that occurred in the metro Pittsburgh area a few hours later. A tree that was 80 feet tall fell through the roof of a house. A man was pinned down while laying in his bed and later died. Click here for that news story. So here's the photograph:
Cooperstown Road Trip ItineraryThis road trip was both a photography and a baseball trip. I coach a 12U baseball team and we played in a week long tournament in Cooperstown, New York. The photography portion of the trip took place before and after that tournament. The trip will covered 22 days and 2,900 miles.
Day 2: Buffalo, NY - St. Joseph's Cathedral; City Hall; St. Paul's Cathedral Day 3- Syracuse, NY Day 4- Cooperstown, NY - baseball tournament Day 5- Cooperstown, NY - baseball tournament Day 6- Cooperstown, NY - baseball tournament Day 7- Cooperstown, NY - baseball tournament Day 8- Cooperstown, NY - baseball tournament Day 9- Cooperstown, NY - baseball tournament Day 10- Harrisburg, PA - PA Capitol, Negley Park (cityscape); Cathedral of St. Patrick Day 11- Gettysburg, PA - Historical Park Day 12- Gettysburg, PA - National Cemetery Day 13- Richmond, VA - VA Capitol; St. Paul's Episcopal Church Day 14- Richmond, VA - City Hall; Maymont mansion; Hollywood Cemetery Day 15- Williamsburg, VA - Colonial Willamsburg Day 16- Williamsburg, VA - Jamestown; College of William & Mary Day 17- Raleigh, NC - James Hunt Library; Wilson Library (UNC) Day 18- Raleigh, NC - Duke University Chapel; Skyline (Boylan Bridge) Day 19- Morgantown, WV - University of West Virginia; Mt. Airy (Mayberry) Day 20- Pittsburgh, PA - Mount Washington; Heinz Memorial Chapel; First Presbyterian Church Day 21- Pittsburgh, PA - Cathedral of Learning; Phipps Conservatory; St. Paul Cathedral Day 22- Orland Park, IL
"Dog in the Window" Wins Photo of the Day!This morning, my "Dog in the Window" picture won Imaging Resource's "Photo of the Day". CLICK HERE to view Imaging Resource's Photo of the Day page. This photograph was captured during my road trip to Newfoundland last summer. I came across this scene at Petty Harbour in Newfoundland.
This marks the 59th time that one of my photographs was recognized by Imaging Resource as its "Photo of the Day". A photographer is limited to one winning entry per month, so this series of winning images stretches back more than six years. Click here to view all of the winning entries over the past few years.
Imaging Resource Photo ContestsOver the past several years, 57 of my photographs have won Imaging Resource's Photo of the Day contest. Photographers are eligible to win a maximum of one Photo of the Day contest each month. At the end of the month, the judges award prize money to the top 3 pictures from the collection of daily winners. Click here to view the winning entries. Imaging Resource's published an article about the winning entries from November. Apparently, all five winning photographs (the three prize money winners along with the two runner-ups) were submitted by photographers who had previously won the top prize (first place photograph) for a month. A section of the article covers my "Peeking Frog" photograph--which finished in second place for November.
I very much enjoy participating in these photo contests. There isn't any entry fee and the competition is strong. And, the cash (gift card) prizes are an added bonus...I've won a few thousand dollars doing this. Last month, I used my gift card to purchase a pair of Apple Airbuds! High Resolution PanoramasDuring my road trip to Newfoundland, I visited Pictou in Nova Scotia. While composing a picture of the waterfront, I initially attached the Nikon 24-70 lens to my Nikon D850 camera. This enabled me to capture an image of the waterfront with just one frame. Of course, the picture then needed to be cropped to the panoramic dimensions. This meant tossing some pixels away and reducing the resolution of the photograph. I then tried another approach. I had my Nikon 300 2.8 lens in my bag. When most photographers think about panoramas, they usually aren't envisioning using a telephoto lens. But, the 300 is one of the sharpest lenses that I own. And, it forced me to shoot many more images to cover the same scene. After stitching all of those exposures together, the resolution of the final image is far greater than the photograph that was captured with one frame and then cropped.
The stitched image consists of 14 vertical frames. The resulting file is more than 33,000 pixels across and nearly 7,000 pixels high. The file is almost 1.5 GB in size.
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