shooting against the odds

 

Despite my plans to execute our annual birthday cake baking ritual in the light of day (for optimum photos of course), some years it's more difficult than others to find the time. This year, I knew that baking at night (past our bedtime even) wouldn't offer a picture-perfect scenario. Luckily, I have long abandoned my expectation for perfect so I figured I'd give it a shot (or two) and tell this year's story as it really is. We're busy. And my daughter is growing up. And although life sometimes gets sticky, it's always sweet.

This shot will stand as an all-time favorite of mine. I should have remembered that when I surrender and give it my best attempt to cook up something wonderful something yummy happens.

Have you ever shot against all odds only to discover a sweet surprise in the end? Share your unlikely captures with us today.

Sunday School: When Life Gives You Raindrops, Make Bokeh

It's been a cold, wet October here in the Windy City.  Summer never quite settled in, and we hoped she'd be back before Autumn took over the lease, but I think it's time we collectively stopped holding our breaths.  No worries, though, because safely nestled in a warm car on a rainy day, you can catch some amazing bokeh.

So the next time it rains in your neck of the woods. grab a good mix CD (or whatever you mp3 mavens do for the car), jump in the nearest available windshield fortified vehicle, drive to a location with an interesting mix of colors and shapes (your driveway may work just fine), turn off the wipers and wait for just the right amount of raindrops to congregate on your windshield.  Soak in the dreamy creamy blur and start catching some magic.  To get the raindrops to bokeh (e.g. blur), make sure that you are not focusing directly ON the raindrops but either PAST the windshield on something outside or somewhere in FRONT of the raindrops (your toes on the dashboard, perhaps).  On the flipside, focusing on the raindrops themselves can get some interesting creamy bokeh of the outside as well.  The possibilities are just endless!

Catching bokeh in a rain shower is probably easiest done at night on a busy street with lots of street lamps, but I'm sure it can also be done during the day.  You can play around with the size of the bokeh by changing the distance of your lens from the windshield.  Generally, the closer your lens to the windshield, the bigger the bokeh.  You can also experiment with the shape of your bokeh by changing the size of your aperture.  The wider the aperture, the rounder your bokeh will be.  Or if you're one of the lucky people who own a Lensbaby and their Creative Apertures Kit, you don't need to limit yourself to circles and hexagons.

For those of you who live in the desert, I apologize.  Maybe you can hook up the sprinkler or something.

If you get a chance to try this out, we'd love to see your results.  Or share with us your favorite image made possible by rain.

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P.S. If you'd like to try a carbon neutral option, a clear umbrella works great, too!

sunday school: because the night belongs to us

Way back in the very tail end of my 20s, I found myself single again, living alone for the very first time in a tiny attic apartment in the heart of my city.  That's when I fell in love with the night and spent countless hours walking the city by streelight and capturing what I saw with my little Nikon Coolpix.  Back then, I knew nothing about white balance or aperture.  I just knew to hold really still and that sometimes my photos would come out a bit blurry and kinda orange, but what the hey;  I still loved it.

To this day, night photography remains a nostalgia-soaked event that I try to do every chance I get.  There are several variables that come into play that you don't get during daylight--moving points of light, streetlight flare, blur, deep indigo blue skies, strangers who seem even more mysterious in the night than during the day.

If you'd like to try a little night photography like the one I photographed above, here is a play by play of what I did to get the shot:

1. I set my ISO to 200.  The lower the ISO, the less noise you'll get.  In Aperture Priority, I set the the camera to f/4.5.  The narrower the aperture, the longer the shutter speed you'll need for proper exposure.  Since I wanted the people to be relatively in focus, I set the aperture narrow enough to make the streetlights flare, but wide enough for the shutter speed to be a reasonable 1/3 of a second.

2. I placed the camera on a stable surface.  I happened to find a ledge that was built into the wall of the building I was next to, and I set the camera on that.

3. Looking through the viewfinder (or Live View or LCD screen), I framed the shot the way I wanted it.  I knew I wanted streetlight flare, so I tried to get some streetlights in the shot, and I knew I wanted the the girl in one half of the shot, and the guy in the other.

4. I also wanted to capture the streaking blur of passing vehicles, so I waited until two cars were passing in opposit directions at the corner, and I clicked.

5. In post-processing, I played with the white balance and various color saturation to get the look I wanted.

So are there any other night owl shutterbugs out there?  I'd love to see what you capture in the night.