2. 2018

Photo-A-Month Behind The Scenes

Explanations for the work involved in the photos I shoot for my project this year.
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The subject chosen to kick off this year's photo-a-month challenge was "starscapes" and with enough advance notice I was able to consider a few things during December to prep for it. I decided I wanted to get out of town and put something in front of some stars and hopefully shoot some star trails. Checking on the moon I found it would be full on the 1st and 31st of January and was hoping to shoot for sometime with a 1/2 to 3/4 moon so I could use it to light the mountains, but that of course would depend on the weather. January 4th had perfectly clear skies as the sun went down, so I headed out under an 89% waning gibbous moon and tried to find a good subject.<br /> <br /> Independence Mine is pretty easily accessible, so I dusted off the skis I use far more rarely than once in a blue moon, slapped some skins on them, and headed up there, leaving home around 9:00pm. The moonlight is plenty bright on snowy mountains to move around easily without any extra light, so I skied up to the old mine and scoped out some of the good ruins, and then lined them up with the north star which was a lot closer to directly overhead than I anticipated, somehow.<br /> <br /> I used a wireless trigger (pictured here sitting on my camera bag) to shoot photos for a full hour while I skied around the valley. This is a Rokinon 14mm lens that's entirely manual (that's why the exif data is wrong and says 50mm) and each frame was a five second exposure at ISO 2500 and F4. I then packed up and made it home by 2am and stacked the photos (645 total) in photoshop the next day. With the movement of the moon over an hour a lot of the shadows moved and made things a bit too bright and surreal in the foreground, so I then used one of the images from the stack and masked out the sky so the foreground shadows went back to normal.<br /> <br /> See the result here: <a href="http://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-RLL6Kbd/A">http://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-RLL6Kbd/A</a>
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The subject chosen to kick off this year's photo-a-month challenge was "starscapes" and with enough advance notice I was able to consider a few things during December to prep for it. I decided I wanted to get out of town and put something in front of some stars and hopefully shoot some star trails. Checking on the moon I found it would be full on the 1st and 31st of January and was hoping to shoot for sometime with a 1/2 to 3/4 moon so I could use it to light the mountains, but that of course would depend on the weather. January 4th had perfectly clear skies as the sun went down, so I headed out under an 89% waning gibbous moon and tried to find a good subject.

Independence Mine is pretty easily accessible, so I dusted off the skis I use far more rarely than once in a blue moon, slapped some skins on them, and headed up there, leaving home around 9:00pm. The moonlight is plenty bright on snowy mountains to move around easily without any extra light, so I skied up to the old mine and scoped out some of the good ruins, and then lined them up with the north star which was a lot closer to directly overhead than I anticipated, somehow.

I used a wireless trigger (pictured here sitting on my camera bag) to shoot photos for a full hour while I skied around the valley. This is a Rokinon 14mm lens that's entirely manual (that's why the exif data is wrong and says 50mm) and each frame was a five second exposure at ISO 2500 and F4. I then packed up and made it home by 2am and stacked the photos (645 total) in photoshop the next day. With the movement of the moon over an hour a lot of the shadows moved and made things a bit too bright and surreal in the foreground, so I then used one of the images from the stack and masked out the sky so the foreground shadows went back to normal.

See the result here: http://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-RLL6Kbd/A

  • The subject chosen to kick off this year's photo-a-month challenge was "starscapes" and with enough advance notice I was able to consider a few things during December to prep for it. I decided I wanted to get out of town and put something in front of some stars and hopefully shoot some star trails. Checking on the moon I found it would be full on the 1st and 31st of January and was hoping to shoot for sometime with a 1/2 to 3/4 moon so I could use it to light the mountains, but that of course would depend on the weather. January 4th had perfectly clear skies as the sun went down, so I headed out under an 89% waning gibbous moon and tried to find a good subject.<br /> <br /> Independence Mine is pretty easily accessible, so I dusted off the skis I use far more rarely than once in a blue moon, slapped some skins on them, and headed up there, leaving home around 9:00pm. The moonlight is plenty bright on snowy mountains to move around easily without any extra light, so I skied up to the old mine and scoped out some of the good ruins, and then lined them up with the north star which was a lot closer to directly overhead than I anticipated, somehow.<br /> <br /> I used a wireless trigger (pictured here sitting on my camera bag) to shoot photos for a full hour while I skied around the valley. This is a Rokinon 14mm lens that's entirely manual (that's why the exif data is wrong and says 50mm) and each frame was a five second exposure at ISO 2500 and F4. I then packed up and made it home by 2am and stacked the photos (645 total) in photoshop the next day. With the movement of the moon over an hour a lot of the shadows moved and made things a bit too bright and surreal in the foreground, so I then used one of the images from the stack and masked out the sky so the foreground shadows went back to normal.<br /> <br /> See the result here: <a href="http://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-RLL6Kbd/A">http://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-RLL6Kbd/A</a>
  • February's theme for this challenge was "Flowing Water." I kicked around a number of ideas for how to picture that, and eventually decided on a quiet coffee brewing scene mostly out of lack of energy to really put any of the other ideas together. I wanted a sort of muted calm feel so I made the background my wall map of the world and used an end table positioned in front of it as my base. Then I set up a single Alienbee strobe with a Yongnuo wireless trigger in a softbox slightly behind the subject to give a nice soft rim light and hopefully outline the steam from the coffee, and opposite that I placed a white reflector to fill in the shadows with a bit more light. The background lit nicely with just the scattered light from that setup, so I left it alone. I also tried to generate a bit more steam by opening my doors and cooling the room, but I did not find that very effective. I set the camera on a tripod and triggered it remotely as the coffee brewed, and picked a favorite image from my final selection.<br /> <br /> In post processing I only had to make some minor adjustments to contrast and saturation to achieve the look I wanted, and then I added a light vignette as well. My main disappointment was that I was not able to catch as much steam as I had hoped, so in order to achieve the product I wanted I downloaded a set of "steam" brushes for photoshop from brusheezy.com and augmented the little bit of real steam that I had with some fake steam. In the end I'm happy with the final shot, even though after all this work I still managed to miss the focus!<br /> <br /> See the result here: <a href="http://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-vdJVZXJ/A">http://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-vdJVZXJ/A</a>
  • I didn't shoot a photo for my behind-the-scenes shot here, but I've got a few things to say about it. The street photography genre is definitely an area of photography I am weak in. This is probably due to a couple of factors relating to my aptitude for social atmospheres and interaction. So when I set out to shoot a "street" photo I did it with little enthusiasm and even less of an idea what to do.<br /> <br /> I wound up heading to downtown Sacramento, CA for this shot, drove around to find a backdrop that was halfway decent, and stood across the street waiting for my subjects to wander into the frame. I'm not especially happy about my results; I figure a street photo should tell a story, and this one really invokes more questions than answers, but at least it gets you thinking about the subjects and their lives and I feel that much is a success for me anyway.<br /> <br /> See the result here: <a href="https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-8CHjQ7d">https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-8CHjQ7d</a>
  • April's theme was "Textures" which is pretty broad, but I narrowed it down by applying it to climbing and came up with just shooting the textures of a rock being climbed. That concept was pretty simple, so I waited for a day when we were out bouldering and got myself a hand model to pose for me on a problem that presented a decent example of texture, and then I just snapped a few shots.<br /> <br /> The available light was conveniently fine here, highlighting the colors of the rock contrasting with the climber's skin and not being too harsh and blowing everything out, so I stuck with that. I kept the climber's face shadowed and subdued to keep it from being a focal point, and also cropped him mostly out to draw the eye to the left hand. I also used an aperture of F2.8 on a 100mm lens for all the same reasons. I'm happy with the result.<br /> <br /> See the result here: <a href="https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-5dxDBvZ/A">https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-5dxDBvZ/A</a>
  • I feel like this photo was a bit of a cop-out, but I'm still happy with the results. I spent all month trying to come up with a good idea, but never did, so while cruising up to Hatcher Pass on the 31st, I pulled over at a beaver pond and snapped a nice composition with a reflection in it, and then flipped it in post and cropped it some. This is the original photo. I did some light edits in post, but nothing too serious. Overall I'm happy to get results like these with the level of commitment I put into it!<br /> <br /> See the result here: <a href="https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-ndZWJmR/A">https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-ndZWJmR/A</a>
  • The theme for June was "Levitation." I had a few good idea options kicking around in my head for the whole month, but with the opening of climbing season bringing me to Hatcher Pass as much as possible it just made sense to go with this one that I could do in the mountains. I didn't get much choice in weather or timing, I just went out when I had the time, so conditions are what they are.<br /> <br /> To start this photo I took a shot of the background that was properly exposed for the ground itself, leaving the sky completely blown out because it's so much brighter. Then I shot the sky itself at about three stops faster. Then I positioned the camera as you see here and did some jumping frames using the remote, with the camera pointing the same direction so I maintained the same lighting conditions. After those were satisfactory. I crossed the creek to the boulders just visible in the left edge of this photo and again used the trigger to shoot myself holding up a few of the smaller rocks, again keeping the lighting consistent and shooting multiple angles of different rocks. I also shot a bunch of photos of the rock piles themselves just in case I wanted to piece together edges or corners to complete a proper looking floating rock, but I didn't actually wind up using any of those.<br /> <br /> Back at the editing couch I set up the background layer to be reasonably proper lighting-wise. Then I dropped the sky photo on top of it, made it a smart object so I could resize it all I wanted, and then stretched and moved it around until it fit the space I needed it to, and then I carefully masked out the mountain edge using a tiny brush to avoid any halo effect. Once that was complete I adjusted the colors on the sky to my liking and moved on to the rocks. For each rock, I again made the image into a smart object, resized, rotated, and positioned the rock itself, and then masked out everything but the rock. Then I did some lightening to boost the shadows caused by me holding the rocks, and then more overall lightening and a contrast enhancement to make them stand out a bit from the background. I also darkened the background behind them to help with that. For my jumping frame I did pretty much the same thing, shrinking myself down a little and again boosting brightness and contrast.<br /> <br /> Once the pieces were all together I did a bunch of tweaking to try to isolate the rocks a little more. Unfortunately during this season everything up there is sort of brown and grey, so it's difficult to make things stand out from each other in that environment. I think I would have had a better effect had summer been in full swing and everything in the background been bright green, so the grey boulders would have contrasted more boldly. My last step for those was to selectively desaturate the rocks a little just to help enhance their prominence, which worked nicely, although ultimately I'm not a hundred percent happy with how much they still blend in. And finally, I applied a light vignetting over the whole image and tweaked all the layers to pull the lighting together more consistently.<br /> <br /> At 32 layers this is definitely my most complex image in this project yet, and overall I think I'm as satisfied as I can be with the results, given the conditions I had.<br /> <br /> See the result here: <a href="https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-tGgn7kS/A">https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-tGgn7kS/A</a>
  • Green is sort of everywhere this time of year, so I didn't really worry about having a subject. One of the first things that pops into my head when I think of greenery is fiddlehead ferns, and with plenty of those in Hatcher Pass still starting to unfurl this time of year, I simply took the opportunity on a climbing outing to get low in the bushes and get a few angles on the growing ferns, using a 100mm lens at f2.8 to really separate the subject from the backdrop with a good bokeh. That's really about all there is to this one.<br /> <br /> See the result here: <a href="https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-jZ5hXqT/A">https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-jZ5hXqT/A</a>
  • August's theme was "Portrait of a Friend" so I spent most of the month convincing friend and fellow photographer Cherith to be my subject, and after that the rest was pretty easy. I set up a single softbox on camera left at a roughly 45 degree angle, and bounced that off a reflector on camera right placed close to the subject to fill the shadows, and all of that was about four feet away from a white wall for a backdrop which gave a nice neutral grey in the falloff from the flash. Cherith I posed on a stool with her feet elevated on a lower bench, which gave her enough support to lean forward slightly onto her hands and get them in the frame too. I'm quite happy with the final product!<br /> <br /> See the result here: <a href="https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-vXGNrm5/A">https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-vXGNrm5/A</a>
  • September's theme was "Self Portrait" so I took the opportunity to shoot this one during an attempt at shooting the Northen Lights in Hatcher Pass. We hiked out to a boulder with a decent open sky all around it and set up while we waited for the show to start, and since I shoot starscapes with a remote already anyway it was a simple matter to shoot a photo of myself on the boulder. I simply set a delay on the trigger, pressed the button, and pulled into position before the trigger opened the shutter, and then for lighting I had my fellow photographer fire off a speedlight in a softbox one time during the ten second exposure. I dropped off the boulder rather than stay in position for the whole exposure, so if you look close you can see a little of my ghosting against the sky backdrop just to the right of the boulder.<br /> <br /> See the result here: <a href="https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-6cjdtxt/A">https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-6cjdtxt/A</a>
  • This one was interesting. Most of my learning here was not photography related, but it was pretty cool. I got the idea and then looked into how to do it, and the internet said to use sodium carbonate or "Washing Soda" mixed into boiling water to soak the leaves, and then a soft brush to wipe away the flesh of the leaf and expose the "skeleton" of veins. I couldn't find washing soda locally, but I found some laundry soap that had it mixed in and gave it a shot. It's also late fall here and I picked my leaves up off the ground, so I think a fresh healthy leaf may have worked a little better, but I'm still happy with the end result. I tried a few shots to try to figure out what the best perspective for this would be and I'm not sure I got the very best one, but I like it. In this photo it's lit with a strobe very close on camera left with the Canon 100mm macro lens at F22 to keep the widest depth of field, and both the leaf and camera were hand held over a mottled black floor backdrop.<br /> <br /> See the result here: <a href="https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-m6XgLQt/A">https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-m6XgLQt/A</a>
  • November's subject was "Negative Space." I kicked around a couple ideas that never materialized, so I threw this one together at the end of the month. The setup was pretty basic, just a white infinity backdrop made from a few pieces of paper, a flash bounced off the wall and ceiling, and some fine tuning of the composition. I'm happy with the result.<br /> <br /> See the result here: <a href="https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-KGZGTJX/A">https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-KGZGTJX/A</a>
  • This photo got pretty complex, but was plenty fun to shoot. To start, I strung up the string light backdrop using a few different ropes to dd a little depth to the spots, and positioned that in front of my wall map for some mottled neutral colors behind the lights. I then added one strand in the foreground for a little spattering of lights there. I lit Melody with a single wirelessly triggered strobe in a softbox on camera right, and I was getting a bit too much light even on my lowest setting, so I hung another diffuser in front of that to gain a little finer control. On camera left I placed my extra powerful hair blower fan, which wound up being a little overkill being so close to the model, so on the backside of that I placed the cover for the reflector, which sucked to the fan and diminished its blowing capacity a bit. I triggered the camera wirelessly while carefully positioning the foreground lights and honing the focus in dim light. Ultimately I wish my bokeh was a bit bigger and creamier, but that's the limitation of my 100mm 2.8 in close confines like this. I also probably should have gelled the flash to warm it up a bit, which I considered doing at first and then just didn't for no reason at all. I am happy with the final product, but the color balancing gave me a bit of a challenge because of that.<br /> <br /> See the result here: <a href="https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-F7fgqwr/A">https://www.morffed.com/2018/Photo-A-Month-Challenge/i-F7fgqwr/A</a>
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