Taken on Saturday, March 15, 2014. We took a little side route into the trees so I could take this picture. Set my camera on a mini table tripod on my backpack in the snow, and hung my flash upside down from a tree branch.
Jared and Hagene
Sometimes, you find yourself so irritated with your friends, that the only way to get away from them is to move just about as far away as possible. And that’s just what my friends, Jared and Hagene did. Sure, they claim it was because Hage landed this really awesome job opportunity with Nike, but one can never really be sure, you know?
Last Monday was their last night in town. They gathered some of their closest friends in Chicago (which I assume includes me, since I was there) for a low-key farewell dinner at Bricks Pizza. We enjoyed some laughs over drinks, and thin-crust pizza, and ended with some hugs, tears, and farewells. It was definitely a bittersweet farewell, as Hage has been one of my best friends for over 13 years. We’ve been friends since our time in the dorms at the University of Michigan, and she was kind enough to tolerate me and let me crash on her couch when she convinced me to take a job in Chicago a couple years ago. So, to me, I’m not really saying “farewell”, I’m just saying, “Hey, can’t wait to crash on your couch in Portland!”
Just around the corner from the restaurant was a park bench, which was basically the first thing I saw that would be suitable for them to sit on. Temps were hovering in the single digits, so I tried to make it this portrait session as quick as possible. I did my best Chris Hansen impression and asked:
They did as I asked, and got comfy as I set up my equipment. I set up my flash and lightstand with a white shoot through umbrella just to the right, and started moving quickly. I had everything set up manually; triggering the flash with some cheapo (but super reliable, yongnuo rf-602) flash triggers. So yeah, I was the flasher in the park.
So, sure, this looks like a pretty straightforward portrait, shot strobist style. But, that’s the genius behind the whole thing. It’s not an ordinary portrait. It’s shot using a unique technique which replicates the look of large format by allowing more shallow depth of field than is capable with a full-frame camera. How is this done you ask? By taking a series of overlapping photos that can be stitched together and expanding that photo into a larger panorama. This technique is known as a bokeh panorama, or expansion, but more commonly referred to as the Brenizer Method. It’s pretty awesome.
So, I’ve known about this technique for a while, but never really put it into practice. I’ve always had trouble with getting panoramas to line up and stitch together properly, but I think that’s likely because I’m using too wide of a lens. Here, I’m using a 85mm, so I can get more shallow depth of field, but it also means there’s less distortion in the photo, which makes it easier to stitch together. I did still have to do a little filling in since I missed the bottom right corner, but I think it turned out pretty well for my first attempt.
Shot with my D800, and a total of 21 shots. I downsized each photo to a 12mp jpeg before I stitched them together (otherwise, it would have been way too big for my computer to handle). I still ended up with a 60 megapixel photo (or what would have been 180 megapixels if I hadn’t resized). And, the extra bonus is that with the larger image, the noise is reduced (or at least smaller when resized), so the image looks extra smooth.
So, yeah. Super happy with the results from this week’s project. Anybody else try this technique before?
So after Christmas with my family in San Jose, California, I rented a car, and drove down the coast to spend time with my friends in Los Angeles for New Years. My plan was to camp for a night in Big Sur, and do some timelapse photos, but with everyone being on vacation and the weather being super nice, all of the campsites ended up being booked before I got there.
I didn’t get to spend much time in Big Sur, since the sun was starting to set by the time I got there, so I just found an area I could pull over, and hike around a bit. I set up my camera and started shooting, but after the sun set, the air cooled, and the fog and moisture seemed to literally, come out of thin air. So, in my mind, I thought I wasn’t going to get really great photos of the sky since it was starting to get foggy, so I ended up skedaddling after about an hour and a half to find a hotel.
Anyway, after checking my photos, it turns out I didn’t end up with enough shots to make a real long timelapse, but I decided to put it together anyway and make it more like a fast moving slideshow.
But I guess it’s a learning experience. Just another reason for me to return to the West Coast sometime, and plan on spending more time out there!
That’s it for now!
P.s. Be sure to watch it in HD for full effect.
Sometimes, when you have hours and hours to drive solo, you just need to take breaks, and give yourself things to look forward to. Even with a metric crapload of music, podcasts and audiobooks at my disposal, it’s still nice to get out of the car once in a while. I’ll usually stop every couple hours to stretch, walk a bit, get a drink, or use the restroom. On the drive back from Montana, I knew I’d be driving through some pretty desolate areas during a new moon, which is great for us city folk who can’t get enough of the night sky. I kept one eye on the road, and one eye on the sky. As the sun went down, and the temperature dropped, I waited for the clouds to dissipate (or at least fade in my rearview mirror) to find a good spot to take a picture.
I drove about 5 minutes away from I-90 to find an isolated spot to take a photo (somewhere off of the road where I wouldn’t be afraid of getting hit by a car or shot for trespassing… When you’re in the middle of nowhere, you start feeling like you’re doing something wrong, lurking with a camera in the dark). I threw on my sweater and beanie, and grabbed the camera. When it gets this dark out, it’s really hard to compose a good shot, so you just point it in the general direction (for me, usually towards the Milky Way), set the camera manually, and keep your fingers crossed as you wait and see what pops up on your LCD. You can then recompose and take another shot, but, even then, you might not get anything better. This was actually the first shot in the series that I took, and it turned out to be the best. (Also, I didn’t run into anybody else, so I didn’t need to explain why I was peepin’ on them stars.)
Hopefully everyone made it home from Thanksgiving safely!
p.s. 2 posts in under a week? Sorry about that! I promise we’ll be return to our regularly scheduled irregularity and sparsity.
Hi everyone! It’s been awhile since my last serious update, and a lot has happened!
So, a few days ago, wordpress just let me know some big news! (Yes, we’re bff’s and talk often.) My blog turned four years old… That’s a big deal. And just like having real kids, that’s when you really need to start taking care of them.
Again, just like any four year old, you gotta name them when they get to a certain age. (For legal reasons, I guess.) Maybe you’ve already noticed, but I’ve changed it from it’s initial “jletookthis.wordpress.com” to a sleeker, sexier domain name… http://www.seldomlyupdated.com. Yeah, that’s right. It’s a strangely fitting and apropos. It also gives me an opportunity to use the word “apropos”.
So, congress congressed and they were somehow able to pull their heads out of their respective (yet somehow, less respectable) asses. They raised the debt ceiling, and our economy didn’t spiral out of control and we can go on living for a few more months and enjoy our reopened parks.
So, in honor of the National parks reopening, I thought I would post a video I had put together from my trip to the big national parks in Utah this summer. My brother, his friend and I (see photo above), took a week to hit Mesa Verde, Canyonlands, Arches, Capitol Reef, Bryce, and Zion. With all the photos I took, I decided to put it together into a pseudo-timelapse travel slideshow/video. Although I didn’t pre-plan it, I think it turned out pretty well. So, if you’re keen to spend a some time on a whirlwind trip hiking and zooming past some beautiful scenery, feel free to take a look. Enjoy! (Also, it’s best viewed in HD on Vimeo.)
Seldomly Updated 