Tag Archives: DSLR

Wigglegram: Milky Way over Kalaloch Beach

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milky-way

Taken back in October 2015, when I camped near Kalaloch Beach in Olympic National Park in Washington State on my Nikon D700, f/2.8 at 14mm.

There’s a lot of things I love about gifs, but one of the things is that it allows you to capture a passage of time that you just can’t with a static image. This is 5 shots, each 20 seconds, of the Milky Way as it moves through the sky over the pacific ocean, over about a period of 2 minutes.

I don’t know if I can say enough about the night sky. People often ask whether or not it actually looked like this. And it’s hard to say “well, not quite”. Sure with it being a long exposure, it captures the milky way a little more brilliantly than may be seen with the naked eye, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not actually the way it looks. There is so much of this scene that can’t be captured by just our eyes, or even captured by a photo.

Sometimes we just assume that only the things the rods and cones can detect are what is real, but there are parts of the spectrum that aren’t visible to us but are there nonetheless.

Anyway, I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here, except, yes, these photos are real, and they’re spectacular.

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Oregon Through Timelapse

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A General Life Update Where I Make Excuses:

So, it’s been more than a little while since I’ve updated… I’ve been focusing more on film photography this summer, so there hasn’t been as much to share. I have a few rolls that I’ve stashed away, that I am hoping to develop and scan myself, but am holding off until I have a few more rolls finished.

I have picked up a few new cameras, which I really should feature in a little “cameraporn” series, so I will try to do that in the next few weeks. It’ll be a Fujica GW690II, and a Mamiya RZ67proII. I am really enjoying the image quality from these larger sized medium format cameras… You’ll see what I mean when I finally get around to posting those pics.

In any case, you’ll likely be seeing a few more updates than you have been getting from me earlier this year, since now I have a bit more time on my hands… Why you ask? (Well, I’ll tell you, even though you didn’t ask.) Well, because a couple weeks ago, the company I was working at laid me off…

At first, I was a little upset, and maybe a little surprised, although I shouldn’t have been. The past year, my company had merged with another, and I had been working to manage the process of several plant closures we had been going through to achieve the “synergy targets” that the board was looking for. It meant I was in the know on some layoffs, even if I had no real control over them or how it happened. But, they layoffs continued with a voluntary separation, and then involuntary layoffs. I made it through those, but then the company made some organizational changes, and decided they didn’t need project manager any longer. It was just strange to be on both sides of the coin there. No major qualms about it though; it’s actually been quite a blessing in disguise! It happened at an opportune time for me, as I had just been trying to finalize my plans for how I could stretch rest of my vacation time this year, only to find out, that I now have plenty of time to vacation!

I’m planning on taking some time to reevaluate what direction I want my career to head in, as well as take some time to explore and learn, and spend time with my loved ones. But enough about me…

And now to get to the point… Oregon Through Timelapse:

You may have seen the photos I posted when I camped in Oregon. I had done a few timelapses, which I compiled with a couple from the last time I was in Oregon to come up with this short video… I hope you like it! I put it together a a couple months ago, so I’m not sure why I’m just now getting around to sharing it! Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about the timelapses. I am never sure how much to bore people with details, and I’m probably a little to lazy to go back and look up anything without being sure people want to know!

Anyways, thanks as always for following, and reading my words and looking at my photos. I do a lot of this stuff for my own personal benefit, but it’s also nice to know that other people enjoy it too!

#52weekproject: Week 19: State Street Bridge

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State St Bridge Square

 

Week 19: State Street Bridge

Taken Sunday, August 10th, 2014 in downtown Chicago.

After catching up with my friend Joanna the night before, she mentioned that she there happened to be some construction work on the waterfront walkway and that the State Street bridge was raised up during that time. Even though I have been in the city for over 2 years now, I can’t recall ever seeing one of these main bridges up, so I knew I had to go check it out.

Fortunately, it was not raining by the time I went for a wander downtown, but it was misty and the fog had rolled in. I was half-worried the clouds would just open up and start pouring, but I’m glad it didn’t. I ended up with a few shots I liked, but since I was looking for a square image, this one seemed to fit the bill the best. Taken from the Dearborn Street Bridge, shooting east. I’ll post a few more photos below.

Fun Fact:

The State Street bridge is also known as the Bataan-Corregidor Memorial Bridge, in honor of the World War II defenders of Bataan and Corregidor (Which is a peninsula and island in the Philippines which played an important role in World War II).

 

 

52WP - Week 19 State Street Straight Up

52WP - Week 19 State St 4

52WP - Week 19 southwest

#52weekproject: Week 13 – North & Halsted

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Week 13: North & Halsted

North and Clyborn
Taken Wednesday, May 21st, 2014. I wandered around the city checking out a few parking structures that had open rooftops near the train tracks to get a shot of the city and maybe a moving train. The hunt was a little bit of a bust in terms of actual photographic captures, but I think I do have a some ideas for next time.

This shot in particular is from the Steppenwolf theater parking structure, which overlooks the brown/purple line near Halsted St and North Ave. It felt a little creepy taking a photo from there, because the trains slow down around the corner, and at that time of day, it feels like I’m a peeping tom (not that I would know), taking pictures of people through their train windows and invading their privacy (that’s a nice blouse you’re wearing, by the way).

Anyway, I dig that the lampposts kind of frame the photo, and you can see the a bit of the city between the buildings (the Hancock being the easily recognizable one). Could have tried a longer focal length from further back, but not sure I’d have the height to do that.

#52weekproject: Week 12 #Jesstin2014

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Week 12: #Jesstin2014

Photo taken on Friday, May 9th, 2014. This technically falls under Week 11, but I’m willing to fudge this so it gets it’s own week.

Misty Farms, Ann Arbor, MI

Misty Farms, Ann Arbor, MI

 

Jessica and Justin chose an awesome farm to host their awesome wedding festivities. They were awesome enough to allow me to pull them away for a couple of awesome minutes during the awesome welcome reception to take this awesome photo.

There had been couple of crazy short storms rolling through the area that day, but it made for some really beautiful evening light. I think this could have been even better as a portrait panorama, but didn’t think of it at the time. I might have been a couple beers in. Thanks for an awesome weekend guys! And congrats! (And did I mention how awesome they are?)