A few weeks ago we went to the Fort Wayne Taste of the Arts festival. For a small city, there were many vendors there. Unfortunately, I didn’t find a whole lot worth taking pictures of. This picture was taken while walking through the crowd with my 28 summicron. Something caught their attention.
Here in northeast Indiana there are many nature preserves. Probably the most well known is the ACRES Land Trust. ACRES Land Trust is made up of many preserves throughout northeast Indiana. All are free and have nice trails.
One after noon I drove to one of the preserves west of my home. This preserve is mostly forest and swamp. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to capture any exciting shots (the foliage did not have much colors). I took this one shot of of an isolated tree within one of the swamps.
Its been a few days since I’ve posted anything on the site. I’ve really been busy with work and want to spend as much time with my little girl as possible therefore at times the website will just have to be on hold.
The picture uploaded today was taken in 2008 at my residency graduation party. I have to give my wife credit for this one. We were all at a friends house and the second year resident decided he would play guitar for us. My wife took this picture and I later edited it with Silver Efex Pro. I think she did an outstanding job.
As I mentioned yesterday, I really enjoyed the Leica Akademie workshop and also meeting with the participants. Here are a few more pics taken during the workshop. The first one I was trying to focus in on the gal sitting but I think what makes the picture is actually the 3 people all trying to take pictures. The second pic was taken while waiting to cross the street. I usually wouldn’t find this interesting but I like how the crowd of people are so content in looking in different directions. The last pic was taken of a guy near our hotel street corner who was attempting to entertain the crowd with his multiple musical abilities.
This past Saturday I participated in the Leica Akademie M9 Shooting Experience Chicago. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ve never met any other Leica users with the exception of speaking to Steve Huff, of Steve Huff Photo (the online Leica guru!). Simply put, the experience was wonderful and could not have expected a better instructor, Leica representative, and professional photographer to guide us through the workshop. What made the meeting even more pleasurable was interacting with the other participants.
Before the workshop started, I ran into Steve Huff of Steve Huff Photo. I frequent his site daily and have spoke to him via email a few times and felt he was a terrific guy and after meeting him, it confirmed it. He reviews many Leica products and other cameras, mostly rangefinders and micro 4/3’s. He does a phenomenal job and I have to give him credit for guiding me towards Leica.
The workshop started out by meeting the Leica representative Matt Butzow and the instructor Tom Smith. Next, Matt allowed us to pick a Leica lens to borrow (I wanted to get my hand on the noctilux but unfortunately someone got to it before me).
Next, Tom Smith spent the remaining morning going through the ins and outs of the Leica M9 system. All I can say is that I learned a tremendous amount and if you are new to Leica or rangefinders in general this is a must do class!
After lunch, Carlos Javier Ortiz presented on his work as a photojournalist and showed many of his ongoing projects. Some of these projects are listed on his website. He also showed us a current project that him and other photojournalist around the country are participating in. The project is called “Facing Change” (I don’t consider it politically motivated) and you can see pictures from the project here.
Next we went out and shot for about an hour. Like most participants I followed Tom around and he showed us his perspective in street photography and also taught us some invaluable camera tips.
Last, we came back and Tom showed us his typical workflow when downloading pics from his computer and uploading to Lightroom. I found this info useful, but I have to admit I’m a die hard Apple guy and use Aperture 3.0.
As stated above, I found the workshop a great learning experience and 100% worth the cost. I’ve heard rumor of maybe a 3 day Leica course in the future in Chicago, I will definitely be there.
If you are interested in Leica Akademie you can see upcoming events here.
P.S. I mentioned that we did go out and shoot for a while. Here are a few pics I took (more in the next few days) and you can go to Michael Sullivans flickr page to see pics he took (another Leica shooter at the course, great guy).
We drove up to Chicago this weekend for a short 3 day vacation and for me to participate in the Leica Akademie M9 Shooting Experience. I’ll post my thoughts and some pictures from the event in a few days.
We’re staying at the Allerton Hotel. So far it’s been good. It’s an old hotel but the rooms are very nice. Here is a pic of Lyla and mommy resting on the bed after a long day of traveling and shopping.
Recently a friend of Serenity’s (my wife) inquired if I would be willing to take a few family pictures. As much as I enjoy taking pictures, this is still out of my comfort zone. I don’t envy portrait photographers, there are many things that go into making a great family picture. For one, you need great lighting and no shadows. Second, you have to have your subjects position just right so that a proper exposure can be obtained. Last, trying to coordinate all subjects to look and smile at the camera all at the same time can be especially difficult when dealing with small kids.
The picture below was shot through the opening in the back of a chair. I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out but I think it’s what made the shot. It allowed for me to frame my subjects and also allowed for some candidness. As you can see, there was no issue in getting their attention.
The Leica M9 is not only known for its great color pics, it’s probably better known for its black and white images. I have to admit, the M9 does a phenomenal job of creating black and white pics. It’s hard to describe what it is but the M9 just has that extra touch when creating these type of images. I don’t routinely shoot in black and white while using the camera. I shoot in raw (uncompressed picture format) and then edit it with Niks Software Silver Efex Pro 2. If you like monochrome images, this is the software to purchase. I have owned just the aperture plugin and now own the Photoshop CS5 plugin and prefer having the Photoshop plugin because it just makes a new layer instead of altering the original pic like it does in Aperture.
Soon after purchasing my black M9 (I have not moved on to the M9-P) I traveled to Cleveland for a conference and on my way home I stopped and shot a few pics. This pic, originally in color was edited in Silver Efex Pro 2. Let me know what you think?
Last winter I visited the Auburn Cord Duesenburg Automobile Museum in Auburn, IN. It’s located at the original headquarters of the Auburn Automobile Company. From the outside it looked like a good size building but I never imagined the amount of cars they had. I’m not a motor head but enjoyed my time looking at their collection. It’s definitely a place to visit if you enjoy looking at old cars. I snapped many pics and thought this one in black & white with a little noise worked well.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography has gained a lot of interest in photography. HDR Photography is where you take multiple exposures of a image and then stack them on top of one another to create one picture. By doing this you create an image that often times is very similar to what our eyes see. Most digital cameras can do this by using the auto bracketing function. For best results you need to use at least 3 exposures. If you are shooting in very bright or low light then you often times need to use 5, 7, or 9 exposures. Unfortunately, you typically need a semi-pro or pro dSLR to do this.
After you take the pictures, you then need software to stack the pictures on one another. The best way I’ve found is using Photomatix or you can use Photoshop CS 5. If you want to see some great HDR pictures you need to check out Trey Ratcliff at Stuck in Customs. He does phenomenal work and has many tutorials.
My wife grew up outside a very small town in Southern Illinois called St. Francisville (well known for the scariest bridge to cross in Southern Illinois/Indiana). In March, we were there for my wife’s baby shower. There is a very old Catholic church that sits down town. I decided to take a 7 exposure HDR pic using my Leica M9. Most of the time when shooting in HDR you want to create a color image, I think in this case monochrome works very well.
