Pixel Darkroom Photography

Exploring new techniques. Mr. Legoman found himself a time contraption which he turned into a slightly unbalanced carrousel. I experimented with stroboscopic flash to get more Legomen in the image. For those of you who do know what stroboscopic flash is, you are geeks. For the rest of us, it’s called simply triggering the flash multiple times during the same one long exposure. The great thing about the Lego Tennessee Time Killer is that it does work on its own, and once you wind it up, it keeps turning forever. It’s so efficient that you could make electricity with it, once you have all the wires connected to the wheels and to a dynamo. I actually charged back my flash batteries while posting this and I then started to power up my laptop with the Tennessee Time Killer. It’s actually providing quite a bit of energy. The way the global warming game is playing right now, I believe even cars will have a bigger scale rubber band powering them and instead of gas station, there will just be strong guys winding up the rubber band in the back of your trunk to power you up for another few days. I can’t believe you’re still reading this.

Strobist info: 580 EX (II) X 4. CL, CR, CL zoomed to 105mm with snoots and grids at 1/32 via on camera 580 EX II in stroboscopic mode. Just play with the Hz and the amount of pops. Shot at f/22 to kill ambient over the 1′3″ seconds exposure. I got 4 pops.

I have a cold, and I read once in a Cigar Aficionado magazine, that Arthur Rubinstein once gave a kid by the name of Daniel Barenboim a cigar to smoke when he came down with a cold. I thought I’d try it,… sort of. Today’s post production on this photograph was inspired by Maciek Lesniak.

Strobist info: 580 EX II (mis)firing through a snoot from CL, courtesy amazing PC connection from the Pocket Wizard. Ps postproduction with some Falln-Stock smoke brushes and a special BW conversion.

Note: I hope you like the new design of the website. Only small tweaks so far but I hope to bring some improvements.

The kids got new haircuts. This is a first for my little girl; she only had her bangs cut last summer. Here she is dipping her fingers in the baking trays and picking up sugar from the container you see behind her. She and her mom baked an apple pie and a pumpkin pie all from scratch. It turned out great!

Strobist info: 580 EX II CR bouncing into wall, 580 EX CL on a stand as rim light; both on channel 1 in two groups, via ST-E2.

Enjoying late daylight.

Tweaks in Lr.

Food shot Thursday! Yeah, I know it looks yummy and you wished you tasted it. Oh well, one of the perks of a food photographer is that you get to consume what’s being prepared for you to shoot. Plus, you don’t even have to hunt for it. Drop me a line to ask for the recipe.

Strobist info: 580 EX CR at 1/2, 580 EX II CL at 1/32 or so, and 580 EX II contre-jour, lighting my backdrop. All via PW. Shot with a 50 mm prime + 1 dioptre filter at f7.1.

Avatar 3D. I would emphasize the 3D part because otherwise it’s just a plain old “cowboys and indians” movie with more implications and definitely with the green-ideology-hollywood-humans-are-evil. Fund movie, lots of effects (hey, it’s only effects) and definitely worth seeing. One movie I would see again. I loved all the toying with the 3D concept, all of ‘em bugs flying past your ears and the hanging mountains, the flying with them dragons. Too bad it wasn’t unique. No, actually not: too bad it was so common (in subject). Tolkien and C. S. Lewis were way ahead on the imagination, way way ahead. Don’t get me wrong. A great movie and if you haven’t seen it, you should give it a try. If you are going, go the extra mile and see it 3D, otherwise, wait until it’s on DVD, or at least BlueRay (whichever comes first).

Strobist info: 580 EX II into slightly collapsed umbrella, CR via PW. G’night.

I like cross lighting things. I like coloring things. And I am so afraid of this sprinkler in my house. Imagine that if this thing breaks open, my TV will get wet and break, and I will no longer be able to play Pac Man.
I dare not even touch it, that’s why it’s so dusty. Never mind…

Strobist info: 580 EX (II) x3 CR with blue gel, CL with blue green gel, and below camera with coroplast snoot and red gel, flagged by my hand, via PW. Setup shot here.

You may think this is another posed portrait of my son where we were looking for a deep look, dramatic lighting and a great expression. I was actually playing with getting a dramatic lighting but had a different image in mind while he was just finishing his chocolate chip cookies and milk. I snapped a few frames and he got bored. This is just as he was getting bored and you don’t want to see the other ones. I then gave up as I didn’t want to upset him too much, yet again, and focused on something else. You might have ended up with something totally different tonight but when I uploaded the images, I found this, I loved it and here it goes. My son getting bored because of the somewhat repetitive task that Daddy has been doing for 108 Days, now.

Strobist info: 580 EX on a handheld lightstand/boom above CL, triggered via Pocket Wizards. Small tweaks in Lr.

Today I saw a short film with a man who was comparing the domino effect and the decisions in our life. They are so many and they influence other decisions, other people and so many other things. The key thing was that we take so little time making so many of these decisions and the effect applies so quickly, just like the domino pieces, as they move from one to the other so quickly. It made me think about my decisions.
I thought about building the image below with the empty chair because so many times we are not even “there” as we make decisions. Most of them happen fast, little time goes into making them and we want to move on to the next thing. Then we might end up wondering why our life is the way it is, why our children are the way they are, why our relationships are where they are and many times we are looking for someone else to blame. Just a thought.

Strobist info: 580 EX II CL with snoot and blue gels, CR with snoot and red gels, and CL on the chair in the background with a coroplast (corrugated plastic) grid-spot. Shot at f22 with a diopter filer and flashes anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 +/- EV.

I’m not going green. This is just my son’s science experiment (the growing grass in a yogurt container) and that’s one of my AAA batteries that I stuck in there for scale. Day 106.

Strobist info: 580 EX II CL @ 64th with a gobo not to flare into my lens, and 580 EX II @64 +2/3 CR above handheld, both fired via radio triggers.

Real games for real people.

Strobist info: 580 EX II via PW at 1/4 (or so) zoomed to 105mm, hand held, CR. 10″ exposure at f22. Focus on the joystick, expose for the TV and then figure out the ratios. I use f22 to get the TV in focus.

I had a whole story written out for today but I thought it would spark a totally non-photographic discussion. It had all kinds of keywords, such as eco, green, thieves, poor, toxic, selfish, proud, spiritual, problem. Let’s just both look at the image below and I’ll just throw one question out there: why is there no eco fee in Kenya, for example? And if I have it wrong and there is, I’d like to see a receipt.

Lighting info: 20 seconds exposure with handheld camera set on a stone.

This is when I went to drop off my computer to the Apple Store downtown Vancouver. I took some time to walk around and take some pictures. I found some great images. I found out some other things as well, such as that now the HOV lane, or carpool lane, is now called the Olympic Lane. I also couldn’t help but notice that the entire city is on Olympic Game mode and road closures have started to take effect. For some reason I saw a lot of olympic games related stuff that was pink; pink skis, pink boots, pink skates. A lot of pink skates!

No lighting info. Small adjustments in Lr.

Here’s when my computer broke down. I had to return it back to the store. The NVIDIA graphic card went down and I found out it’s a common thing, since both NVIDIA and Apple conducted tests and came to the same conclusion. If your MacBook (Pro) had the same problem (it turns on, chimes, but not image whatsoever and no reset will do) then you may get it fixed for free since it’s one of these two companies that screwed up.

Strobist info: 580 EX II CL at 128th zoomed to 105mm via PW. Grayscale adjustment in Lr.

Monday I had the chance to work with some great people. We spent a whole evening photographing and we got some amazing pictures. Unfortunately I cannot publish the images here since they will be entered into a competition and it would lead to disqualification of the entries. I can, however show you a group shot of the people involved.

Note: I got home around midnight on Monday so I postponed publishing the shot. The next day, my computer broke down so I had to wait until Wednesday to get back to uploading photos. I did, however, faithfully stuck to my 365 project. Here goes Day 101, and here are Day 102, and Day 103.

Strobist info: 580 EX II into softbox CL, 580 EX II shoot through white umbrella CR via PW.

Day One Hundred was a team effort. As were a lot of the set’s images so far. We had done this kind of shot before, when our little girl was only a few months old and I liked the idea. I thought we should put it into practice for this project as well, so we all jumped on the couch. You can imagine that she is not the one supporting all of our weights, although the illusion worked out fine. Here is to one hundred days of daily photography!

Strobist info: 580 EX II into softbox, CR, 580 EX II into white umbrella, CL almost on axis fill, both around 1/2 or 1/1 power and a 580 EX at 1/32 zoomed to 70 CR as hair light/rim light. All triggered via Pocket Wizards.

For those of you riding motorcycles I am sure this is one sweet temptation. I’ve been riding myself something very close to this bike until a few years ago . When I say very close to this bike, I only mean it was red and the price tag was roughly $90,000 less than this. But otherwise very close, two wheels, engine, blinkers, handle bars. My top sped was 63 mph, downhill, all tucked down under the windshield windbreak. I got from 0-60 in a few good months after I not so carefully broke in the engine.
All joke aside, you guys need to be very careful. Be defensive and think that you are invisible. Don’t believe that eye contact with the other drivers or the fact that a bike might be faster is a guarantee that you will be safer. My best friend from high-school and brother in law spend his last few minutes on a Ducati bike. We spent years together in school and as friends.

All I can say is that the entire Earth seems a lonelier place without him. I loved him dearly.

Shot with available light at the motorcycle show.

Homeschooling. Yes, jump and worry. Many people were shocked, too. Not to mention all the Romanians we know. (Some have never heard of such thing, and some have said that it’s a great idea if you can afford it. Well, as a Vancouver photographer and a pianist, I have to say that I make close to Fortune 500 salary and I could afford to homeschool my son on the moon if I wanted to, but we just made a decision to keep it simple, down to earth.) We believe it is the best thing for our children right now, so we started to homeschool. Early, I might add. I’m not going to go into the details about it. I’ll just say it’s fun. For us and for the kid(s), too, so far. Today I had the chance to do some of the work with my son and I must say I loved it. Homeschooling is great, it’s flexible and it allows us to spend a lot more time as a family.

Image available for licensing.
Lighting information: 580 ex II CL bounced back into white wall and CL as rim/hair light, triggered via Pocket Wizards. Speaking of Pocket Wizards, I’m working on an iPhone application that will trigger Pocket Wizards. Stay tuned for the launch. I’ll post more info as it comes along.

Note: If you believed the Fortune 500 reference, the post about the UFO, the post about why (new) technology should be kept away from the hands of women, then you need to stop by here more often, and remember that we like to use irony sometimes.

I know it looks a bit like another photograph of mine shot earlier some morning, except that this is a night exposure of 25 seconds or so and I cooled down the temperature in post production. The city lights gave it a warm color, similar to the one in this shot. I liked the cool version better. The long exposure also made for the clouds to run away. Here goes day night 97.

Moon in the sky and city lights lighting the clouds. Long exposure at night.

Time+Matter+Chance= …
I said yesterday I would back off but I only meant you wouldn’t see my face up so close. I decided to go back to do some more macro photography using my diopter filters, even though I did acquire quite a big loupe that I am going to put to use for some more photographic experiments.

I threw some pencil waste on a white piece of paper and… look what came out! I did have to throw them quite a few times, actually. I tried so many times until at some point I got sick and tired of doing it, but I didn’t give up. Eventually I got it right. I’ve been working on this little face for some billions and billions of… picoseconds.
I think.
I’m not sure, since it was all time plus chance plus matter. I knew that at some point it was going to happen. It was just a matter of trying and trying and in the end I had the amazing luck to get it right.

At some point I thought of throwing in a couple of peppers to have even more diverse elements. It didn’t speed up the process, since now I had more ingredients involved. It does help to have more elements in order to create that little face. I thought that if I have more than just the pencil waste, there is a higher chance of getting the peppers to fall into place and look like the eyes. A higher chance than having NO peppers, at least.
But at some point, it did happen. I mean, we are all the result of time plus matter plus chance.

Just in case you were wondering how much a picosecond is, it’s the time it takes something traveling at the speed of light to cross something that is about the size of a human hair’s breadth. If we increase that time to 3.3 picoseconds we’re talking as fast as light travels for a millimeter. But enough with hard science. (I can’t believe you’re still reading this!) Let’s get back to the basics: time + matter + chance on day 96.

Lighting info: 580 EX II triggered via Pocket Wizards, camera left at 1/64th power, zoomed to 70mm, about 6-7 inches or so from the “subject”. Setup shot here. I took out the old camera and shot the setup with it. You can see my high tech macro lens I’ve been using for close up photography.

In your face! is what this feels like to me, even though I was smiling somewhat kindly. It feels weird to be photographed so closely. Imagine the huge banners in the malls where you can almost see the amino-acids from the cells of the models faces. Brrr… I can promise you this is about as close of a shot you’ll get from me. I’ll back off now.

Strobist info: 580 EX II x2 at 1/4 zoomed wide via PW CL and CR through white umbrellas. Oh, I also held some sort of white foam bouncer to through some light under the cap.

No comment.

License image here.
Strobist info: 580 EX II via on camera 580 EX II right below candle holder.

Have you ever wondered “what’s stopped you?” I know I have. I thought I’d post it here for you guys to know: this is what’s been stopping me every time I pressed the break pedal.

Strobist info: 580 EX II x3 via PW at the same power CL, CR and front. See setup shot here.

Surprise, surprise!… I found this guy some place right before he was heading to… any guesses? No, not to the North Pole. To storage! I shot a portrait before so here he goes. I just gave him a big bear hug and moved him in the process in the spot where the lights were setup. Here goes day 91.
Christmas +.

Strobist info: 580 EX II into softbox CL (at 1/1 or 1/2) and 580 EX II CR for rim light, not that you can see it since he has such a white beard. Triggered via PW. Setup shot here.

Foood! Yes, I was hungry tonight when I got home and these Turkish “delights” were waiting to be photographed. Our neighbour is publishing a food column/recipe in a local Turkish magazine. Until now she used to take the photos herself with a small point and shoot camera. I offered to shoot a couple of recipes for her and today was the day. From what I remember from my days in Germany, I believe I must have eaten some while I was a student there, and I can tell you they are yummy. They’re called “pide”. By the time you read this, they’re probably all gone. Check below for strobist info and setup shot.

Strobist info: “pide” flanked by 2×580 EX (II) via Pocket Wizard CL into white umbrella and CR bare, close zoomed at 70mm. I shot these in less than 5 frames. Long time no see setup shot here.

No cable up here.

Strobist info: 580 EX bounced CL into white wall. ETTL +2EV to make the outlet white from what the camera wants to make it, gray.

Today I went out and about with my wonderful little daughter. I was going to just go out and take some nature shots, but then she woke up and I decided to do some old strobist type of stuff; flashes, umbrellas, whatever would be needed. It started raining (again!) so we found a spot by the stadium that was covered where I could have her stay/sit/play/giggle or whatever she does when I take her photos. On our way there, I took this shot. I decided to post this so we can see her head to toes.

Strobist info: clouded day. Post in Lr for contrast, saturation for the bricks, color temperature, etc

Today we went and visited some great friends where we had dinner. Jacob makes an amazing Caesar Salad and while he was preparing it, I was playing with the candles that Claudia arranged on the table and was working on getting today’s shot. When he was done, I put the salad on the table instead, bounced a flash on the ceiling and had this shot by the fourth frame. The “original” shot is somewhere else. It’s interesting how I like the non setup stuff better. I like the mix of colours here – candle light with bounced flash. I’ll talk about color temperature some other time. Suffice it to say that the candle light appears very very warm, while the flash, which is supposed to imitate daylight appears much cooler when combined with candle light in the same frame.
Here goes Caesar Salad à la Jacob. Day 87.

Strobist info: 580 EX bounced into ceiling.

I know I know, it’s been done before. I think I got cooler images than this one tonight but they probably have been done before even more than this one. It started raining towards the end and I didn’t feel like experimenting too much. Truth be said I did see a great image that with all the expertise I could not capture yet. It has to do with balancing high ISO with the shutter. Maybe some other night… when it’s not raining.
There goes day 86.

Don’t have much time to chat. This happened today and was fun. I use incredible high ISO and sports photography is challenging and fun.