Monthly Archives: May 2012

Photographic Inspiration :: Peter Hurley

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Its been a bit since I’ve posted a Inspiring Photographer for y’all to check out. As a result I have an entire bookmark folder, full of creatives to share with you guys that I will slowly but surely sift through to bring you the best of the best.

Peter Hurley is a photographer I came across earlier this month as he was featured on Kelby Media’s weekly video podcast The Grid, which if you haven’t checked out yet be sure to do so, as its a completely free talk show all about the latest and greatest in the world of photography!! Continue reading →

Shelf Top Beauty

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Some days you just have to figure out how to take your shots while on the go. All three of these were taken down the home decor aisle at our local Super Store (like Walmart).

What Goes Around Comes Around

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ISO100 27mm f/11 1sec

I thought I would break into the archives and bring back an unreleased light painting pic to add some extra inspiration for the Long Exposure Project going on right now. Most of the other examples we have posted have been longer shutter speeds into the double digit seconds range, and I wanted to show that good fun can be had even at 1sec or less.

Back when I posted the original “Candle Magic”, I had a hard time deciding between whether I was going to post the original pic or this one. If you follow the blog you know Im a big fan of simplicity, so Im happy to have a reason to post this image finally haha.

The Stormy Silo

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Well its official! Ive sold the Canon Rebel and will be upgrading to a new body in a week or so. Until then I have my trusty Canon AE-1 and iPhone 4s to keep me company while out on my photographic adventures. Which needless to say is still enough to create some great pics.

If you follow Nick Exposed on Instagram (@NickExposed) you probably seen a sneak peek image that I put up from todays shooting. One thing I love about the iphone is its ability to capture some rather usable bracketed exposures to put together for HDR either in phone or in Photomatix on the computer as in this case. I use an app called “Bracket Mode” which does an excellent job at capturing the scene as over exposed as the iphone will allow, and under exposed in the same manner. Even without the regular exposure the results are quite pleasing. A few tweeks in photoshop and lightroom and you start to forget that this was captured on a camera phone (a badass camera phone… well phone in general.. at that)

Ive mentioned it in the past, but I think its so funny that as photogs we so often feel that we need the best of the best cameras to make great pictures. Now i wouldnt go shooting a wedding with my iphone… however it would be funny to see the look on the clients face… well besides the part where the bride turns to bridezilla lol. But the iphone or any other current camera phone is still capable of capturing some pretty stunning pictures.

Its going to be fun and interesting over the next week and a half as I work these two cameras and try to make due without my beloved dslr.

Long Exposure :: Examples

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If you havent heard this months community project is all about LONG EXPOSURES!!!

What the heck is that?!?

Well.. Its a lot of things. When Shannon and I sat down to brainstorm ideas for this project, we decided to go for a more open ended approach in hopes that the end result would be a wide range of creativity from all who participate. We realize that Long Exposure encompasses a large portion of our creative art, and can be interpreted in many different ways. Things from HDR, light painting/drawing, Night shots to creative blur and captured motion, the list goes on and on. The beauty of this is you can experiment and try so many different ideas and approaches.

Does it have to be something new to you? Absolutely not, however we always suggest that you push yourself creatively. Try new techniques or work on approaching old techniques from a new angle.

Shannon gave a few examples of her past experiences with this topic in her post on the collab HERE

I figured I would throw in some ideas on the topic as well to add to the creative spark. So below are some examples of a couple of the different techniques you could explore when approaching this fun and exciting genre of photography.

Light Painting/Drawing:

ISO 100 27mm f/11 12sec “Candle Magic”

This was one of the earlier Daily Exposures, and an extremely fun one at that (it actually won two awards in January as “best of” in the class of Fine Art in Pixoto’s photo competition). Light painting and drawing like the rest of these techniques has an endless amount of possibilities.

Not that you want to recreate this image, but the way that I did this was with a maglite, the kind that have the screw off head and reveal a bare bulb. When you reveal the bare bulb it gives you  this ribbon of light that looks quite magical. Also I had the candle lit and the two light sources combined illuminated my hand as it made the rotations giving the interesting red glow around the scene.

  • Which brings me to a great point… Don’t be afraid to fail and make mistakes when experimenting with these new techniques!! Not only did it take about 10 attempts to come to this image, I also didnt plan on the lights illuminating my hand, which in the end turned out to be a happy accident :) Theres no wrong way to do this stuff, only new ways to approach it creatively!

Now do you have to use a maglite? Absolutely not!! You can use any source of light that you want, as big or as little. Some other ideas include glow sticks, led flash lights, cell phones, large flash lights, sparklers, that marshmallow you set ablaze while trying to make your smores… again the list goes on. Get creative with it and remember to have fun!!

Night Time Shots & HDR

ISO200 18mm f/22 13sec “Night Time Presidential Museum”

ISO 200 24mm f/6.3 4sec “Night Shift”

Obviously I enjoy shooting HDR and typically squeeze one or two in each week. In this case I love what the long exposure does to bring these dark night scenes back to a working exposure.

The top pic was taken right at dusk and in order to draw in as much light as I could, while still shooting a small aperture (f/18) in order to get the starburst effect from the lamps, the shutter speed dropped to double digits in the seconds range.

The second shot was taken at I believe 1am if I remember correctly, on a different occasion then the one prior. And, although at that time of the night the scene was pretty dark to the human eye despite the lights from the city, the long exposure was able to capture all the detail and make its three exposures to make this image.

If your not familiar with HDR (High Dynamic Range), its when you set your camera up to “bracket” or take 3 (sometimes more if you own a Nikon) separate exposures… one at regular exposure, then one underexposed (typically by 2 stops of light or more), and one over exposed (again by 2 stops or more). You then use either Photoshops built in HDR software or an 3rd party software like Nik software HDR Effex Pro or my favorite Photomatix Pro from hdrsoft. This sofware then takes the details from all three photos and combines them, using crazy cool algorithms and math stuff that I could never in my life figure out, and makes a sort of super picture containing all the detail and substance from all 3 pics. This isnt meant to be a HDR tutorial however if requested I could put up a tutorial or refer you to some great resources on the subject :)

Do you have to do HDR for night time shots? NOPE! You could manage just fine with a simple long exposure, I just tend to lean towards HDR, as it gives me more flexibility to work with the details.

 

There are a couple examples to add onto the examples Shannon already shared in her recent post on the subject. Im sure we will post more examples as we go, and as always feel free to post your own thoughts, tips, tricks and examples in the comments below. We want this to be as interactive as possible so get to posting, and more importantly… get to shooting :D

If you want to join in on the fun, send an email to nrmayo87@gmail.com with “Count me in on Long Exposures” as the subject line. Please include your first and last name as well as your blog/site address so we can give full credit when you submit your awesome photos!! The deadline for submitting photos is Sunday June 3, midnight est.

One last thing!!! Dont forget to follow us on facebook for more updates and hot news :D
Nick Exposed on Facebook
SeeingSpotsPhoto on Facebook 

Mystic Creek

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ISO200 18mm f/18 2.5sec

Mystical and fairy tale-ish. Thats how I felt when I was tromping through the water to get this shot.

Yet another fence hoping photographic adventure as I made my way into the local parks little ravine here. I loved how the light was just breaking through the trees as it settled its way down to the earth signaling the days end. The calm cozy characteristics of the prospering foliage around lent to a mystical feel, as if at any moment a fairy or leprechaun could come breaking into the scene.

As I dug my tripod into the muck below, the only sounds I could hear were that of the wind passing by the park above, and a single bull frog who was probably awaiting his princess amongst this magical stream.

I do wish I could have gotten the camera even lower, however at this point the tripod was maxed out at its minimum height and I was practically sitting in the water as I peered through the view finder. I love the star-bursts that f18 was able to provide, again adding to the explained feel of the scene.

Chair Details

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ISo1600 50mm f/6.3 1/200sec

I love the detail shots! Those shots that give you enough information to fill in the picture in your head, but not too much to bore you with over explanation. Sometimes it makes for a simple display of a complex scene or character, or in this case it takes a simple scene and simplifies it even further.

 

Hot Wheels

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ISO100 25mm f/8 2sec

Given this months community project theme is Long Exposures, I figured Id edit another photo from this weekends “car show”.

When it comes to late night lengthy exposures I tend to lean towards the HDR side, so that I have the flexibility of bringing in as much detail as I feel necessary. Once again I went with an over processed car for this image, different from what I usually do, being when I originally seen this car I immediately thought of the Hot Wheels cars I had as a kid, and wanted to bring the look and feel of that childhood memory out in this pic.

I decided in this instance I would leave a bit of the effect from the long shutter to emphasize the exposure time, for example the ghosted person in the background as well as the light streaks off to the left. If I would have thought of it at the time, I would have liked to capture a scene with some people making their way around the car admiring its beauty.

I always love playing with these late night hdr photos, they can be a good amount of fun to see come together. Its incredible how much detail can be captured due to the lengthy exposures.

I look forward to continuing to dive into the subject of Long Exposures with all of you who are joining in on this months Collab Fun!!

 

Long Exposures

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Below is a segment of a post, our AWESOME Collab Co-host Shannon posted today to help all of you who are interested in participating in this months community project on Long Exposure Photography.

Check it out and be sure to visit her site for the rest of the article

 

Let me hit you with some knowledge.

Long exposure is another way of saying “keeping the shutter open for a long time”. This can be done for a few reasons – to compensate for low available light, as one of a many exposures for bracketing, or to capture the idea of motion on film…errr….sensor. Let’s look at all of these briefly, shall we?

Most DSLR cameras give us the ability to control how much light hits the camera’s sensor. We can do this by adjusting the aperture (size of the opening through which the light travels), or time value/length of exposure (the length of time the aforementioned opening stays open). The aperture size and length of time the shutter remains open will help determine the overall exposure of the image captured.

For example, this image was taken with an f/1.8, 50mm lens. The only available light was a street lamp on the other side of the road, diagonally across from the old abandoned gas station. Although this image was shot in RAW, I did not make any adjustments to the exposure while editing. The only thing I’ve done to this image is sharpen and reduce the vibrance in LR, as the original had a strong yellow cast from the lamp light. Despite being taken right around 9pm at night and being shot at 100 ISO, the wide open aperture and long exposure gave me plenty of data in the final image.  (See the final edit of this photohere.)

Settings: f/1.8, 8 secondsSettings: f/1.8, 8 seconds


Dont forget to send and email to nrmayo87@gmail.com with “Count me in for Long Exposures” in the subject line if you want to participate in the project.

White Walls

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ISO200 29mm f/5.6 1/125sec

This old beauty showed up at the park, during our cook out this weekend, with a pack of High school prom goers. They came to the park to get some pics taken (By a simple point and shoot, I about offered up my services hahaa), and while they were off shooting around the park I got a chance to grab a few shots of the ol’ Ford before they needed it for their own shooting.

She was in extraordinary condition and all the wheels and tires looked like they were right off the show room floor making for some crisp photographs. The nice hard light washed out the white walls giving such great contrast to an already contrasting color scheme.

This is one of those instances where always having your camera with you pays off.

Uh Oh!!

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Holy Cats!!!

Turns out our email servers have been down!! So for all of you who are participating in Shannon and My community project working with Long Exposures this month, if you sent an email to any of the @nickexposed.com emails, chances are we didn’t receive it.

We will be working on getting these kinks worked out, but until then please either re-submit your photo entries, or re-send your email stating you will be participating in the project to nrmayo87@gmail.com

With the new site comes all sorts of new bugs haha, so we appreciate your patience, and are excited to hear from you and have you in on all the project fun!!

Thanks
-Nick