ISO400 50mm f/5.6 1/400sec
My fascination for these fire dept. spouts has yet to run dry. Im not sure why I find them so interesting, but over the last few months have run into many variations on the design and continue to capture the scenes. They tend to be accompanied by some lovely textures and colors which is always an added plus 
ISO200 50mm f/5.6 1/640sec
“Working out back”
Boy do I have a good deal of work ahead of me in order to catch up on posts haha. This has been a repeating trend over the last few weeks, but it looks like I will be back on schedule now as travel has settled down for the next few months and work should be back to a steady pace. Its all part of the adventure right
Here is a brief series from last weeks shooting before I took off for Chicago. Enjoy! Continue reading
ISO200 50mm f/5.6 1/1600sec
“After a long days work”
One of the tricks I like to do in order to spice up the daily photo walk and keep it fresh is to shoot themed mini series for the day. Its amazing once you think about it at how many opportunities there are to shoot one idea in multiple ways, whether it be geometry, color, composition based there are endless possibilities that will push your creative observation to the next level. Continue reading
ISO200 18mm f/11 1/30sec
This Saturday a good friend of mine and I took a day trip out to Kalamazoo, a city a little over an hour away from our town of Grand Rapids. The idea was to tour an area that was completely unfamiliar to either one of us, without the use of maps or gps, just relying on our instincts to guide us to and through the town as we embarked on this adventurous day. Continue reading
ISO200 18mm f/22 13sec
ISO400 50mm f/5.6 1/100sec
ISO400 50mm f/5.6 1/1000sec
Again its time to play a bit of catch up with daily exposures. Lately I’ve had a sudden rise of work come through the study, which is always a great thing to have happen, unless your trying to keep up on a daily photo blog haha.
Being in graphic design I cant help but to love interestingly graphic scenes like this. I find it interesting how most the shadows through out have a mildly soft edge yet the main element projects a very crisp clean round shadow. I walk by this building just about every time I am downtown, and have acquired a good number of photos over the months in various weather conditions. Its one of those scenes thats simple yet appealing to me and my design focused mind. Continue reading
ISO 1600 50mm f/4 1/40sec
It never ceases to amaze me how much there is to explore downtown. So many times the thought of “I wonder where this road will take me” has led to some fun discoveries new to my eyes. Today that is exactly what happened! Continue reading
ISO 100 50mm f/8 1/200sec
which way are the side walls coming or going?
ISO 1600 50mm f/11 1/320sec
Unfortunately a vast majority of todays shots were lost to a mysterious smudge across half my lens. I didn’t realize it until I had opened the pictures up in Lightroom. Luckily with a small few I had taken the shot from a distance and had some room to crop. So, at the lose of a few other elements in the scene I am able to bring this photo to life while the others sit archived in the unpleasant accidents folder haha. You can actually see the ending of the smudge trail still to the bottom left of the lions head.
I do however still enjoy this scene, as I myself am a Leo, which is my total extent of knowledge on the subject of Zodiacs! It actually goes well with the circle, which I like calling a full moon, however being Ive shot in the midst of daylight I shall call it the sun. But either way it adds an extra sense of the mystical feeling of “The Signs” or so I would assume. The mixture of straight and diagonal lines bring a sort of simple complexity to the scene siding more with the moon rather than the much more complex lion. He stand apart from the rest as king of the beasts (or in this case the wall I suppose), and yet is connected enough to bring the whole piece together in a sort of Circle of life kind of thing, the mashing of the simplistic with the more complex.
ISO 200 24mm f/6.3 4sec
Despite the misty weather, and running the risk of exposing the camera to some serious moisture I made the trip downtown to shoot it in a different light, or lack there of, than I normally shoot. The city wasn’t as alive as I had hoped for on a wednesday evening. Never the less I made a quick trip around the outskirts to observe the scenery in its misty haze. I decided I would shoot for some HDR shots to really bring everything to life, and with the repeatedly long shutters per bracket it only allotted for couple of scenes to be captured, most of which were ruined by the massive amounts of water that would accumulate on the lens. Lucky enough this was one of the shots that actually turned out. Continue reading
ISO200 37mm f/11 1/200sec
I wanted to wait a bit before I posted a description about this photo. Im currently reading “Photographically speaking” by David duChemin, and in it he talks about creating images that speak for themselves. He mentions that if you need to start the conversation with your own words then the picture isn’t strong enough to speak for itself. And this is only a chapter or two into the book… its going to be a good book So this has me thinking more about my images Im taking and sharing with the world. Im trying to approach with a message in mind, not so much for me to share through my words, but through my photographic expression.
In this case it was really just sharing my experience for coming across such an extraordinarily textured and vibrant wall. I bracketed for HDR in order to capture as much detail as I possible could, because it was the detail that originally drew me into the scene in the first place. And with the vibrant highly saturated red the wall was sporting, it was certain this wall was making a statement. The funny thing is this is the side wall to the local Subway restaurant (You know.. “Eat Fresh”). On the other side of the wall are un-energized clock watching sandwich artists that cant wait for the day to get over so they can get on with their lives. Isn’t that crazy to think about, on the one side of the wall you have Bold Vibrant Excitement, on the other you have a mundane and monotonous lack of energy. I felt like a completely different person outside looking at the wall versus what I was feeling not a minute or two before while in line hungry for a sub but being fed negative energy from the workers who had 50 other places in mind where they would rather be. Completely different environments, yet only a foot of concrete wall apart.
Its in my nature to find not only creative, but personal inspiration in the various things I come across throughout the day. And this reminds me that far to often we choose to sit in an energy draining environment wondering why we aren’t getting to the places in life we want to get to, when what we need to do is change our environment to one that is full of energy and excitement. Often times the better environment isn’t that much further away.