I drove to Angola Indiana on Wednesday morning for business and decided to hit some unfamiliar county roads and look for photos. Exploring rural country roads is a great way to discover rural america and get some great photos along the way. The obvious advantage to rural roads is that you can drive slowly and pull over to take pictures almost anywhere. I almost always mount my 70-300 on my 5D for such morning scenes and usually shoot towards or perpendicular to the sunrise. Even though the colors might pop, taking pictures with the sun at your back will usually give you flat looking photos that miss the contrast (and depth) that side lighting gives you. Shooting into the sun can give some dramatic effects. Even though my dear wife begs for more color photos, I decided, once again, on black and white.
This Photo Blog follows my paid photography projects and self-imposed photo exercises. I hope to make this blog both interesting and educational by combining my dubious story telling skills, life musings and occasional good idea.
Enjoy,
Stuart
New Photos in a Familiar Spot
I returned to the Goshen Dam Pond today in search of new photos in a very familiar place. This area offers lots of opportunities for photographers including beautiful lighting, changing natural scenes, a variety of birds and the occasional interesting human. Taking photos again and again at the same site is a challenge, “Been there, done that.” This is exactly why I go back. Continually shooting in the same place forces me to search for new ideas and perspectives. This was today’s self-imposed photo assignment. Sometimes I will limit my focal length to 50, 35 or even 16mm. Today, I gave myself permission to shoot with my 70-300 zoom lens. Perhaps I was hoping to sneak photos of someone doing morning yoga. Instead, my lens settled on the common Canadian Goose and another photographer.
LaCasa’s Rock the Block – Elkhart 2013
Today, I went to Elkhart to take photos of LaCasa’s Rock the Block event. Rock the Block is a community based event focused on cleaning up (and fixing up) a specific block or area in Elkhart. People came together from various walks of life to accomplish the task at hand. People painted, raked, picked up trash, cut down trees and weeded to better the community at large.
See more photos HERE.
Elkhart War Bird Fly-In 2013
Today, I stopped by the Elkhart Airport to snap photos of some airplanes a day before the annual War Bird Fly-Inn. When I arrived, there were a number of T-6 aircraft parked on the tarmac. I chatted with some pilots and then slowly made my way around the airplanes, looking for good photos. The sky was dull and full of clouds. I used fill flash on some photos and touched things up in Lightroom 5. I would love to return to the full airshow on Saturday but sadly have other commitments.
35th Elkhart Juried Regional
This morning I was pleased to learn that my photo, “Winter Fence,” was accepted into the prestigious Elkhart Juried Regional. It will be on display at the Midwest Museum of American Art in Elkhart, October 11 – December 8 2013. I took this photograph last winter, next to the Goshen Dam Pond, and have ever since claimed it as my favorite landscape photo. I love its simplicity and elegance (if I do say so myself).
It was a quiet and foggy early morning after a heavy snow fall. The snow was thick but gentle over the concrete steps, giving them the look of rippling sand dunes. The Dam is normally a busy place, and I feel fortunate to have been able to capture this winter scene while the snow remained undisturbed.
Three Aerial Photo Shoots in One Day
Tuesday morning I spent 2.5 hours traveling via helicopter to Mishawaka, East Chicago and Griffith Indiana. The mission of the East Chicago and Griffith sites was to take photos of some impressively large solar arrays. Both of these arrays had recently been completed by Gro Solar of Maryland. The Mishawaka stop was to take follow-up photos of the newly finished Center for Hospice Care on the St. Joseph River (see previous photos of that building). That beautiful facility was built by D-J Construction, Goshen. I flew in a piston powered helicopter out of Goshen. I took both of my DSLRs, one with a long zoom and the other with a “walk around” lens. I attach the camera to me using a dual Black Rapid Strap and then attached myself to the heli with a lap belt. Note… Lake Michigan in the above photo.
Air Supremacy Over Elkhart R/C Airshow 2013
Air Supremacy Over Elkhart is an annual R/C Airshow featuring military and classic giant-scale R/C airplanes. This year’s event was held Sept. 12-14 at the Elkhart Airport and I was invited to come by and take photos. While radio controlled airplanes can be fun to watch and fly (I used to fly them myself), taking photos of them can quickly become monotonous. Generally speaking, they take-off, fly in a big oval for a while and then land. The photographer is not allowed to freely roam-around to “work the shot” but is instead delegated to the same small area as the pilot controlling the airplane. I threw the camera in shutter priority mode (1250-1600/sec), set Auto Focus to AI Servo, turned on high speed shooting and manually set my ISO to 640 to ensure a moderate aperture (and a reasonable depth of field). Then, using my 70-300 zoom lens I took a million boring photos (actually not all where boring, see above).
Since I was stuck taking photos from one vantage point, my only option for better photos was to change my subject, but how? A friendly pilot took his turn flying and I struck up conversation with him. I told him that I wanted to see more of the top of his plane and perhaps he could do a barrel roll or side-slip. He obliged and I was awarded with some better photos (see below).
I also got some decent photos of guys working on their airplanes, joking around, etc. It was a great day for flying and a super opportunity for photography. See more photos HERE.
09/06/13 GM Chevy Truck Manufacturing Plant, Fort Wayne Indiana
Today’s aerial photo assignment was the GM Truck Manufacturing Plant in Fort Wayne Indiana. The new 2014 Chevy truck is rolling onto showroom floors and Chevy wants to celebrate. About 50 trucks were parked to form the Chevy logo which they refer to as the “Chevy Bow-Tie.” I was asked to get photos of the Bow-Tie by itself and also to get photos of the entire facility that includes the Bow-Tie.
This facility is enormous and may be the largest building I’ll ever take photos of. We arrived in the helicopter on-site just before 9:00 am (with sunrise at 7:11 this time of year). Morning light is great but a little moisture in the air and glare makes shooting towards the sun an impossibility. I did however manage to get some some good photos from the south-south-west (see above photo), but most shots were taken from the south, north or east. Many of the pictures needed help in post production to reduce haze and bring back detail that was lost in the bright eastern sky. Other photos can be viewed HERE.
08/30/13 Granger Commons
Today I took photos at the Granger Commons site (in Granger Indiana). This space is part of the Granger Community Church and includes a coffee bar, eatery, cozy seating areas and many shelves of religious reading materials. I stopped by the site a few weeks ago to give it a pre-photo visit and was struck by it’s massive size and complex layout.
A mixture of artificial lights (both daylight bulbs and incandescent) and large windows on the north and south side of the facility meant that mixing light temperatures was all but unavoidable. The high black ceiling further complicated things by ruling out any possibility of using it as a diffuser to bounce my speedlights.
I arrived before sunrise in hopes of using early morning light for some dramatic outdoor photos AND to take advantage of the warm early light to match some of the indoor incandescent lights. Once inside, I put 3300 temp gels on my three flashes but within 20 minutes, the sun had lost it’s warmth, so the gels came off.
Inside composition was a challenge. This was a huge space with islands of chairs and sitting areas. The main area was designed for many hundreds of people to mingle (before and after church). While I wanted to capture this large area, I found doings so in a compelling way difficult but doable.
I exposed for the ambient light and used my strobes to light accent walls, sitting areas, etc. Of course, I shot off a tri-pod and kept my aperture between f8 and f13. Other photos from this shoot can be seen HERE.
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