WorldWide PhotoWalk

On Saturday, I packed up my gear and headed out to Lake Harriet to join up with a bunch of people for Scott Kelby's WorldWide PhotoWalk. This was my first online photography group meet up, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. All told, it was a very cool event and a great opportunity to meet a bunch of other local photographers.

I was a little skeptical about going for a photowalk around Harriet and Calhoun since I've been around them so many times before. But like usual, I found that once I just started shooting I started getting into it and finding some cool shots. It seems like every time I go out, there's a bit of a warm up period where I just need to hammer through the first bunch of shots. After warming up, I honestly had a good time and came home with some images that I'm very happy with.

Now I'm surfing through LOTS of pics from the Flickr group to check out what everybody else came up with. I've been making a more focused effort to actually participate in the groups on Flickr and make comments on more people's work. I think that's a key element to getting better - thinking critically about lots of images and taking the time to invest back into the online community.

I'm definitely looking forward to getting out there again and meeting more of the local group.

Fast New Glass

Earlier this week, I made another Craigslist photography purchase. I've been kicking around the idea of buying some new glass for quite a while (about a year) and I finally took the plunge.

The challenge for me was finding the right combo of features and price. I've been using the Canon EF-S 18-55 kit lens predominantly for the past few years and while it really is a decent lens, it has some real limitations as well. For me the biggest problem was how slow the lens is (f/5.6 at 55mm is painful in anything but great light). So I've been looking for something to replace it as my standard walk around lens. One of the main contenders was the L series 17-40 f/4 which is a really nice lens, but I wasn't convinced on the f/4 part. Canon's 17-55 f/2.8 IS looks like a nice enough lens, but there's no way I was going to throw down that much cash on it. WAY overpriced if you ask me.

Another factor is that I would like to move to a full frame sensor camera sometime in the future (from my current 30D), so I don't really want to sink a lot of money into glass that won't work with a full frame sensor. So with all of that, I ended up picking up the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 for a really good deal (just had to wait long enough for one to show up). It's a pretty huge step up from the old kit lens, and constant 2.8 is amazing. Unfortunately I think that could become an expensive habit.

After only a couple days shooting with it, I do like the lens even though it does have its shortcomings. The backwards zoom ring (compared to Canon's) is a little weird ... more so than I expected. The real compromise though is the auto-focus. It seems pretty fast so far, but it is very loud compared to even the cheap kit lens. Most of the time though, I don't think that is going to be a problem (we'll see). For really quiet situations, it's easy enough to switch it over to manual and still get the focus confirmation in the viewfinder. Overall this are pretty minimal issues for a lens that cost me less than $300, particularly considering it has good image quality and is so fast.

I'm looking forward to heading out to the Minneapolis World Wide PhotoWalk event on Saturday and getting more familiar with it.

Lake Harriet

We went down to Lake Harriet last night to check out some folk / slide blues music at the bandshell, and sometimes the sky just does cool things that require a picture. I've been trying to get away from taking the same picture(s) over and over, so I forced myself to try find a different angle / composition to make better use of the wide lens.

We had a good time, until the mosquitoes started showing up...

Small Sensor Cameras and B&W

In another attempt to stop being so focused on gear, I made a recent trip down to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to check out the flood damage and only brought along a small Canon point and shoot. It's a very capable little camera (SD800IS), but it has all the usual limitations of having a small sensor (lots of noise on anything above ISO200 and no way to get shallow DoF).

I processed almost all of the images in Black & White and was actually surprised at how much I liked the results. I definitely missed the exposure latitude of RAW files, but I think they worked out well enough anyway. I think the noise can actually look decent with the image in B&W (to my eyes anyway...).

Overall it was a fun exercise and a good reminder that the camera really doesn't matter as much as I think it does most days. It's much more important to simply get out there and shoot.

PhotoChallenge

So I decided to jump in with the PhotoChallenge crew and start doing daily photo "assignments". Really what it boils down to is that I'm trying to shoot more and having some structure seems to help actually get me out and shooting. It's pretty simple, but honestly I'm enjoying it and I think it's already helping me become a better photographer.

Trying out my really simple Strobist set up has added another element of fun and learning to the mix. Lots more to learn ... but it's been fun.

Developing Vision in Copenhagen

Just finished posting an edited selection of images from my recent trip to Copenhagen, Denmark. We actually had a reasonable amount of time (for a business trip anyway) to wander through the city and take some pictures. I took about 300 shots over the course of the week, and I have to say that I’m pretty pleased with the results. That’s not to say that the shots were all amazing or anything like that, but I felt like I’ve grown as a photographer and the results reflected that.

Partially, it was a fun week of shooting because it was the first time I’ve gotten to shoot seriously with my new camera. It seems to expose better than my old one (less constant fiddling with the compensation controls) and I really like having a more “pro” control interface to work with. It made for an enjoyable shooting experience.

On a much more important level, I felt like this was the first time I was really visualizing shots that I wanted and then figuring out how to actually get them. Things like building up intentional compositions with specific foreground and background elements, looking for specific lighting effects on the chosen subject, and timing a shot for when the pieces all came together. It was quite satisfying to look through the results and see how that intentionality paid off.

I’m looking forward to taking more pictures and working to develop that sense of vision in creating interesting (and hopefully unique...) images.

The full Flickr set can be found here.

Cameras or Photography?

Is my hobby cameras (collecting, playing with, reading about online....) or is it actually photography?

So many people have made the point (again and again) that it’s really not about the camera, it’s about the photographer behind the camera. Still it seems to be an issue I wrestle with a lot. Perhaps it’s the Engineering background ... they *are* pretty cool pieces of gear after all. But really, I’d like to be a better *photographer* not just another tool that sits around reading about the latest gear online, endlessly researching the next gear acquisition. Unfortunately, it’s way too easy for me to slide into that mode of thinking.

I keep trying to jar myself out of that mode. DO something. Anything really ... don’t just sit there, mindlessly surfing. Preferably, actually DO something creative.

To that end, I’m trying to write more, take more pictures (maybe even process and post them to Flickr), play music. Whatever. But the real goal is to be more constructive with my downtime and do something creative. Part of it comes down to breaking the myth that to really relax I need to be useless. The irony is that although that thought comes through my mind pretty often the reality is much different - I actually feel more rested and recharged after doing something at least semi-useful with my time.

It may take a while, but I’m going to keep trying to break old habits and choose the path of “doing” and see where it actually leads. I’m hoping for making some long overdue progress in my creative pursuits.

Take #2

So we're going to give this another try.

Cleaned things up a bit and put it all back in order.

Looking ahead, I'd like to use this as a tool to dig into photography more and continue to develop it as a means of creative expression.

We'll see where it goes...