Chinese New Year Celebration

Camera: Nikon D200
Lens: Nikon 28 - 105
f/13 at 1/80
ISO 200

I went out last Sunday to take pictures of things related to the Olympic games that are going on right now. It also happened to be the day when there was a celebration for the Chinese New Year (year of the tiger). I was a little late and the parade had already ended but there was still lots of people hanging around and music being played.

I had my camera on a strap around my neck. I had my flash connected to it via an SC17 cable and mounted on a bracket with a Lumiquest ProMax mini softbox. The nice thing about a set up like this that although it is bulky, most people look at you and assume you are a professional photographer and don't mind you taking their picture. This is just one of many photos of people I got that day.

Harry Winston Jerome

Camera: Nikon D200
Lens: Nikon 28 - 105
f/8 at 0.3
ISO 2oo

I went down to Stanley Park to try to get pictures of the Olympic Ring lights located on a barge in the harbor. I have passed by this statue of Harry Jerome many times but have never taken any pictures. He was a celebrated Olympian which made it fitting for me to get a picture given the theme of the day.

I put my camera on a tripod and set the self timer to ten seconds. I used my SB 600 speedlight off-camera. I would trip the shutter to start the timer then position myself with the flash to camera right. The built-in flash on my D200 controlled the SB 600 telling it when to fire. I am very pleased with the results.

Happening Behind

Camera: Nikon D200
Lens: Nikon 18 - 70
f/13 at 1/2500
ISO 200

The sky was not really this color. In fact, it was pale almost white. However, I wanted it to appear like there was a sunset happening behind these trees. To do this I simply adjusted the white balance to 9000 kelvin and set the tint to +148 on the slider in Camera Raw. I'm not sure if it is convincing or not. What do you think?

Sun and Wire

Camera: Nikon D200
Lens: Nikon 28 - 105
f/14 at 1/200
ISO 100

What does the sun and this hydro tower have in common? They both are involved in the transmission of energy. I like including the sun in my photographs. Sometimes I include it simply because it's there. In this case I included it because it has a connection to the theme of this photograph, energy.

The Birds

Camera: Nikon D200
Lens: Nikon 28 - 105
f/5.6 at 1/100
ISO 200

I took this shot about 20 minutes after the picture from the previous posting. The sun had gone down and all the orange in the sky was reduced to blue. I decided to continued on with the silhouette technique.

The area that I found myself in has a large population of crows that were settling in for the evening. I wanted to capture large masses of them but could not find a good vantage point. I decided to focus in on another hydro pole and a small grouping.

The main elements in this photo are line and shape. The lines draw the viewers attention to the birds and the shapes are all recognizable.

Untitled

Camera: Nikon D200
Lens: Nikon 28 - 105
f/8 at 1/250
ISO 200

Not sure what title to give this photograph. I was driving home from PoCo around 5:00 pm and the sky started to look interesting. I got off the highway and parked the car as soon as I could.

Unfortunately there wasn't much of interest around to use as a foreground subject so these trees and hydro pole had to do. There was nothing complicated about the exposure. I metered for the sky which reduced the foreground subjects to a silhouette.

The lesson here might be to always have your camera close at hand. You never know when you will encounter something interesting. After I took this shot, I took a few more pictures near by as well all of which I wouldn't have taken if I didn't have my gear in the trunk of the car.

Car Light Trails 2

Camera: Nikon D200
Lens: Nikon 28 - 105
f/4.5 at 1/4
f/18 at 15 seconds
ISO 400

This was taken from the same overpass as the image in the previous posting but I am facing east instead of west. At a glance this photo looks pretty much the same as the previous one in terms of the technique.

The difference between the two photos is that the first one is a straightforward single shot long exposure while this one is a two-shot multiple exposure. I can't remember the order but I think I did the first exposure at 1/4 of a second to try to capture the actual cars not just their light trails.

Although you can see them if you look close, they are not as visible as I had hoped. Then I opened the shutter a second time for about 15 seconds to produce the long trails of light. I am definitely happy with the final results. I love the deep blue colour of the early evening sky.

Once again I think this is a successful experiment that I should play with a little more.