Red Hills

Spent a few minutes at Saguaro National Monument West this afternoon. The Red Hills Visitor center has a magnificent set of arched ceiling beams on the back porch that - at certain times of the year and certain times of the day - present some amazing shadows.

The mountain upon which Kitt Peak National Observatory resides - seen in Infrared light.

The reflection of the porch in the giftshop windows.

If you take the image below . . .

and perform a little transformation trick called "Magic Circle" . . .

You get this . . .

The Painted Picture

In commercial photography it is the duty of the photographer to not only provide the client with images that promote but also transform the product into something that captures the attention of the customer. Recently I was given the opportunity to work with Login, Inc. - a provider of Business Voice, Internet and Colocation services in Tucson Arizona. They operate three Data Centers located in Arizona and Colorado - fascinating places only techies can truly appreciate.

Data Centers typically contain racks and racks of expensive, high tech computers and equipment in windowless, secure, cold rooms lit by blinding florescent ceiling lamps and encased in the cacophony of sound from power generators and cooling fans - isolated from the torturous, dirty world outside. Matt J. Ramsey, the Co-founder and CEO of Login, being the astute and artistically sophisticated gentleman that he is - had admired my long exposure astronomical work and knew that such techniques could be used to document his data center for promotional purposes. My job was to make this sterile, self-contained world somehow look beautiful and inviting. I happily accepted the challenge.

Now I had done this sort of thing before - in the darkened studio and out in the desert at night - using shielded flashlights with colored gels to "paint" the scenes to my liking. This is a slow and painful process, as you must determine - empirically - the duration and intensity of the light laid down on the subject. Trial and Error - hour after hour of experimentation for a payoff of just one decently painted and properly exposed image.

This picture is the result of a single 12 minute long exposure made out in Saguaro National Monument West one night in October of 2003. I used 5 different mini-maglights with shields and colored gels to create the "painted desert" effect. (With apologies to my idol - William Lesch)

For the Data Center images, with the florescent lights turned off, I used the power and signal LEDs native to the equipment in the racks as the primary light source. I gauged my exposures as to allow these lights to provide most of the ambient illumination. For those areas that remained dark (or darker than I thought appropriate) I dropped back to my light painting experience at night in the desert and used gelled flashlights to add some artistic nuance and color to the scene. Exposures were typically 60 seconds at F/4.5 and ISO 400. Below are some of the more colorful results.

A special thanks goes out to "Heather" - the model in the one picture with a person in it. She expertly stood absolutely still for over a minute while the camera shutter was open and I painted her with a flashlight. Oh - and for those of you that are certain to ask - Yes - I was in frame in every single shot here. Why am I not visible then? I never stood in one place long enough to register "on film":-)

UMC Architecture

More from the front lines with the Canon 17mm TS-E lens - this evening - University Medical Center.



One problem with the 17mm - lens flare. Bright light sources as much as 40 degrees outside the field of view can produce lens flare in the large protruding front element. In the image below - the light source that produced the flare was 90 degrees to camera right!

Tilting and Shifting

As a member of Canon Professional Services (CPS) I have the opportunity to get "evaluation" use of some of their lenses and cameras. Last night I was fortunate enough to get to use two high-end wide angle architectural lenses - the 14mm F/2.8L rectilinear and the 17mm F/4L TS-E - the later being a "Tilt-Shift" lens that is designed specifically for architectural photography.

What a TS-E lens allows you to do is to keep the vertical lines of a building from "converging". For example - take the image below taken with the 14mm tilted up to frame the Madonna sculpture at the San Xavier Mission . . .



Note that the vertical lines converge toward the top of the photograph. Now - the same subject from the same position taken with the 17mm TS-E shifted to correct for the perspective distortion . . .



My student and I spent the afternoon and evening downtown playing with the new lenses and evaluating their capabilities. I have access to them for the next few days and will be testing them thoroughly - including some astronomical work with them. So far - amazing!

San Xavier - Again.

Sigh. My student is getting better at photography - thanks to an investment in better glass and constant abuse by yours truly. Anyway - back to San Xavier - again - yes - I guess my refrain of "go back and do it again until you get it right" was a mistake.

Anyway - here are few shots from my portfolio of the expedition.


A couple of 360 pans of the interior of the mission . . .




A fisheye view of the ceiling . . .



A portrait of a parishioner . . .



"art" . . .



The mission pooch . . .



More "art" . . .




My student - who can't read . . .



Yawn - the mission . . .




Hey! Don't stand in front of the !%$#* camera!



Swingin' in the moonlight!

Sweetwater

Spent the day at Sweetwater Wetlands - near the water treatment plant off I-10 and Prince. Never knew it was there until my friend Steve West told me about it. Nice place! (A little aromatic - but - a nice place.) Lots of ducks and flycatchers here. The photo gang (Steve, Melinda, Dean and Frank) spent the morning chasing fowl. I'm not a birder but asked the many that were there what some of our avian prey were. Here are a few of my pics and Here are a few of Steve's.

Ruby Crowned Kinglet . . .





Yellow Rumped Warbler . . .





Leucistic Vermillion Flycather . . .








Least Sandpiper . . .



Please correct me if I'm wrong on the idents here - and inform me of the names of the ones I haven't identified (or mis-identified). Thanks!