November 18, 2010

Winter Reflections

Digital original
A gray, leaden sky looks quite different when reflected in a clear lake, rimmed with ice!
Digital original
Less than an hour after the first image, the sky had cleared, and a totally different appearance in the same lake.

November 15, 2010

A Sunset & Claire in the Studio

Digital original, 2 frame stitch
As I was preparing to head out to work with Claire, I caught sight of the sky outside my kitchen window, and paused just long enough to make a quick composition of the bands of gold and blue in the sky. A lovely look at the last light of the day!
Digital infrared original
This studio session was focused on working against a dark background, in contrast to most of the work I do with available light, which I set against white. I don't do a lot of studio photography these days, but with a model as confident and comfortable as Claire, it is deceptively easy to make striking photographs.
Digital infrared original
I just love the angle of Claire's shoulder in the above image - all through the session we had a running conversation, with pauses here and there when images came together. I forget what she had said moments before, but she was awaiting my response when I made this image, which goes some way to explaining the expression on her face.
Digital infrared original
For almost all this session I worked with a single light; in this case, I used it to light both Claire and the background, some 15' behind her. The rich shadows against the soft gray background are really pleasing, but I find the line up her other side, created by the light from the softbox falling across her hip, breast and arm, even more engaging.

It is no accident that while I intended the session to be set against black, I ended up working with gray!

November 11, 2010

A Vampire Bat Skull

Digital original, 9 frame focus blend
A while ago, I bought some skeletons and skulls online, for a photography project. That idea went nowhere, but recently, another digital concept has caught my interest, so I have returned to photographing the skulls. This time however, I was using a very different technique - lighting them with miniature soft-boxes illuminated by LED lights, and using focus stacking to achieve the sharpest, most detailed results.
Digital original, 20 frame focus blend
This image took a lot of careful camera work to make - it took three attempts before I got the spacing for the focus stacking right (if the difference between focus points is too great, there will be noticeable out-of-focus sections, which is very fake-looking). Now all I need is time to finish up the digital composites these are part of!

November 10, 2010

A Rain Swollen River

Digital original, 3 frame stitch
After two of the worst rains storms I have ever seen, this little stream, which I have worked with a couple of times lately, has grown to be a veritable torrent...there is no way I could have walked across the river, let a long have a model pose in it.