Thursday, January 5, 2012
 Feet of one of the Winged Figures of the Republic (Click image for larger view) Despite the austere times of the Great Depression, public art works were still funded. Across the road from the Hoover Dam Visitor Center one finds the twin Winged Figures of the Republic by sculptor Oskar J.W. Hansen. Each figure is 30 feet tall. This photo is of the feet of one of the statues. While the upper part of the statues have taken on a green patina, the feet are within reach and the constant touching has resulted in the toes becoming highly polished.
Nearby is a plaque commemorating those who died building the dam. 96 appears to be the official total through the construction period though 112 are noted the as associated with the dam. Most of these 96 were workers who fell from the cliffs. 42 other workers are noted to have died from ‘pneumonia’ – now thought to be primarily due to carbon monoxide poisoning of workers in the tunnels since none of the townsfolk of Boulder City were recorded as dying from pneumonia in the same period. Obviously this was all pre-OSHA and it shows just how far we’ve come in terms of occupational health and safety in the intervening years. According to the wikipedia article, the first fatality associated with the construction was that of J.G. Tierney, a surveyor who drowned in 1922. The last was his son, Patrick W. Tierney, 13 years later to the day.
Production Data
Camera: Canon EOS 5D
Lens: Canon EF17-35mmf/2.8L
Processing: Lightroom 3.6
Processing: Photomatix 4.02
Processing: Photoshop CS5
Processing: Topaz Adjust 5
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
 Hoover Dam Generator Room (Click image for larger view) So I’ll post a few more Hoover Dam photos this week, then move on. This is a view of the Nevada Powerplant that one can tour if you visit the dam. There are a couple of tours you can take, a 30-minute tour or a one hour tour. I got there relatively late in the day and just took the 30-minute tour. You take an elevator 530 down through the canyon walls to the power plant.
The powerplant room is 650 long. The Nevada side houses 8 generators while the Arizona side (which you can’t tour) houses 9 generators. If you take a tour, take a few moments to take in the art-deco interior of the powerplant rooms and the designs set in the terrazzo floors. If we were building this today, I suspect the floors would be just rough concrete!
Production Data
Camera: Canon EOS 5D
Lens: Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM AF Lens (B&H)
Processing: Lightroom 3.6
Processing: Photomatix 4.02
Processing: Photoshop CS5
Processing: Topaz Adjust 5
 Face of the Hoover Dam (Click image for larger view) So, continuing with the theme from yesterday, this is what it’s like to look down the face of the Hoover Dam. The Colorado River is about 700 feet below the top of the dam. To the left is Arizona, to the right is Nevada. The white concrete shape in the top right corner is part of the visitor’s center. Taken in 2006, in the upper right corner you can also see the supports of what would become the Mike O-Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. At the base of the dam on either side are the generator houses. You can visit the Nevada generator house if you take the tour.
Production Data
Camera: Canon EOS 5D
Lens: Canon EF17-35mmf/2.8L
Processing: Lightroom 3.6
Processing: Photomatix 4.02
Processing: Photoshop CS5
Processing: Topaz Adjust 5
Pleasure Boat on Lake Mead (Click image for larger view) I took this photo of a pleasure boat on Lake Mead back in 2006. The white layer of rock shows just how low the water level had dropped. The water has bleached the rock and as the level has dropped so the bleached layer has been exposed.
The photo is taken from the top of the Hoover Dam. Since i took this photo the bypass bridge has been competed and traffic can now avoid winding down into the canyon to cross the dam then climb up the other side. I’ve not been back since the new bridge was opened but I can imagine it’s now a lot safer for pedestrians visiting and walking across the dam.
Just this side of the pleasure boat is a line of buoys and below that a red boom that both span the lake from one side to the other. These are to prevent boats entering the catchment pools for the dam.
Production Data
Camera: Canon EOS 5D
Lens: Canon EF17-35mmf/2.8L
Processing: Lightroom 3.6
Processing: Photomatix 4.02
Processing: Photoshop CS5
Processing: Topaz Adjust 5
Meteor Crater (Click image for larger view) One of my goals for 2012 is to post a photo daily. It’s the first of the year so this is the first photo!
I took this photo of Meteor Crater back in 2006 while flying on a commercial jet from Las Vegas to Houston. Meteor Crater is about 40 miles west of Winslow, Arizona. If you find yourself in the area it’s well worth a detour. There’s a visitor center on the northern rim with good views into the crater. For the more athletic, you can actually hike down into the crater. I’m not that athletic. Still, there are not many places on this planet where you have such open access to a moonscape (or marsscape given the reddish tinge to this image). No wonder conspiracy theorists think the moon landings were a hoax!
Production Data
Camera: Canon EOS 5D
Lens: Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM AF Lens (B&H)
Processing: Lightroom 3.6
Processing: Photomatix 4.02
Processing: Photoshop CS5
Processing: Topaz Adjust 5
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Wishing all my readers a very merry Christmas
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
So I follow a bunch of Photographers over on Google+, one of them being Brian Matiash. Brian had a post recently where he stated he found it very challenging to stop and smell the roses.
Otter Bay, Acadia, Maine Since Brian’s post was illustrated with a view towards Otter Cliff, Acadia, Maine, I decided to illustrate this post with a view from the other side of the headland, Otter Cove.
Brian’s post was interesting because I found myself agreeing with him. I normally run-and-gun when I’m traveling. I seek to cover as much territory as possible in the time I have allotted. It doesn’t matter if I’m driving down the coastline of Maine over 3 days or photo-walking around Houston for 3 hours, my M.O. is the same, shoot and move shoot and move.
More often than not, I’ll have a plan. I’ll choose locations or way points I want to visit but I’m not averse to taking detours, some of which prove interesting, some of which do not.
But Brian’s post posed the question of whether it’s right or wrong to take this approach – whether this approach makes one less appreciative of the grandeur being visited upon the senses. I have to say that often times I do end up frustrated with myself for not taking more time in certain locations. But then the nature of my travel doesn’t suit visiting the same location day after day, patiently waiting for all the right elements to come into perfect alignment. Sometimes you just have to go with what you’ve got.
My trip to Maine last year was a perfect example of this. I’d accompanied my wife to a conference and the flights determined how much time I had. I could have chosen to stay in Boston but I really wanted to visit the easternmost point of the continental USA and this was going to be as good a time as any. So I spend a day driving cross country from Boston the Lubec then the next three days driving back along the coast. The weather never really cooperated with me those three days, but I’m still very happy with the vast majority of the shots I took, event those in the fog and rain.
And that Maine is beautiful in the fall in the fog and rain is a memory that stays with me, reinforced whenever I view the images from that trip. So while I may have missed some of the grandeur of the moment(s), my ability to relive my experiences through my images transcends my ability to conjure up those feelings from my unaided memory. And so, I think it’s OK to run-and-gun, but maybe one day I need to try being in the environment when I’m in the environment and see if I change my mind.
What do you think?
Production Data
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II (B&H)
Battery Grip: Canon BG-E6 Battery Grip (B&H)
Lens: Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS (B&H)
Tripod: Gitzo GT3531 6X Carbon Fiber Tripod Legs – Supports 39.6 lbs (18kg) (B&H)
Ball Head: BH-55 LR: Full-sized ballhead with LR (Really Right Stuff)
Processing: Lightroom 3 (B&H)
Processing: Nik¤Software HDR Efex Pro Software (B&H)
Processing: OnOne Photo Suite 6 (OnOne) 10% discount with coupon code rdavisphoto
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Back in March of this year, my wife took a business trip to Miami, Florida and I tagged along for a break. We thought the hotels were a bit pricey when booking them but didn’t realize till we pulled up in front of the Betsy Ross Hotel that we’d picked a Spring Break week! Thankfully, the Betsy was not a Spring Breakers hotel so our stay was quite pleasant.
One of the things I particularly like about winter is that sunrise and sunset occur at more human times. It’s possible to get a full night’s sleep and still be up in time to catch the sunrise. On March 18, 2011, when I took the image above, sunrise was at about 7:20.
For me, a good sunrise or sunset needs clouds or pollution to play against. This day I was rewarded. I went up to the roof of the hotel at around 6:00 am when it was still dark and watched the sky lighten from the east over the next hour and a half, taking a steam of photos through that period. Here the sun is quite high and the EXIF data tells me the image was taken around 7:50 am, about 20 minutes after sunrise.
There’s no filter on the lens at time of capture. For many years I used to slavishly follow the conventional wisdom and use a skylight or UV filter in front of my lens to protect it from dirt and scratching. But as I started to upgrade my lenses to the Canon ‘L’ lenses I started to wonder why I was putting a cheap piece of glass in front of these optical masterworks. Consequently I now go filter-less except for ND filters or polarizers for a given effect.
I’ve processed this image in Lightroom, lowering the brightness to saturate the blues and tweaked the color in Nik Color Efex Pro 4.0.
Production Data
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II (B&H) Limited time Special Offer at $1999.95
Battery Grip: Canon BG-E6 Battery Grip (B&H)
Lens: Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM (B&H) $300 rebate through Jan 7, 2012.
Tripod: Gitzo GT3531 6X Carbon Fiber Tripod Legs – Supports 39.6 lbs (18kg) (B&H)
Ball Head: BH-55 LR: Full-sized ballhead with LR (Really Right Stuff)
Processing: Lightroom 3 (B&H)
Processing: Nik Software Color Efex Pro 4 Complete Edition (B&H)
Note, the complete collection of Nik Software may be better value than buying the pieces separately depending upon what your objective are: Nik Software Complete Collection Software Plug-in for Photoshop, Lightroom, and Aperture (B&H)
So as we come to the end of the year, Scott Kelby posted his annual holiday gear guide so I thought I’d present mine. Like Scott, all of the items here are items I personally have used this year. Unlike Scott’s list, each one of these items costs less than $100.
 So I’ve had my Rainsleeve for a couple of years now and it’s performed sterling work for me. Now I don’t often venture out in the rain to take photos but the Op/Tech USA Rainsleeve is light and compact and easy to tuck into the corner of your camera bag. The clear polythene allows you to see and adjust all the camera controls. There’s a hole for the eyepiece and a drawstring to snug the opening around the lens. The Rainsleeve allows you to hand hold your camera or mount it on a tripod, so it’s excellent for taking out on rainy evenings if you want to capture reflections of city lights in rain-slicked streets. There is another variation that accommodates a camera mounted flash for less than a dollar more (OP/TECH¤USA RAINSLEEVE- FLASH (Pack of 2)).
 Another little tool that tucks away in the camera bag. The brush is retractable inside the barrel of the pen. My wish would be they’d add a cap but as they don’t, I use a resealable snack bag to ensure my Lenspen stays clean inside my gear bag. At the other end of the pen is a special non-liquid cleaning element. This one does have a cap to ensure it doesn’t get damaged in storage. I’ve had more success cleaning the objectives of my lenses with the Lenspen than I have with the traditional lens cloth or lens tissues.
 So anyone that’s ever followed Joe McNally will know he swears by diffusing the light from his small flashes to soften the output and produce a light output that has more shaping characteristics than the harsh light directly from the flash. The particular Sto-Fen referenced is for the Canon Speedlite 580EX II (B&H) but also fits the original 580 EX. Don’t have one of these units? Sto-Fen make similar products that fit all the common flash units from most of the manufacturers. This diffuser alone can go a long way to eliminating harsh shadows. Incidentally, B&H currently (date of posting) have a $50 instant savings on the 580 EXII bringing it down to $424!
 I picked up my first Frio when the FlashBus Tour 2011 came rolling through Houston with two masters of small flash, Joe McNally and David Hobby. Actually, what I got was an image of one since the physical units hadn’t arrived in time to stuff the goody bags. Having swapped by cardboard one for a real one I hastened to my local camera store, Houston Camera Exchange, to buy one for each of my speedlites. If you’re using multiple speedlites then these coldshoes are very easy and convenient to use if you want to mount your slave speedlites on a light stand. In the under side of the Frio is a standard 1/4 inch socket so you can screw the stand onto the top of a light stand or into an umbrella bracket if you want to angle the light. The speedlite just clips into the Frio. Of course, the Frio can be used with a flash from any manufacturer, not just Canon flashes. I find them to be way more convenient and easy to use than the ‘foot’ that Canon supplies with their speedlites when mounting my off camera lights on some form of stand or bracket.
 So if the Sto-Fen softens and scatters the light, how do you control the direction and spread of light? The answer is to use a grid over the flash. There are many hacks for this, including using drinking straws all cut to about 3/4 ~ 1 inch and glued or bound together. But, David Honl has done the work for you and put a sturdy frame around the grid to prevent it getting damaged in your gear bag. The grids come in 1/8 inch and 1/4 inch mesh sizes, the 1/8 inch grid providing the most tightly controlled light. If, like me, you’ve already applied Velcro to your speedlite then you simply attach the grid over the face of your flash with the Velcro straps provided. If you haven’t stuck Velcro all over your speedlites or are disinclined to do so (like many) then you can buy a Honl Photo Speed Strap for Speed System (B&H) for $9.95.
 The first flash diffusion device I ever bought, way back when in my film days, was a LumiQuest Mini Softbox. Over the years LumiQuest have expanded their range and their softboxes for small flash have gotten bigger. The largest in the range today in the LTp. The LumiQuest LTp is roughtly twice the size of their SoftBox III and 40 times the size of the flash itself with over 120 sq. in. of surface area. Designed specifically for off-camera use, the LumiQuest LTp folds flat for easy portability in a laptop pocket of your camera bag. Like the other LumiQuest products, the LTp is attached using Velcro fasteners (and this is why my speedlites all have Velcro stuck on them). As the lighting gurus will tell you, the larger a light source appears to the subject, the softer the light and more wrap you will achieve. With an assistant or light stand, you can get the LTp very close to your subject and get a nice soft wrap of light, great for location portraits where you can get close to the subject. And, just as with the Honl Speed Strap, you can buy the LumiQuest UltraStrap (B&H) for $7.95 if you don’t want to stick Velcro on your flash. As with the Honl Speed Strap, you simply wrap the Lumiquest Ultrastrap around the flash head when you need it. Of course, if you buy a Honl strap your don’t need the LumiQuest one and vice versa since they are both simple Velcro straps.
 What can I say about the Justin Clamp other than one is not enough! I don’t recall where I first learned of these things but most likely from Joe McNally’s book, The Moment if Clicks(Amazon, $34.64 or $19.80 for Kindle). Joe writes an interesting vignette on how this clamp came into being and got it’s name towards the end of the book. I find these to be extremely versatile for positioning off-camera flash units in weird places or mounting multiple speedlites in a shoot-through umbrella. On some of mine I’ve replaced the cold shoe that comes with the device for a Frio as I find the Frio’s more user friendly. To do this I had to go to my local hardware store and get some 3/4 inch long 1/4 inch diameter threaded bar. I unscrewed the cold shoe that came with the clamp, screwed in the threaded bar and then screwed on the Frio.
 So I finally switched from the standard Canon strap earlier this year and I’m left wondering why I didn’t do this a long time ago. Although not the only such strap on the market, the BlackRapid RS-7 is the strap I personally use. The difference between the RS-7 and RS-4 is the slight curve of the RS-7 that makes it a little more comfortable to wear. Instead of linking through the camera strap slots on the top sides of the camera, the BlackRapid RS-7 has a connector that screws into the tripod mount under the camera. This connector has a neoprene washer that, if you wet it before screwing it in, makes a really secure fit. To date, mine has not come undone unintentionally. With the BlackRapid RS-7, the camera hangs comfortably at your hip or behind your back yet the camera quickly glides up into shooting position when you need it. I just find it sits way more comfortably and I can move much more easily with the camera strap diagonally across my chest rather than around my neck or hanging off one shoulder. The only (mild) inconvenience is that you need to unscrew it to mount your camera on a tripod.
 These are the brainchild of Syl Arena. In addition to the 33 ft cord, Syl through his OCFGear.com site also sells 16 ft cords for $48.00, but the 33 ft cord give you more options in my opinion. This cord allows you to take your master flash off your camera and still have it as the master. If you want to do off-camera flash you need a way to trigger that flash. If your Canon camera has a built in flash you can use this but what if it doesn’t? Then you either need another 580EX II (or 430EX II) or a more limited ST-E2 controller but at $474 or $224 respectively, the OCF33 at $65 is much more reasonable. Using the OCF33 is a breeze. You simply put one end on the hot shoe of your camera and the speedlite clips into the hotshoe on the other end of the cable. This hotshoe has a threaded socket so you can mount it on a camera stand, umbrella adapter, Justin Clamp, etc. The beauty of this is that you can still use this flash as a master to control other speedlites as slaves and still have all the functionality of setting lighting ratios on the camera without having to go over to each flash and change their settings individually. The cable also allows the master flash to be out of line-of-sight contact with the camera so further extending your shooting options.
 So I’d read about these for some time before spotting one at the Houston Camera Exchange and deciding to buy it. They’re a little awkward to carry – I’ve seen some tie them to their camera strap but so far I just keep mine handy in a pocket on my camera bag. This device consists of a rubber shroud with a magnifying lens that you use to chimp the LCD screen on the back of your camera to see if you got the shot or not. The magnifying lens is adjustable to suit your own eyesight, much like the diopter setting on the viewfinder of your DSLR. With the LCD screens on the back of modern camera’s its not really necessary to check the histogram every time and the Hoodman Loupe also gets around the difficulty of trying to view that screen in bright sunlight. You can check for focus, depth of field, photo bombs, etc. before leaving the scene. There are few things more frustrating than getting home, uploading your shots to your computer and finding your ‘keeper’ shot is soft or that uncle Bert had his eyes closed. With the Hoodman Loupe you can check these on site and reshoot if necessary.
Well, there is is, my ten photo accessories under $100 for this Holiday season. I have no affiliation with any of these product manufactures but I do have an affiliation with B&H and Amazon. I use all these items myself and I’m happy to recommend them.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
So I’d planned to write this post about the USS Cavalla, on display in Seawolf Park, Galveston, Texas, accompanied by a series of photos but I just didn’t get around to it. So all I have right now is this one image of the forward torpedo room that I’ve been working on.
USS Cavalla - Forward Torpedo Room Production Data
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II (B&H)
Battery Grip: Canon BG-E6 Battery Grip (B&H)
Lens: Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM AF Lens (B&H)
Processing: Lightroom 3 (B&H)
Processing: Nik¤Software HDR Efex Pro Software (B&H)
Processing: Nik¤Software Color Efex Pro 4 Complete Edition (B&H)
Note, the complete collection of Nik Software may be better value than buying the pieces separately depending upon what your objective are: Nik¤Software Complete Collection Software Plug-in for Photoshop, Lightroom, and Aperture (B&H)
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by Richard Davis
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