The Difference between Night and Day

Over the last couple years,
I have occasionally been asked why I don't shoot more colorful subjects, like wildflowers, green meadows, and colorful mountain scenes. I've never really known what to say, as, truth be told, I just never
felt I was that good at it.

When I really became fixated with photography, my first instinct was to take pictures of the moon, the stars, the twilight glow; the Mysterious and the Fantastic. Night and low-light photography naturally became my muse. To me, night photography is the equivalent of a painter starting out with a blank canvas, and slowly applying layers upon layers of color with his/her brush. Similarly with night photography, you start with a pitch black frame, and slowly allow light in the camera over long periods, or force light in by painting objects with a spotlight. It seems much more controlled by virtue than shooting in daylight hours and being at the mercy of current sunlight and atmospheric conditions. Night photography does come with it's own set of unique challenges though, including camera noise, difficulty in getting the lens focused on my subject in the dark, and uneven light painting. Other external challenges with night photography include encounters with wildlife, encounters with (not-so) domestic farm dogs, wind, and a myriad of other predicaments that you might imagine wandering around in the wilderness at night may present.

During my photography journeys, I find myself sleeping for four hours around mid-night, waking up and shooting pre-sunrise and sunrise, and then sleeping another four hours at mid-day, to go out and shoot again at sunset and after the fall of night. More than once I've absent-mindedly greeted people with "Good Morning!" at 6:00 in the evening.

The photo of the old tree above, "Protection", is a 30-second exposure taken at about 4:00 am in the Utah desert a couple weeks ago, before the first glow of sunrise.

On to more important topics…

Today is Mother's Day. We owe a debt of gratitude to our Mothers for bringing us into the world, nurturing us, teaching us, consoling us, healing us, and loving us. I recently read on a blog a statement that rings so true:

"God could not be everywhere, and
therefore he made mothers."

In honor of Mother's Day, (and also in response to those who wondered if I'm truly nocturnal and envision me frantically clamoring through shadows to return to my coffin at the first hint of dawn), I give you this gallery:








"Unique Flora"; in celebration of the vibrant color and
the miracle of life that Mother Nature provides.

Enjoy, and to all the Mothers of the world,
wishing you a most heartfelt

Happy Mother's Day!

Night Photography in Denver

Happy New Year!

My Christmas present to myself this year was a Singh-Ray Vari-ND filter. Unfortunately it is back ordered for a while, so my instant gratification itch wasn't scratched. I suppose I'll appreciate it more once I do get it.

The last few weeks I've had the urge to get out and do some night photography. Unfortunately my extreme distaste for sub-freezing weather at 5am has kept me close to home. I've gone through a couple dozen of those little hand-warmers. I've never shot in the city at night, and it has been an interesting pastime, although a sad replacement for the mystery of remote nocturnal wilderness. I found some good compositions, and also have been toying with the combination of the natural light of dawn combined with the tungsten, incandescent, and flourescent glow of civilization. The combination makes for some interesting colors.


I did a timelapse movie of this scene on a 5 degree morning; of the sun rising and people shuffling down the stairs on their way to work that came out pretty interesting. I'll likely post it soon. I'm looking for some good electronic music to put with it before I post it. (suggestions?) I have always thought about art as having music with it; a soundtrack of sorts. Most of my night-nature photos I think I would set to Massive Attack or some Native American music. There's also a song by the late Joe Strummer called "Long Shadow" that puts me back in the middle of the Utah desert at night. Now, with the timelapse video, music is a necessity, and the city's soundtrack is most certainly electronic...

This one's soundtrack would have to be "Skyway" by The Replacements. The song is permanently engrained in my brain from the '80's.

A Dog's-eye View of the 14th Annual Furry Scurry

Today was the
14^th Annual Furry Scurry, a 2-mile walk with over four thousand dogs, and their people, mingling, drooling, and frolicking in Washington Park in Denver.

I arrived at the park with "Puppy-Cam", holding my tripod upside down, with the camera just inches from the ground, at dog's eye view.

Who can resist a curious puppy?










Dog's facial expressions are the best!





I love it how some dogs look so intellectual.

With my remote shutter in hand, and the inverted tripod in the other, I wandered, and let the dogs sniff the camera. Their varied responses to the camera were hilarious. A lot of times I would snap a shot just to make the shutter-noise to attract the dog's attention to the camera, and then get the shot as they approached.

"Running with the Big Dogs"

This charity event, in it's 14th year, hosted by The Denver Dumb Friends League, raised over a half a million dollars to go towards the Denver Dumb Friend's League Animal Shelter.

It was a Paws-itively Great Day for a very good cause!

For more information about my photography or this event,
contact me at 1-888-4photo2,
or send me an email through the link at the top of my blog.

My Introduction to Pinhole Photography

If you are familiar with my low-light and night digital photography, this may seem like an odd post. My photography interest continues to open doors into areas that are new and unexpected. I can honestly say that until yesterday, I had very little interest in traditional photography, film, and darkrooms. While many old film dogs are converting into the new digital age, all I want to do (since yesterday afternoon) is learn more of the film side. I always seem to get distracted from my main focus randomly. I'll start a huge project, and the next day create two more for myself. I think I just found one of my wonderful distractions, and one that I'm very excited about. I suppose I should view it more as building upon a whole, rather than deviating from a course.

Yesterday was "Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day" (see www.pinholeday.org ), and the Center for Fine Art Photography held a workshop where we built cameras out of a cardboard boxes, and developed the images. The last time I stepped foot in a darkroom was in high school nearly twenty years ago, but after attending the workshop yesterday, I want to run to the camera store and buy some black and white photo paper, developer, and fixer, and start building my darkroom, and a plethora of homemade cameras. I have an empty room in my home that I don't use, and it seems to be the perfect place for a small darkroom. I'm sure I will put together an overly-verbiose post about the construction of this new project as I start and complete it, but for now, I thought I would share my Pinhole Photography experiences.

Who knew you could make a camera out of a cardboard box and some electrical tape? The beauty and strength of pinhole photography is in the ability to achieve practically unlimited depth of field. Not to get too technical, but for you math whizzes, here's the formula for determining aperture on a pinhole camera:

f/stop = focal length
pinhole diameter

Okay, I'm not a math whiz either, so I won't elaborate. There is a very good article explaining this concept in-depth at http://ca.geocities.com/penate@rogers.com/pinsize.htm. In short, with my little cardboard box, I was able to achieve an aperture of somewhere between f200-something and f500-something. This extreme depth of field means that I could place the camera a few inches away from an object, and have that object in good focus, and still have a mountainous horizon in the background in good focus as well.

I'm not sure why I chose the truck, other than it really looked more beat up, and had much more character than these photos indicate. I was also singularly focused on the technical aspects of my cardboard box, and the actual photo at this point was secondary.

This first shot was taken in very bright sun, with a 7-second exposure. The sun was reflecting brightly off of the hubcap, thus the extreme contrast.




This second shot was a 30-second exposure taken in the shade. Notice that the building in the far distance is in as sharp of focus as the truck? This photo may not be the best example of that, because the wind caused a bit of camera movement.

Impressive photos? Most definitely not. Enough of a start to motivate me to keep trying it? Yes. Unexpectedly, I really got a lot of satisfaction out of the rudimentary nature of this style of photography.

I have some big plans for some old dead trees near my house in the near future...

For anyone interested in learning more about pinhole photography,
The Center for Fine Art Photography is holding an Intermediate Pinhole Workshop on May 20th in Fort Collins, Colorado. The instructor, Micheal Butts, is an expert on the subject, devoting his last 18 years to Pinhole Photography. He is an excellent instructor.

(You can read a new post about Pinhole Photography from 05/14/07 here)