Thanksgiving: A Time to Share, Thank & Remember

The leaves are gone now. The trees are bare and winter will be here soon. It’s another cloudy, gray “where has the sun gone?” day here in NJ. We could all use a bit of color, so…

I’d like to share this photo I took last month during the peak of the fall season. The view is from my “office” window in the back of the house.

In the mood for more color? How about some yellow to remind us of the warmth of summers past and the promise of summers to come.

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite times of the year, filled with fond memories of family and friends. I invite you to share some of my memories: Thanksgiving: Fantasies Versus Realities in hopes that you might think back, smile and remember your own wonderful Thanksgiving holidays. Thanksgiving is all about sharing, remembering and thanking. Thanks to all of you who come to visit and share. I wish you all the happiest Thanksgiving.

A B&W Tribute to My Favorite Photo Subjects

Although I’ve featured photos of each of my six granddaughters in my posts, I’d like you to meet all the ladies at the same time. I’m beginning with the youngest and working my way up. I’ve chosen shots that were taken when the older girls were younger to keep the ages as close together as possible for this series.

Livvy (Olivia) was born about an hour after her twin sister. I took this photo at the twins’ first birthday party the week before last. Livvy was playing peek a boo with me from behind one of her new toys. Her smile is perfection in this shot.

Maddy (Madeline) is the smaller of the two. I still can’t tell them apart. She was sitting on her new riding toy at the party. Julia and Emily were pushing her round and round from one room to another. Can you tell Maddy was having a ball?

Meet Julia, one of the twins’ older sisters. She’s eight now. This photo is and continues to be one of my favorites. Jules is such a bubbly, outgoing child. She’s always been a marvelous subject. Last you saw Julia (the other day), she was climbing onto that swing in my daughter’s yard.

Say Hello to Em (Emily). Em is nine. She’s one of the cousins. I like this softer image. She was leaning on the back of a chair in the family room one day and I managed to catch this spontaneous shot.

Here’s Sara. She celebrated her 10th birthday this month. You met Sara recently when she was reaching for her bubbles. Sara is the big sister to Julia, Maddy and Livvy.

Meg (Megan) just turned twelve in September. Meg and Em are sisters. I remember the day I took this photo. I had my tripod set up taking pictures of infant Emily. I couldn’t resist this photo of Meg surveying her domain and relaxing in her rocking chair.

Am I a lucky guy or what? Family is so important and we have six lovely granddaughters. I don’t have any pictures of Meg as a baby because I only got back into photography when she was about six months past her second birthday. No more excuses for me. I have all the equipment I need and my favorite photo subjects are always doing something interesting.

And now a few technical details about these photos. The photos of the twins were shot with my Nikon N8008s. I used bounce flash with an index card rubber banded to the flash head to illuminate their faces. Great and cheap technique. The photos look so natural. I developed the FP4 film myself. I cropped the 4 x 6 35mm format down to 4 x5 and “fuzzed” the borders to minimize distractions.

I took the photo of Julia with a vintage Pentax Spotmatic I had just won on eBay. The lens is special. It’s a screw mount Super Multicoated Takumar 50mm 1.4. I’ll put this lens up against the best in the world. The Spottie’s built in meter doesn’t work. I got the exposure just right here — no flash and hand held. I used a chromogenic B&W film that I had processed at the local 1-hour lab.

The shot of Emily was taken with Fuji 1600 speed film. I used one of my Nikons but I don’t recall which lens I used. It was probably a 50 mm. Naturally, no flash at that speed. I had the film developed by a lab that could handle B&W film processing. This was before I got back into doing my own processing a few years ago.

The shot of Sara came from the same roll as the bubble shots. I’m sure I was using a portrait lens (probably the 100mm I used to have) with one of my Nikon SLRs. The film was ISO 400 chromogenic and processed by the 1-hour lab.

Chromogenic B&W film uses the same dye based system as color negative film so it can be processed by any lab that can do color. Not quite as sharp as “real” B&W, but it’s great stuff for portraits. I don’t use it any longer because I don’t trust the 1-hour lab techs with my precious negatives.

Megan’s photo was done with one of my Nikons with Chromogenic B&W film also. I dug the negative out and scanned it today (along with the negative for the shot of Emily). I learned a few new tricks that I’ll pass on in another tutorial.

Thanks for stopping by and helping me pay tribute to my favorite grandkids and photo subjects. You’ll be seeing lots more of them. Now that you’ve been properly introduced, it’ll be more fun.

Monday Musings: Lost Within a Pink Rose

This rose captivated me as I searched through my slide collection on Sunday morning. I lost myself in the beauty, the color and the forms of this lovely pink rose. I had no choice in the matter.

Like Alice in Wonderland, I was drawn within and whirled round and round. I had no choice. And you won’t either.

Yes. That’s it. Step a little closer. You can’t resist the sheer magnetism of my beauty. You have no choice.

Come closer still and inhale my intoxicating aroma.

Fall within and explore the delicacy of my petals, grow drunk on the sheer pinkness of me. Now I have you — forever mine.

Much as I love black and white photography, I’m not immune to the wondrous colors of nature. This beauty, this pink rose, celebrates color, form, texture. I had no choice in the matter. The sheer emotion of this rose pulled me into her embrace. I hope you enjoy this epiphany of nature as much as I have.

Be sure to visit Lisa’s Chaos for more Macro Monday links and photos. Thank you Lisa. Thank you for giving us this opportunity to share.

PS — This post marks a milestone for me. It’s number 100. Thanks to all who come to visit, share and comment.

Monochrome Photography: Julia Climbing the Swing

Say hello to Julia, one of my six granddaughters. I can’t imagine this photograph in color. I’ve been photographing the girls for almost nine years now — almost exclusively in black and white.

Julia Swinging

B&W cuts to the chase when it’s time to capture the moment, especially with kids. They tend to forget about you, the photographer and go about their business. Spontaneity works. Get down on their level, don’t get in their way and keep on shooting. As soon as I saw this negative on my light table I knew I had a good one.  I liked the way this photo came together (sometimes I get lucky too).

This shot comes from a roll of Ilford FP4+ and is one of my early experiments developing with Diafine. I’ve tried Tri-X and Ilford HP5, and they are OK, but I really like the tonality of the FP4/Diafine combo and this photo is a good example. FP4 processed in Diafine scans perfectly every time.

I love the expressive qualities inherent in B&W and the total control I have of the entire process. I’m shooting more B&W than I ever have and I’ve been in love with the medium for over 40 years.

Yes, I still use film, I prefer B&W, don’t like zoom lenses and my favorite 35mm lens is a 50mm prime (I have four of them). Guess this makes me a throwback, but I’m a happy and stubborn. I’m not quitting any time soon.

Visit the Monochrome Weekly Theme if you love monochrome photography.

Reflections: Reach for Your Dreams

Often our dreams are bubbles dancing just out of reach, drifting, iridescent, tantalizing, fragile. Just as often our dreams compel us to reach out and touch them.

Share in Sara’s delight and reach out to your dreams. I took these photos back in the summer of 2001 when Sara was coming up on her second birthday. She’ll be ten next week.

Look at Sara’s joy. There’s nothing on her mind except her wonderful, dancing bubbles. Can you imagine feeling this way as you go after your own dreams. But if you want to chase your bubbles you must make some first.

“My Dragon Blows Bubbles. Whenever I ask.” We (my dragon and I) decided to put our bubble song to the tune of On Top of Old Smokey. We don’t have all the lyrics yet, but we have fun singing the first two lines and blowing bubbles.

All dragons like to blow bubbles — just ask your dragon if you doubt me. Can you picture you and your dragon singing a “My Dragon Blows Bubbles” duet, bubbles jetting out of both nostrils? Your dragon’s nostrils of course. You need to fill your bubble pipe with “bubble stuff” and blow along with your dragon.

Of course our dragons are metaphors for our inner creative being. Invite your dragon to play and blow dream bubbles, creative bubbles, idea bubbles, big bubbles, little bubbles, iridescent bubbles that dance on the wind of imagination and  reflect your innermost dreams.

True, bubbles are fragile and don’t last long, but you and your dragon can always make more. Life is a creative journey, a constant stream of the bubbles of discovery. Destination? Doesn’t matter because you’ll never get there. And if you did what then? No. Life is a dynamic, joyous seeking and playing along the way. The journey matters.

Next time you feel blocked or a little cranky, close your eyes and picture your dragon (and you) dancing and blowing bubbles. Now that’s a sight. Bet you’ll be smiling and feeling creative then.

PS — Sara is one of my six lovely granddaughters. In time, you’ll meet them all because I can’t stop photographing them. And that’s a good thing.

PPS — Be sure to drop by James’ Weekend Reflections blog. Lot’s of links and tons of fun.

Barcode Boulevard: Photo & Story

He feared the asking, she the telling. No rider in memory had ever dared the boulevard on this the night of the low moon. At least no rider had ever returned to tell the tale. Would they be the first? Legend be damned, they were the best. Still, they rode — hard and fast. Neither were fools and neither were eager to temp fate.

Sentinel trees lined the road, waiting for moonrise. Soon — too soon. If the wind parted the clouds? If the stark white light of the low moon etched the shadows across the road before they reached the end of the forest?

Best not to discover what happened to the foolhardy who dared barcode boulevard on the night of the low moon. Less than a klick and safety. Quickly before it’s too late and…

Barcode Boulevard

I rode barcode boulevard today on my bicycle. Can you see the end in the distance? It’s safe in the daylight — mostly. I got the idea for a story one day a few years ago while driving along Breakneck Road (honest, it’s the real name). I’ve only ridden that road twice on my bike and only for a short distance each time. It’s too dangerous and the hills are killers.

The sun was bright and low. It cast sharp shadows across the road. The idea of Barcode Boulevard just jumped into my mind and it’s been stewing ever since. I had my camera with me today so I took some photos when I stopped for a drink on Heritage Road (no Breakneck Road for this boy). All the way home I thought about this story and wrote a quick and dirty draft of one possible beginning.

I’ve some ideas percolating about how photography and writing are related. When my brew is ready I’ll pour a few cups so we can sip together.

I had some fun today. Besides getting out of the house on a nice November day, I rekindled my Barcode Boulevard idea, took a couple photos with my little Canon digicam and wrote a rough draft for the beginnings of my story.

I’m happy with the photo. I think it turned out nicely in B&W. I used the Gimp BW photo simulation to transform the color shot to B&W. My story beginning? It’s rough and the first go at one way of beginning this story. I need to explore, especially the two unnamed characters. It’s another fun project.

Another project. I have a roll of B&W film hanging up to dry in the bathroom. I’ll scan the negs tonight or tomorrow. Fingers crossed. More shots of my youngest granddaughters, the twins. Hope I get a few decent photos out of the roll. I’ll feature them in one of my posts. I have another roll of film I’ll probably develop tomorrow and I got my slides back the other day. Lots of new photos to play with and share. Stay tuned. But stay off  Barcode Boulevard on the night of the low moon.

Barcode Boulevard, the photo and story are copyright 2009 John McDevitt.

Pedicab Rest Stop: Saigon (1966) II — Making the Print

The key to making a good digital print from a B&W negative is getting as much of the information from that negative into your computer as you can. Scan at 16 bit if your scanner is capable, use the highest non-interpolated resolution, and work with a photo editor that’s capable of manipulating 16 bit images.

As I said in an earlier tutorial, lie to your scanner and tell it you’re scanning a positive. I’ve found this to be the best setting. The idea is to scan with little or no interference from the scanning software. Instead, do all your tweaking using a good digital photo editor where you have the most control.

Initial scan

I set my Minolta Scan Dual III to scan B&W positive at an input resolution of 2820 dpi (dots per inch), the max for this scanner. Here’s the resulting negative scan after I cropped out the black borders.

Image flipped to positive

I used the negative transformation in Picture Window Pro (PWP) to flip the image from negative to positive. This image had all the information I needed but was too light.

Gamma corrected (1.0 to 1.8)

I used the gamma transform to darken the image. I set the input at 1.0 and the output at 1.8 (next time I may use 1.4 for the output). The idea here was to move the entire histogram more to the left.

Curves dialog from PWP

The image is dull and flat so I used curves to give the image more contrast.

Final result after curves applied in PWP

Here’s the result. I also cropped the photo from full frame 4 X 6 to a 4 X 5 ratio and zoomed in just a bit. I saved my file as an 8 bit jpg at this stage, plugged my USB stick in so I could copy and move the image to my main system with the Internet connection.

Final print

The image still looked a bit dull on my larger, LCD monitor, so I tweaked it again (using auto levels) when I opened the file in the Gimp. Then I scaled the image for the Internet and added my watermark.

I’m happy with the final image — at least for now. Each time I scan and edit, I learn something new. I was playing around again this afternoon and decided that I’ll crop my images first thing. That way, I’ll only be dealing with the values I’m interested in when I manipulate the file in my editor.

The Picture Window Pro  website has a library of articles and tutorials that might be of interest. It’s a great resource.

This tutorial may give you a good starting point for your own explorations. I learn new stuff every time I dive into another project and I’ll continue to share my discoveries. As always, I welcome your comments and will do my best to answer your questions. Don’t be bashful.

Pedicab Rest Stop: Saigon (1966)

Can you imagine the stories this guy could tell? This was Saigon in late 1966. Was he tired because he was up all night? Who is he? Or we wonder who he was and did he make it through that war? Which side was he on? Or was he exactly what he seemed, a pedicab or cycle rickshaw driver trying to make a living taking his rest when he could?

I found this treasure while sorting through my old negatives last week. Whew! This is why I love B&W photography. I’m so glad my camera was loaded with B&W film that day. Color would have “documented” the scene, but my color slides from that era are all faded, the colors shifted. Nope, this one had to be B&W.

I scanned a version of this photo last week. I did it quickly and decided there was something missing so I scanned it again tonight. This time, I pulled out all the stops because this photo wanted the best I could offer.

I’ll tell you how I made this print tomorrow. In fact, I’ll do another tutorial. Meanwhile, lets’ get back to the man and the scene.

Both the man and the wall beyond are life-worn. It’s a perfect juxtaposition (I love that word), a wonderful canvas for the tonalities of a B&W photo. Muscles like ropes, the stamina of a stallion. Did all that pedaling age him or keep him fit and young? I ride a bicycle and can only imagine the day in and day out effort pedaling all that weight.

How about the wall, the old shutters, the wear and tear? How old was the wall? How old was the pedicab driver? Think this photo might inspire a story or two?

When I look at this photo, it both humbles me and scares me to death. I’m humbled because I somehow managed to capture this moment. I’m scared because this image sat in storage, forgotten for over 38 years! But I’m grateful because I’ve re-discovered so much of my past and have no intention of allowing those images to be forgotten — ever.

Monday Musings: Transformation of a Rose

This week’s Monday Macro wanted to be color. I do enjoy working in color, especially with flowers. The image below was scanned from a slide that’s date stamped June 1971 — that’s a long journey on the way-back machine.

I like the colors in this one and the promise of the transformation from rosebud to rose. The just opened bud in the foreground and the three buds in the background struck me as a nice composition. I like the mood of this color shot — a lot.

But what if I transformed this image into a B&W photo? Hmm… I couldn’t resist, so I did and here’s how I did it.

Desaturated with the GIMP

I used desaturate to create this image. It’s OK, but it’s too flat and needs a contrast boost so I used the curves to make the adjustments.

Gimp curves dialog

Here’s the screen shot of the curves dialog that shows the tweaked curve. When you begin, the curve will be a straight diagonal on a 45 degree angle. The lower part of the curve controls the shadows, the upper part the highlights and the middle part the mid-tones. Any point above the curve will lighten the image while points below the curve will darken it.

I set a control point on the curve near the bottom to hold the shadows and pulled it down just a hair. Next, I set another control point smack in the middle and moved it up and to the left to open up the mid-tones. Then I set another control point near the top to give me finer control of the highlights.

After using curves with the GIMP

Here’s the final B&W version of the yellow rosebud that I created with the Gimp, a no cost open source digital photo editor.

I use Picture Window Pro (PWP) for my critical photo editing. I discovered and purchased a copy of  Picture Window Pro years ago. It’s a powerful program written by a photographer for photographers. PWP is the creation of Jonathan Sachs, co-founder of the Lotus Development Corporation and author of Lotus 1-2-3. Pretty good credentials I’d say. And the best part is the full pro version is only $89.95. You get to try before you buy too.

Color images use both color and tonality to distinguish among objects in a given scene, but B&W images depend on differences in tonality alone. A dramatic color photo with an expanse of deep blue sky and puffy clouds will fall flat on it’s face in B&W because the sky and the clouds are the same (or very close) tones. Photographers compensate by using colored lens filters. A yellow filter will darken the blue sky to maintain contrast between the sky and the clouds. An orange filter further enhances the contrast and a red filter will render the sky almost black.

PWP has a monochrome transformation that allows you to use color filters to change a color image to B&W. I think this method works a lot better than simply desaturating the image. The three B&W versions below were made using this method.

Green Filter Transformation (PWP)

Yellow Filter Transformation (PWP)

Red Filter Transformation (PWP)

Converting a digital color image to a good black and white image can be done, but it’s a pain, and I don’t think it can match a good B&W image made with film. Some of the B&W conversions of the yellow rosebud aren’t bad, but I’ll stick with the color version this time.

As always, I welcome your comments and I’ll do my best to answer any questions you might have.

Be sure to drop by Lisa’s Chaos. Check out Lisa’s Monday Macro and visit the links to other blogs and their Monday Macro contributions. It’s lots of fun.

Reflections: The Solitary Hour Before Dawn

You wonder if you’re the only person alive as you hurry along empty early morning rain slick sidewalks. And it’s cold — in your bones winter rain cold.

I was lucky that morning. Like a gunslinger of the old west, I ducked into the shelter of a doorway, drew and fired. Well, part luck anyway. If my camera hadn’t been handy, I would have missed the moment.

I didn’t because I had my little, always ready for action, Olympus Stylus Epic in my coat pocket. Thankfully, it was loaded with B&W film that morning.

Night shots can be tricky. My Stylus has a neck lanyard so I used me as the tripod. I pulled the neck strap tight to steady the camera, aimed by looking out over the top of the camera (I couldn’t use the viewfinder) and squeezed off this shot. It worked. I got lucky — again.

What was I doing out in the dark of a cold wet morning like this one? Going to work. I was just about to open the door and walk into my building when this shot caught my eye — just one of the many nice shots I’ve gotten with my trusty Stylus.

The Stylus Epic is a great little 35mm film camera. It has good glass (a sharp 35mm f2.8 lens) and fits easily into a shirt pocket or purse. The clam shell design protects the lens, yet the camera is ready for action in an instant. My Stylus only cost around $120, one of the best bargain buys I ever made. It’s even sealed for weather resistance.

I re-discovered a print of this scene last Sunday and found the negative after searching for a couple of hours — whew! I was worried for awhile. Lesson learned. I’ve been organizing all of my slides and negatives so they’ll always be safe and I’ll be able to find what I need when I need it. Now I’m getting serious.

This photo is right out of the camera — no cropping at all. You might want to have a look at my recent post, “How to Scan B&W Negatives: An Introduction.”  The illustrated article (the example photo was shot with my Stylus) describes my work flow from scan to finished photo from a B&W negative. It’s easy once you get the hang of it.

I love black and white photography, but there are times when I prefer color. This isn’t one of them. This shot had to be B&W.

Hop on over to James’ blog for Weekend Reflections #8 — lot’s of fun and links to some very creative reflections.