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I’m beginning to wrap the shooting for my master’s project. One of my last days was spent playing tourist in a city I used to live in. While barge companies would be adversely affected if the Thomas J. O’Brien lock on the Cal-Sag Channel was closed permentntly, closing the Chicago Harbor Lock would mean an end to boat traffic from Lake Michigan to the Chicago River, and hurt tour companies like Wendella Boats.
While making a long walk back to Union Station from Navy Pier, with a detour to Water Tower Place (some detour, I know…my legs are still burning a bit) I happened upon the Wrigley Building right after twilight. The image about would have been better if I had taken my 24mm TS-E with me, but I had borrowed my dad’s 24-105 f/4L IS because it’s lighter and smaller than my 24-70. and I only wish that the couple in the image below hadn’t been standing right by those beverage containers. You can’t have it all.
As I go through my take from Thursday, I find a new image I like each sweep. It’s interesting to me how different my editing process is with storytelling photographs than with my more traditional nature and architectural fare, where I am far more ruthless in the initial sweeps of the takes. I suppose it’s part of learning…
From the early morning before I rode out on the Cal-Sag Channel with the crew pictured above. Oh, if only that lamp post wasn’t growing out of Andy’s head…or if I could have a little more separation between Heather and Brett’s feet. As always, comments and criticism welcome.
More to come…
I visited the 62nd annual Missouri Photo Workshop last week, and in the Elks Lodge in Macon, Mo., I watched a string of interviews with some of the faculty at this year’s workshop as they spoke about the benefits and drawbacks of still photographers engaging in multimedia story-telling. While I can’t say I agree with everything he has to say, Randy Olson, a National Geographic contributor for 20 years, does have some very valid points.
Hats off to Nick Michael for putting together this, along with several other compelling video interviews at this year’s MPW. You can see the rest of the series here.
On September 11, 2010, I left Durham, North Carolina to get to Racine, Wisconsin by way of Chillicothe, Ohio. Last Sunday I departed Racine for Columbia, Missouri, by way of St. Louis. Since then I’ve lost a pillow (it will be returned), been slimed by a Silver carp, photographed a levitating Kim Komenich at the 62nd annual Missouri Photo Workshop in Macon, Missouri, and played tourist at my Alma mater. My odometer cracked 27,000…not so happy about that, and I’ve also had my share of meals on the road. Things will slow down soon, but not yet…
Together with Elizabeth’s family I spent a week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina in mid-August. While I had high hopes of making landscapes of the coastline and the Cape Hatteras Light Station, it didn’t quite work out. Combining a family vacation with photography is clearly an art that my parents somehow perfected, but I will have to learn to do myself.
That said, I was able to do a fair number of pictorials, particularly on the car ferry that took us from Hatteras to the island of Ocracoke. I had rented a Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f/2 ZE (Canon-mount) lens for this trip, and while I didn’t use it as much as I had hoped, I did make enough to get a general impression of how the lens handles and renders its subjects on the sensor. What I was looking for in my photographs was the “Zeiss look,” defined by strong micro-contrast and subjects that want to pop out of the frame (read: three-dimensional). I’m not convinced that I found this look in every frame that I made with this lens, but it was there in several of them. Having experimented with the Canon 35mm f/1.4L a few months ago, I was curious how my experience would differ.
I will say that the Zeiss lens is demonstrably sharper than the 35mm f/1.4L–the edges hold together better, and even the center is much sharper. I believe the online rumors that the 35mm f/1.4 is due for replacement and that Canon surely is working on a successor; after all, the 24mm was re-staged with a Mark II designation not that long ago, and with the increase in resolution from the cameras coming down the pike, the 35mm is going to demonstrate too well that it is an older lens design. That said, the “effect” that these lenses provide is similar–strong vignetting so that the subject of the photo really “pops” when shot wide-open.
While I am still in the process of going through my images from the trip, as well as evaluating two lenses from Canon (the 135mm f/2L and the 14mm f/2.8L II), I would tentatively say that I give the nod to the Zeiss lens over the Canon 35mm because while they do produce similar effects, the sharpness and control of chromatic aberration with the Zeiss is overwhelming to the eyes. But, the Canon lens has autofocus (the Zeiss being manual focus only) and is a full stop faster, so anyone trying to decide between the two should keep those details in mind.
More to come.
Yesterday I had an opportunity to sit down with Duane Chapman, a research fish biologist with the United States Geological Survey’s Columbia Environmental Research Center. Chapman took an interest in Asian carp several years ago and has become an expert on their behavior and has been studying some of the environmental requirements for their survival, such as the velocity of the flow of a river needed for their eggs to successful.
Continue reading “My first encounter with Bighead carp”
On Sunday, Salmon-a-Rama wrapped up with angler Roger Hellen taking the grand prize of $10,000 for his 41.5 pound Brown trout caught on Thursday. It was the final day of the tournament, and I knew that it was a make-or-break day for me as I needed a few more interviews and some different images. I was tired of hauling all of the lenses that I had been taking with me every day, so in favor of the 70-200mm f/4L IS lens that is my standard telephoto, I borrowed my dad’s 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS lens–one of only two Canon lens that intentionally diffracts light to create a more compact lens. (The other is my longest lens, the 400mm f/4 DO IS.)
I’m hoping to put together an audio slideshow of Salmon-a-Rama that could stand alone from, as well as become a part of, my master’s project on Asian carp and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.
