Brobdingnagian

Letter B, day 6/14, 20/365

When Gulliver found himself in the Brobdingnagians’ homeland, he found two things: civilized folks, and giant, killer pests. He put the latter to the sword and gave the former conversation.

I imagine a Brobdingnagian would see our cities as something like this: mere models, waiting to be crushed underfoot. Supposedly, though, the Brobdingnagians were a civil bunch.

Tonight I’ve been prepping for my trip to Cambodia. Ting and I leave in less than 36 hours. As it’s been raining all day, this was the only thing I could think of amongst the prompts I have available.

This technique is called tilt-shift photography, although this effect is faked in Photoshop. The real deal requires a technologically advanced and kind of crazy looking lens. I can’t tell the difference between the fakes and the real deal, so who cares, right?

If you’d like to try your hand at tilt-shift photography, follow this tutorial. For some reason, the author of the tutorial suggests finding pictures on Flickr to use, but I suggest taking your own. If you do use someone else’s photograph to try this technique out on, don’t post it, or if you do, don’t forget attribution.

Now, to bed!

Azure, Aces, Asphalt

Letter A, day 6/14, 6/365

What do you do when someone suggests that you photograph three entirely disparate items in one line? I suppose Paulette Dell’Ario, my dad’s wife, might’ve meant these three words as three suggestions, but I’m the blogger here – I make the rules. And these were disparate enough to seem interesting to me.

What was more interesting, though, was although I knew exactly what I wanted for this frame, I wasn’t sure how it was going to be possible. Asphalt and aces: simple enough, just throw four playing cards onto the pavement outside my apartment. The azure, though… True, this is not only the Land of the Morning Calm, but also the Land of a Bajillion Neon Signs; shouldn’t be too hard to find one that cast a blue glow onto a spot of pavement, throw the aforementioned cards down like a practiced card shark, and snap away. But why not make my own azure?

I’ll tell you why: no gels! I went to America a month ago, and the only thing I set out specifically to buy were gels. Gels are small pieces of cellophane designed specifically to color light, in this case from a strobe. I bought no gels. Not one.

So, what to do, right? Shoot through the blue t-shirt I’m wearing today? Maybe. Or, listen to your photographer friends who are smarter than you when they suggest that you buy some thin, blue paper from a stationary store. I did just that, and 2,000 won later, I was two giant sheets of blue paper richer. More than I needed, but hey, it works. See the picture up there? Blue light entirely by shooting through some paper.

Warning: If you try to use paper instead of gels, know this: flashes work by storing a bunch of electricity in banks of little cylinders called capacitors. My physics teacher in high school showed me how awesome these were by hooking several giant flash capacitors up in series, then swinging a wire into place to complete a circuit between the charged capacitors and and empty set – and BAM! Molten metal everywhere. Anyway, flashes store up electricity, then discharging it in a tiny fraction of a second through the strobe’s bulb. Where there’s light, there’s heat, folks, so keep that paper bowed over the flash in order to keep it from burning. Yes, it will burn. I’ve seen gels melt to flashes, so what’s to stop paper from burning in the same situation?

Strobist:

SB-600, paper’d (?) azure, high camera right. Gnarly sodium vapor street light burning orange, way higher camera left..

An Asian-American in an All-night Area

Letter A, day 5/14, 5/365

All-night areas are easy to find in Korea, so I knew just what Simon Landry was saying when he suggested it.

Come to think of it, Seoul is an all-night area in its entirety. Go down any street, and you’ll find bars and restaurants bustling at all hours of the night.

My idea for this was to put Ting (an Asian-American) in the middle of one of Seoul’s busy spots for night life. We had a bar opening to attend in Apgujeong, so I thought that’d be perfect. I wanted lots of people streaming by so I could do a moderately long exposure, freezing Ting with a strobe through a handheld softbox.

I screwed it up. First of all, there were no people. I would have been saved by my friends, who were great sports and walked by Ting so I could take the picture… except for one problem: I’m a moron. I didn’t pump the flash’s power up enough to really keep Ting sharp. I kept having to dodge cars and make sure no one was stealing my bag, so I couldn’t muster up enough brain power to realize what the problem was. I just kept checking the screen, seeing a crappy shot, and trying it again, just the same way I’d done it before.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I am going to try this shot again another time, because I think it could look pretty decent. For now, here’s this one, in the spirit of keeping a true 365 project going. Besides, if one can’t learn from mistakes, one might as well give up learning.

In an effort to hide the awful quality of the photo, I heavily processed the colors in Lightroom, then threw it into Photoshop and applied a bit more radial blur to set off the (not much) sharper subject against the blurry background / foot traffic.

An apple a day…

Letter A, day 1/14, 1/365

I’ve begun the experiment. In order to better illustrate my concept, here is my photo for the phrase “An apple a day…”

It’s a common enough saying. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” right? Perhaps a photo a day will do. No one sent this idea in to me. I decided to go with something tame and easy enough to visually represent, just to get the point across.

I’ve gotten some very interesting entries for the letter A. Keep them coming!

Not sure how I’m going to shoot “Asian aerobics” but I’ve got some ideas…

Anyway, here’s to a year of doing this! Wish me luck.

Strobist:
Nikon SB600+Omnibounce high camera right, 1/64th.

I thought about throwing this through a softbox, but I liked the harsh shadows when I tested this in my apartment. I wish I went back and was less lazy about this, though. As you can probably tell, I was lying prone on the sidewalk for this. The strobe is maybe 1.5 feet off the ground on a Manfrotto NanoStand. I got some very strange looks.