A Wee Nippy at the Rink
- At January 05, 2014
- By Jay
- In Black & White
0
Not necessarily something a city wants to be known for, but for a period of time it was colder here than at the North Pole (and even Mars). To some degree we wear it as a badge of honour. Nevertheless, the technical term for the current weather system we are enjoying is Really Freaking Cold (or RFC among the deep thinkers).
Read More»Technique: Tonal Separation
- At December 22, 2013
- By Jay
- In Black & White, Post-Processing, Technique
- 1
Yesterday I had posted about making some prints and, following that, noted I wanted to refine one image further (the Versailles stairwell). Sat down with some coffee this morning to do just that, and figured I would post a quick how-to. Never done this before so in the spirit of giving…
Read More»Killing Trees
- At December 21, 2013
- By Jay
- In Black & White, Travel
- 1
After too long a hiatus from printing and posting I figured I would do a bit of both this slow Saturday morning. Now I need Santa to bring me some more Epson Exhibition Fiber paper (still my favorite for high-contrast black and white). I ended pulling three each from our recent Italy trip and from France a few years ago. All destined for black and white to emphasize form or feel or light. Color offered little if any benefit in each of these. The prints turned out nice as expected; between the Ex Fiber paper and the Epson inkset and Advanced Black & White mode I can always expect a crisp, neutral result.
Read More»Another Year, Another Gourd
- At October 30, 2013
- By Jay
- In Technique
- 0
Carved up our annual pumpkins in preparation for Halloween (otherwise known as the Day Before Christmas). Wasn’t planning on it but ended up doing a quick’ish shoot. Simple lights. One Nikon SB-700 inside Jack, full cut of CTO along with dome diffuser. Another pounding through a Lastolite 21″ EzyBox softbox directly overhead, close and canted slightly forward. Both on manual, with inside light set first to get the glow then adding the second to balance. Ambient was a non-issue with 1/250th on the shutter and f/8. Plus I had Scarface on a piece of black Duvetyne that I had forgotten about.
Lighting like this makes me think fondly back to first discovering David Hobby’s Strobist site. And not know WTF was going on.
What’s Old is New Again
Color me intrigued.
With all the whizbang technology under today’s camera hoods it has been an interesting revival of so-called retro body designs. I’m no historian, but for me personally I started paying more attention to such styling when Leica started making noise in the digital realm and bringing their classic rangefinder motif into the modern era. And the first Olympus PEN similarly caught my eye (and more recently the amazing OM-D line). Now these old-is-new designs are very prominent in the industry. And it appears Nikon is poised to dive in with an announcement of their own.
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