Toothy Smile

When I photograph newborns, 3 mo olds, 6 mo olds, 9 mo olds, 1 year olds, parents often comment to me: "This must be the hardest age to photograph!" Actually. The hardest age to photograph is age 2-ish to 4-ish. Mostly because tots are mobile, fast, and very suspicious of unfamiliar people, especially those pointing large cameras in their direction (to which they respond by heading in the opposite direction). They're certainly not generous with smiles towards the camera - all smiles are truly candid.

After a shoot, I send all the lo-res unedited photos (sans awkward blinking pics) to clients so they can choose their favorites for editing. Whereupon it is not unusual for me to receive a surprised email saying something along the lines of: Those turned out great! I didn't think we captured anything at all [based on how baby X was spitting up the entire time or tot Y was throwing tantrums].
I'm not sure whether to take offense or be pleased.

In ankle news, I'll be doing my 4th shoot post-sprain. Ankle/foot lower calf does whine after shoots. I do my best to stay off it for the rest of the day. Was difficult though, when one of my in-home shoots was in a bldg right next to H&M with a big SALE sign. In the end, I was not impressed by anything, but better to know there was nothing impressive than to have my imagination run amok with the wondrous sale items I could be missing out on.

No Dinosaurs

She started out very bashful, unsmiling, and avoiding me. I temporarily befriended her by talking about dinosaurs. Why don't you look in that pool of water, do you see any dinosaurs? She'd peer in the pool and say to me in her Don't Be Ridiculous Voice: No there aren't any dinosaurs! I asked her to check in the bamboo forest, maybe in the stone lantern, and she would check, and announce that No Dinosaurs were present.

I have probably walked around more than I ought to on my healing ankle. Definitely sore, sigh. My acupuncturist is going to admonish me. My excuse is that newborn photos can't wait! Today and tomorrow, newborn photos. A week later, they won't be newborns any more. I don't have any excuse for the Trader Joe's trip, however.

Time Passing.

Mario and Mammoths: Musings from a Bored Immobile Photographer

 

I've been very cooped up, not being able to walk anywhere with recuperating ankle. Aside from the trek to the mail box 1.5 blocks away, which took a long time and was quite arduous - elderly people carrying bags of groceries sped past me. I can only do so many edits, and I find myself fervently wishing for a new Wii game (preferable one of the Mario ones, Galaxy 2 perhaps).

My first shoot post-sprain will be Sunday, a baby shoot. The family could not reschedule due to travel, and I figured, I can move at least as fast as a crawling baby, right? I should hope. We'll be contained within the Shakespeare Garden in GGP, which is quite small. I spend most of the time at baby shoots on the floor anyways.

I like the dexterity of this tiny hand. The pinky is perfectly poised for a cup of tea. Of course, this pose in real life probably last about a split second, if you could even call it a pose. It is more likely a stop-action shot, hence the non-focus, of the flower heading towards her mouth. Why do babies try to eat everything they can grab? It's a mal-adaptive behavior. Suggests that parents, since the emergence of human-kind (in my Hollywood-shaped imagination I picture a baby sitting amongst sharp obsidian chunks, chips of mammoth bones, charred wood shards in a cave), have always been around to exclaim Don't Eat That! And grab stuff from curious little hands.

Mostly Inland Maui Panoramas

Maui: one usually thinks of beaches, right? Or at least ocean. Here are scenes that feature no ocean at all. The landscape variety covers an impressive range. All of these were taken by my husband, for whom the panoramic function of the Sony Cybershot has rekindled an interest in photography. And while I am rarely if ever featured in photos in my blog, here I am FOUR times! That's a record.

Two of these are meant to be vertical, but I think they are interesting horizontal as well. Doesn't the dirt with trees one look like a cross section of the earth's crust? In case you are inspired to experience these places, they are:

1. On the drive up/ down the volcano on Haleakala Hwy at sunset (beautiful praries!)
2. Ching's Pond, Hana Hwy (looks inviting for a swim)
3. Blowhole, Nakalele, West Maui (not blowing in this picture, but you can see the spattering of puddles around where it ought to be blowing - of course it's not going to blow while we have cameras ready - curiously, lots of crabs dwelling here, running in and out of the blow hole. Fantastic lava terrain, alien landscape!)
4. La Perouse Bay - south east part of Maui (also fantastic tide pools, and spinner dolphins/ sea turtles apparently in the morning, I missed out. This is an area of recent volcanic leakage)
5. Haleakala Crater (it's a big crater. Didn't walk very far into it, it was so big, the scenery didn't change much with every 50 yds)

6. and 7. Haleakala Hwy, near the summit, above the clouds!
The advantage of having a sprained ankle and postponing all my shoots this week is that I have a chance to catch up on photo editing, including personal pics which would have languished on my HD otherwise.

8. Honolua Bay (our B&B host described an unmarked dirt road alongside an old pineapple plantation leading to a path to the water, where we could spot sea turtles. Hard to photograph, as they were bobbing heads - anyways, here's a stretch of that shoreline)

Panoramics are often about horizons, so I think it is more fun when they are not. We have since graduated to more creative uses of the panoramic function, including diagonal or arcing panoramas. You can see that the camera struggled a bit to stitch together a smooth sea horizon in (8). And below, you can see what it does if you try to take a panorama while driving (I was NOT driving and panoramaing; the camera was held upside down on the passenger side, as the camera only panoramas from left to right - I know, think about it for a moment). I think this pic gives a bit of insight as to what the camera is trying to do when creating a panorama.

 9. Honoapi'ilani Hwy to West Maui

On the Patio

Keeping things simple. Gentle lighting, happy expressions, plain background (this was the Mom's white pashmina), secured on a table top and draped down onto the floor in front of the patio. There wasn't much room, so I lay outside on the floor of the patio, photographing the indoor setup.

I've gone and sprained my ankle, which is very inconvenient. I can barely walk, much less do all the maneuvering required for a shoot. I spent the day contacting this week's clients to postpone shoots. All are postponable except for a family reuinion picnic/ family olympics event. And another family with whom I've had to postpone once before. I will just have to deal with it. However, I need not be spry to do edits, so I can sit here at my desk and do that for days until I can hobble. Ugh.

Pup Pics and Equipment Rambles.

I call them Frog Umbrellas, these round-leaved plants that grow in San Francisco parks. Apparently, they are edible, and quite good in salads, but better when young and tender. Now they look large and tough, I shall have to wait until next early Spring. However, blackberry season is coming up in late summer, and I fully plan to be harvesting fruit while on dog walks.

Samantha quickly shed her puppy looks, and now, months after this photo shoot, looks like a gangly teenager. They grow up fast.

Today I received my new backdrop holder in the mail. It consists of 2 large tripod stands and a cross bar, and all of it folds up neatly into long cylindrical bag. No more having to worry about how to attach backdrops in people's homes.

I keep a lot of stuff in my car trunk: two umbrella light stands, one 4 bulb lamp with stand, tripod, white, black and gray back drops, clamps, extension cords, extra batteries... no room for a trip to Ikea.

Should studio sessions cost more? Most of that stuff is for studio. However, studio requires less editing, since I can control light conditions and they stay the same throughout the shoot. In outdoor shoots each photo usually requires a different set of edits. I think it balances out. Now on my equipment radar - external battery pack for my flash. I blaze through 24-packs of AA batteries. The sad thing is that I don't even use up all the juice in a battery; there's enough left to power a Wii remote for quite a while. At partial-juice, the AA batteries don't provide power fast enough to my Flash for a photo shoot, and I wind up missing key moments. Rechargeable AAs are as ineffective as partial-juice batteries. I feel very Un-Eco in this regard. External battery packs are rechargeable, last forever and have lots of umph. Photography shopping.... not just a matter of What Lens Shall I Get? anymore.

Summer Baby in Faux Studio

There are some days when I think, I really have a great job. It has to do with (1) lighting and (2) having a baby that loves the camera and the camera loves back! And as I improve my lighting skills to suit any situation, things can only get better. Here we set up opposite a west facing window in the afternoon. I was sitting in direct sun; the white backdrop (clipped to set of shelves in the nursery) was just out of reach of the direct sun. I used an umbrella diffused light as a background filler (so that the shadow from the baby wouldn't be cast on the white backdrop).

This baby sat quite happily for a few photos, and then could not resist - she threw herself forward (top right) onto her hands (bottom left) and crawled with blazing speed all the way up to me where I was sitting Criss-Cross Apple Sauce (yes I teach kids) - she propped herself up on my calf and peered right into the camera lens, hence the extreme close ups. Below she is doing Itsy Bitsy Spider, before racing up into the lens (good ol' 50mm f/1.4).

Clients often comment that I must learn a lot on the job about babies and such. So, I thought I'd try to recall some general things that I've learned that a baby-less person might not know.
- Babies are often calmed by white noise, like the whir of a hairdryer (makes for a hot photo session)
- Modern rocking chairs are really hard to move, and 90% of the time there is one placed exactly where there is the best light in the whole home
- It's hard to put shoes on a baby/ tot
- Babies/ tots like to take off their shoes
- You are lucky if you manage to put a hair clip in your little girl's hair, and even luckier if it stays in for more than a 30 seconds
- Babies like being on the changing table
- Babies do not like to have their clothes changed

Baby in Black and White

Back to Babies! I often do outdoor baby shoots, but in-home shoots are a different kind of fun. Families can lounge on sofas or beds, there's a big supply of toys, cushions, blankets. And most anything within baby reach is OK to put in the mouth.

Out of curiosity, I counted the number of babies I'd photographed in 2010 thus far. 64. SIXTY-FOUR. I knew it was a lot but I had no idea I'd met that many babies! I just did my 100th photo shoot (also a baby) for 2010 today. However, it is not accurate to say 64% of my shoots consist of babies, because I've had repeat clients, and I count those babies once. I'd say 70% of shoots are babies, and the rest are older kids, engagements, maternity, weddings, head shots, events, and other random things like museum objects.

I like the timeless quality evoked by B&W photos. Take the color photo, with the wooden donuts. It feels very In The Now. I chose quieter moments to be converted to B&W.

Museums are Full of Fun Stuff

My volunteer Randall Museum photography has come to fruition! I was asked to take some photographs for their Grant Proposal, to renovate the entire building. I gave them my Non-Profit rate, not only because they are non-profit, but because the museum really needs renovating. Though small and relatively homely compared to the fancy Cal Academy of Sciences, the Randall has a lovely community feeling, kid-friendly in the old school way (ie, building blocks atop mechanical, table top earthquake platforms, not motion-sensing interactive projected videos), with people who work there because they love museums (I can't help but feel CAS is over commercialized, and has taken on an amusement park-like aura; of course, modern museums may need this to survive in this Short Attention Span world - but that's another story).

I thought I was there to photograph the building, I was really pleased to find out I'd be shooting some artifacts and objects that had been in storage (due to lack of display space). The above baskets are Native American. The top one is Modoc - a tribe that originally covered northern California and southern Oregon. The second is from a tribe that lived in the Tahoe area. The collection of baskets has been sitting in boxes in a closet for years and years, and are estimated to be worth... a hundred thousand dollars. Don't know how old they are. In fact, not much is known about them, e.g. how they were acquired. They will have some sleuthing to do if they get the grant and can display these baskets.  I know baskets can seem ho hum but think about this: when's the last time you ever saw a Native American basket with braided strap-like handles? Or with a platform-like base? Yeah. Exactly. Very unique. BTW, they were photographed on a sheet of butcher paper taped to drape down from a chair atop a table in front of a window.

The rocks and minerals room was a haven of dusty, cobwebbed, mini-shelves and cigar boxes, stuffed with all rocks, fossils, crystals - Wow! (Yes I did have a rock collection in my youth). An item of particular pride is a fossil turtle shell from 26 to 37 Million Years Ago. It was too heavy to move to the butcher paper studio set up, so here it is on its storage shelf, with flash and diffuser. This closet only had one dim light bulb, and in addition to large objects of geological nature, was used as a storage space for some sort of seal exhibit and consequently one had to step over life-size, 2D, seal-shaped wood cut outs to access the turtle shell. Actually, it looks rather tortoise-like, but perhaps prehistoric turtles had high-domed dorsal carapaces, unlike their extant descendants.

The zoology room was similarly packed with stuff and dusty. Lots of taxidermied  things, which unfortunately did not have proper storage (museums will often have temperature/ humidity controlled rooms that are protected at all costs from any bug invasion). Unfortunately, bob cat was subject to bug chewing, and though I did photograph him, it is too sad to post that picture. Cigars must've been ubiquitous back in the day, as here too, specimens were kept in cigar boxes. Keep in mind that the Randall is a Education/ Teaching Museum, as opposed to a Research Museum. A Research Museum's collections would be stored in a much more organized and sterile fashion. Well, it's always fun to see behind the scenes.

Very Blue.

A quick post, as I want to make guacamole and do some photo editing. This is Lake Tahoe from the SE shore in Nevada, just past the state line. It really is that blue! Interesting to see sand, normally associated with warm beaches, with snowy mountains so close.

More Fun Things Botanical

I must be in Botanical Mode. Ever seen anything like this before? This organism was quite wondrous to examine, though not quite as delightful as the aforementioned sea urchins. This is Not a fungus. This "Snow Flower" is the flowering part of a subterranean parasitic plant, that feeds off of tree symbiotes. Let me run that by you again, but starting with the tree. Trees and other plants have nitrogen fixing (ie, trees need nitrogen but nitrogen isn't available to them in an accessible form; they need things like fungi to help convert it into usable Nitrogen) friends, ie, symbiotes, that hang out on their roots.  Apparently, the Snow Flower plant also finds this converted Nitrogen to be really tasty, and so steals (parasitizes) some of this Nitrogen for itself. All this is happening underground, but when the Snow Flower Plant wants to disperse some offspring, it flowers above ground.


This particular species, Sarcodes sanguinea, is found in the Californian Sierra Nevadas. Ie, in South Lake Tahoe, where I was over the weekend.

By the way, if you're looking up this info for a school project or something, I just pulled most of this info off of Wikipedia, and tossed in vague memories of biology classes from about a decade ago. This blog is NOT a scientific resource. NOR is it a photo resource. If you want to use a photo, just ask me OK? Alrighty.

Leaf Miner Extraction

As you may know, Swiss Chard is my favorite vegetable, and I don't share it with anyone. I'd replanted my first crop of chard seedlings about a month ago, and transferred them to outdoor, elevated planters. I was aghast to find that some thing had been munching on the leaves. I ripped off a few infected leaves and walked two blocks to Sloat Gardening Center, where the gardeners declared: Leaf Miners! And sold me an "organic" spray that apparently only infects insects; a synthetic molecule that when ingested by a bug, causes over stimulation of the bug nervous system so that they die. It's bug specific. I then googled leaf miners and learned that they are larvae of various flying insects that eat the soft tissue in the leaf; they don't actually make holes except for where they enter as larvae and pupate, and then make an exit hole when they are adult. So. They're INSIDE there?

I held leaves up to the light, and sure enough, I could see tiny wiggly things under the"skin" of the leaf. They seemed quite snug in there. Well not for much longer, haha!! I dusted off my macro lens (Canon 100mm f/2.8), which has been sitting in the corner for far too long. Then set about gently peeling the leaf apart, to reveal the offending leaf miners. The larvae tried their best to squeeze into the pieces of leaf that remained, but they had no place to hide. Clearly, they did not like being in the sun, or having their photo taken.

I may have to prune more leaves. It is interesting that the mama egg layer chose only large leaves. It makes sense - the leaf miner larvae is going to need a lot of food. Laying on a small leaves makes leaf miner larvae life harder. That means mama egg layers can assess leaf size.

I don't like to share my chard with them, but insects sure are interesting!

Artsy Engagement

Engagements are often shot at the beach, but this couple wanted something different. Something urban, with more character. Fortunately, here we are in San Francisco, with plenty of colorful neighborhoods to choose from. In South Mission, quite near to Cesar Chavez, there is another alley known for its murals: Balmy Alley. This was our starting point. I must say, urban engagement shoots are a lot of fun!

I just realized, that I'd selected four photos in all of which the two are looking at each other, not at the camera. I like that they can forget that I'm there. The above three photos are edit experimentals - I am trying very selective focus in a pic that is otherwise very Gaussian Blurred by photoshop. I edit the photo sans blur, and then create a copy of that image that is blurred, layered over the original. Then I use an eraser, at different opacities, to remove/reduce blur around the face, either in a radial style or in the case of the third pic, a wide horizontal stripe. The pic below was not subject to such treatment; you can see the relative clarity of the entire pic.

Panoramas are Fun, Some Aspects of Craigslist are Not Fun

This is one of the earlier panoramas that my sig other took, using the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-WX1. We had not previously experimented much, but on this Maui trip he had a panorama party, which worked out well as that kept him happy while I crouched on lava rocks photographing tide pool denizens. If you've not had the fun experience of shooting panoramas before, it works like this: put camera on Panorama Mode, then hit the shutter and move from left to right. One can keep the horizon straight, or do all sorts of experimental angles, or move crookedly, or vertically. Many many possibilities! Can't move too fast though; it needs some time to stitch images together. I have no idea how it works.

Ke'Ane Road shoots off from the Hana Highway (a scenic, very green, very windy drive along the NE coast on the rainy side of the volcano) to the Ke'Ane Peninsula, consisting of a relatively young lava outcropping. Lava flows into the ocean make FANTASTIC tide pools. So many crags, nooks and uneven surfaces! Thrilling, for the tide pool enthusiast, even at high tide.

Topic change. I received an uninvited email from a random person who saw my photo ad on craigslist. He didn't bother introducing himself and said that I was charging far too little for my services, and said: "Also, giving away high res discs is like giving away film. No photographer would have ever done that before the digital era." Well that's just the point, isn't it! Now it IS the digital era, so times have changed. Lots of photographers, not give, but include the digital files in their services. I know I've discussed this before. It's just irksome to have some self-righteous person lecturing me about my work without anything constructive to say. And no link to his own work or rates, or even a full name. Well, there are definitely pros and cons to using CL.

In appreciation of urchins.

Is this not one of the cutest rock clinging sea creatures you have ever seen? Maybe they are endearing to me because they remind me of Space Invaders, or perhaps, the cartoon Scrubbing Bubbles. Or fat, mutant sunflowers. I was absolutely delighted to see these in Maui tide pools. I may have yelped with joy. How often does one (especially one who has spent quite a lot of time delving into things biological) see a completely different organism? I spent a lot of time photographing these little guys, which I later discovered are called Shingle Urchins, or Helmet Urchins. They must have exceptionally good grip, as they hung out in tide pools that were battered by particularly rough sea surge.

Sea urchins are known for their pokey spines; these instead have flattened scales. I assume this gives them a niche advantage; if pokey urchins were exposed on the rocks like this, there'd be a lot of surface area subject to wave friction. These little guys can munch on algae that pokey urchins, who seem to prefer deeper water, might find too risky to access. I did see the pokey sort too; hiding in rocky crevasses. And, for those of you in the Urchin Know, I saw pencil urchins while snorkeling, another total delight! Pencil urchins have fat, pencil-sized spines (or bigger!) and are a bright tomato red. No underwater camera. Maybe next time. Stay tuned for more Maui photos to come.

Spring Birthday

All eyes on the Birthday Cake! Except for the birthday girl  -what a sweet kid! This party ended with the smashing of a Nemo pinata. Wide angle lens with diffuser on flash. See how the facial skin looks smooth and matte? That's the effect of the diffuser. Without it, the flash would definitely lead to shiny noses.

Well, I will be away from my blog for a short while, but will return next week. Until then! I am taking my freshly cleaned sensor somewhere with a lot of sky to photograph.

Bath Time

No pretty pictures today. This is my dirty sensor. I read someplace that DSLR sensors should be professionally cleaned at least once a month for pros, every three months for others. I've had this camera body for almost two years, and things had been going alright until.... I think, I started doing a lot of windy beach shoots. Dust and tiny mist particles all fly into the camera body when I change lenses, and settle on the inside surfaces. There's all sorts of mechanical and sensitive bits inside the camera, like mirrors and things. Very difficult to clean on ones' own; one doesn't want to leave residue, or scratch anything. It's not just a matter of Q-tip swabbing. Once I learned that the best cleaners are flammable, not allowed on airplanes and must be handled in a hood, I decided to go with a professional cleaning.

The above photo is the Before pic. The After pic is clear of spots, so I didn't bother posting it. Sensor cleaning isn't cheap; I shopped around and $60 seems to be the standard. But it'll be worth not having to photoshop out the spots from my pics.

How Seasonally Inappropriate

Pumpkin, the last of my restaurant illustrations. I think I've finally figured out how to draw in wood cut style, after some 8 or 9 attempts at different produce. It's become so that I feel like I'm almost doodling when I draw these. I'm not sure how things clicked and fell into place, because at Fig and Pomegranate, my style was going way out of control.

Happy Memorial Day weekend! It feels like summer is here. We'll see how long this lasts in SF.

Flare.

Back-Lit. Potentially a scary photo situation, but also potential for artsy fun. I'm still in the experimental stages with back lighting; I can't yet predict how such photos will work out. I'm also learning how to compose pics that include flare. Flares happens when light hits the lens directly, and those circles of off-colored light appear in the pic. They essentially become another element to work into the composition. Most of the time one wants to avoid flare, and that's what the lens hood is for (as well as for lens protection from flying pinata sticks and tall people's elbows, and for making one's camera look more intimidatingly professional.)

The danger of course, is creating a photo of silhouettes - a totally different story. I may have used a pop of flash here so that we see some details, but also in these cases I'm angled so that the sun isn't directly behind the couple. Sunset light is best I think; the light is filtered through atmosphere, and thus isn't as harsh; is bright but has a faded quality to it.