May 2010
2 posts
SCIENCE
April 2010
1 post
March 2010
1 post
December 2009
3 posts
Image of the year
Typically, we start the new year with a resolution. Instead, I’m ending the old year with my personal favorite image from 2009. After reading LeggNet’s Digital Capture blog post about his year-end tradition of looking back and decided I should start the same. What I love about this image is the sense of wonder it produces. Who is this floating girl? Why is there a dog? How is she floating? This...
More Costumes, Dancing
This past weekend was the last weekend for the Dickens Fair, and the December Gaskell Ball. We spent most of Saturday dancing; it was wonderful! I purchased both CDs from Brassworks and I’ve had various Victorian dance pieces in my head for the last few days. Jessie made a beautiful new blue day dress: we discovered a T-Rex: and danced some lovely waltzes at Fezziwig’s: Later that evening...
Waltzing
It’s been a long time since I posted anything here! Since my last post, I’ve been busy with a variety of waltzes: First up, the Gaskell Ball in October. Jessie and I had a blast dancing in our “schmancy dress” (her words) ! I have a set of photos from the event up on flickr Fast-forward a few weeks to the Dickens Christmas Fair with more fancy outfits, and more dancing. The fair is a lot...
October 2009
1 post
Headshot retouching
Photo retouching, before/after:
September 2009
1 post
Costumed Outings
Earlier this month, Jessie and I got all dressed up and headed out to the Sacramento Gold Rush Days, and then the PEERS Space Cowboy’s Ball. We had a great time! Rather than attempt to bore you with text, I’ll just share the pics:
August 2009
1 post
Knapp's Castle Roundup
Has it really been a month since I posted anything here? I bought a D700 at the beginning of the month, and I’ve been quite enjoying it. I’ve been up to Knapp’s Castle several times this month… twice for photo shoots. First, Patty, Theresa, and I hiked into the castle around 11 PM and stayed through 1 AM. We first set up at the ruins of the old wall: Then, the fog rolled in and we moved to the...
July 2009
6 posts
Accidental Diptych
These two photos ended up above each other in my flickr stream in an amusing fashion:
Texturing
My friend Jessie convinced me to try my hand at “texturing.” I combined these two images: To get: Overall, I like the tones and the vertical lines, but I’m not a big fan of the rivets across Melody’s face. I got the aluminum image from grungetextures.com. Their images are free for non-commercial use, as long as you give credit. Lots of good stuff there, I’ll have to try this more.
Before / After
Here’s a quick before and after retouch post, using a neat javascript utility I found:
Stagecoach Road Photoshoot
On Sunday, Melody and I took a quick trip to Stage Coach Rd. off of route 154. We captured several great portraits and I’m still post-processing them, but here’s a quick preview. This was my first real opportunity to use all of my newly acquired AlienBees gear (hooray for Craigslist). I decided to experiment with the beauty dish as a key light and use the softbox for fill. The first shot here was...
Last night I attended the 90th Annual Santa Barbara Hunter-Jumper Show with my friend Violet. She competed in a number of the events this week, but last night we were just watching the competition. I was struck at how quiet the event was. When the horse was close, you could hear it breathing, but there was little noise otherwise. Once the jumpers finished the course, the crowd erupted into...
Fireworks
This evening I went to Girsh Park to see the Goleta Fireworks, and I happened to get a couple of photos of Patty:
June 2009
9 posts
New flash!
I picked up a couple of AlienBees flashes from Craigslist this weekend on my way to Jessie’s graduation party in Sacramento. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to use them, but we did get a couple of shots in the pool at the party: I also got a beauty dish, which I’m very excited to use more of:
Austin: Inner Space Cavern
Denman and I visited Inner Space Cavern today. It was in the mid-sixties inside, but around 90% humidity, so it wasn’t much better than the 100-degree temperatures outside! Quite a bit of fun though. I’ve discovered that getting good photos inside a cave really requires a tripod, so I’m only sharing one with the world:
Austin: Hike to the Capitol
Today Denman and I took a six mile hike up a creek bed to the Capitol building. Along the way we stopped at Whole Foods and had a fantastic smoothie and lunch. We took a bus home since neither of us really wanted to hike in the 90+ degree heat.
Austin, TX
I’m in Austin, TX for the weekend, visiting my friend Denman. It’s HOT here, and I’m really not used to the heat. We visited the Zilker Botanical Gardens: and the Umlauf Sculpture Garden:
Now what?
Now that SoFoBoMo is complete, what’s next? With SoFoBoMo, I had a set of ideas and a goal to push for. Now I feel directionless. I have some vague ideas for some more portrait work, but I’d really like to continue my set of magic and mystery. Perhaps inspiration will hit suddenly. Perhaps I’ll have to dig through mythology or fairy tales or fiction. Or, perhaps you, my fine reader(s?), have an...
Of Light and Life -- SoFoBoMo '09 Complete!
Last night, I finished my SoFoBoMo 2009 book, titled: Of Light and Life A big thanks to Melody, Meka, Christy, Ryan, Dore, Patty, and Katie. for modeling. Thank you Jessica, Christy, and Melody for helping carry equipment. Also to my readers Ian F. and Beth S. for encouraging me. And finally a tip to Mike for the ghostscript resizing tip!
On Reducing the File Size of a PDF
For SoFoBoMo, I need to upload a PDF of my book that is less than 15 megabytes. Since I intend to print my book, the PDF at high-res is 90 megabytes! After some research, I found that ghostscript can down-size PDFs by reducing the resolution of the images it contains. Here’s the command to downsize Portraits.pdf (90MB) to Portraits_low.pdf (8MB):
gs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite...
SoFoBoMo Final Stretch
I have just five images left to make final adjustments on for SoFoBoMo. This is good, because my deadline is tomorrow! As usual, I’m cutting it close.
SoFoBoMo Photography Complete!
I’ve finally completed the photography work for my SoFoBoMo book! I put together the preliminary layout with 40 photos.. well past my 35 image goal. Now I need to finish editing and retouching the photos and finalize the layout. A preview of the new images:
May 2009
2 posts
SoFoBoMo Set 2
On Saturday, I was finally able to work with my friend Meka. We had to cancel the shoot twice before, and I’ve been worried we’d never make it! She wore a lovely yellow sundress and brought her umbrella. We also brought some balloons, but she got a bit carried away:
SoFoBoMo Begins!
I’ve started my SoFoBoMo book! This means I have until June 9 to finish a 35-image book. From my previous post, I’ve decided to go with a portraiture book. I don’t know how many friends I’m going to be able to wrangle into posing, but I’m hoping for at least 7, which will put me at five photos each. Last night, Melody and I started with a “Trash the Dress” shoot:
April 2009
3 posts
Renaissance Faire Round Two
On Sunday, I decided to travel back down to the Renaissance Faire and spend some more time wandering around. The weather was much cooler and I no didn’t feel like I was going to die of heat stroke this time! Huzzah! We started by going on a “pub crawl,” visiting each of the five beer stands at the faire. Our host for the pub crawl was quite funny: At some point, a pub crawl attendee pulled out a...
Renaissance Faire
I spent Saturday at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Irwindale. It was the first renfair I’ve been to since high school, and I had forgotten how much fun they can be! Christy was working for a vendor, so she was able to get me a free gate pass! Melody and I drove down together, and met up with Patty and Christy once we got there. Sadly, Melody needed to be back in Santa Barbara by 6, so we didn’t...
April Fools Jugglers Festival
This weekend was the 33rd annual April Fools Jugglers Festival! It was a blast, and I’m completely exhausted. Rather than attempt to write about it, I’ll just post a bunch of images. The black and white are from the show on Saturday, and the color ones are from the festival open juggling.
March 2009
6 posts
Hiking!
After a long hiatus due to a back injury, I finally got out on a hike this weekend! It was good to get out on the trail. The weather was nice, and the company was quite enjoyable. We hiked up the West fork of Cold Spring trail to Tangerine falls, and then it started raining! We sat out in the rain enjoying the view for a bit, and then headed back down. The rain turned to hail and we picked up...
After the dance
After the dance, originally uploaded by nickburlett.
I just bought a used 17-55 ƒ/2.8 lens, and I brought it to swing dancing tonight. I captured this near the end. I love how the wide aperture lets me work in such low light!
New blog domain name
My blog is now available at blog.icollectlight.com! Eventually, I’ll probably put up a page at icollectlight.com, but for now, it’s just the blog.
Group Photo Journal Project
Speciality Color Services is running a Group Photo Journal Project on Facebook. If you’re in the Santa Barbara area, join in! Several disposable cameras will be provided and each person gets the camera for a bit and can take two frames, then send it on to the next person! At the end, photo books of each camera will be made available to the participants. I’m joining in three cameras:
Camera #1:...
SoFoBoMo
Most of my readers will have heard about NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month (ok, I’m assuming that I have two readers, and that Ian, who actually wrote a novel a couple of years ago, is one of them). You may not have heard about it’s newer sibling: SoFoBoMo: Solo Photo Book Month. 2009 will be the second SoFoBoMo; last year 170 started, and 60 completed a 35-photo book. As of the time of this...
Location, Location, Location
In real estate, they say there’s three things that are important: Location, Location, and lastly, Location. This is because the actual location for the property is more important than anything else. The same building in two different locations can have drastically different prices depending on the surroundings. In photography, the location for a portrait can be as important as the lighting....
February 2009
3 posts
Boy Photoshops Girl. A love story...
I promised myself this blog wouldn’t become have the cliché “hey look at this cool link” post, but this story is too good to pass up. MSNBC has a wonderful story about a lovely young couple who live on separate continents, yet still manage to pose for these amazing photos. How do they do it? The magic of Photoshop. I’m in awe.
Another reason to take that photo NOW.
I always loved the old hydraulics lab in the gorge at Cornell University. It’s right there as you cross from central to north campus, guarding the waterfall from Bebe Lake. I took this photo when I was visiting my alma matter on a recruiting trip, but I’ve really wanted to re-take it. I didn’t have my tripod with me, so the large view isn’t as crisp as I’d like. However, I’m very glad I took it...
DIY background stand: fail.
I started a project today to make a do-it-yourself stand for the 9-foot seamless paper backgrounds I bought from a woman on Craigslist. Unfortunately, I’ve decided that the PVC just isn’t quite strong enough to hold the background paper, and a bit too clumsy to be useful. I was basing it off of a DIY Background Stand Design I found. I expect that the instructions would work well if my paper...
Freestyle
Freestyle, originally uploaded by nickburlett.
I went to the World Cup Freestyle Championship in Park City, Utah last night. These guys were incredible!
January 2009
8 posts
Photo retouching
When working on portraits, it’s often desirable to tweak the image to capture a more perfect view of the subject. Sometimes this is motivated by a desire on the part of the subject to look her best, and other times it’s a desire to create an idealized view of an image the photographer has in mind. In the case of straight-up portraiture, it’s usually best to keep the modifications as natural as...
Photoshop is not a dirty word.
Magical Transformation, originally uploaded by nickburlett.
I used to think “photoshop” was a dirty word. It was a crutch that people used when they should have just captured the image in the camera. Now I’m pretty sure I was wrong. Photoshop is just another tool we can use to bring our vision to life. If we photographers can use polarizing filters, white balance control, creative use of...
Carrying Photo Gear
I need a new camera bag. I’ve looked at numerous bags at a couple of different shops, but I’ve not found a bag that is quite right. I spent some time trying to figure out what features I would actually want in a bag and trying to analyze why I didn’t like any of the bags I’ve seen. I now think the problem is that I have several different needs that don’t mesh well. I have basically four different...
Hide and Seek
Hide and Seek, originally uploaded by nickburlett.
Katie and I played some hide and seek in the woods. As you can see here, she’s quite good at hiding! This is the first of several portraits from our photo shoot on the west fork of cold spring trail. We hiked down from the top of the trail and found beautiful light coming in through the trees. This was Katie’s first photo shoot, and she did a...
Hasselblad 12 Back
Hasselblad 12 Back.
I finally fixed the old-style film back for my Hasselblad! I bought this back from my friend, but it turns out that it didn’t work! He gave me a discount, and I set out to repair it. After about 10 hours over three days of fiddling with it, I finally understood how all of the gears, levers, and springs fit together, but there was one big problem: one of the springs was...
Ski Waterman, Collect Light
I went skiing at Mt. Waterman with Bryan on Saturday. The snow was horrendous: icy, patchy, full of death cookies. But it was fun anyway! They actually had so little snow that they didn’t open on Sunday, and are waiting for the next storm. They have this ancient Caterpillar bulldozer/plow sitting up near the top of Lift 1. I can’t tell for sure if they still use it, but it is certainly well...
The way of down.
I finally got out skiing last weekend at Mount Waterman. Bryan and I bought season passes in the hopes we’ll make it out at least five days. The snow wasn’t great, but a bad day on the slopes is better than almost any day sitting at home. These two photos were taken on black and white film with my Lubitel 166+.