• Black and White,  People/Portraits,  quotes,  Self-portraits

    Dark and Mysterious

    One Light Portrait
    One Light Portrait

    “There’s just something unsettling about studying your reflection. It’s not a matter of being dissatisfied with your face or of being embarrassed by your vanity. Maybe it’s that when you gaze into your own eyes, you don’t see what you wish to see—or glimpse something that you wish weren’t there.” 

    Dean Koontz, Deeply Odd

    I again called upon the older guy to model for me as I played with some exposure and lighting effects.  Shot this in the afternoon with window light only. I wanted to use the camera and flash to darken the background. I set the camera on manual at f2.0 and a shuter speed of 400th of a second.  This darkened the background while I used off camera flash, set on manual, and powered at 1/64th to light only my face. It is through using myself I learn about flash and how to play with it. It takes longer to experiment. After I feel comfortable I can then use a different model. Black and white conversion was done in Silver Efex Pro.

  • clouds,  Plants

    Harvest is Coming

    20140824_DSCF4178
    Corn is Standing Tall

    Had to a take a trip over to the small town of Windsor which has until recently been primarily a farming community. For me these short excursions are a good way to get out of town for periods of time and away from the bustle of the city. Fall is a time of year when we think about cooler mornings and heavy dew turning to frost. Canada geese will begin their noisy flying overhead and using my ponds as overnight rest stops. No need for a rooster with them around. Fall is also a time for picking blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, tomatoes, pumpkins, sweet corn, squash, onions and whatever else you planted. Just made myself hungry for vegetable soup.

    Field corn, what you see in the above image is harvested a bit later than the other vegetables. It requires a low moisture content where it will be used as feed for cattle. Field corn is not generally regarded, in industrialized societies, as not desirable for human food without commercial pre-processing. The stalks and husks will be used as feed also.

  • sunsets

    Happy Monday

    Lat
    Late Afternoon Sunset

    This was taken on a late afternoon bicycle ride last week. One of the many things the city of Fort Collins offers are nice riding/walking paths and trails. Bicycling.com has Fort Collins ranked number 11 of the top 50 cities over 95,000 in population.  It boasts of 310 miles of cycling networks and shared roads. That could take a while to cover especially if you stopped at each coffee and ice cream shop. Have a Happy Monday!