Exploring the wonders of creation through a 50mm lens...and other lenses too.

I’ve been doing a lot of off-the-beaten-path photography over the past several months. Star trails in the Rocky Mountains, sunsets and moonrises at the Florida coast, close-up shots of fidget spinners with glass-ball reflections…it’s been fun, but it’s also been a bit exhausting. Not in terms of effort and excitement, but I can just feel the sense that the creative muscles in my mind have been stretched a bit beyond what I’m used to. If I didn’t enjoy taking photos, I just wouldn’t do it. But I feel like the most recent spate of images I have posted have been well beyond the norm compared to what I usually create with my camera, and sometimes it helps to just re-center things a bit and get back to basics. This picture, then, might be seen as somewhat of a reset. A course correction, if you will, and a chance to stop, take a breath, and return to the familiar: my D750, a prime lens, and a walk around Theta Pond at OSU.

If I had a particular style, or a type of image that could serve as a representation of the images I am fond of creating, this shot would serve as a prime example. It’s a clearly-distinguishable subject just off-center, augmented by bright, distinct colors and a blurry background. Shots like this aren’t complicated and won’t win any awards, but I enjoy them and feel like I either learn something new in situations like this or, at the very least, get to practice and refine my skills. The seed pod you see here, that of a Golden Rain Tree, is about one inch tall so I had to get kind of close in order to have it fill half of the vertical portion of the frame. That’s not difficult at all with a macro lens, but what is a little tricky is choosing the right exposure settings–especially the aperture. I wanted to completely blow out the background while still getting the veins of the seed pod walls as clear and sharp as possible, so I settled on f/6.7 as a compromise and I think it does the job nicely. I specifically positioned myself so that the seed pod was not only on the right side of the frame, but slightly slanted while also getting some sunlight on the left side. It’s simple, almost classical, composition and it gets the job done quite nicely if I do say so myself.

It has been fun to try so many new things over the summer, photographically speaking that is, but taking a picture like this feels like slipping on a pair of old jeans in the morning after spending the previous day all dressed up to attend a wedding. This photo is enjoyable, comfortable, and reminds me what I like so much about photography in the first place.

In photography columns, forums, and other outlets one of the most common pieces of advice given to people who want to get better at creating compelling images is to travel. Not buy a better camera, a bigger lens, a newer tripod, or any other physical gear but instead visit somewhere new to see the world from a fresh perspective. I realize that’s not always possible, especially with things like work, school, and family obligations, but I have found that the more I travel outside my town or state (or even country, though that is a much rarer occurrence) the more this advice rings true. I remember when I first moved to Oklahoma how everything I came across, from the local botanic gardens to small ponds to animals like armadillos that scurry around like squirrels, felt unique and new and worthy of photographing. Now, having lived here for over 15 years, I don’t have that same sense of newness and there are times when it feels like everything around me has already been photographed–which isn’t true at all, and instead is yet another reason I like to bring my camera with me so I can see familiar things from a different perspective. But it also means that whenever I travel elsewhere, things that are normal and uninteresting to the locals are new and different to me and, as a result, certainly worth photographing.

Hence this week’s image–a fairly nondescript, rather pedestrian, scene of some small cacti by a footpath. Not the kind of thing a local who lives in an area like, say, the Colorado mountains would think twice about, but something a midwesterner like myself would think is fun and new and interesting. There’s something about the prickly needles, the round green shapes billowing from the ground, and the dry, rocky terrain that stood out to me and made me lower my Fuji X100F to the ground to see if I could get a shot. It was also hot, dry, and extraordinarily buggy with mosquitos attacking any square inch of exposed skin thanks to some recent rainfall, which meant that I didn’t linger for long while composing the shot.

I did think about the basics though: aperture, shutter, and ISO, and even though I was set back a few feet from the cactus I knew I wanted to get a depth of field that made the plant stand out from the background but not so much that the scene would show up as a blurry mess. I think I got it pretty good with an f/4 aperture, though the lack of a flip-out screen on my camera made composing the shot somewhat of a challenge. No matter though; I’m happy with the resulting image and it does make me think of our family’s time spent in Great Sand Dunes National Park, and the Airbnb at which we stayed and, of course, where I took this picture. And that’s good enough for me :)

A few months ago my wife and I decided to take a family trip to one of the closest national parks to where we live in central Oklahoma. Having already visited Hot Springs National Park a few years prior, our options this time around included White Sands, Big Bend, and Great Sand Dunes. The first was just a bit too far for what we wanted to drive, while the second was a bit too warm given the time of year that we intended to travel. Great Sand Dunes, then, was kind of the default option but also quite an interesting and, the more we learned about it, exciting option to boot. We watched videos, talked to friends, booked an Airbnb, and set plans in motion for a grand adventure out west.

The reality of the experience surpassed anything we could have, or did, conceive of. We had visited Rocky Mountain National Park with friends in the summer of 2022, but this was an entirely different experience altogether despite being only a few hours south of its much bigger, and much more well-known, counterpart. (Or should I say, counterpark?) Nestled in a bend in the mountain range that stretches from Santa Fe to Salida, the Great Sand Dunes rise over 700 feet and stretch on for, as Gollum would say, miles and miles to the horizon where they are dwarfed by the towering peaks of Grestone Needle, Blueberry, and Mt. Lindsey. It’s an amazing sight and one that is quite unique in the United States–mountains are one thing, but mountains supplemented by 30 square miles of positively massive sand dunes is quite another matter entirely.

So of course I had to get some photos :)

The shot you see here was taken with my humble little GoPro Hero 12 Black, set to the Star Trails capture mode looking north from Dunes Rest, the Airbnb we rented for our stay. I set the camera on my tripod, put it in wide mode (as opposed to full-screen which captures a more square-shaped view but also has greater lens barrel distortion, told it to begin the capture at 12:30am, and went back inside to spend time with my wife, our kids, and my cousin and her husband who joined us for a day and two nights.

While the night wasn’t as clear and cloudless as I had hoped, I was quite pleased with what I was able to capture. Far in the distance you can see the yellow sand dunes and behind them, the mountains. I tweaked the colors just a bit in Lightroom but otherwise what you see here is exactly what my GoPro captured, and even though there’s not much in the way of detail (zoom in on the foliage in the foreground and you’ll see naught but a muddly, blurry mess) the fact that I was able to get this with a tiny little action camera still kind of blows my mind.

One thing I have learned about photography is that there often is not any direct relationship between time and effort spent on capturing an image, and the quality of the end result. In other words, someone might take a great deal of time composing a shot, manipulating the light, carefully positioning the subject, dialing in precise exposure settings, and still end up with a dud. Conversely, it’s entirely possible and often likely that quick one-off mobile phone snapshots will produce incredible results suitable for printing, framing, and sharing. Of course the inverse is true as well, and more often than not one of the best pieces of advice I give to new photographers is to slow down, take your time, and really put some time and effort into learning how to use your camera and getting the photo you want.

You can probably see where this is going. At the risk of sounding overly philosophical, this image is kind of in the middle of both ends of the spectrum. It took about an hour to take this picture, and while I’m not entirely certain the end result reflects the amount of time spent, I do quite like it and I am proud of what I was able to create. My only regret is that I did not take a behind-the-scenes shot of the setup so you could see exactly what I was working with, but even so I think this photo works quite well on its own and, more importantly, I like what it represents–the context, if you will.

My wife’s father is really into LEGOs. Always has been. He has a pretty large collection of various LEGO sets, and it’s something he enjoys sharing with others too. Earlier this year he gave all of us (me, my wife, and our two kids) each a LEGO set that was tailored, so to speak, for our own personalities. He knows I enjoy photography, which made this the ideal LEGO set for me and one that I very much enjoyed assembling over the course of a few afternoons. I thought it would be fun to photograph the camera, in addition to displaying it on a shelf in our house, so while my wife was out with a friend and our kids were in bed I set out to do just that. Not just a snapshot, though: a considered, bespoke composition to display the camera in the best possible light.

Everything you see in this photograph was carefully selected and positioned by me: the pine board on which the camera is resting as well as the second pine board in the background. The angle of the camera and the location of the filmstrip. The position of my Nikon D750 camera and 105mm macro lens. The exposure (f/19, 0.7 seconds, ISO 100), and finally, the lights. All five of them to be exact. Nanlite Pavotubes set to 3500K and attached to tripods as well as resting on the wood and even one in my hand. (You can understand why I wish I had taken a behind-the-scenes shot…) The lighting is what led to the image taking so long to create: I wanted to capture the camera in a way that felt natural and realistic, not overly-stylized with multi-colored accents like I have done on other similar shots. It’s a bit ironic, then, that it took so much time and intention to get lighting that just seemed normal and natural. But the end result is worth it, in my opinion, because the toy camera and strip of film are shown exactly how I wanted–right down to the reflection of the lights on the lens and the shine on the edge of the right side of the camera.

It felt good to take this picture, like a return to the careful, considered photographs I have enjoyed taking from time to time over the years. I enjoyed it, and it made me think of other similar shots I might try taking in the coming months too. We’ll see…

Time lapse video of this image being created

When I think about how I have learned and grown as a photographer over the years, it’s usually with regard to fundamentals like aperture, focal length, shutter speed, or compositional elements like how to use light and shadow to create a compelling image. For this picture, as grand as it may appear, my learning process compared to last week’s image was actually extraordinarily mundane: I simply repositioned my camera. This is the second in a series of two similar star trails images, and a clear example of how I strive to always find ways to expand my knowledge and skills when it comes to image-creation.

The first image, which I shared last week, was kind of a shot in the dark (har!) and I didn’t really know what I was doing, where to point the GoPro, or what the end result would look like at all. I didn’t even plan on capturing the stars circumscribing Polaris–that was quite an accident, albeit a pleasant one. So when I saw the results of the three-hour capture the next morning I figured I could take another, better, image with just a couple of minor changes involving the position of my camera. During broad daylight I walked down the slope behind our cabin to find a spot where I could capture more of the night sky between the trees, and also hopefully get the north star in the picture too. It was hot, weedy, and buggy but I found a spot that, I thought, would give me what I was looking for so I noted it in my mind, found a few visual markers to help me place my tripod later that day, and went back to find my wife and kids hanging out with the rest of our extended family.

That night after the sun had set I went back to the spot with my brother Phil, who also had his camera and tripod to capture a star trails image of his own. I managed to locate the spot I found earlier in the day, set up my tripod and GoPro, adjusted the angle of the ball head so the camera was more or less pointed in the direction I wanted, and Phil and I quickly went back inside the cabin while swatting at gnats and bugs along the way.

The shot I got overnight vastly exceeded my expectations. I was shocked at what my diminutive little GoPro camera was able to capture. I figured I would get a couple of star trails, not the hundreds you see here so easily visible in the night sky. I thought I might get the trees, but not their leaves brilliantly illuminated by the moon above and behind the camera. And I had no idea that my camera would capture the brilliant dance of hundreds of fireflies flitting about late into the night, visible as giddy green streaks all throughout the lower portion of the shot.

I don’t think I will have the opportunity to take another star trail shot like this for a while (though possibly in a few weeks, depending on the location and the weather, but I’m not counting on it) so I want to enjoy and appreciate this image for what it is and what it represents to me: the idea that shots like this are not out of reach and, in fact, quite achievable with a little practice. And a GoPro doesn’t hurt either ;)