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

In the past few months I have shared a handful of pictures like this here on Weekly Fifty, and I’ve learned that this is the type of image I really enjoy making. One single subject, usually a flower or plant or other similar thing, illuminated against a bright background but surrounded by darker elements of the background. I feel like I’m getting better at taking these but also at noticing situations where these types of images present themselves. Here is a magnolia seed pod set against the background of a magnolia tree, but shot in such a way that the spaces between the leaves crate a white spot to help the subject stand out–this is not a groundbreaking composition but it’s colossally fun to shoot these types of pictures because of the element of discovery and then fine-tuning the shot until you get what you want.

To wit: when I first came across this seed pod I didn’t really think it would be a great photo opportunity. It’s kind of shriveled and wrinkled and there’s not a lot of color, but then I started doing what I often do. I examined the subject from different angles and moved myself around while adjusting my camera settings until I found a situation that created an interesting image. I had to hold my Nikon D500 up at an awkward angle and use the flip-out screen and Live View to get this shot, but it didn’t take long for me to arrive at a photograph that I really liked. I shot at f/2.4 to get a good mix of sharpness and background blur, and at this point you might be thinking to yourself This post sounds an awful lot like several other posts from the past few months. And you’re right! But that’s the fun part of photography: finding something you like and then practicing it so you can get better at it. And this is definitely the type of image I want to keep practicing so I can keep improving.

So, part of this picture was unintentional. Most of it, actually. All I wanted to do was take a picture of the “Hole 5 Par 3” sign with the disc golf hole way in the distance, kind of like an alternate version of the image I posted last week. Something about the trees on either side of the straightaway, combined with the overhead lighting, created an interesting scene that I thought would make for an interesting image. At least that was my plan until my son stepped up to toss his frisbee. (Or am I supposed to call it a disc? I have no idea.) Initially I was going to ask him to step aside so I could take a picture but then I thought I might as well incorporate him into it as a way of making the scene more interesting and dynamic.

I had my D750 and 50mm lens with me which was great for this type of shot. The angle was neither too wide or too narrow, and I was able to frame the shot almost exactly how I saw it in my mind. I used a wide aperture of f/2.8 and focused on the sign, knowing that most of the background would be blurry. That was kind of the point: give the viewer two things to see right away, with more to consider the longer they looked. I used continuous high-speed shooting which, despite topping out at only about 6fps on the D750, was just fine to get this picture. I was hoping to catch my son in the act of tossing the frisbee, and from what you see her I think it worked pretty well.

One of my favorite parts of this shot is the purple disc (did I just use the term correctly?) just to the right of my son. It’s a small line that’s easy to miss, but once you see it I think it elevates the image just a little. Clearly my son is in the act of throwing something, but seeing the frisbee like that adds a fun extra element of action to the whole scene. I’m really happy with how this turned out and this was a good reminder that even casual daily activities like this can yield some really fun photographs :)

I was recently interviewed on The Beginner Photography Podcast about my Weekly Fifty photo blog, and I wanted to share the interview with my readers in case you’re interested in learning a bit more about me, the site, and my approach to photography. Special thanks to Raymond Hatfield for asking me to be on! I thoroughly enjoyed this interview and I hope you do as well.

BPP 264: Simon Ringsmuth – Balancing Family And Photography

I’ave always had an affinity for pictures where there is some kind of road, path, or track leading the viewer’s gaze off into the horizon. I’ve put a few like this up on Weekly Fifty over the years, and something about this kind of scene just feels like…possibilities. I dunno. It’s kind of comforting to come across a scene like this in real life, snap a picture, and have the image be a fairly accurate representation of the time and place that you experienced in person. That’s what I have here, and I hope it gives you, the viewer, a similar feeling.

This is a path at a park not far from our home, and I shot this while I was out playing frisbee disc golf with my two boys on a hot August morning. We have a few spots for disc golf here in town but none with this level of shade or this easy to get to, and that makes it an ideal place to while away the hours with our boys especially during the summer. Most of the time when we go here I don’t bring my camera but on this particular day I figured I would take my D750 and 50mm lens just for fun and see if I could get a couple good shots. This image wasn’t difficult to capture and there’s nothing especially noteworthy about it, but that’s not really the point. I had fun taking this shot and I learned a few things in the process, which is good enough for me :)

So what do you need to take a picture like this? A small aperture, a fast shutter or a tripod, and a point of view that’s kind of close to the ground. If you use a wide aperture like f/4, f/2.8, or greater you run the risk of having the foreground or background out of focus due to a shallow depth of field, and most lenses aren’t quite as sharp at wide apertures either. I shot this at f/8 to avoid both of those issues and also knelt down to get a more interesting angle, took just a couple shots, and then went back to tossing frisbees with my kids. This was the kind of picture I didn’t want to over-think, and I’m glad I didn’t. Maybe I could have gotten a different (possibly better?) image with a lot more time and tinkering, but that would have been time I didn’t spend with my kids. And that’s a tradeoff I didn’t want to make.

This picture is a bit of a departure for me. Normally I like to shoot subjects and scenes with lots of colors, but here it’s mostly just earthtones: browns, greens, and blacks. Looking at this image reminds me of the old Dynamic UNIX system (DYNIX for short) that my local public library used to use in the 1990’s as the tried-and-true card catalog slowly faded into obsolescence. Maybe this could be the logo for a Magnolia UNIX system (MAGNIX for short)? Note to any aspiring OS designers: contact me for licensing details :)

Anyway, this shot is fairly simple but it actually took a bit more planning and preparation than you might think. First, the subject: a magnolia seed pod midway through its life cycle. It’s not super interesting to look at without any bright red seeds poking out, and initially I was not going to take this picture at all. Then I thought about how I could frame the subject against the background in such a way as to make the seed pod stand out and be a bit more interesting to look at. I took a few shots at f/1.8 using the just-blur-everything approach but, as I expected, depth of field was too shallow and the seed pod suffered from a severe lack of sharpness. I stopped down to f/2.8 which mean the spots of light in the background weren’t as pronounced, but the tradeoff in sharpness was worth it to me. I then thought about where to position the subject (or, rather, where to position myself since I was not keen on moving this branch with one hand while trying to get a picture with the other).

My first thought was to repeat the idea from last week: put the seed pod against a bright spot of white light in the background. That idea didn’t really work out too well, as it left the viewer with a bit of a feeling of unease and uncertainty about what to actually look at. Then I realized I could put the subject against a dark part of the background, thus giving the image some complementary elements. The white spots of light on the left serve to guide the viewer’s eyes to the seed pod just to the right of center. It’s a more complete composition this way, with the different shades of green and yellow serving each other rather than competing with one another. I’m curious to return to this scene after a few days and see how it’s changed, and maybe I’ll even try to take another image of the same seed pod after a while to see how it looks after some time has passed.