IR vs. Non-IR

On Saturday, thanks to good navigation from my brother-in-law, I was able to make a trip up to a famous spot on Queen Anne Hill for taking pictures of downtown Seattle, after our long day at FanFest. It was a beautiful day, clear and sunny, even if it was a bit cold. I took a few pictures in between battling battery issues with my D1H -- a notorious battery hog. I grabbed the tripod, and slapped on the IR filter, and tried to grab a few IR shots of the scene. Unfortunately, there's a loss of sharpness in IR, especially if you're having to shoot with an 8-second exposure.

Here's the scene, converted to sepia, without the IR filter:



Here's the same scene, a few minutes later (obviously with the sun having set further), but on a tripod, not quite at the same level as the original, and with a MUCH longer exposure time (8 seconds):



A couple of things to note: 1) The pollution in the sky is invisible in IR. The sky is clearer than what was seen with the naked eye, and it's darker, too. 2) the shadows have a much different quality to them.

While this scene doesn't entirely demonstrate the full effects of IR, it's interesting to see a comparison between the two images.

Equivalents, 2006-7, Desktop Wallpaper

Back in the 1920s and continuing into the 1930s, Alfred Stieglitz created a series of pictures of clouds, which he entitled "Equivalents." I've been very inspired by this series lately, and have started my own collection of Equivalents, as sort of an ode to Stieglitz. I'm not sure whether or not Stieglitz got to see jet trails (he died in 1946, long before jets became a standard mode of traveling across the planet), so in my re-interpretation, I'm trying to keep them out of my photographs, in attempt to capture the essence of what I interpret the emotion and sense Stieglitz saw in his Eqivalents clouds. My gallery of Equivalents can be found here, and here are some sample images that make nice desktop wallpaper for our modern-day computers. Feel free to use these for MySpace backgrounds, etc. If you want prints made, of course, I prefer to do that. Send me an e-mail (paul-at-paulmphotography.com) if you're interested.

Hangin' in Seattle

I got a chance to hang out with one of my best friends -- my former college roommate -- up in Seattle yesterday. We happened to catch the grand opening of the Olympic Sculpture Park along the Seattle waterfront. Here are a few shots from yesterday.













I also got a chance to shoot down the street from where I shot my "Seattle in Sepia..." original, and I wanted to see how the two pictures would work together. I'd ordered two frames for the original Seattle picture, but I ended up seeing how the second picture I'd taken down the road (on the Bell Street pedestrian bridge above Pier 66) looked in that frame, especially in conjunction with the original picture. Here's a sample of how the two look together framed:



While the sepia effect is a little different in the second (top) picture, I can probably fix that. The sky is obviously different, too. The pictures do work well together, though.

A Few New Shots

Nothing much going on around here. Last Friday, though, I participated in a blog photo shoot -- A Day in Pictures, Friday January 12th with people from all around the world. Here are a few of the pictures I shot there, and the rest can be found in my blog entry.

My New Toy...

After finding all the negatives I shot in my early days as a photographer, I've been wanting a scanner that I could use to scan them. I thought about holding out for an Epson 4490 so I could scan all the medium-format negatives, too. But tonight, I came across a deal I couldn't pass up. It'll only scan 35mm, but it also works as an all-in-one print/copy machine. It's an Epson CX7800 printer/scanner/film scanner/card reader. I've been scanning the old negatives for about an hour now, and my initial thoughts are very positive. It's not perfect, and I'd like to have a little more control over the colors, but it's a good first venture into the realm of scanning my negatives. The color's a little flat, but here's the first negative I scanned. It's one of my favorite all-time pictures from one of my favorite all-time photographic experiences. It was a very spiritual moment that I captured almost 20 years ago, and still recaptures the feelings I felt back then.

Edit 1/08/07 - I figured out how to tweak the colors, and re-scanned the image.



I'm havin' so much fun! Here are a few others: