Photographs by Frank

24 February 2019

Old Shells

Filed under: Still Life — Frank @ 12:59 PM

We have a basket containing artifacts brought back from Hawaii in the late 1800’s by some of Joan’s ancestors who were missionaries there. Among the contents of the basket are a number of large (4-6 inch) shells. A few of these made good subjects on a cold gray February afternoon.

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Beware… photography talk head! I made these photographs using a single light source (at camera left) and a reflector (either a piece of white cardboard or a piece of cardboard covered with wrinkled aluminum foil… nothing fancy) to fill the shadows. The background was a piece of black seamless. However, in the end, I replaced the background with uniform black in PhotoShop. It is hard to keep light from spilling on to the background with a small tabletop “studio”. Thus the original background was various shades of gray and speckled with dust. Not the look I wanted.

10 February 2019

Harsh February Light

Filed under: Landscapes,Monadnock Region,Winter — Frank @ 9:59 PM

In some ways we have had typical New Hampshire winter weather… periods of dull drab days and periods of bright, cloudless blue skies. What has not been typical are the multiple periods of warm weather. In the “old days” we would get a January thaw. These days we seem to get a thaw every few weeks.

The latest thaw was a couple of days in the middle of last week. The mud in the road was deep and spring-like. The road crew worked hard to keep it passable.

The last few days have been more typical of February, highs in the mid- to upper 20s F and lows in the low teens. The days have been bright and sunny… good for production by our new solar panels but challenging for photography. I have persisted none-the-less.

The first three photos were made in the last week, with a regular lens. The last six photos were made yesterday using a $20 “Holga lens” that I recently bought on an impulse. This 60 mm lens is all plastic and has a fixed aperture (f/8). Focusing is all manual and rather crude; there are small pictographs along the focus ring to indicate the distance. The resulting photos, all made in harsh February light, have “character”.

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