Back After a Photography Sabbatical

Two of my photos were recently used on a CD cover. I think they look pretty good. I'm also working on developing a new photography website. It's unfinished, but live: http://www.robertbrownstock.com/

Down and Out in Yakima

I've just returned from a truncated and difficult trip to Yakima. I managed to snap some grungy abstracts that fit my mood before I had to return unexpectedly to Astoria. These abstracts are a perfect expression of what I was feeling when I shot them.

More Fun With Digital Infrared

Last weekend I got in a quick trip to the Tri-Cities in Eastern Washington. I left Thursday morning and returned late Saturday afternoon. It's a fairly long
drive from Astoria, nearly six hours, but it was worth it to get a little sun and warm weather. Of course, I also managed to get some shooting in, snapping off about 800 frames. The converted digital infrared camera came in very handy, allowing me to shoot in very bright, hard, contrasty light. Fortunately, there were interesting clouds most of the time, so the skies looked very dramatic in the photos. The photo of the vineyard above was taken a few miles north of Pasco when I was trawling along some farmland looking for stuff to shoot. This vineyard just popped out as something that had to be shot--the composition of the rows of grapevines and the hill seemed perfect.

The next photo is of some old silos in beautiful Eltopia (yes, it's really called that), Washington, which is about 15 minutes north of Pasco. Eltopia is a photographer's paradise, teeming with dilapidated, abandoned buildings. I could have spent hours there amid the ruins, but I was was supposed to be back in Richland for lunch with my kids, so I had to curtail my shooting after about an hour. I'm hoping to shoot again in Eltopia, hopefully next year.

Now for something completely different . . .

Several months ago I finally admitted to myself that I had a serious glut of digital cameras: I owned a Canon 5D (my everyday camera), a Canon 20D (my backup), and a Canon 10D (my backup backup). I considered selling the Canon 10D, but they really aren't worth that much. And then I started reading about a company, LifePixel, that converts digital cameras into infrared only cameras. So I sent my Canon 10D to them and they converted it into a digital black and white infrared camera. While I was on my trip around the Olympic Peninsula and Olympic National Park, I had one day of particularly bright sun so I had a chance to shoot my converted digital infrared 10D.

To shoot digital infrared, you really need bright sun because the camera is only recording infrared light. The first shot on the left was taken at Kalaloch Beach, where there's the beautiful Kalaloch Lodge.

When you shoot infrared, skies tend to turn dark and dramatic and green foliage turns white. The second shot is of a clear cut (I hate clear cuts) north of Lake Quinault with foxgloves and stumps in the foreground, and beautiful, uncut trees and dramatic sky at the back of the frame. By shooting this in infrared, it really brought the sky to life.
The next photo of the logs and sky was taken at Ruby Beach. This shot wouldn't have worked with a regular camera: far too much contrast and parts of the photo would have been either too dark or too light. Because the lighting conditions were perfect for infrared, the Ruby Beach shot looks a lot like a traditional black and white print.

The last photo is of the trail leading down to Ruby Beach. I just love the effect infrared has on trees, turning the leaves very light and the branches very dark. It's another photograph, because of the high contrast in the scene, that just wouldn't have worked with a regular camera.

If you have any interest in shooting infrared, I highly recommend contacting Lifepixel. Also, unlike the rest of the photos in this blog so far, none of these were shot wide open, so today's entry really is something different!

I've been neglecting my blog and have been duly chastised by one of my readers

I've recently been traveling a little: took a three-day, high-paced trip around the Olympic Peninsula: lots of short hikes on the many beaches, through the rain forest, and in the mountains. I'll share a few from that trip over the next few days. It was a good trip, since I took over 1300 photos!

Upon returning to Astoria, I was greeted by a string of rainy, cold,
and/or gray days with highs in the low 60's. It wasn't feeling like summer. So on Friday I went out to Ft. Stevens State Park and spent a few hours shooting everything deliberately out of focus. I was shooting wide open with my Canon 70-200L at f4.0 to make sure everything would be blurred.

The first photo is influenced by the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto and is an attempt to portray the emptiness I've been feeling of late.

Several of the others, like the second and third shots, were attempts at shooting impressionist landscapes. With these I was trying to convey a feeling of being adrift in a dreary landscape. They may, in fact, be too self-indulgent and ask too much of the viewer. The person viewing these may not feel rewarded for the effort it takes to look hard at this type of photo. I'm still trying to decide how attached I am to these out-of-focus shots.

Some of the last shots I took that day were of a boy out in the water. It was cold for summer, low 60's, and the water was cold, but this kid was going swimming. He was a man on a mission, actively seeking something on the horizon and willing to brave the cold water: it was like he was living in his own decisive moment.

Are Flowers Better in Groups of Two or Three?

So, last weekend I was out snapping like mad during the Astoria Garden Tour. I found some absolutely gorgeous blue thistles to shoot and couldn't decide which looked best--a grouping of two or a grouping of three. The advantage of the shot with two thistles is that the foreground thistle is slightly larger than in the next photo. Also, the relationship between the sharp foreground thistle and the out-of-focus thistle is very close. Someone viewing the photo is going to instinctively compare and contrast the two thistles.


The advantage of the photo with three thistles is that there is a little more balance and the relationship between the three thistles is a little more dynamic. I like both photos and I haven't decided which one I like best . . . But I know one thing for sure, both photographs were shot f2.8, which creates the terrific bokeh in the out-of-focus backgrounds. This was shot with a Canon 100mm macro lens on a bright, sunny day.

So What Do I Shoot When I Have to Shoot Indoors?

Last evening, I was in the mood to do some shooting. I decided to go outside: it was sunny and I thought it would be nice to spend some time outdoors. However, although it was sunny and the middle of July, it was only 60 degrees and a fairly strong, cold wind was blowing up the Columbia River from the Pacific Ocean. After a few snaps, I decided shooting in shorts and t-shirt wasn't all that comfortable and I headed inside. I started to look around my kitchen and noticed a glass filled with water in the stainless steel sink.

The glass and the water were picking up some unusual bits of color from the sky. . . . So I grabbed my Canon 100mm macro lens and started shooting different compositions. Most of the compositions used the top of the glass as a way to help define the more abstract areas in frame. I shot about 200 of these in a period of 30 minutes with the light slowly changing as it approached sunset. And of course everthing I shot was wide open at f2.8!

Adrift in Ornamental Grasses

I shot this a few days ago wandering around the Astoria, Oregon Garden Tour 2008. It's a fundraiser for the Lower Columbia Preservation Society. I toured six local gardens and shot about 300 frames in less than two hours. I was shooting handheld with my Canon 100mm macro lens, and many of the shots, such as this one, were shot wide open at f2.8. By shooting wide open, there are areas of sharp focus seemingly adrift in a green, almost watery background. Shooting with more depth of field would spoil this impressionistic effect.

Test Driving My Lensbaby 3G

A few days ago, just before sunset, I was out in my yard shooting my Lensbaby 3G and found this cala lily. Of course, I was shooting wide open. I did a little editing of this in Photoshop and toned it sepia . . .