Traveling the Journey of Light | Photoblog Thoughts, feelings, and techniques behind the photography of Derrald Farnsworth-Livingston

Up In the AirPosted by drfl on August 31st, 2010

Today is the last day of August, and I welcome September.  By this time every year, I am tired of the heat and humidity that Nebraska summers can bring.  As I mentioned last week, I am busy finishing up several projects, but I wanted to take a small moment for a little relaxation….

Do you remember when you were a kid and would lie on your back on a summer day looking at the clouds?  I wish I had more time to do that.  Instead, I take photos of clouds and post them and imagine myself relaxing in some nice soft grass with a cool breeze. 

Technical Details:
Canon G10, 6.1mm, f/2.8, 1/640 sec.
Douglas County, Nebraska

Photo Friday: Under Pinpoints of LightPosted by drfl on August 20th, 2010

Today’s Photo Friday was captured last fall when I went out to Toadstool Geologic Park in western Nebraska.  Being as isolated as it is, it is a prime location for stargazing.  Of course, a night without a moon helps!

Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 17-40 f/4l @ 17mm, f/4, 2 exposure blend (1 taken just after sunset, 1 taken about 45 minutes after)
Toadstool Geologic Park, Nebraska

Goodbye, Lincoln! Hello, Autofocus!Posted by drfl on August 17th, 2010

Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 17-40 f/4l @ 25mm, f/8, 1/320 sec., Singh-Ray Polarizing Filter

Last Friday was the last day of my exhibition at the Governor’s residence in Lincoln, Nebraska.  I loaded up the car and took the opportunity to capture the capitol building across the street.  Although, I live about 40 miles from the building, I have only captured a couple photos of the structure.  Beautifully designed by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and adorned with designs by Lee Lawrie (known previously for his work on 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York and the LA Library), the building is rich with symbolism. 

As a secondary reason for photographing the capitol building, I wanted to test the autofocus on  my 17-40 f/4l lens which I had just received back from repair the previous day.  After testing the lens on both my 5D Mark II, and my 50D, I was happy to see that the autofocus was snappy and accurate.  Another pleased experience with Canon support (4 for 4 so far, Canon).  Here are some results from my session with the Nebraska State Capitol Building in Lincoln.

This nearly 20 foot high statue was designed by Lee Lawrie who is known for works such as Atlas in Rockefeller Plaza and the Chapel at West Point. “The Sower” points northwesterly, the direction that would ecompoass the greatest amount of land in Nebraska. The dome, upon which “The Sower” stands, changes color depending on the weather. Here it is a golden color a result of the beautiful and warm day on which this image was captured.

Technical Details:
Canon 50D, 300 f/4l + 1.4tc, f/5.6, 1/400 sec.

Technical Details:
Canon 50D, 17-40 f/4l @ 17mm, f/7.1, 1/1000 sec.

Technical Details:
Canon 5D Mark II, 17-40 f/4l @ 22mm, f/9, 1/160 sec.

Beyond Nature - People Portraits and a Forgetful Memory CardPosted by drfl on August 9th, 2010

Ever since I purchased my 135 f/2, I just can’t get over how great this lens is.  For quality, it is by far the best lens I own.   Period.  It’s just too bad it’s extremely limited in focal length.  Achieving focus through this lens is truly magical.  I have been able to focus in situations and conditions that I never was able to do previously.  Capturing young children can be a difficult task.  Besides being moving targets, they are almost completely unpredictable.  Trying to get them to pose is like asking a tornado to stop, it’s just not going to happen.  Anyway, while I always try to capture the poses, my favorite images of kids are those where they are playing and where they do not care that I am even there. 

Last Friday, my sister-in-law, Kayla and my nephew, little Tommy went out for a park photo-shoot.  We tried for the poses, but ultimately we just let him run around.  Being the kid paparazzi that I am, I managed quite a few shots.  Shortly after, I went home and began my download of the images.  I slid the card into the reader, browsed to the directory and realized that there were several folders of gibberish.  I was able to get about 20% of my images directly off the card, but the rest had been corrupted!  I’ve heard of such things happening, but in my 5 years of digital photography, I’ve never seen it.  (I routinely rotate old cards out so that I hopefully wouldn’t).  The card had only been used a handful of times, so I knew that retrieving the photographs may be possible.  I loaded up a copy of Lexar Image Rescue that I had received when I purchased one of their cards (The card that I was recovering from was manufactured by SanDisk), I set the program to scan and retrieve all images.  It found a couple of hundred TIFs, but when I retrieved them and changed the extension, viola, my RAW images were back!  Needless to say that rookie card is going into forced retirement.

Here are 3 of the memorable moments that I retrieved.

Technical Details:
Canon 5D, 135 f/2 lens

Marketing Photography, Part III: The Art of Keywording PhotographsPosted by drfl on July 27th, 2010

In my May 12th post, “Everybody Loves Keywording Photographs” I mentioned that keywording photographs is usually a tedious albeit necessary exercise to help categorize photographs and allow others to find them via your website or search engines on the Internet.  During the past two months I have revamped my website with the focus on expanding my already existing keywords and made some notes.  Today, I’m going to give some tips on what you should do to maximize the your the keywords associated with your photography.  For this exercise, I will be using the image above, “Mist and Melancholy” to help illustrate what keywords should be associated with this image.

While answering each of the 11 questions below, we need to keep four things in mind.  Primarily, we will want to be as specific as possible.  If something has a proper name, it should be used.  Secondly, we will want to explore as many synonyms as possible within each question.  Thirdly, if the plural of the subject differs significantly in spelling we will want to make note of that as well.  Lastly, spell check everything!  A mispelled word will rarely help in searches.

Keep in mind that if your keywords are too vague or inaccurate people will not think that your keywording is reliable and will be frustrated when they do not find the image they need.  Additionally, we want to use only the terms the majority of individuals would use when searching.  It is possible to go too far in keywording and have obscure words which few people would actually use.   Using such terms reduces the effectiveness of the words that you have chosen to describe the photograph. 

The questions come after the jump - be sure to click on “Read the rest of the entry”!

Read the rest of this entry »

A Forest PhotowalkPosted by drfl on July 26th, 2010

Saturday was the third annual Scott Kelby Photowalk.  Normally, you participate by signing up at a city or location near you and you take the opportunity to photograph the surroundings with 50 other individuals.  This year I decided to have a little smaller photowalk with only my eldest daughter and me.  We took a stroll through Schramm State Recreation Area and looked at the wildflowers, mushrooms, and had some fun crossing the suspension bridge that spans a ravine deep in the forest.  On the way back, we saw something jumping across the trail which made us jump a little.  Stopping to find the hopper, we spotted a little Rocky Mountain Woodhouse Toad.  He had stopped and was lying perfectly still in the surrounding foliage.  A couple of times I even lost him in the viewfinder as I was readjusting my perspective and found it difficult to find him again.  He had some great camouflage!

Technical Details:
Canon 50D, 300 f/4l + 1.4tc, Extension Tube
Schramm SRA, Nebraska