Occupying a thin slice of time and space

But then again, aren't we all?

A butterfly on a wall fits neatly into the shallow depth of field of a telephoto lens. Peck Road Farm butterfly house, Geneva, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Gimme shelter

A spider hides out under the petals of a coneflower. Moraine Hills State Park, McHenry, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Rocking the poor man's macro

A photo of a hover fly, not hovering. The guy was hanging around on a seed pod at the top of a stalk of grass next to my garage (don't ask why my grass is seeding out).

I don't readily have $1000 laying around to spend on a macro lens, so I make do with a couple of cheap 50mm f/1.8s taped together, face-to-face. A new 50mm lens will set you back just $130 or so. When not shooting bugs, the 50mm makes a great portrait lens (on a DX sensor camera, it's equivalent to a 75mm). The other lens is an old manual job from an older film camera that doesn't get used any more.

A couple of people have asked about the setup I use to shoot insect macros. I've posted photos of the lens combo, flash setup and sample pics on the James Jordan Photography page on Facebook. There's a pretty thorough explanation of how I go about using the equipment and how I approach shooting bugs and other small things. And if you're also on Facebook, be sure to "Like" my page, mkay?

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Turnabout's fair play

We've made the turn from spring to summer and with that, it's time for me to do my annual "turn the lens around and shoot something small" photo trekking.

In this case, I gaffer-taped two 50mm f/1.8 lenses together face to face so the back of one of the lenses points toward the subject. I can focus down to less than half an inch with this setup. Add a flash on a bracket that dumps light just past the lens and I can shoot just about anything that will stay still long enough for me to move in. You lose the corners of the frame, but a little cropping takes care of things nicely.

This damselfly was one of dozens flitting about my backyard yesterday, enjoying the warm weather.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Purple trillium

We don't seem to have white trilliums here in northern Illinois, but we do have these.

Seen in Trout Park, Elgin, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

More trilliums

I like these flowers. I have to travel to see them, but it's worth the view of the woods full of trilliums.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

In the woods

I love the dappled light of the woods. Pools of light. Puddles of shadows. The name of the game while walking a trail at Starved Rock State Park near Utica, Illinois was "isolation." Could I find interesting looking subjects, then use available light and shadow to make then stand out from their surroundings?



In a lot of cases, yes. In many more, no. But it was fun to see if I could turn light, shadow and subject into an image that would make someone want to look twice.



Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Wind-assisted photography

After the storm system plowed through the middle of the U.S. last weekend, the wind kicked up, at least in the northern parts of the Midwest. Seeing that I was in Door County, Wisconsin, and seeing that spring wildflowers had bloomed and seing that I wanted to get some photos of them while I was there, I had no choice other than to try to do so in the stiff breezes that raked the peninsula.



Focusing in close quarters is tough enough when the subject is still. When the subject appears to be riding a breezy bucking bronco, it can be nearly impossible. But for reasons that I'm still trying to figure out, these two photos -- a trillium and tulips -- have a nifty sense of motion about them despite my best efforts to freeze them in place.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Bustin' out ...

... which is what spring has been doing all over around here lately. My wife and I both remarked to each other on a walk last evening that it seems like spring just didn't creep in this year, it exploded onto the landscape with an urgency we don't ever recall seeing before.

Or maybe it just seems that way because I'm getting older.

Photo taken at Fox River Bluff Forest Preserve, St. Charles, Illinois. Aperture priority @f/4.5, 120mm, 800 ISO and -.03 EV. Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

A thing for spring

A spray of pink blossoms backlit by the setting sun. Fox River Bluff Forest Preserve, St. Charles, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Bloomin'

An obligatory nature shot, but it's spring here, so why not?

Magnolia blossom, Batavia, Illinois.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Hello, Dewey

More from yesterday's early morning communing with nature. Hoping to capture some more signs of spring this weekend.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

I got sunshine on a cloudy day

I noticed yesterday that the jonquils and daffodils are about ready to bloom in my backyard. I made a note to get out there today and shoot the not-quite-there blossoms in the warm light of the early morning sun. Only one problem. It rained last night and the day started out gray.

So I manufactured my own sunshine. I put a gold diffusion dome on a flash unit, placed a 1/4 inch grid on top of that to create directional light, clamped the flash unit to a spare piece of 2x4 lumber, placed it on the ground about four feet to the right of the flowers and fired it with a wireless trigger on the camera.

Voila. Highlights a-plenty with a touch of backlight on the blossoms and enhanced color in the background. With a nice warm glow to boot.



Have you seen those photos in magazines that show the sunshine streaming in through a window? Chances are, that light was created by a gelled flash unit or two or three. I gotta do me that sometime.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

The need for speed

I'm naturally averse to using high ISOs. Blame it on my days as a film photographer shooting landscapes. The grain (or noise) associated with pushing film to the upper limits of speed was a price that I was seldom willing to pay. I determined never to go beyond 400 ISO. That "speed limit" was something I carried over in the switch to digital.

I'm more willing now to pay the price for the ability to shoot in low light conditions. Being paid to cover events and weddings in less than ideal lighting does that to you, I guess. You do what you gotta do to get the pictures people want. 800 ISO became my new friend, along with a software program designed to reduce digital noise.

This fella was shot at 1600 ISO -- formerly a no-man's-land for me. A very small amount of on-camera flash was used to give the bird a catchlight in its eye, but that's all. The heavy lifting was done by my camera's sensor.

Not sure that I'll make a regular practice of shooting at 1600, but with photography, at least, I've learned to never say never.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Sticking up kind of stuff ...

African milk plant. Euphorbia trigona

... at the Mitchell Park Conservatory, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.


Prickly pear. Opuntia


Slipper plant. Pedilanthus macrocarpus

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

The spring thing

As if months of cabin fever doesn't do the trick, there's nothing like a trip to a conservatory to make you pine for spring.

Bolz Conservatory, Madison, Wisconsin.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Icy dream

Yet more from last weekend's frostiness.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Frosty morning

We've had a lot of those lately. Fog at night freezing on surfaces and turning the landscape into a sugar-coated spectacle.

Photographed by setting up a flash unit on a stand to backlight the branches. Two layers of warming gels on flash, with camera white balance set to incandescent to simulate the early morning sunlight that wasn't there. Fired with a remote wireless flash trigger.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Snowman (with bokeh background)

Christmas is the season of lights (oops, I mean the holiday season is the season of lights), and I can channel my inner Clark Griswold and light up the house like nobody's business. I can also play with out-of-focus circles of lights because there's just so many lights to make out-of-focus.

Bokeh is a photographic term used to describe the quality of the out-of-focus background produced by any given lens. You can get a thorough explanation here.

This photo was lit with a single strobe camera right. White reflector placed just off-camera to the left to add fill to the shadows. Silver reflector used to throw more reflected light onto the dark hat of the ceramic snowman (oops, I mean person of snow).

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

The obligatory "first snowfall of the season" shot

Because the first snowfall of the season happened overnight and I needed a photo to post today. Taken with a rental Nikon D90 fitted with a 17-55mm f/2.8 lens. That lens alone is a honkin' big hunk of metal and glass about the size of my D60 and its kit 18-55 lens together. But it do take some sharp, purdy pitchers.

I'd love to have both items on a permanent basis, and I probably could if I could talk all of the companies I pay bills to each month into letting me go a month without sending them any money. Hey, I'm just one guy and they probably wouldn't even miss it.

"Worm's eye" photo taken by holding the camera an inch from the ground (even I'm not crazy enough to lay on my belly in the snow, even though I've done it before to get a picture). I let the D90's 11-point autofocus do its thing.

Let's see. Wireless flash triggers, Nikon D90, mondo lens. I wonder if Santa reads blogs?

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.