Have an original New Year, or What are you going to do with YOUR blank canvas?

For the past several years, my first blog post of the new year generally features optimistic anticipation of the 365 days to come and displays the first meaningful photo I've taken for the year. This year, the thing is, I have yet to take my first meaningful photograph (OK, aside from the quickie I set up to illustrate this post).

Not that I haven't toyed around with some shots, but so far, nothing has emerged that I can look at and say, "That's worth sharing with the world." For the most part, I've spent the last couple of weeks with family, enjoying the holidays and only occasionally taking time to think about photography-related stuff. Then I received a piece of mail on Flickr from someone who has been following my photos both there and here asking for some advice, which got me thinking some more.

So here's what I've thought about. Perhaps you can use some of it to inform your own picture taking, or maybe even apply it to other things in your life.

It's OK if you're not original, but do be yourself about it. It's true that there is nothing new under the sun. There are only about three dozen basic story plots, upon which all of the novels, plays and movies of the world are based. Every innovation of humankind has been or will be achieved by applying one of 40 basic principles. Dozens of hit songs over the years have been based, in whole or in part, on the same four-chord progression.

It doesn't matter what you're setting out to do. Most likely, it's already been done, and done remarkably well by someone else. Or maybe a thousand someone elses. So what to do? Go ahead and do it, but make it your own. Theoretically, there is no one just like you, so whatever you do, imbue it with your distinct personality and outlook on life.

The story is told of a budding photographer who is waiting while famed photojournalist James Natchwey, who has covered every major world conflict since 1981, is reviewing his portfolio. Natchwey silently and quickly flips through page after page of the studen't photos, which represent, up until that time, his life's work. When he reaches the last picture, he looks up at the student, who eagerly awaits the master's critique. "I'm afraid," Natchwey intones, "These pictures tell me nothing about you as a person." End of session.

Do your photos provide a glimpse of you as a person? The things you care about? How you feel about your subjects? If you can do that, then you will have accomplished something -- work that is unlike anyone else's.

And that's a good thing.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Icy

Pictured here are some of the results of a Christmas Eve ice storm here in northern Illinois. I headed out around my house this morning armed with a hand-held flash unit and a blue gel to throw a little more chill into these pictures.





Things will warm up and the ice should be gone by midday. (N)ice while it lasted.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Sophie, the pug-nosed reindeer

My wife and I visited family in Michigan over the weekend. While there, I got a bunch of photos of my brother's pug, Sophie. He suggested that I do something with a set of jackalope antlers he had, so we staged, shot and Photoshopped our own holiday pug-a-lope.

No pugs were harmed in the making of this picture -- pug and antlers were shot separately, then joined on the computer. Interesting challenge photographing a pug -- their little wrinkly black faces just suck up the light. You almost have to overlight in order to get any kind of detail in the face.

I used a shoot-through umbrella on the main light, with the umbrella set about halfway up the shaft. Choking up helped to keep the light more focused and I aimed it slightly in front of the pug so as not to overdo the light on the chair and wall. A second light with a grid put some tight directional light on her head.

Posting here may be a bit light in the run-up to Christmas. Hope you have a great time with your own friends and family.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Winter silence

All I heard on this foggy winter morning was a gentle sigh of the wind -- the measured breathing of the world as it lay asleep under a blanket of white.

Sleep well.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

River

Missing someone this Christmas? Yeah, me too.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Silent sentinels

The old guard standing watch over the foggy winter morning.

Photograph taken last week at the Paul Wolff Forest Preserve near Elgin, Illinois. After the candle photos taken with a strobe setup, these straight-up shots were a breeze. A warmer, drier breeze to be exact.

More fog photos to come, and at least one more candle shot. Stay tuned.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

This little light of mine

I've been thinking about this shot for a while. Ever since I did the red Christmas ornament shots a week or so ago, I've been pondering what to do next and thought of photographing a candle out in the woods. I've just been waiting for the right time. The right time being either a fresh coating of snow or a foggy winter day.

The foggy winter day came today, so I packed a candle, lighter, camera, boom stand, flash, gels and grid and headed out to a local forest preserve. It was a pretty straightforward shot once the light was set up - the boom allowed me to place the flash directly above the candle to create a ring of light with a grid attached. A double layer of CTO gels allowed me to shift the color balance to incandescent to simulate twilight while maintaining a warm white light on the candle -- this was shot mid-morning.

The setup for the flash is shown below. After that it was just a matter of laying on my side in the melting snow until I framed up a few shots that I liked. Then home to change out of my wet clothes.



Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

A holiday twofer

Some holiday tchotchkies have been hanging our house for years. In the case of Mr. Snowman, it's been nearly three decades. I'm guessing your house also features some longstanding decorations that have hung around year after year.

Playing around with lighting featuring a lightbox to throw some uplight, a couple of strobes fitted with honeycomb grids, one for the key light and one with a green gel set up behind the subjects to throw a circle of color on the black foam board backdrop -- I still can't get over how a grid makes the light from a rectangular flash head into a circle, but I'll take it. Some strategically placed white foam board reflectors round out the lighting setup.

Hoping that things are going well for you in the runup to Christmas.

Cheers.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Snowbird

Black and white conversion of a color photograph.

Have a great weekend. Stay warm.

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.

Snowy day decor #1

Was out this morning shooting some of the overnight snowfall. Took a red plastic Christmas bulb with me for some Red Rule action. Played with available light as well as some off-camera strobe. Last time using the Nikon D90 with the 17-55mm f/2.8 -- gotta go back to the rental company today. Sigh. It's been a nice camera/lens combo. Used it at a gig over the weekend. It rocked. Sample pictures here. (While you're viewing the photos, become a fan of my photography page on Facebook -- you won't be sorry.)



Used a hand held flash with a grid and full Color Temperature Orange gel to get some warm spotlights on the cold snow. Played with color balance as well to get different effects. Now I gotta shovel my driveway before the big freeze hits later today, then head to a FedEx location to send the camera back.



Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Bound

At some point in the distant past, it was important for this wire to encircle this post. It set apart something of value from the wider world around it; it marked the personal property of the person who tied this and other strands of wire across the countryside.

Not so anymore. The property is no longer, the post and wire relieved of their duties long ago. Rusting and rotting, protecting nothing.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Bordering on winter

I'm usually not one to add borders or any other decorative elements to my pictures. I like to let the image stand on its own. But because of the white background of both this photo and the blog page, I decided to add a drop shadow to help define the photo's boundaries.

It also seems like we in the upper Midwestern US will cross the boundary into winter this week. Snow is in the forecast. Brace yourselves. Here we go again.

Have you ever thought you've figured out how to do something, then picked up some new information that makes you wonder how you ever did the things you thought you had figured out in the first place? I picked up a piece of Photoshop wisdom that has pretty much revolutionized how I do my post processing. Two pieces, actually, but I'll only cover one for now.

When adjusting levels, holding down the ALT key (on a PC -- I believe it's the Control key on a Mac) while moving the left and right sliders shows how much pure black or pure white is in your image. That made it very easy to know when the background of the photo above was sufficiently adjusted to white without adversely affecting anything else. Conversely, the combo of ALT plus the black slider helped me know when the pine needles and cones had maximum amount of definition without overdoing it. The result is an image with a very tasty amount of contrast

Up until now, I kept the sliders at the edges of where the histogram began to show image data. Visualizing the blacks and whites allows you compress the tonal range and add punch to any image. The above photo looks like it was taken in a studio under controlled lighting. In reality, it was taken outdoors on an overcast day following an overnight snowfall.

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.

Temporary toy

I got these goodies to play with for a few days. It's a Nikon D90 with a 17-55mm f/2.8 lens. I discovered Borrowlenses.com, an online camera equipment rental site that only charges you a very reasonable rental fee -- most other rental outfits put a hold on your plastic equal to the retail value of the equipment until it's returned.

Camera and lens, which includes all of their in-the-box accessories, insurance plus shipping both ways all adds up to about 20 dollars a day. Not too bad. I'm renting this to use on a photo gig this Saturday and am taking a couple of days to get acquainted with it. For about 10 dollars a day more, I could have rented a Nikon D3x, a top of the line pro camera, but I figured the learning curve may have been a bit too steep for shooting an assignment only two days after I've touched one for the very first time.

The photo of the D90 was taken with my trusty D60. Used three strobes, one with a honeycomb grid placed above the subject and another, also outfitted with a grid, to the right. A third strobe was placed six feet to the right and slightly behind the subject with a red gel to add some color highlights. This strobe was triggered via a synch cord. The other flashes were set to slave mode to fire when they detected the flash from the first strobe.

Maybe Santa will bring me a set of wireless flash triggers this year. I've been a good boy.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Cape Neddick lighthouse

Every once in a while, I have a reason to dig into my archive of negatives and slides to hunt for a picture. I received an e-mail from a gentleman in Iowa looking to purchase prints of lighthouses. He supplied a list of the specific ones he is looking for and I happen to have photos of five of the lighthouses on his list.

The one I had to work hardest to find was this one. It's the lighthouse at Cape Neddick in York, Maine. This shot was taken in August of 2001 during a trip through several New England states. I was still learning the intricacies of exposing film properly, and had the courage (or foolishness) to shoot the entire trip on slide film, which leaves little room for error.

After examining the scanned hi-res file, it looks like the rookie did OK. This shot was a tad overexposed, but it works. Actually, the photo above is a black and white conversion from the color transparency. The color version can be seen here.

Back then, I was about three years into following something inside me that made me want to learn everything I could about photography. I have to say that nearly nine years later, the fire is still there, continuing to push me onward. It's nice to go back every once in a while and take a look at some of the mile markers that have been passed along the way.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Smokin'

I've seen these kind of shots done before and wanted to try them out, but didn't have the equipment or the knowledge of how to do it. Thanks to the interwebs, I picked up the knowledge part. Thanks to seriously getting into portrait and wedding photography, I picked up the equipment part.

There's quite an involved process in getting smoke shots, from lighting (two strobes firing simultaneously from left and right against a black background) to playing with background colors in Photoshop (invert smoke image, choose a background color, invert it, layer inverted smoke image over it, multiply, flatten and invert). But the result is kinda cool.

Now to play around with colored gels on the flashes, inserting objects into the smoke trails and yada yada yada without burning the house down.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Make-A-Wish Monday

Fun with a wishbone left over from the Thanksgiving festivities. Yeah, it's kinda small -- we served cornish game hens with a wild rice stuffing. Mmmmm. Anyway, I thought I could do some photographic-type stuff with the bone and try out a new set of flash grids in the process.

The photo above has the flash set at 1/32 power with a 1/8 inch grid attached. The grid creates a strong directional light that wonderfully outlines a subject when placed perpendicular to the camera-subject axis. A sheet of white foam board is standing just out of the frame to the right to reflect some light back onto my fingers.



Same flash setup as above, only this time the flash is pointing directly down at the subject and is about 2 inches away. This time the grid creates a circle of light with a graduated falloff to black. Both this photo and the one above were shot at or on my dining room table at night. Normal room lighting was on the entire time -- I simply adjusted aperture down and shutter speed up to turn the ambient light to black and let the flash do all the work. No need to make the family sit around in the dark while I fiddled with some shots.

Last photo also taken at the dining room table. Afternoon sun is coming in through the window blinds behind me. White foam board propped up to catch the slats of sunlight and reflect some of it back onto my hand.



Here's wishing you a good Monday.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Home is where the hearts are

Have a Happy Thanksgiving. There's a lot to be thankful for.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Dried lace, tree and prairie grass

In that order, in diminishing degrees of focus. Late afternoon light (which comes dreadfully early this time of year).

Shot with 50mm f1.8 lens. Love the shallow depth of field this lens provides. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Autumn journey

If you haven't noticed, today's image is a little different than what's usually posted here. Or is it?

The photographs I make and share with the world are not so much depictions of things -- they are depictions of the feelings created by viewing those things within a particular setting. At least that's the goal I have in mind when setting out to create pictures.

The photo above started as a contrasty, lens flare-y, moderately underexposed shot of the hillside, the tree and the hiker against the afternoon sun. I punched the contrast even further, added a background photo layer of dried field grasses (blurred beyond recognition), then added another photo layer of stone tile to add some texture.

The result is an image of a person leaving the comfort of a life that is past (note the windmill in the lower left) and beginning an arduous journey into an uncertain future that grants no promises (note the dead tree) while at the same time harboring hope that things will work out well (note the bright sunshine amid the chaos).

In many respects, this photo is a self-portrait.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Portrait of November #5

An autumn tree situated on a glacial kame, Glacial Park, Ringwood, Illinois.

When I was in art school, one way the instructors taught us how to make better choices regarding our illustrations was to force us to use a limited pallete of colors. It helped instill some discipline when confronted with hundreds of possible choices regarding color and prevented too much of a reliance on any one particular color in our work.

Every so often I try to limit my photographic options to break an over-reliance on a particular mode of operating. I pretty much live with a wide angle lens on my camera. During the visit to Glacial Park, I put a 55-200mm zoom on camera and forced myself to view the world through a tiny 200mm window. With all the possible views available at the park, I wanted to forego wide-angle shots in favor of detailed "pieces" that could convey the sense of the end of autumn and the onset of winter.

I think that for the most part, I succeeded.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Portrait of November #4

I wonder if Stephen Covey is a photographer? The second of his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is "Begin with the end in mind." I find that I employ that nugget of advice practically every time I trip the shutter on my camera. I usually have a very well developed idea of the finished version of every frame I snap. That vision guides my choice of settings on my camera and the frame that I capture is well within the range of that which I envisioned. Usually.

As I considered these two subjects at Glacial Park in McHenry County, Illinois, I imagined that these two photos would "sing" with a deep twilight sky in the background. The only problem being that at the time I took these, it was three o'clock in the afternoon on an overcast day. I took them anyway, intending to lay in some color later.



The sky color came from another photo taken in precisely the conditions I imagined -- deep twilight on a clear evening. I sampled several areas of the sky in this photograph that I took last summer and used the colors as the basis for a graduated fill, which was layered and blended over the nearly white sky in the two photos above.

I used to be a photographic purist who only accepted what came out of the camera, for better or worse, with no manipulations afterward. Back then, I probably wouldn't have taken these photos in the first place, and if I did, they probably would have gone unpublished. These days, I let my vision be my guide and when necessary, employ Mr. Covey's sixth habit -- Synergize.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Portrait of November #3

More photographs from Glacial Park, north of Ringwood in McHenry County, Illinois. If you're wondering why I placed the subject where I did in the frame, the answer is simple -- I didn't have much choice. A brisk, chilly wind tossed the seed head back and forth. Since I was using a telephoto lens, I had to chase the pods back and forth, snapping as I went and hoping for a good shot. As it turned out, this shot was the most sharply focused of the several that I took.



The second photo was much easier to accomplish. The wind was gusty, but not enough to move the fallen branches (thankfully). I took my time and composed the shot to juxtapose the diagonal lines of the fallen tree against the verticals of the foreground grass and background trees which continue to live while the dead tree returns to the earth to nourish future flora.

Photographs taken with white balance set to "Cloudy" to add warmth and color to the scenes. Levels adjustments and slight color saturation added in post processing. Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Portrait of November #2

"Great minds run in the same channel." Or is it "All fools think alike?" No matter. Over at Listing Through Life, Roger is posting photos from Glacial Park that were taken the same weekend that my wife and I visited. Rog shot up the place on Saturday, I ionized a memory card there on Sunday.

We took our photos in basically the same weather and lighting conditions -- overcast. Roger had the foresight to visit the place on a warmer day. I lost the feeling in my face about a third of the way through my visit.

What's interesting is the way we're approaching the photos -- pretty much the same things photographed in similar conditions. Roger decided to embrace the monochrome -- since the palette of November is limited to begin with, why not take it further by going black and white?



Me? I decided to try to wrest every bit of color out of the landscape that I could. I set my camera's white balance to "stun." No wait, that's my phaser. White balance was set to "Shady" to pump some warmth into the photos and take advantage of the amber backdrop of prairie grasses. And -- confession time -- I pumped some additional color into some of the photos via Photoshop. None of the photos posted thus far have been enhanced. I'll let you know when I post the color boosted pics.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Portrait of November #1

Over the weekend, my wife and I hiked a couple of the trails at Glacial Park, just north of Ringwood, Illinois, near the Wisconsin border. The area has been described as "biological eye candy" and I can see why. The park is a mixture of rolling kames, prairie, ponds, kettles, bogs and oak savannahs. Nippersink Creek meanders its way through the northern reaches of the park.

In early autumn the prairie grasses turn a burgundy color. By this November day, it had settled into an amber hue. Large flocks of cranes circled overhead.



I had recently decried my annual photographic funk that hits in November. If ever there was a cure, this was it. What emerged from the day is a composite portrait of the month of November. While on the surface, everything appears still and asleep, if you look long enough, you'll see signs that life continues. The juxtaposition of the end of life and the continuation of it is what makes November what it is, and is what I'll present here over the course of the next few days.

Stay tuned.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Stumped

As I think back on those months of the year when I struggle the most, photographically speaking, I've concluded that the worst photography month for me is November. Maybe it has to do with it being an in-between time -- the splendor and glory of autumn is over and it's still a while before snow arrives to blanket the barren landscape. My November pictures just kind of sit there, unadorned, blah.

I've got to think of something to pump some life into this month's pics. Hey, I know, maybe I can do some night shooting, when you really can't see how boring the landscape is. Hmmm. Maybe put some people in the shots. Uh huh. Play around with some off-camera flash. Yeah. Maybe do all three at once. That's the ticket.

Night comes around every day. Got my flashes. Just need to find some victims folks willing to model for me. Hmmm.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Somebody get Hitchcock on the phone

A massive flock of starlings circling over a marsh at the Pingree Grove Forest Preserve near Pingree Grove in Kane County, Illinois. The vortex of black birds twisted and turned the entire time my wife and I were there, making a loud racket while so doing.

I took several shots each time the avian tornado approached our position, and this one best establishes the density of the flock.

Just glad they weren't directly overhead.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Under the sunset tree

More abstract nature pics from Pingree Grove Forest Preserve near Pingree Grove and Gilberts, Illinois.

The area near these two northern Illinois communities has seen an explosion of new subdivisions going up in recent years. Glad to see that part of the plan was to preserve a few hundred acres of open space in the middle of it.

And I'm sure the wildlife that was displaced by all of the construction appreciate it, too.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Driven to abstraction

I've taken several walks with my wife through the Pingree Grove Forest Preserve in Plato Township in Kane County since it opened in October. The first couple of times, I looked for interesting objects to photograph and was pretty disappointed with the results. Literal representations weren't cutting it for me. So, the last time we wandered through, I looked for interesting patterns in the scenery to photograph.

These backlit arched stems and grasses caught my eye, so I caught them right back. A combo of late afternoon sun, which occurs way too early in the afternoon anymore, long lens and big aperture for shallow depth of field makes the picture.

More abstractions to come.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Bombs away

Ah, creatures of flight. So graceful. So poetic. Hey, what's that speck in the picture?

Happy Monday.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Autumn ivy

It's too late to see fall colors on the trees in southeastern Wisconsin. The leaves have fallen. But there are still patches of colors in other places. This was spotted on the exterior wall of the Stage Coach Inn in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

For the most part, autumn has put away its coat of many colors and settled into something more plain and simple to await the arrival of winter.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

The view

A couple take in the view from a bluff overlooking Port Washington, Wisconsin. The dog would rather keep moving.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Main street

Port Washington, Wisconsin. Somebody's home town. And like every other home town, it has some residents who can't wait to leave it. Some who would never think of leaving. Some who treasure every day spent in that town, and others who let life pass as a blur.

I didn't have to stand in the middle of the street to get this shot. This was taken from a parking lot. A telephoto lens compresses the space and accentuates the downhill view. The wall of green beyond the houses in the upper left is a bluff that rises above the downtown area.

The view from there tomorrow.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Fright night

My wife and I had heard about the Pumpkin Walk that the village of Cedarburg, Wisconsin holds each year. Along with a fantastic array of Jack O'Lanterns along its historic main street, the local businesses stay open late to dish out treats to young trick-or-treaters.



I decided to try my hand at some camera trickery -- using a hand-held off-camera flash to capture the spooky fun. I set my camera's white balance to incandescent to give the ambient light a blue cast, then placed a full CTO (orange) gel over the flash to get a proper white balance on whatever the flash lit up. The flash was tethered via a pc cord to the camera. I held the flash at arm's length away from the camera and slightly above the subject.



It took a few tries to get aperture and shutter speed coordinated to balance the backgrounds and subjects (as well as perfecting my aim with the flash while composing the shot), but once everything was in place, I was able to fire away.



A complete set of shots from Halloween in Cedarburg can be seen in this set on Flickr.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Smile and say "Cheese"

Self portrait with a Kodak Brownie box camera, circa 1910 (subject is circa 1958). Everything on the camera appears to work. Only the size of roll film the camera uses is no longer manufactured. Someday I'll get some 4x5 black and white film, cut it to size and try some shots, then get a photography student from one of the local colleges to develop it for me. Some day.

Taken with three flash units. One was set up camera left with a shoot-through umbrella at 1/4 power tethered to the camera with a pc cord, one behind the subject with a short snoot at 1/32 power to throw a circle of light on the backdrop and one placed camera right and behind the subject, bare, at 1/16 power to add some edge light to my hand and camera. The two lights behind me were fired by optical slave, which detected the main flash and fired at the same time. I wuv me my flashes.

Weekend's here. Don't forget to smile.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.