Amy (wife) and I were relaxing around the house on a Sunday evening when I received a call from a number I didn't recognize. I answered the call and Ken Nunn greeted me on the other side of the phone. HERE is a little article to introduce you to Mr. Nunn. Nearly all  who have spent any amount of time in the south/central part of Indiana knows of Ken Nunn. Needless to say, I was a little surprised that I was speaking to Mr. Nunn. As it turns out, Mr. Nunn had seen some of my work hanging in Cheddar's and wanted me to photograph his law office building (located just off HWY37 and 3rd St in Bloomington). 

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A couple weeks after the phone call I meet with Mr. Nunn and he showed me around his building. He pointed out areas of interest (paintings, conference rooms, chandeliers, etc.) as we toured the place. I took some notes and then made plans to return to the building with my camera and tripod. 

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This was going to be an architectural shoot, so I had to get my hands on a tilt-shift lens. While I had never used one of these lenses before, I knew their importance with respect to architecture. When shooting structures for a client it is imperative for the vertical lines to appear vertical in the image. However, traditional wide-angle lenses create distortion and cause vertical lines to converge in the image (the building looks as if it is falling away from the camera). See the comparison below. 

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Big difference, right? It's amazing how the tilt-shift lens dramatically improves architectural photography. Lucky for me, borrowlenses.com had a Nikon 24mm f/3.5 PC-E lens available for rent (PC-E is Nikon's version of tilt-shift). Unfortunately these lenses are manual focus only. I had to put my camera in Live View mode and zoom into the image to make sure focus was perfect for every shot. I used a tripod for every single image. This forced me to be deliberate and move slowly - it's easy to miss shots when you're running around like a madman! 

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A Nikon D800 was used for all of the images. All of the final images are compositions made from 5 to 9 exposure bracketed images. This allowed me to capture a very wide dynamic range for both interior and exterior situations. The bracketed images were processed in Photomatix Pro, but that was just the start! As you can see from the images below, much tuning was required to get the final images. The 9 images in the figure below were compiled to create the final image near the top of blog post.

Screen Shot 2013-06-10 at 5.49.48 PM For the interior images, I had to deal with mixed lighting from the ambient (mostly sunlight through glass doors) and incandescent from the ceiling. This lighting mixture resulted in blue and yellow/orange hues throughout the interior images. All of that had to be cleaned up in photoshop. Mixed lighting can be tricky because the white balance within the image is different depending on the type of light that is present. See the image below for before/after. After is on left, before on right.

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The exterior images were a little more straightforward to process (with the exception of the nighttime images) because there was only one light source present (aka. The Sun). Each of bracketed images were first compiled in Photomatix Pro and then edited in photoshop. In photoshop, I brightened the white portions of the building and removed distracting elements from the scene. Here's a before/after. The left image is the final, the right image is straight out of the camera.

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The nighttime images were tricky to process. The ambient light fell to a bluish hue and the lawn lights were dominantly yellow/orange. After compiling the bracketed images in Photomatix Pro, I opened the images in photoshop to correct the wacky color balance. Most of the white portions of the building were yellow orange instead of white. I had to create several layer masks (hue/saturation, curves, etc.) to correct the colors. I left a little yellow/orange hue because I thought it would look unnatural for those areas to be pure white. The before/after image is below.  The right image is straight out of the camera.

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That's all I have for this blog post. Hopefully it gives you a decent idea of what goes into a shoot like this. As always, feel free to comment or ask questions in the comments section below. Thanks!

If the video made you want to learn more, feel free to look at the report Josh and I wrote for our project. Click HERE to view the pdf. It's very likely  that there are some mistakes in the documentation. Also, the parts list doesn't give a clear picture of how much $$$ we spent on the project. Many components and parts were not available in single quantities so we had to buy more than we actually needed. Also, most of the parts were  purchased at local electronics stores, which resulted in much higher prices. 

Again, I am happy to try an answer any/all questions you have regarding our project.

Here are some final images captured with our system.

Here are some first attempts at photographing a water balloon as it pops. The pictures needed to be snapped a fraction of a second sooner, but not bad for first time!

I had my camera with me so I threw it over my shoulder and walked in for some shopping. I had my 50mm f/1.8 on the D800. I snapped an occasional image as I was walking throughout the store. Stores like Applacres take you back in time. 

As I was shopping and taking pictures (as inconspicuously as possible) I noticed a couple of the workers checking me out. An older gentleman with an Applacres hat walked up to me and asked why I was taking so many pictures. I told him photography was a hobby of mine and that I was taking the pictures just for personal use. 

He seemed a bit relieved and then explained that he was the owner (or proprietor as he called it) of Applacres. He thought I was taking the images as part of an inspection for the FDA or some other agency. He said they usually get a warning before these inspections happen and was concerned that this was an undercover inspection of sorts. I apologized and told him of all of my fond memories of the place. Oops! Lesson learned :)

Those Brach's Jelly Nougats are deadly. I used to just pick out the jelly things and eat them. I now eat the whole thing like a mature adult.

This image sums up Applacres in my opinion. I had to act like I was taking a picture of something else so the 'ol boys wouldn't notice.

I didn't leave without grabbing an assortment of hard candy. That would be wrong.

The fresh, sweet corn was so good. It didn't need butter, salt or anything. Just plain good.

After I paid for all of my items, I decided to try to find the owner again and see if he would let me take his picture. He was too neat of a guy to pass up. I went around to the back of the store and found him. I asked if I could take his picture and he obliged. He walked over to my cart and gave me this little smirk/smile and I snapped one shot. I love it. Seemed like a pretty interesting guy. I am making a 5x7 print of the image and plan on delivering it to Applacres next time I make it down there.

If you haven't been to Applacres, you should make it a point to visit sometime this summer. The lack of rain has caused some issues with their local orchard, but they still have local/fresh fruits and vegetables. Get some apple cider if nothing else!

A while back I posted a few images of some neat cloud formations that caught my eye while I was commuting home from Indy. During that same setting, I snapped a series of 200 hundred images to be used in a time lapse video. I finally got around to compiling the images and SHEBANG!!! Here's the video. The 200 images were taken over 10 minutes and result in a 10 second video when ran at ~24fps. The time-lapse is at the end of the video. Enjoy!

The video below is just a simple behind-the-scenes look into the making of a short time lapse video. I have several similar projects that I am working on to show how I create time lapse videos, HDR images, etc. I hope you enjoy it!

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My brother, David, flew into Indy two weeks ago - he lives in Seattle. I offered to pick him up from the airport as I was going to be in the area for one of my classes at IUPUI. His flight was due in at 11:00pm on a Wednesday night and I had class from 6:00-9:15pm that night. Class was particularly interesting uneventful and exciting boring that night so I didn't stick around for the second half. Instead, I opted for a 5-10 mile hike around the westside of Indy (White River State Park, Zoo, and Canals) to eat of the time until David's plane landed. I grabbed my D800 and tripod and started walking. It was around 7:30pm. The temp was perfect and there wasn't a cloud to be seen. There were many folks biking, jogging, running, walking, kissing, doing taxes, chasing llamas, etc in the park areas.

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The sun was just starting to touch the horizon. I was taking dozens and dozens of pictures looking for appealing angles and views. That's when a brilliant, possibly game-changing thought came to mind.

"What if I were to take a short video clip of a particular scene and then 'fuze' a beautifully retouched image of that same exact scene into the clip?" I asked myself. 

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I'm talking about a seamless fusion - where the video and image are perfectly aligned. So the rest of the night I did the following at each new scene.

1) Record a 30sec clip at 1080p

2) Without change focal length or anything about the composition, take 7 images to be merged into an HDR.

Ok, I admit. I may have spoke in hyperbolic terms a few lines up, but it is a pretty cool little technique. Check out the video above and let me know what you think. There are 10 'fusions' in the video.

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The bottom line is this, I thought it would be cool to see a scene as recorded by unedited video and then gradually transition to a retouched, HDR (3 of the images are not HDR) version of the scene. It gives one an idea of how a scene can be transformed by post-editing. 

Hope you enjoy! As always, feel free to ask questions.

"Why are you blogging about a BLT sandwich?" asks the reader. 

"Because I have a new camera and random things are exponentially more fun to photography!" says Stephen.

"But why wasn't a BLT interesting before your newly acquired camera?" poses the reader.

"Quit asking questions." says the halfway perturbed Stephen.

Make sense now? Good. 

Step 1: Cook 'B'

Be sure and have 911 ready to dial. Skin grafts aren't uncommon after cooking a package of bacon.

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After several skin scorching grease pops (pretty sure I have 3rd degree burns) I was rewarded with a plate of mouth-watering bacon. You aren't cooking it right if it isn't painful. 

DSC_1292 Step 2: Prepare 'LT'

Our head of lettuce was looking pretty sorry, but after stripping most of the outer layers off we found some edible innards. The sight of juicy, ripe tomatoes would have had no effect on me several years ago, but Amy has since knocked some sense in me. It is not within the scope of this blog to dissect the complex paradigm surrounding the Mayo vs. Miracle Whip debate. Let's just say that there are normal people on both sides of the debate. Well, that's debatable...

DSC_1307 Step 3: Prepare The Invisible 'T'

The invisible 'T' is for toast, which for some reason didn't make the name of the sandwich. That's right folks - good ol' fashion white bread. 

DSC_1312 Step 4: Apply Dressing 

No BLT is complete without a healthy application of Mayo.

DSC_1315 Step 5: Assemble Final Product

DSC_1318 Random Fact: Did you know that Ruffles have ridges? Now you do.

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That's all folks. Thanks for stopping by and spending a few mindless moments reading/looking around. 

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The progression of the proposal - the images flow left to right, top to bottom.

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Behind The Scenes (BTS) Section

The images below give a glimpse into how we created some of the shots. The more I shoot, the more I make an effort to remember and take some setup shots. They benefit me, because it allows me to reference the lighting setup and people like seeing behind the scenes stuff.

The large softbox is a Westcott Apollo 28" and the small softbox is a LumiQuest SoftBox III. This combination works like a charm and it's pretty mobile and light. I love using the small LumiQuest III as a backlight because it adds such a nice edge that separates the subjects from the background. Things tend to look flat otherwise. Both flashes were triggered using my trusty RF-602 triggers that I have been using for a couple of years. As always, feel free to ask questions in the comments section below. I used my Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-S and Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 throughout the shoot.

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Thank you for reading. Click the RSS link below to subscribe to my blog and feel free to share the blog on Facebook, Google+, and wherever else.

Warning: all video clips were shot by an amateur videographer (me) with only one day of experience in DSLR video recording. 

Welcome to another mind bending and profound blog entry. I'll try to provide some details into the techniques I used to capture the images shown in the post. For those who need visual stimulation, please watch the video above :) Otherwise, risk having your eyes glaze over...

Before I get going, I would like to thank Buddy Mitchell and Sheila Stephen for giving me a shot at this. And for those who have never seen/heard Sheila Stephen and The Rodeo Monkeys, they are a talented group of singers and musicians. They put on a great show. 

This was my first 'official' concert photography gig to date and I was excited to have the opportunity. Concert photography is particularly challenging because venues are typically very dark and the folks on stage tend to move around just a bit! This makes things interesting on a couple of fronts:

1) Cameras typically have a harder time acquiring focus in this environment.

2) You are forced to use high ISOs, which can make things a noisy mess if you're not careful. 

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To deal with these difficulties, I decided to use my iPhone 4s camera... Actually, I approached the shoot knowing that I would need to pick a good compromise between a slow shutter speed, wide open aperture and high ISO. Oh, and these values would need to be adjusted continuously as to match the lighting scenario. I was shooting with a Nikon D300s that I rented from Roberts Photography (Indianapolis, IN) and it turns out workable shots up until ISO2000 and things get messier when pushed to ISO3200. I shot RAW format to give me the most latitude in post processing. For lenses, I used my Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 AFS and Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 - both were pretty much shot wide open during the whole concert. Ideally, I would have shot with fast primes to allow lower ISO values, but my 'arsenal' of lenses is lacking in that arena. 

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Randy rocking it out! 1/125s, f/2.8, ISO2000 @ 45mm

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Screen shot 2012-04-22 at 8.30.11 AM Buddy Mitchell looking all smiley! The image on the left was taken with flash. The image on the right was taken without flash. Big difference, eh?

As I tried to emphasize in the credits section of the video (top of the page), I am as amateur as one can get in the world of DSLR video. However, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to at least play around with the video recording in between snapping stills of the concert. This too proved to be very difficult, but in the end I think I captured a few minutes of nice footage. All of the footage was processed and edited in Adobe After Effects CS5 and the final project was assembled in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5. All of the effects, transitions, and arrangements were done manually - not with a template. In anticipation of receiving my pre-ordered Nikon D800 I have been pushing myself to learn the ropes of the two Adobe tools I just mentioned. The whole world of DSLR video is very intriguing to me and you can expect to see more of my movie musings when I receive my new camera.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. Feel free to ask questions in the comments below. Click the RSS link to subscribe to my blog or 'like it' on Facebook. Click here, here, or here to see all of the images from the concert. 

As a kid, I remember coming home after school with my best friend, PJ, and digging holes in the ground so we could sit inside and eat crackers. Profound, right? We would explore the hills of Springville and curiosity would often lead us to do things that probably weren't too bright. There weren't a whole lot of cares or worries back then. My only task was to enjoy life and be the recipient of a family that loved and provided for me. 

I am not trying to romanticize the past, because life right now is pretty amazing for me. I am what you would call a lucky dude. My wife, Amy, is a charming and wonderful human being who lives life with a passion. She is so compassionate and giving, she makes me feel like a selfish little brat. However, life is anything but simple at this moment. There are a lot of things competing for our attention. I realize this isn't a revelation to 99% of you reading this, but our lives are crazier than yours :) haha

My college Spring Break was two weeks ago and I took two day off work to slow down. I met my brother, Tim, for lunch on Friday (something I very rarely have the chance to do) and we caught up on things and talked about big ideas. We ate at Arby's - a place where all of my brothers and sisters worked at one point in their life, including me. Afterwards I made my way to my dad's house to hang out with him. On the way I decided to stop by Tim & Jodi's house to say 'Hi'. Both of my nieces were home and the neighbor girl was over and they were all playing outside. It was a beautiful day and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to act like a kid. 

My youngest niece, Ashtyn, wasted no time in showing off her domain. The first stop was the trampoline. She was pretty pumped about it. Next, the swings. I pushed all three of the girls for about 3 hours or so. Morgan was taunting me by saying her daddy pushed her higher than what I was pushing her. Ashtyn kept wanting to switch between the big swings and her little blue swing. Next, we fed the chickens. She started out by handing single grains to the chickens - she became more generous eventually! After that, we rocked the swings some more. To wrap things up, we climbed into the playhouse and played 'drive-thru'. I ordered a triple Big Mac with sour cream, but they were out of those. Oh, and who could forget to mention Morgan's tendency to just 'appear' in view of the camera looking all posed and beautiful? I'm pretty sure she was thinking, "Who, me?" Jodi and I were cracking up at her. 

Remember simpler days and do one thing to simplify your life. Thanks for reading.

**Slightly Technical**

As always, I had a camera with me and I decided to experiment with the video recording feature that was present on the Nikon D300s that I was renting. I had never played with video on a DSLR and it was very challenging. I think it had something to do with the fact that it was all manual focus and I was shooting with a 50mm f/1.8. I had the lens wide open or near wide open through all of the footage (i.e. shooting at f/1.8).

There is a very good chance I will be less than consistent with blogging, but I hope to at least use this medium to have fun with those who are bored enough to follow and provide a behind the scenes look at some of our photoshoots.

In the meantime, here are a few random images from my website that you might not have seen already. These were taken on Isle of Palms, SC. Nearly my whole family rented two beach houses down there for Christmas 2009. It was a blast.