2. February 2012 by Friedhelm.

I got a few chestnuts and I envisioned black and white image to bring out the structure of the nuts. I decided to used a single strobe positioned at about 11 o’clock to create some shadows and a harsh light. I did not use a soft-box or umbrella to soften the light instead I used “barn-doors” to create a small directional light source. After a few shots I decided to ad a small reflector on the right hand side to light up some of the dark spots.

Enjoy and keep on photographing!

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24. December 2011 by David.

I was playing with my light box, thinking about what would reflect bottom sourced light.

To create this image I used a extension tube attached to my 28-135mm lens and set the lens wide open at f36 to get as deep a depth of field as possible.  I purposely used the background fabric to add  some texture to the blank lower left and upper right. Now it goes back on the tree.

Keep clicking

Dave

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6. December 2011 by Friedhelm.

There is not too much blooming at Gamble Garden (Palo Alto, CA) in December. I still found a number of great opportunities to photograph. I found these petals quite interesting and photographed them using my round reflector to control the light at least a little bit. 180mm macro lens, f13, 1/50sec., ISO 400, tripod mounted.

Enjoy and happy photographing!

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2. December 2011 by Friedhelm.

I picked up a bunch of leafs and picked looked for a leaf that I could photograph in a studio setting. I used a single light source and a reflector card to create this image.

Enjoy and keep on photographing!

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5. October 2011 by Friedhelm.

I had to photograph these roses. I wanted them to shine and create dreams of joy and happiness. I used two umbrella strobe lights and tried several different settings until I finally got what I wanted. I post processing I used several filter plug-ins from Topaz and Nik to create the final look.

Enjoy and keep on photographing!

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22. July 2011 by Friedhelm.

The famous photographer Ruth Bernhard inspired me to photograph gummy bears. She photographed lifesavers in 1930. I decided to try something similar with gummy bears and I will share some more photographs on my other blog www.passionforphotos.com next week.

Enjoy and happy photographing!

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22. April 2011 by Friedhelm.

Two of my Azalea bushes are in full bloom. I got up at around 6:30 AM to photograph them. I used a 100-400mm lens on a C-sensor camera. Since there was no wind blowing this morning I used a higher f-stop to give me more depth of field. Camera setting: 400mm focal length, f11, 0.5sec. at ISO 100.

Enjoy and happy Easter

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12. April 2011 by Friedhelm.

How important is the size of an image? How much influence does the size of an image have on the viewers and photographers perception? And how about all the photographic rules, like the rules of thirds? I noticed that I shoot more images in the portrait format than in landscape and that I like the 6X4 standard size camera image. Since most movie theatres have wide screen and most DVDs are in the 16:9 format I decided to photograph in this format. I am curious what kind of impact the change of size has on my photography.

Enjoy the first image which I photographed yesterday morning at one of my neighbors front yard!

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16. February 2011 by Friedhelm.

I used a flash creating this image. Balancing the natural light with the artificial light can be a problem but is definitely an opportunity. I closed my lens way down to darken the background and used the flash to lighten the blossoming branch.

Enjoy and happy photographing!

Posted in Central Valley, Plants, Macro, Trees | Print | No Comments »

31. January 2011 by Friedhelm.

January 31 is usually the first day where there is some tree blooming in the Central Valley of California. I was looking for signs of Spring over the week-end and photographed the above image. On my morning exercise walk I usually carry only one lens with me. This forces me to stay focused on the subject and not on the lens, however I cheat a little bit by also having an extender with me to get some close-up shots. In this case I used a 100-400 mm zoom lens with a 12mm extender and despite the fact that the 100-400 mm lens is not a typical macro lens I still love the image.

Enjoy and happy photographing!

Posted in Central Valley, Macro, Trees | Print | No Comments »