I'm An Industrial Worker...

As a result of working in the oil field construction industry, I'm exposed to more than my share of industrial back drops. Cranes, back hoes, front end loaders, fork lifts, trucks you name it I'm around it all day. So naturally I'm drawn to industrial scenes.I love construction photos, equipment ad photos and the general every day industrial view.

Every once in a while, I walk around work looking for something different. Rusty crusty high contrast scenes are my favorite. I end up with stuff like these. I hope you enjoy them.











Just a typical view at work.

Chris.

Reverse Mount Your Lens For Macro Photography.

After listening to a podcast interview on This Week In Photo today where Frederick Van Johnson interviewed Canadian photographer Don Komarechka. They talked about macro photography and a tip at then end was about turning you lens around and holding it against your camera. I've tried that with my 50mm before but didn't like the results. I tried it again today and loved the results so much that I tried it with my Tamron 18-270mm. This is the result. Look at that shallow DOF! I think I will need to buy an adapter and play around with this some more.

Chris.

Shooting Ducks.

Every so often I go for a walk at lunch time. It's a nice break from work. Just down the road is a duck pond. There are always a couple of ducks there to entertain me.

Chris.

Personal Projects.

I've been reading a lot about getting one's creative juices flowing. One idea that keeps coming up is a personal project. Something you give yourself to just work on. You can have a time frame or make it an ongoing project but a project it is and should be treated like a paying project.

I've decided to start a few projects of my own.

Here is the very first image from my first personal project.

This project is called UP. It's going to be a collection of photos that are simply looking up.

More to come. Check back often!

Chris.

Goose On A Hot Tin Roof

The Canada Geese are back! Sure they crap everywhere but they are such a beautiful bird. This one was checking things out from atop our storage racks at work.

Chris.

iPhone Camera Apps - My Thoughts - Part 2 - Camera Awesome.

Camera Awesome is brought to you by the brilliant folks over at Smug Mug. They have jumped on board with the iPhone app.

I've had a chance to play with it for a day now and I've really enjoyed using it. It's an amazing camera app.

Here are the features I have explored and some thoughts on them.

Exposure and Focus.

Simply tap on the screen at the point you wish to focus on and the app will focus there and set your exposure.

If you wish to set the exposure and focus from different parts of the image, simply tap with two fingers and the focus and exposure are separated into two movable points you can then move anywhere you wish and tap them to lock in the settings. This is a great feature.

Image Capture.

There are multiple shutter modes in the app.

Single Shot for just that, single shots. It's quick. No delay in the capture of the image.

Stabilized gives you a nice image stabilization. Very handy on those pot of coffee days.

Big Button allows you to tap anywhere on the screen to snap the shutter.

Slow Burst and Fast Burst just as the names says. Burst mode. The fast burst uses a lower resolution though.

Timer gives you a one to sixty second timer.

Interval gives you timed photos from 1 second apart to 60 seconds apart. I like this one for doing time lapse images.

Composition Tools.

There are 5 different compositional overlays ranging from rule of thirds to the golden spiral. There is even a horizon level.

You can apply effects automatically as you take the images if you like and you can choose to have the image automatically uploaded to one of the services you choose.

Editing Screen.

You can edit images you take with the app or select one from the camera roll if you like.

There are many filters, special effects and textures you can use. Several are included with the app and there are hundreds more you can purchase in packages for a very reasonable price.

I'm not a big fan of all the presets and special effects but there are a few that I really like the look of.

For me the big one is the Awesomize button which is much like an auto fix button. It has a slider to adjust the intensity of the effect and allows you to also adjust the sharpness, color temperature, vibrancy and contrast in the effect. I'm a big fan of punchy contrasty photos so this one is a big happy button for me.

Sharing.

Once you are finished editing the image to your liking you can either save it to the camera roll or share it out to your favorite photo sharing service. Smug Mug, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram and Twitter are included in that list along with many other sharing options.

Info Screen.

The info screen displays information about the image. The camera settings, file size and time/date as well as the status of the file. Those being edited, shared, archived and exported.

The only thing I can think of at the time of this writing that it is missing is the ability to add a a blur effect to the image. If it had that, it would be perfect in my eyes. As it is, it's the best camera app I've used on my iPhone yet.

I highly recommend it to everyone who wants more from their iPhone camera.

Here are some sample images I shot just for this post.

This one is straight out of Camera Awesome with no editing at all. A nice clean photo.

This one is with the Awesomized button pressed. It really brings up the shadows and the clarity in the image. I like it a lot.

This one is using the Road Trip preset. It like the dirty, grungy look of it on the metal parts and pieces. I may use this one quite a bit.

Of course this is all my opinion but I sure like this app. Great job Smug Mug. I hope to see the blur effect added in eventually but the lack of it is not going to stop me from using this app when I take photos with my iPhone.

Chris.

Shadow And Light.

I love the way window blinds throws shadow and light when the sun is just so.

It just makes me smile.

Chris.

Failed Project.

Have you ever had a project that you thought was a great idea? The more you thought about it, the more you thought, this is going to be awesome. I have them all the time.

My latest was a photo I wanted to do putting an industrial spin on a fine dining setting. I had all these ideas of using oilfield blind flanges as plates, wrenches as forks and spoons, exacto knives for steak knives, etc. It seemed like such a great concept, at the time.

I spent several days thinking about the setting. The table top would be just a board, the background was to be an insulated wall. It seemed like it would be such a great shot. All the rust and the shiny tools together.

Well, it was not. The shot I envisioned just would not come to be. I took 15 or 16 shots and the best one I came up with is this.

Just goes to show you that not everything you think is a great idea for a photo actually is a great idea. But, at the same time, if you don't try, you will never know for sure. Sadly though this was to be my first great fine art image! Haha! Well, it's a lesson. And know I know.

Now on to the next crazy idea, whatever that will be.

Chris.