02-21-13 Hand Turned (Reprise)

TS Eliot was wrong. Februrary, not April, is "the cruelest month." At least for me. Yes, the days are getting longer. Yes, the temperature ocassionally soars into the high 20s. But it is often in the heart of February that what I think is SAAD (seasonal affective disorder) hits me. And I lose my will to post new photos to this blog.So I'm posting old stuff. . . But, in the event that you haven't meticulously looked at all four years of my posts, you've probably never seen some of these. So maybe they're not old.

02-17-13 The Second Story

I had mentioned yesterday that I didn't get enough time in the Minnesota state capitol building the other day. I made up for that by going back late yesterday morning. I knew when I went that I was going to take several series of photos with my camera on a tripod so that I could later process them into high dynamic range photos (HDR).This photo was taken on the second floor looking west. One of the things I like about the way the camera interprets this space is the way it sees color. The columns and the stairs are lit by a skylight but the space behind the columns is lit by incandescent lighting. The space behind the columns is warm and the columns are a cooler gray due to this lighting.The other thing I like in this photo is the amount of texture that is present. I think that texture can be both something you feel (such as the tops of the Corinthian columns) and can be something you see (such as the variegated stone in the columns.) And there is plenty of both in this scene.I will be posting at least two more from my "Minnesota State Capitol" series. I hope you like HDR architecture.Canon 5DIII 1/5s f/6.3 ISO400 16mm

02-16-13 Capitol Dome (HDR)

Some of my photo/media students and I made a short stop at the Minnesota state capitol building recently. This is the kind of place I'd spend a few hour photographing, not 15 minutes. But we were on a tight schedule.But during my time I did capture a few photos of this beautiful structure, including this HDR photo of the dome from floor level.

02-12-13 Back In the Days of Film

Here's a photo that was taken with my Canon film camera 12 years ago. Yes, film! If you look closely, you will see white specks. Those are dust specks on the negative. And if you look closely again, you will see film grain. Holy cow!My workflow for this photo was as follows

Visit the Como Park Conservatory in Minnesota

Take the photo

Go home

Develop the film in my makeshift darkroom

Scan the negative with my very slow high resolution film and slide scanner

Put the scanned file in a folder on my Mac

Burn the folder to a CD (yes, a CD)

Put the CD into a CD case

Put the CD case in my very crowded closet

Forget about the CD case for 12 years

Look for a shirt that fell off the hanger in my closet

Find the CD case

Forget about the shirt and everything else

Post the photo after minor retouching in Aperture

There you go. And, if you ask me, I like the photo but it's not all that special. As if no one else ever stood here and took the exact picture. . . .

12-07-12 Morning Stroll

This photo was published on Instagram a while ago but I think my audience is a little different here, so here you go. This is Katie and Brian strolling in their beautiful neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota.

04-16-12 Take A Closer Look

While I was waiting for a few of my students to take photographs of the amazing Cathedral of St. Paul, I stepped outside and took a few shots of the exterior. I had my 70-200 telephoto with me and so I focused on details.It occurs to me that what you see in this photo and how you see it are totally dependent on the photographer. And that's an interesting power to have. . .

04-15-12 Textured Geometry

Lately, I have become very conscious of the role that texture plays in my photography and that what attracts my eye is often the textures in a scene, not the scene itself. And because textures are enhanced (or even caused) by light, photography is all about light. The word photography literally means "writing with light." Study this photo and if you can see the textures, you can see the light.Having said that, it's hard not to see all of the textures in this photo, which is of the south facade of the Minnesota State Capitol building in St. Paul. I liked the color version but when I turned it into black and white, the textures became more important than the color.For those who care, these columns are Corinthian in style, which is characterized by the elaborate design at the top, known in architecture as the capital.

St. Paul Cathedral - Another View

I like the lines and curves and angles in this shot. In fact, if you study my architectural photography, I may seem a little "hung up" on lines, and curves and angles. I guess that's my style?

St. Paul Cathedral

I wasn't planning to photograph the St. Paul Cathedral yesterday morning. Instead, I went off to photograph the capital building in St. Paul, Minnesota. Unfortunately, there was scaffolding all over the dome. So I took photos of the nearby Cathedral.Some of you are wondering if this photo is "real" or whether I put in a fake sky (or a fake cathedral!)? This is real, though it is actually two photos - my camera doesn't have the ability to expose a bright sky and the north side of a building and make it look this this. In photography talk, it doesn't have the "dynamic range" to do this.Thus, I took two photos, exposing one for the sky and the other for the church and then combined them into one picture. This is called HDR photography. It's a neat trick that helps the camera see things closer to how the human eye does. The human eye has an incredible dynamic range.

Another World

There is a stretch of Summit Avenue in St. Paul that is lined with mansions that harken back to an era of of conspicuous opulence. The JJ Hill House is certainly an example. Completed in 1891, it was known as the "showcase of St. Paul." Today it is no longer inhabited but is instead open to visitors.This photo is a detail of the grand staircase that leads from the foyer to the second floor. Everything you see here was hand carved by meticulous craftsmen and the detail is amazing.I wonder how often they have to dust all of the woodwork?

06-05-09 JJ Hill House - St. Paul

By Scott Shephard

View fullsize

This photo is mostly monotone (brown), with many dominant sloping lines. If anything makes this photo interesting, it's the lines and not the color. Do you look for lines when you frame a photo?