A rather gray day (also, Dustin gets parentheses-happy) [news]
I really like off-camera flash. On a gray day, such as the one on which I shot this photo, it helps bring color and contrast to the scene, while not looking flat, as on-camera flash often does. It also helps keep bright skies (relative to the foreground, at least) from being blown out. This photo, shot with a 16mm-equivalent lens, really works (in my mind, at least) to draw the viewer into the soybeans as Jon checks some test plots.
I really don't like being rushed. Off-camera flash is great when you have time to set up a light stand (with or without modifier), get the subject positioned and shoot a few frames. On the farm, that is rarely the case, especially when I need to get 12 different-looking images to use. As we got to the field, sprinkles of rain started tingling on my skin. Not a good sign when you have $2500 of camera gear divided up between two hands. So out in the field we dashed, camera with control Speedlite in the right hand, slave Speedlite in the left, snapping a few photos before we had to dive back into the pickup.
Luckily, I like how this one turned out. Could it have been better? You bet - with more time, without impending rain, with a couple more light stands and perhaps some modifiers. But for what it is, I'll take it.
Getting up there - a story of two images [news]
Some ideas come to me gradually as I build and tweak them. Others slap me in the face, demanding attention. This idea falls into the latter category.
For our magazine at work, I had to take a photo of a farm couple who grow seed wheat. An easy enough photo to take if there's a nice field of wheat in which to take it. Unfortunately, I was shooing in November, when winter wheat in Oklahoma is only unkempt-lawn high, and it looks like grass to the casual observer.
The idea that smacked me suddenly was to get on top of one of the grain bins sitting in their yard and shoot down into it, with the farm family in the bottom of a bin with a touch of wheat. Throw two lights in the bottom and shoot.
This had a few base-level requirements, however. First, the family would have to be willing to let me crawl up on a grain bin, then be patient as I fiddled with lights and focal lengths. Next, I needed a bin with just a few bushels of wheat in the bottom - enough to cover the concrete floor, but a small enough amount so we could get into the bin and walk into it. Lastly, I had to be able to get two umbrellad lights to fire using a speedlight on top of my camera.
Thankfully, these three requirements came together and we were off to the races, with me on top of the bin while the couple craned their necks upward to look at me. 
At the end of the day, I got two shots that stood out - one where I zoomed in on the couple and the other that I shot ultrawide, with the top of the grain bin visible. One got used for the magazine cover, and the other was used inside.
I know I have my favorite (which is mainly an emotional attachment, as it often is), but I'll leave you to pick your favorite.
And for something totally different ... [news]
Here is a photo I took last fall for a magazine article. I wrote about Grandma Opal's Cookie Dough, a frozen food product produced by an Oklahoma farm family using their own hard red winter wheat. And this is about the most product photography you'll find me doing.
I wanted to show the frozen product, and of course, the final product. The finished cookie product was easy enough - you slap some cookies on a plate and shoot it; or you can just shoot the cookies straight out of the oven with a little bit of moisture still on them if you're like me and don't want to delve into any food prep voodoo.
For the frozen cookies (oatmeal raisin, if you care to know), though, I wanted to show the fact that you baked them at home. The only thing that would do is a baking sheet of dough and a red-hot oven element in the background.
So I heated my oven to a very low temperature, pulled one of the top cooking racks out a bit (as to get as much separation from the glowing element as possible so my flash didn't hit the bottom of the oven) and set the sheet on the rack. I shot a single reflective umbrella with a 50mm f/1.8 lens at f/4.0. I used a slower shutter speed to get the right amount of red glow, which required me to use a tripod and cable release. And after several minutes of the mind-boggling inefficiency of taking photos with the oven on and door open, this is the shot.
The final version for the magazine layout was cropped square.
I say all that to show you a picture of frozen cookie dough. Oh, and the cookies were delicious.
From the millet's point of view [news]
Photography is fun when you get dusty, dirty and muddy. Here's a shot that left me with muddy jeans and thorns in my hand. But it was worth it.
This is one of our members, Paul, in a millet field in central Oklahoma. An ultrawide lens, off-camera wireless flash and a beautiful day make this one of my favorite images from this fall's photo-taking spree.
I'll be posting more of my favorite photos from the past few months after the holidays. Until then, I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a blessed new year.
A shot forgotten [news]
Sometimes, I take a photo, then get back from shoot and forget about it. Sometimes I'm more excited about other photos and other times it takes a few views for a photo to grow on me - even if I do some post-processing. Both these factors contributed to this photo being forgotten by me until I was rutting around my hard drive today.
It's a photo of Treasure Lake in the Wichita Mountains in southwest Oklahoma. While it's a really fun place to hike, this shot was taken near the parking lot as I was returning from a farm family shoot.
It's not the best photo ever, but today it struck me. And maybe it'll strike you sometime, too.
Here, have a pano [news]
I'm still going through my shots from this summer, finding different images that I'm not drawn to more than right after I took them. This is a panoramic image comprised of several photos taken near the Many Glacier Lodge in Glacier National Park. It wasn't looking to be a very promising morning at first with lots of clouds, but with a few peeks of diffused sun and a few patches of blue sky, it was a very moody morning with a few great photo opportunities. I don't usually like "taken just off the road" photos from Glacier, since i have the most fun hiking in, but I'll make an exception for this photo. This would make a nice print at the standard 6" by 18" panoramic size.
Click the image to see a larger version.
Fall in (almost) Oklahoma [news]
Here's a fall color shot from extreme south east Colorado. It's not a great photo, but I guess it proves that I actually still take photos outside of work. That, and it also shows that I do occasionally update my Web site.
Near Hunter, Oklahoma [news]
I recently stumbled across another image I had forgotten. This wheat field shot was taken on my way to a shoot and interview in northern Oklahoma. It's very simple, but sometimes that works.
Uploads and an 'oops' [news]
I've uploaded four new photos - one and old favorite and the other three from a recent trip to Montana. They're all available in the landscape gallery.
As for the oops - my Web server was changed and I neglected to follow up on ensuring my files were transferred properly. If you tried to access the site recently (both of you), you probably hit a really old page telling you the site was down. As it turns out, I just needed to delete and old file that was somehow reintroduced on the server.
If you enjoy the site, or have comments, please feel free to let me know!
Dustin
