Enlightened Confusion » Photography

Evening Photo Walk: Downtown Indy’s Westside

mas — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:58:32 +0000

It has been a while since I shot downtown. I recently purchased an excellent wide angle zoom lens, and I wanted to give it a workout. Downtown seemed like the perfect subject, so off I went. Given the evening light, I decided on the west side, shooting mostly east. Turns out, there were three major events going on the west side. Despite this, my super secret street parking location was still available, and, no, I’m not going to share.

The 10-22mm was a lot of fun, and I’m pretty happy with the results. The light was kind of harsh, so many shots would have benefited from a UV or other polarizing filter. Here’s one of my favorites; the rest are on the photos page.

Evening Photo Walk: Coxhall Gardens

mas — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 04:36:03 +0000

A stroll through Carmel’s newest park.

See more on the photos page.

Christmas Pics

mas — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 04:21:05 +0000

I’ve been organizing the pictures I took over the Christmas holiday with my family. Here’s a couple of interesting low light pictures. I had the forgot to adjust the focus point on the manger scene, my bad. The slow shutter really made it hard to hold the camera still enough. I really wish I would have brought my tripod with me.

[Show as slideshow]

Playing with Animoto

mas — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:45:12 +0000

On a recent episode of This Week in Photography, one of the hosts mentioned a new Web 2.0 site called Animoto. This site does slideshows right!. I gave it a try today. Within minutes, I was able to throw some photos I snapped of Stephanie Browning performing at Indy Jazz Fest this year, along with one of her tracks I bought on Amazon, to produce this:

Seriously, it took maybe two minutes total of my time, and another five for their servers to render the video. That’s just awesome. I need to play with it a bit more, to see how much customization they will allow, before I give it an unconditional thumbs up, but it is definitely worth checking out if you are into this sort of thing.

If they don’t have iPhoto or Aperture plugins in the works, I sure hope they are thinking about it. A way to post to Flickr would be nice as well.

Small Town Indiana

mas — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:36:28 +0000

I traveled home last weekend to the small town of Hebron, Indiana to visit my family for the Thanksgiving. It was a great time, but a horribly dreary couple of days for taking pictures. Still I managed to snap a couple when the sun temporarily poked its head out:

Morning Photo Walk: The Monon Trail

mas — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:36:33 +0000

I thought I would combine three of my favorite activities today: A brisk walk on the Monon Trail, Photography, and Audiobooks. So, I set out with an Einstein biography on my Nano and a camera bag on my shoulder from the 96th street Park and Ride.

I got a late start today, so the sun was higher in the sky than I would have liked. This resulted in some harsh light, especially when I got to the Monon center.

The autumn colors really are in full swing right now. It really was a great morning for this sort of thing.

See the Photos page for the rest.

Morning Photo Walk: Lockerbie

mas — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:50:18 +0000

I got up early and a did did another morning photography walk this today. I wasn’t as inspired as I was with the last one. Then I had a purpose, I knew exactly what I wanted to do: capture the new stadium. This time, I didn’t really have a purpose. I just want to capture some more downtown architecture. I ended up in Lockerbie and wandered over to Mass. Ave. It is one of the older areas of the city that has still retained its original feel. Here’s one of my favorites; the rest, as always are on the photos page.

Morning Photography Walk: Lucas Oil Stadium

mas — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:49:45 +0000

I got up early this fine Saturday morning for the sole purpose of getting out to take some pictures. I decided my destination was the recently finished Lucas Oil Stadium. I’m not particularly a football fan, but, hey, I’ll be paying a half a point every time I eat out for the next thirty years to pay for the thing. So, I might as well get some enjoyment out of it.

It’s a beautiful building…kind of a modernized twist on a turn of the century manufacturing center. The choice to skew it on the log was brilliant. It keeps it from looking too much like a factory and puts the city skyline in all of its site lines. That is difficult to capture, however, because of the nature of the surrounding area. The near south side has all of its utilities above ground, making it hard to find a vantage point to capture the scale of the thing, its relationship to the skyline, or even the roof line, that isn’t obstruct by a utility line.

Fortunately, the land between the RCA Dome and the new stadium is being developed and has been cleared. This allowed for some nice shots juxtaposing the new against the old.

I made eighty-eight shots is just under an hour. The wonders of digital. Fortunately, Aperture makes narrowing that down to my twenty or so favorites a fairly quick process. See the photos page for all the rest.

Using shutter speed to change the look of moving water

mas — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 02:54:30 +0000

I visited the Indianapolis downtown canal district a couple of weeks ago to take some pictures. There is a waterfall at one end of the canal where an old set of locks used to be. I used the opportunity to experiment with the looks you can create with flowing water using shutter speed.

If your shutter speed is really fast, say 1/250 of a second or less, you will see every stray drop of water caught in a moment of time. I like to call this beaded water. Here is an example:

On the other end of the spectrum, using a slower shutter speed, say 1/30 of a second or more, will result is a smooth image where the flowing water blurs together. I like to call this curtain water. The example:

For the rest of the canal pictures, visit the photos page.

A Walk through the IMA Gardens

mas — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:55:50 +0000

I recently revived my interest in photography. Getting a new toy will tend to do that for you. However, as the boys on This Week in Photography will tell you, it’s not the gear; rather, it’s the person, his eye, and the subject that make a picture. The other thing the TWIP guys often say is that the best way to improve your photograpy is to take pictures. So, today I decided to work on my nature photography, and made a trip to the beautiful gardens at the Indianpolis Museum of Art.

With the cloudy conditions today, the light was inconsistant, but I think I managed to get some nice shots. For some of the long shots, I really could have used a haze filter. I also discovered I really like taking macro shots. I may just have to get a true macro lens. Anyway, here are some of the better shots. Enjoy…

ima-garden-2008-20.jpg

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 20