I have been a long time admirer of Diana’s Still-life’s. She has an innate sense composition which I envy. She cleverly stages everyday objects into wonderful compositions that are both beautiful and timeless fine art photographs.
She shares with us how she created this beautiful piece she calls “Desk Corner”.
Photograph by Diana Lee Angstadt
Q. Tell us about this set up?
Diana: Setting up the still life is the biggest hurdle; trying to make sure it looks as natural as possible. Objects should look as though they have a relationship to one another in a natural way. For this composition I began with the flowers. Then I slowly added in other items. I do not really think about it before hand. It comes to me as I am creating it. I will remove, and switch items until I feel it is cohesive and in good balance. I always like to have the light as soft as possible to create a gentle softness and mood.
Q. How did you expose for this shot?
Diana: I don’t have too much available light from a nearby window, so I used two lamps with natural light bulbs… one to be the main source and the other as “fill” light. They have bendable arms so I can position them easily in any direction. My exposure was Shutter Speed 1/40 with an F stop of 8. I used a tripod with a cable release.
Q. What camera and lens did you use for this shot?
Diana: The shot was taken with a Nikon D300 with a 50mm 1.8 lens. After I upload the image, I also add “texture” by placing it over the entire image and then vary the opacity in certain areas to allow the photo to come through the texture.
To see more of Diana’s work visit her website here.
Wildlife photographers know all too well how hard it is to get a great photo of their subject. It takes long hours of studying their behavior, and being familiar with their territory.
In this edition Rainey Shuler dedicated bird photographer tells us how her experience, persistence and patience paid off in this story of the Pied-billed Grebes.
Photograph by Rainey Shuler
Pied-billed Grebe Nest-2009
CR: Tell us about this location.
Rainey: The location is at the Struve Slough in Watsonville, CA which has a lovely walking path for viewing many types of birds including nesting Pied-billed Grebes and American Coots. You can also find Bitterns, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Osprey, Kingfishers, Double-crested Cormorants, Black-crowned Night Herons, Green Herons and many other birds there depending on the season.
We had spotted this Mama and 7 eggs around mid May, 2009. It was close enough to the shore that I was able to sit on a chair with my camera mounted on a Tripod and chronicle the whole story. I would go there almost every day around 5-6:00 p.m. in the afternoon. I chronicled the entire family; first one chick, then two, until 5 eggs hatched. As long as the last two eggs remained in the nest the parents would not give up on trying to incubate those remaining eggs…it wasn’t until June 20th that the last of the two eggs disappeared into the slough and at that time the entire family left the site, which was four days after I took this shot.
CR: How difficult was this to capture?
Rainey: The most difficulty in getting a shot like this is just having enough patience to wait and capture certain moments. I spent approximately 2 hours just sitting and waiting for special moments to occur and during times like this I can end up shooting 200-500 shots to get just the right moment. Of course exposure can be difficult with these dark colored birds on a foggy day so the right ISO and shutter speed is very important.
CR: How did you expose for this shot?
Rainey: I used a Canon Rebel XTi and a 100-400mm lens with a UV filter. For this shot in the late afternoon I had to increase my ISO to 800 and set the shutter speed at 1000 to capture any action. I chose an aperture of f6.3. I used a tripod and natural light.
In this edition of “Just Be There” Pet Photographer Penny Wills shares with us an emotional story of how she captured this gorgeous portrait of Abby.
Photography by: Penny Wills
CR. Tell us about this location.
Penny: This was taken in my home office, on a dark brown leather chair.
CR. How difficult was this to capture?
Penny: It’s interesting that you should ask me to talk about this particular photo. This is one of those emotional photos that I love taking. Unfortunately, this time, it’s my emotional photo.
Abby was sick. Intermittently she was throwing up foamy yellow bile. Not any food in it, just the foamy yellow stuff. Not all the time, and not just after eating, or playing and not every day. Sometimes she would go days without throwing up, and then she would throw up every couple of hours a day. After 2 weeks of this, I took her to the vet. He was thinking she got into something she should not have, and it irritated her stomach. She was admitted to the hospital and put on an IV and no food, just fluids, and a special medicine that coats the stomach, like for an ulcer. After 3 days of her behaving, he was about to call and say, she’s better, when she promptly threw up. We decided to do an X-Ray just to be sure and about an hour later, the vet called back. He said, “You have to come in and take a look at her X-Rays.” That is never a good sign, but I have been going to this vet for years, and with all my pets, you never know what they can pick up and eat. We have had a good laugh over another dog’s X-Rays, so I did not put too much gloom into his words.
My first hint that things were not good was the front office staff. They were quite somber instead of the joking that I am normally greeted with. I meet the Dr., and he pulls out her X-Ray. There is a large mass showing in her stomach. It’s not metal or wood (like some others I won’t mention!) because it does not have a distinct outline, it’s fuzzy. He gives me the bad news, “there’s not much I can do, I believe it’s a tumor, and that large, it can’t be good.” We discuss options, such as an ultrasound, and an exploratory. I settle on exploratory surgery, and we schedule it for the next morning first thing.
He looks at me, and says, “There’s no reason that she can’t go home tonight, so why don’t you take her?” What he didn’t say, but was understood, that if he found a tumor that large, her prognosis was not good. Dan & I had decided that if the vet did find something, and he didn’t think it was treatable, we would have her euthanized then. So, I brought her home for her last night, or so I thought. I took her out in the back yard to play with the other dogs and darned if I could not get a good photo of her. I had to give up when I lost the light.
CR. How did you expose for this shot?
Penny: The next morning, as I was setting one of our cats up for my photography class in front of the window, I noticed just how lovely the light was. Bells went off in my head, “Put Abby on the brown leather chair and take her photo there!” Eureka! So I popped her on the chair, swiveled the chair until I got the lighting just right, and took the shot. Fortunately, the neighbor was walking their dog down the road, so Abby’s attention was fixed on that dog.
Hand-held, I metered off her face, allowing the rest of the photo to be naturally dark. The camera settings were: 52mm, ISO 200, f/8, 1/20s,
There was absolutely no processing done on this photo, with the exception of adding my logo.
CR. What camera and lens did you use for this shot?
Penny: Natural light out of a north window, 6:18 a.m. just as the sun was rising.
I loved the soft light and the color of the light as the sun was rising. The color was just perfect, you cannot tell by the photo that her face is almost completely gray; the sun hid the gray behind the almost too saturated color.
On a happy note, after the surgery, the vet called. He found out what the problem was. Was it a tumor the size of his fist? Well it ended up being a stuffed mouse cat toy. How she managed to swallow it whole is beyond us. It was too large to pass into her stomach, so it just floated around in her stomach. Her throwing up was from the occasions that the toy blocked food and water from passing the stomach and into her intestines. So, after surgery, I brought her home and for about 12 hours she was fine. Then she started throwing up again. NOW WHAT? She was confined to her crate except for the trip from work to the car. Once again I call the vet and ask him to do a quick X-Ray, she is throwing up again. I wait in the waiting room and a couple of minutes later he comes out with the X-Ray. We look at it, look at each other and say, “What in the world?” There, big as life, is a piece of razor blade! UGH! This dog is going to give me a heart attack. So, for the 2nd time in less than 24 hours she heads to surgery. Thankfully, he removed it without any complications.
I think I got at least 1/2 a head of gray hair from her that week. Silly girl! She is now almost 12 and still going strong.
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