Don't Neglect the "50"

This digger is a subject that I spent a fair amount of time with. It was full of so many dramatic lines and textures and pleasing shapes. Because of the scale and weight of it, this digger presented a fantastic opportunity to use the wide angle lens. I enjoyed the opportunity and got some wide shots I am really happy with. However, some of the shots I got that really give me lasting pleasure are the few I took with my 50mm "standard" lens. I attribute this to a few things.

First of all is that the Nikkor 50mm f1.4 lens is a truly fine piece of glass. It's image quality is very high and its distortion is low. It also has a pleasing out-of-focus rendition (bokeh). But all of this probably matters less than you might think. I think its main advantage is actually simply that it is a so-called "standard" lens.

Standard lenses are not sexy. They don't distort our normal perspective and so they can seem quite "boring". But they do have a unique ability to act as a sort of window into the scene. Because the perspective is undistorted things can seem that little bit more life-like. And the photographer is forced to really create the interest in the scene with colour and composition.

Night Lights

This is part minimalist geometric composition and part exercise in selective focus. I have here isolated one single light with a very shallow depth of field. Another old favourite.

Candy Soft

Same session as the other two flowers here. I love this dreamy look.

Sun Lamp

In the garden again. Same techniques and session as "Dark Beauty". This is, obviously, a sunflower.

Dark Beauty

This is another evergreen for me. It's from about a year ago. We have a short garden season in late winter here in Qatar and this is from that time. I think I was using a closeup lens with my 50mm to emphasise the shallowness of the depth of field for a dreamy look.

Death of Darwish

Easily a firm all-time favourite. Such a story of Doha. This building stood unmolested for many years until I drove by one day and a digger was smashing it down. It was a cool scene at night so I parked nearby and strolled over with camera and tripod. There were two guys standing there complete with chairs and tables who seem to be supervising. I asked permission and strarted shooting. I had trouble telling them it was for my own use, not for newspaper. Amateur photography is much more rare in this region where cameras are often viewed with suspicion. In the morning the building was just a pile of rubble.

This was taken with my 50mm prime which gave me enough speed (wide aperture) to capture the scene on 200 speed film without flash. The sky really was that vivid blue.

Cobalt Morning

This is a shot taken on my America trip of October 2007. This was some of the first rolls I ran through my F4. I took 20 rolls of Velvia 50 on that trip and didn't see the results until much later (had to leave my film at a lab in the US and get them shipped months later). This remains a favourite. The F4's matrix meter nailed just about every exposure. This was good because I'd had less than a month with the camera before leaving on the trip and no experience with Velvia.

Past Due Dates

This is probably the most recent of this "oldies" series. It is one of those ones that you shoot without knowing why. I saw this view of these dates and knew I had to take it. I still can't put my finger on what is so "right" about it but it is a firm favourite.

Orange Palm

Repeat after me: It's my blog and I'll cry if I want to...

I know I said I'd go to new stuff now -- and I will -- but first I have a few oldies I would especially like to share.

This was taken on the Corniche here in Doha near sunset with the sun behind this palm. It was taken with Velvia 100F (which I had a few recently expired rolls of to play with) during those good old days of a year ago when there was still a lab doing slide film here. Man I miss those days!

The Wall

I did the same picture in my first post. Since I like this, however, I'm doing it full justice with the large size. Up to this point I've been posting through my Flickr archives with newer posts having older pics. From here on out new posts should be newer pics. I'll post as often as I feel I have a shot worth talking about.

This shot was conceived as a shot to be cropped to just the geometric bit of the wall. When I saw the scan, though, I liked the entire composition and this is the entire film frame. The interest here was on the light and how it revealed the patina and texture on this wall as well as the geometric pattern.

Oman Camels

Some camels we passed on the road during our road trip to Oman last year. Oman is an amazing place and hard to capture on film. I think this provides a taste of the somewhat desolate grandeur of the place.

Sunset over Grassy Knoll

Another photo with a simple colour palette and a simple graphical composition. This is part of a new park behind a large shopping centre in Doha called Hyatt Plaza.

Oil Painting Clouds

This was a picture from some stormy weather we had early in December. I like the way the colours turned out. I also like the balance of tones and forms in the frame.

Flock

This illustrates the futility of hoping to judge a lens or camera based on "brick wall tests" or charts. This picture is taken with a more than fifty year old camera. It has a very sharp lens but a lot of falloff at wide aperture. In truth this is almost never an issue and in this case it is this very effect that makes the picture.

CMU-Q in Black and White

This is not the sort of thing I often do, although I like this style. Here the focus is on the balance of the tones and shapes within the frame. It is less about what is in front of the camera than what appears (and where) on the film. The black and white conversion is intentional and helps concentrate attention on the shapes and tones.

Min • i • mal • ism

This is a case of seeing a photo in something ordinary. The picture shows some roof beams but they have been rotated to appear as columns. The simple geometry broken by the imperfection of the last column is the attraction for this photo.

CMU-Q Fountain and Depth of Field

This is what I sometimes term a "lens" shot. It's taken with my "fast" telephoto. The term fast refers to a lens that has a wide maximum aperture, in this case f2.8. This is what gives the shallow depth of field with most of it blurred. The other thing that makes this shot is the great midday light that day. It was taken the same day as the fountain shot in the previous post.

Fountain at CMU-Q

This is on the newly built campus of Carnegie Melon University in Qatar next to Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar in Education City. This is one of those shots that shows that rules are for breaking. This great light was midday light which everyone will tell you to avoid. It's not the greatest composition in the world but I love the light on the leaves.

Golden Clouds

Often I look to the sky here in Doha. In winter we tend to get some clouds which adds a little variety. If I'm lucky the sun does something nice with it. This is a recent one I like.

Treasure

This is a good example of some of the more "studio" shots I do (often, as here, on digital with the D80). Currently my only lighting gear is an SB600 and some creativity. This is a cake my wife baked as part of her business.

I wanted a look similar to a treasure chest on a Caribbean beach somewhere under a bright sun. To achieve this I reflected some focussed light from the flash off of a large white foam board just out of shot on the left. This gives the impression of a large light source. Another board on the right provides "fill" and keeps shadows from becoming too dark.

Lines

This is a BW conversion of some sun beams on a wall at CMU-Q. This is for me a good example of "improving on reality". The way what I saw struck me didn't really come across in the colour versions I tried. This satisfies my vision even though it is obviously now devoid of colour and much higher in contrast and darker.

Digger II and Landscape Test

This is another view I really liked. I'm trying to find a good way to accommodate portrait orientation shots and landscape ones both in a good size. This is therefore also a test.

The interest here is the mass and ruggedness of the digger. I've emphasised this by lying down and shooting up from under one tread with a wide angle lens. The best use of wide angles is to get close and bring the viewer in. Here, I think the digger becomes fairly "in your face".

The Drivers Seat

I took quite a few pictures of this digger. For reasons that I can't quite explain this remains one of my favourite.

First Post

This is my first stab at blogging. I intend this to be a showcase for my best work. I call it "smash and grab photography" because I live in Doha, Qatar which is a little short on natural material. As a consequence I tend to carry the camera everywhere and grab shots when I see them.