Month: March 2017

WE35 - Double Exposure

is a global visual survey and creative research project conducted by explorers from around the world. The goal of is to push your creative boundaries, share in each other’s artistic development, and forge friendships that will last a lifetime. All of this, using nothing more than a single 35mm lens. We will achieve this goal through monthly assignments designed to expand your creativity like never before, foster an encouraging community where we can discuss one another’s work and provide opportunities for critiques and constructive feedback.The Photo Frontier

Double exposure is a technique that originated with film photography where you would expose the same frame of film twice (or more). The film can only be exposed to light so much before it will stop recording information. So the part of the film that was darker after first exposure will be most receptive to the light from the second click.Sara Byrne

For the double exposure expedition, I had two challenges to overcome. The first was that I was not familiar with this feature of my Nikon D5100. How does it work? How do I enable it? What are the limitations? I needed to understand how to enable and use this feature and work with the limitations of my camera.

I found the D5100 double exposure mode in the shooting menu but decided to read the camera manual before I enable it. I learned that once enabled, I had only thirty minutes between shooting the first frame and shooting the next. After thirty minutes the D5100 would automatically disable double exposure mode.

The second challenge I had to overcome was with the composition. I had never captured double exposure images before. What sorts of interesting things could I shoot? What could I accomplish with the limitations of my camera? I struggled to think of composition. So I had to try and figure out what sort of double exposures compositions would be interesting but also done quickly. I needed to do some research. After some research1, I decided on doing portraits.

I learned with experimentation that I needed to shoot the portrait against a bright background (e.g. the sky) for the first frame. Then I could shoot the next frame as a mask. Darker images worked better for the mask.

For this image, I persuaded my daughter to let me use her as a model. I used a white piece of cardboard for the background and the ground cover in the front yard for the mask.

It took some practice to avoid overexposure, which can flare the outline of the silhouetted subject. I think I did well, given my inexperience. I think one improvement would be to compose against a pure white background, filling the frame with the subjects head.

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Spring 2017

The Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography. #fpj-photo-challenge

The Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography. This week's theme is spring.

This past week we had some low temperatures and strong winds. The kind of weather that makes me wish I live somewhere warm, tropical. The snow from the last week's snowstorm was still piled high and showed no signs of melting. The ploughs had created great mountains of black ice over seven feet in height in some places. I imagine that some kids might look at those and think, “Can I use my sledge on that?”.

Spring in New Jersey doesn’t really start until mid-April. It’s too early for this post. I had fully expected that I would be posting these photos from past springs to have something …

Princeton, Monument, Spring
The mall at Princeton Battlefield Monument
princeton, spring
The mall at Princeton Battlefield Monument

I was concerned that I would not find the typical signs of spring for this area. Where would I find spring plants such as skunk cabbage, Rue anemone, Jack in the Pulpit, and the aptly named Spring Beauty? The oak has barely started to produce buds. However, the cedar and Juniper are in full form. Achoo!!

lichen, spring, sourland mountain
A patch of lichen showing both gametophytes (the low, leaf-like forms) and sporophytes (the tall, stalk-like forms)
jack in the pulpit, spring, sourland mountain
Jack in the Pulpit, Sourland Mountain Range

In early March, after the sun sets, male woodcocks perform an in-flight song and dance routine for their audience of female birds on the ground. I would tell you how wonderful it was to experience this first hand, but the Sourland Conservancy woodcock bird walk was cancelled due to the storm. To make matters worse, the snow storm grounded the birds and many were starving unable to get food through the ice and snow.

Round-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica americana)
Round-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica americana) · Saturday 25 April 2015 · Nikon D5100 · 90 mm f/2.8

Round-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica nobilis var. obtusa)??The ornate and mottled leaves are visible year-round. The furry-stemmed flowers arise in earliest spring; fur on the stems and new leaves protects against April cold fronts. Pollinated by solitary bees, seeds dispersed by forest ants.

flower, sourland mountain, spring

butterfly, spring, sourland mountain
Spring Azure Butterfly, Sourland Mountain Range

In late February, we had some hot weather, and my spring garden bloomed. The crocus pushed themselves out, and I worried that my spring garden would be bare.

spring, crocus, flower

But I got some surprises on Friday. Thursday and Friday were much warmer days with daytime temperatures between 6ºC and 15ºC. Enough of the snow melted to expose these flowers. They had been sitting under the snow, preserved, for two weeks.