Pink-ish

Created by photographer Frank Jansen, the Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography.

Last week my son came home from his work at the Montgomery Friends Farmers Market with a bouquet of flowers in a bell jar and excitedly told us about the truck he saw at the Farmers' Market. He also learned that flowers will last longer if you store them in the fridge overnight. He was so excited about Sprout that I took my camera with me to this weekends market.

Sprouts is a mobile flower truck that sells home-grown and locally-sourced, fresh flowers and succulents arrangements. The owner, Cindy, and her husband restored a vintage 1957 Volkswagen transporter truck which they nicknamed, Isabel.

We talked about the truck and Cindy told me about her business. She told me about some of the challenges local farmers have had with the weather. This part of New Jersey has had more days of rain than sunlight this summer. The excess water and limited sunlight has affected the growth of crops in general and has limited farmers ability to predict yield.

Cindy was curious about my camera. Many people think that someone using a DSLR who appears confident must be a professional. She was surprised to learn that I worked on cyber-security.

After getting to know her a little bit, Cindy gave me the ok to capture a few photos for the Farmers’ Market Facebook page. I promised her that I would send email copies to her.

For a few minutes, I walked around the truck snapping photos of Cindy while she worked. The pink in one bunch of flowers caught my attention. I love the look of the bell jars. Later, my son brought home a few bouquets for his mother.

Interestingly in Western culture pink was traditionally a boys colour while blue was the girls colour, but due mostly to marketing messages from the business, the gender colours were reversed.

The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.Smithsonian

I started shooting and developing film in 1987. I was 20 years old. In 1999, shortly after my son was born, I bought a digital point-n-shoot camera but continued shooting film. I was 32 years old. In 2006 I bought my first DSLR and stopped using film. I was 39 years old. In my opinion, anything that can be achieved with film can be achieved with a digital camera.

It seems that many photographers are now shooting film and many others are applying vintage film style filters to their images. I've done some A-B testing by uploading the same photo to photo sharing sites; one with and one without a film type filter. I have noticed that the photo with the film filter usually gets more likes.

I think the current resurgence of the film is pure nostalgia. I don't miss the hours spent in a darkened room inhaling poisonous chemical fumes. I don't miss the noise in film. I don't miss the film grain. I don't miss the faded look. But some people seem to think film is the best way to take pictures.

Having said that, the images I've shared in this post were all post-processed using a Kodachrome 64 Lightroom film preset. Why? Because I like the way these set of images look with this specific preset. And for me, that's the number one reason to use a Lightroom preset.

Saturday 26 August, 2017 | Nikon D5100 | AF-S Nikkor 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6
Saturday 26 August, 2017 | Nikon D5100 | AF-S Nikkor 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6
Flowers
Saturday 26 August, 2017 | Nikon D5100 | AF-S Nikkor 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6
Sprouts Flowers | Saturday 26 August, 2017 | Nikon D5100 | AF-S Nikkor 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6

Created by photographer Frank Jansen, the Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography.

Five Minutes of Random (the #RegularRandom challenge), is hosted by Desley Jane at Musings of a Frequently Flying Scientist.

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Wild Sunflowers

My photography and post processing skills have improved in the last few years so I decided to go back and re-process some of my older images. I'm not certain, but I think this is a wild sunflower. The image was taken several years ago while driving along Wargo Road. It was pickup day at the Honey Brook Organic Farm in Pennington and I noticed patches of these flowers on the west side of the road. I had my Nikkor 85 f/1.8 and had been putting it to use for over a month. I don't think I had a purchased tripod at that time or if I had not yet started keeping it in the car wth me. The image was captured just before noon and it was summer. There was a lot of light.

My post processing skills were minimal back then. The series of images sat in my Lightroom catalog. I did nothing with them.

The original looked like this.

-NIKON D5100-20130908-NIKON_D5100_20130908_4247-blog

In Photoshop I removed some cobwebs. I used one of Matt Kloskowski's Lightroom presets to highlight the upper right hand corner to isolate that region and simplify the image. I like the result. What do you think?

Shooting with the Tribe

After the last few months of winter, I am happy the weather has turned warmer and brighter. The landscape has also turned more colourful with fresh shades of green. I am taking the opportunity, despite severe allergies, to be outside. With my camera. The family and I have been on two hiking trips and by myself, I have wandered off into the woods with my tripod and Nikon. But, for me, being outside and about with fellow photographers, talking shop, exchanging tips and learning from each other; nothing beats that. This is my tribe.

This morning I spend two hours walking through the beautiful grounds of the Leonard J. Buck Gardens in Far Hills. I car-pooled with Anjana and John. And of course, Terry showed up. I can't wait for the next one.

I decided to get down low for this. I shot mostly with my Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 but captured a few things with my Nikkor 85mm f/1.8. The rest of the photo set is on my Flickr.