124. Burn - October 25-31, 2015
Jerry-
My plan was to burn some money, and not just monopoly money. Since I'm a fairly financially prudent guy, the idea came to mind that I should scan the $10 bill in my wallet. My Epson scanner in conjunction with Photoshop allowed me to scan that bill but recognized it as legal tender and would not let me print it. But it did let me save it! So, then I opened PowerPoint, inserted the jpg of the bill (where I could resize at will and put several on a page!) and just like that could print to my hearts content. So the bill in the photo is just that, a one sided replica. A naughty person could probably do both sides and get in big trouble. I had no intention of counterfeiting, I just wanted something that looked pretty real to burn. I believe there are no laws against burning one's own money, as the loss of the money is punishment enought! I later found out that you can go onto a site sponsored by the treasury and get pdf files of bills and print those to your hearts content, completely legally. They just have "specimen" printed on them but its not super noticeable, especially when they are on fire.
D750 with 24-70mm at 70mm, 1/400 @f8, ISO 12,800.
My plan was to burn some money, and not just monopoly money. Since I'm a fairly financially prudent guy, the idea came to mind that I should scan the $10 bill in my wallet. My Epson scanner in conjunction with Photoshop allowed me to scan that bill but recognized it as legal tender and would not let me print it. But it did let me save it! So, then I opened PowerPoint, inserted the jpg of the bill (where I could resize at will and put several on a page!) and just like that could print to my hearts content. So the bill in the photo is just that, a one sided replica. A naughty person could probably do both sides and get in big trouble. I had no intention of counterfeiting, I just wanted something that looked pretty real to burn. I believe there are no laws against burning one's own money, as the loss of the money is punishment enought! I later found out that you can go onto a site sponsored by the treasury and get pdf files of bills and print those to your hearts content, completely legally. They just have "specimen" printed on them but its not super noticeable, especially when they are on fire.
D750 with 24-70mm at 70mm, 1/400 @f8, ISO 12,800.
Don-
Hey boy, you gonna barbecue me a hunk a meat, burn that devil. I like it well done by the devil.
Shot with my D810, f6.3, 1/200 sec, ISO 2500 with my 24 to 70 lens set at 66mm.
Shore is good you-all.
Hey boy, you gonna barbecue me a hunk a meat, burn that devil. I like it well done by the devil.
Shot with my D810, f6.3, 1/200 sec, ISO 2500 with my 24 to 70 lens set at 66mm.
Shore is good you-all.
Byron-
When the theme Burn was announced I did think of the subject I wanted to photograph. It was questionable if that subject was going to show up this week so I shot a backup first. Fortunately for me my subject appeared for about 1 hour Friday afternoon. It was one of those "take my picture now because I'm leaving in a few minutes" deals. I had to shot the picture outdoors so I hauled out the equipment, aimed the camera and guessed at the exposure. I shot about 8 photos of various exposures but my model kept moving. So it was a bit hectic for me to keep pace. Shortly after taking the pictures the model disappeared in a hazy mist.
Here is my submission. It is a picture of the Sun. I mounted my Meade ETX-90 telescope on my tripod. I had replaced the conventional head with a gear head so I could use a crank to adjust elevation. I then attached my new Solar filter on the front of the telescope. Then it was a matter of attaching the Nikon adapter to the telescope and the camera to the adapter. There were 2 difficulties at this point. Aiming the telescope at the Sun is not as easy as you might think. I could get close, of course, but looking through the camera viewfinder showed nothing but black. After panning left to right and adjusting the head up or down I finally found the Sun. It's not nearly as bright when viewing through the filter. The other problem is seeing what is on the cameras screen when the Sun is shining right in my face. After taking the picture, I could see a disk on the display but that was it for detail. Because the Sun is not a stationary object relative to us Earthlings, I could frame it, shoot an exposure then reframe it etc. My exposure was ISO 200, -.7 EV, 1/320 sec. The telescopes focal length is 1250mm, aperture is 13.8. The image of the Sun is white. For my submission I cheated a bit and made it yellow.
When the theme Burn was announced I did think of the subject I wanted to photograph. It was questionable if that subject was going to show up this week so I shot a backup first. Fortunately for me my subject appeared for about 1 hour Friday afternoon. It was one of those "take my picture now because I'm leaving in a few minutes" deals. I had to shot the picture outdoors so I hauled out the equipment, aimed the camera and guessed at the exposure. I shot about 8 photos of various exposures but my model kept moving. So it was a bit hectic for me to keep pace. Shortly after taking the pictures the model disappeared in a hazy mist.
Here is my submission. It is a picture of the Sun. I mounted my Meade ETX-90 telescope on my tripod. I had replaced the conventional head with a gear head so I could use a crank to adjust elevation. I then attached my new Solar filter on the front of the telescope. Then it was a matter of attaching the Nikon adapter to the telescope and the camera to the adapter. There were 2 difficulties at this point. Aiming the telescope at the Sun is not as easy as you might think. I could get close, of course, but looking through the camera viewfinder showed nothing but black. After panning left to right and adjusting the head up or down I finally found the Sun. It's not nearly as bright when viewing through the filter. The other problem is seeing what is on the cameras screen when the Sun is shining right in my face. After taking the picture, I could see a disk on the display but that was it for detail. Because the Sun is not a stationary object relative to us Earthlings, I could frame it, shoot an exposure then reframe it etc. My exposure was ISO 200, -.7 EV, 1/320 sec. The telescopes focal length is 1250mm, aperture is 13.8. The image of the Sun is white. For my submission I cheated a bit and made it yellow.
Deron-
"After 50 years of marriage, you'd think she could cook a G**D*** Breakfast Sausage Patty!"
Thanks to my neighbors Terry and Carol for taking part in this photo. Let the truth be told, Carol is an EXCELLENT cook!
"After 50 years of marriage, you'd think she could cook a G**D*** Breakfast Sausage Patty!"
Thanks to my neighbors Terry and Carol for taking part in this photo. Let the truth be told, Carol is an EXCELLENT cook!
Kevin-
Gosh I had such plans for this theme. Because it is Halloween it seemed like an especially good time to tell the tale of some advanced cannibals. Cannibals who have learned to make a big area of burning fire that surrounds their victims, until those victims collapse and then cook until they are fall-off-the-bone tender. But when I made an attempt to simply test the idea using a small Daffy Duck figure from a old special edition Monopoly game I discovered just how hot the flame was. Daffy melted to a molten puddle in about 5 seconds! Sorry Daffy!
Okay, time to simply photograph the burner without tiny trapped figures. Simply illustrating the joy of the blue flame of gas.
Nikon D4s, tripod mounted. 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens. The ISO was set to 100. And I set the aperture to f/32 to maximize depth of field as much as I could. Shot in near darkness so that the blue flame was the only light source, which meant an exposure of 30 seconds! The white balance was set to tungsten to maximize the blue.
I did play around with also adding a bit of flash using a Byro-Snoot type snoot/grid, and I would have had to do that if placing the little figures in the middle of the burner had worked, but it never looked as good as the flame only.
Gosh I had such plans for this theme. Because it is Halloween it seemed like an especially good time to tell the tale of some advanced cannibals. Cannibals who have learned to make a big area of burning fire that surrounds their victims, until those victims collapse and then cook until they are fall-off-the-bone tender. But when I made an attempt to simply test the idea using a small Daffy Duck figure from a old special edition Monopoly game I discovered just how hot the flame was. Daffy melted to a molten puddle in about 5 seconds! Sorry Daffy!
Okay, time to simply photograph the burner without tiny trapped figures. Simply illustrating the joy of the blue flame of gas.
Nikon D4s, tripod mounted. 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens. The ISO was set to 100. And I set the aperture to f/32 to maximize depth of field as much as I could. Shot in near darkness so that the blue flame was the only light source, which meant an exposure of 30 seconds! The white balance was set to tungsten to maximize the blue.
I did play around with also adding a bit of flash using a Byro-Snoot type snoot/grid, and I would have had to do that if placing the little figures in the middle of the burner had worked, but it never looked as good as the flame only.
Paul-
Boy-howdy, there is a lot of stuff one could do with this week’s “Burn” theme. I briefly considered (and count yourselves collectively fortunate that I even less briefly unconsidered) going over to the Burn Unit at Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center here in Lincoln. I have a nephew who works there as an RN, and the facility is widely viewed as the best in the nation for burn treatment. Of course, some patients, nurses, doctors, and law enforcement officials don’t like people waltzing in and taking graphic pictures. So I scoped out the local Famous Dave’s to see if I could shoot some shots of their ribs and brisket being smoked under a slow burn. Unfortunately, the outside access gate to the smoker was locked, and I feel I’ve entered enough establishments these past couple of years asking to photograph stuff. So I drew a line through that plan as well. I also feel compelled to report that while waiting to pick up my daughter from school, I kept my eyes open for any fire engines speeding somewhere, but that made me feel a little creepy and voyeuristic. I kept a look out anyway. Nothing.
With time and a lot of thought, I did managed to come up with something (possibly worse).
As I was thinking about the increasingly cold weather and the upcoming holidays, vivid images of intoxicated in-laws and excessive alcohol consumption popped into my mind like a vision of bourbon-soaked sugar plums. As I don’t drink, this was a curious direction for my brain to take. Nevertheless, I decided to make a Hot Toddy.* Since the venerable Hot Toddy is…well, hot, I needed to include a heat source. And that’s the “Burn” part of the photo.
I’m typing this in advance of actually shooting the prop, but I can at least tell you how I went about making it. I bought what looked like a proper glass for a Hot Toddy primarily because it had a nice festive shape and fairly thick glass. Once home, I pulled out some small tubes of gouache (opaque watercolor). In a glass bowl I mixed Spectrum Red and Lemon Yellow (using the bottom of the bowl as a pallet) until I got the color I wanted. I filled this with water, mixing the colors as I did so. I poured about half of the colored water into the drinking glass and—wagering that the thicker glass would not shatter as the water expanded—I placed it in the downstairs freezer. The next day, I took a candle stuck into a small glass base and placed it on the surface of the ice in the drinking glass. Well, what’s any hot, festive drink without a stick of cinnamon, right? Capital idea! But we didn’t any. So, applying Bratonian cleverness (I hope), I went through my art supplies until found a colored pencil that looked a little like a cinnamon stick. That went into the glass alongside the candle. I filled the class with the rest of the gouache/water and put it back in the freezer.
My plan was to shave the candle down until it was almost even with the surface of the ice and then light it. (Yes, it was my intention of keeping the drink in its frozen state. I liked the whimsy as well as the contrast between the two elemental extremes.)
And suddenly, as I type this, I realize that a Hot Toddy is (as alluded to before) “hot.” I’ve made no plans for simulating steam! Crap on a cracker. Capturing the presence of steam was something I know a few of you were wresting with during the “Coffee” theme I submitted. That’ll show me.
Meantime, I hope gouache isn’t explosive…
Our story so far: f/6.3; aperture priority; ISO 3200; shutter speeds varied over about eight bracketed shots ranging from +2 EV to -2 EV, metering set for center-weighted averaging; 18-55mm lens set at 42mm; white-balanced at automatic; camera was mounted on a tripod; with one light to the right about 3’ away and a bit of white foam core to the left. Afterwards, I selected five exposures with tonal ranges I liked and imported them into a High Dynamic Range application where the five exposures were merged into one. Among the rules-of-thumb with HDR are:1) Shoot in aperture mode; and 2) There should be no movement of the camera or subject in reference to each other. Since the flame was flickering—albeit slightly—I used an anti-ghosting feature to compensate. (It was also seasonally appropriate, come to think of it.) After a little tweaking in the HDR program, I exported the image to Lightroom for some additional touch up. Note: Yes, the Nikon D5200 does have an onboard HDR option, but it will only process two images to produce a third. Part of the purpose of the WPOTM is experimentation for the sake of learning and fun (and eventually staggering wealth.)
Epilogue: I did a little research and a found a few sites that listed “Old Thompson American Whiskey” as not only the worst of its kind made in America, but proceeded to describe its execrable taste in language I felt it would be prudent to leave out of this entry. So this swill was excused (with extreme prejudice) when I mentioned earlier the refreshing quality of “any hot, festive drink.”
* The “Classic” Hot Toddy
1˝ ounce brown liquor such as brandy, whiskey or rum
1 tablespoon honey
˝ ounce lemon juice
1 cup hot water
Lemon wedge, cinnamon stick and star anise, for garnish (optional)
Combined the first four ingredients into the bottom of a warmed mug. If desired, garnish with the lemon, cinnamon stick or star anise.
Standard Disclaimer: This recipe has been copied from an online source which is not in any way intended to signify personal knowledge, experience, plagiarism, promotion, culpability, shilling, (implicit or explicit) suggestion of past besottedness, (implicit or explicit) suggestion of future besottedness, liability, admission of insider trading, or jumping the gun on Christmas—which doesn’t officially begin until November 1st. Drink responsibly, please.
Boy-howdy, there is a lot of stuff one could do with this week’s “Burn” theme. I briefly considered (and count yourselves collectively fortunate that I even less briefly unconsidered) going over to the Burn Unit at Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center here in Lincoln. I have a nephew who works there as an RN, and the facility is widely viewed as the best in the nation for burn treatment. Of course, some patients, nurses, doctors, and law enforcement officials don’t like people waltzing in and taking graphic pictures. So I scoped out the local Famous Dave’s to see if I could shoot some shots of their ribs and brisket being smoked under a slow burn. Unfortunately, the outside access gate to the smoker was locked, and I feel I’ve entered enough establishments these past couple of years asking to photograph stuff. So I drew a line through that plan as well. I also feel compelled to report that while waiting to pick up my daughter from school, I kept my eyes open for any fire engines speeding somewhere, but that made me feel a little creepy and voyeuristic. I kept a look out anyway. Nothing.
With time and a lot of thought, I did managed to come up with something (possibly worse).
As I was thinking about the increasingly cold weather and the upcoming holidays, vivid images of intoxicated in-laws and excessive alcohol consumption popped into my mind like a vision of bourbon-soaked sugar plums. As I don’t drink, this was a curious direction for my brain to take. Nevertheless, I decided to make a Hot Toddy.* Since the venerable Hot Toddy is…well, hot, I needed to include a heat source. And that’s the “Burn” part of the photo.
I’m typing this in advance of actually shooting the prop, but I can at least tell you how I went about making it. I bought what looked like a proper glass for a Hot Toddy primarily because it had a nice festive shape and fairly thick glass. Once home, I pulled out some small tubes of gouache (opaque watercolor). In a glass bowl I mixed Spectrum Red and Lemon Yellow (using the bottom of the bowl as a pallet) until I got the color I wanted. I filled this with water, mixing the colors as I did so. I poured about half of the colored water into the drinking glass and—wagering that the thicker glass would not shatter as the water expanded—I placed it in the downstairs freezer. The next day, I took a candle stuck into a small glass base and placed it on the surface of the ice in the drinking glass. Well, what’s any hot, festive drink without a stick of cinnamon, right? Capital idea! But we didn’t any. So, applying Bratonian cleverness (I hope), I went through my art supplies until found a colored pencil that looked a little like a cinnamon stick. That went into the glass alongside the candle. I filled the class with the rest of the gouache/water and put it back in the freezer.
My plan was to shave the candle down until it was almost even with the surface of the ice and then light it. (Yes, it was my intention of keeping the drink in its frozen state. I liked the whimsy as well as the contrast between the two elemental extremes.)
And suddenly, as I type this, I realize that a Hot Toddy is (as alluded to before) “hot.” I’ve made no plans for simulating steam! Crap on a cracker. Capturing the presence of steam was something I know a few of you were wresting with during the “Coffee” theme I submitted. That’ll show me.
Meantime, I hope gouache isn’t explosive…
Our story so far: f/6.3; aperture priority; ISO 3200; shutter speeds varied over about eight bracketed shots ranging from +2 EV to -2 EV, metering set for center-weighted averaging; 18-55mm lens set at 42mm; white-balanced at automatic; camera was mounted on a tripod; with one light to the right about 3’ away and a bit of white foam core to the left. Afterwards, I selected five exposures with tonal ranges I liked and imported them into a High Dynamic Range application where the five exposures were merged into one. Among the rules-of-thumb with HDR are:1) Shoot in aperture mode; and 2) There should be no movement of the camera or subject in reference to each other. Since the flame was flickering—albeit slightly—I used an anti-ghosting feature to compensate. (It was also seasonally appropriate, come to think of it.) After a little tweaking in the HDR program, I exported the image to Lightroom for some additional touch up. Note: Yes, the Nikon D5200 does have an onboard HDR option, but it will only process two images to produce a third. Part of the purpose of the WPOTM is experimentation for the sake of learning and fun (and eventually staggering wealth.)
Epilogue: I did a little research and a found a few sites that listed “Old Thompson American Whiskey” as not only the worst of its kind made in America, but proceeded to describe its execrable taste in language I felt it would be prudent to leave out of this entry. So this swill was excused (with extreme prejudice) when I mentioned earlier the refreshing quality of “any hot, festive drink.”
* The “Classic” Hot Toddy
1˝ ounce brown liquor such as brandy, whiskey or rum
1 tablespoon honey
˝ ounce lemon juice
1 cup hot water
Lemon wedge, cinnamon stick and star anise, for garnish (optional)
Combined the first four ingredients into the bottom of a warmed mug. If desired, garnish with the lemon, cinnamon stick or star anise.
Standard Disclaimer: This recipe has been copied from an online source which is not in any way intended to signify personal knowledge, experience, plagiarism, promotion, culpability, shilling, (implicit or explicit) suggestion of past besottedness, (implicit or explicit) suggestion of future besottedness, liability, admission of insider trading, or jumping the gun on Christmas—which doesn’t officially begin until November 1st. Drink responsibly, please.