167. Texture - August 21-27, 2016
Byron-
I thought if I go back to the tumble down building near my house I would find texture. This turned out to be my favorite exposure.
ISO 200, f9, 1/500 sec.
I thought if I go back to the tumble down building near my house I would find texture. This turned out to be my favorite exposure.
ISO 200, f9, 1/500 sec.
Kevin-
Okay, try and follow my convoluted thinking. The theme this week is Texture. Often I begin with something like Google image search, feeling that that might improve ideas that are already floating around in my noggin. The vast majority of images that popped up during that initial search were flat, straight-on views of textured surfaces like wood, pavement, carpet, etc. Of course straight-on views are a remarkably good way of making even heavily textured surfaces look completely untextured. Blah.
So I knew I wanted to photograph something that had perspective and dimension. But still when I imagined photographing rough, textured surface like I listed above, and from and angle, they all brought to mind the photo I took for WPOTM - Week 126 when the theme was Rough and I had a roll of 60-grit toilet paper in the scene.
But of course more dimensional surfaces have texture as well, simply texture on a different scale. So I started thinking about things like fruits and vegetables and grains. Hey, grain can have real texture, and corn is a grain! And here in Minnesota we are in the prime fresh sweet corn season.
A quick break to hype Amaize Sweet Corn. Amaze was developed over the past few years and was first sold in 2011. It is truly the best sweet corn I have ever tasted. It is only available in a limited number of stores nationwide, In Minnesota, Lunds/Byerlys carries it as well as Hy-Vee. Hy-Vee in Nebraska also sells it. Don, sadly no stores in New Mexico yet sell this remarkable sweet corn. But if you ever visiting during Amaize season (June-September) I will gladly serve you some. http://www.amaizesweetcorn.com/
Anyway, I decided that my texture would be the most tasty grain there is, Amaize sweet corn. Now, proper sweet corn must be hot, so when the butter is applied it melts into total deliciousness. And there is no stove at the studio to heat things with. So instead I had to haul gear home to take the shot.
Nikon D4s, tripod mounted, 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens. Three Nikon SB-900 series flash units, all in TTL mode. Two were positioned behind to illuminate the steam rising from the corn. The other was in a small gridded softbox. Aperture Priority, ISO 100, f/32 @ 1/15th of a second.
Ohhh, that’s a tasty texture!
Okay, try and follow my convoluted thinking. The theme this week is Texture. Often I begin with something like Google image search, feeling that that might improve ideas that are already floating around in my noggin. The vast majority of images that popped up during that initial search were flat, straight-on views of textured surfaces like wood, pavement, carpet, etc. Of course straight-on views are a remarkably good way of making even heavily textured surfaces look completely untextured. Blah.
So I knew I wanted to photograph something that had perspective and dimension. But still when I imagined photographing rough, textured surface like I listed above, and from and angle, they all brought to mind the photo I took for WPOTM - Week 126 when the theme was Rough and I had a roll of 60-grit toilet paper in the scene.
But of course more dimensional surfaces have texture as well, simply texture on a different scale. So I started thinking about things like fruits and vegetables and grains. Hey, grain can have real texture, and corn is a grain! And here in Minnesota we are in the prime fresh sweet corn season.
A quick break to hype Amaize Sweet Corn. Amaze was developed over the past few years and was first sold in 2011. It is truly the best sweet corn I have ever tasted. It is only available in a limited number of stores nationwide, In Minnesota, Lunds/Byerlys carries it as well as Hy-Vee. Hy-Vee in Nebraska also sells it. Don, sadly no stores in New Mexico yet sell this remarkable sweet corn. But if you ever visiting during Amaize season (June-September) I will gladly serve you some. http://www.amaizesweetcorn.com/
Anyway, I decided that my texture would be the most tasty grain there is, Amaize sweet corn. Now, proper sweet corn must be hot, so when the butter is applied it melts into total deliciousness. And there is no stove at the studio to heat things with. So instead I had to haul gear home to take the shot.
Nikon D4s, tripod mounted, 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens. Three Nikon SB-900 series flash units, all in TTL mode. Two were positioned behind to illuminate the steam rising from the corn. The other was in a small gridded softbox. Aperture Priority, ISO 100, f/32 @ 1/15th of a second.
Ohhh, that’s a tasty texture!
Paul-
I really like the look and design effect of glass block (a.k.a. glass brick) in home and business settings, and I thought this would be fun because the element of “texture” can take so many forms on the block—without compromising its primary function: transmission of light.
Apparently, there are a few ways different companies construct these things, and I read that some manufactures are now adding argon (an inert gas) to the inside of the glass blocks because it seems to improve its insulating properties.
Shedding a little light: 18-55mm lens at 30mm; aperture priority; matrix metering, ISO 800; 1/1000 sec. at f/11. So as not to blow out the image, I metered off of various degrees of shadow in the room until I got a result I liked. Contrast, depth, grain, and a slight bit of saturation was tweaked in Lightroom and PhotoScape. Finally I used a filter in PhotoScape to make the image appear as if it had been shot with Provia: A daylight color reversal produced by Fujichrome.
If you are interested, information on Provia can be found online at: http://www.fujifilm.com/products/professional_films/color_reversalfilms/provia_100f/
I really like the look and design effect of glass block (a.k.a. glass brick) in home and business settings, and I thought this would be fun because the element of “texture” can take so many forms on the block—without compromising its primary function: transmission of light.
Apparently, there are a few ways different companies construct these things, and I read that some manufactures are now adding argon (an inert gas) to the inside of the glass blocks because it seems to improve its insulating properties.
Shedding a little light: 18-55mm lens at 30mm; aperture priority; matrix metering, ISO 800; 1/1000 sec. at f/11. So as not to blow out the image, I metered off of various degrees of shadow in the room until I got a result I liked. Contrast, depth, grain, and a slight bit of saturation was tweaked in Lightroom and PhotoScape. Finally I used a filter in PhotoScape to make the image appear as if it had been shot with Provia: A daylight color reversal produced by Fujichrome.
If you are interested, information on Provia can be found online at: http://www.fujifilm.com/products/professional_films/color_reversalfilms/provia_100f/
Jerry-
I decided to settle on this image of a sculpture that is right outside the Microbiology Research Facility at the U of M. Maybe the defining feeling is of circular shapes but the sharp textures are a big part of it. Imagine being pushed face first into this thing - your face would certainly have an added new texture!
The camera was the little Sony A6300 but the lens was my trusty 55mm Micro Nikkor, a lens from the 70's and a camera from 2016. Exposure was 1/80 at f16, ISO 200. The stainless steel of the sculpture actually had some odd colored stains so I converted it to black and white to remove that distraction.
I decided to settle on this image of a sculpture that is right outside the Microbiology Research Facility at the U of M. Maybe the defining feeling is of circular shapes but the sharp textures are a big part of it. Imagine being pushed face first into this thing - your face would certainly have an added new texture!
The camera was the little Sony A6300 but the lens was my trusty 55mm Micro Nikkor, a lens from the 70's and a camera from 2016. Exposure was 1/80 at f16, ISO 200. The stainless steel of the sculpture actually had some odd colored stains so I converted it to black and white to remove that distraction.
Don-
I wanted to capture the depth of a textured object while using a shallow
depth of field to retain sharpness. I put on my macro lens and set the
camera aperture at f/2.8 and in movie mode. Shot a movie while adjusting
from one extreme to the other end of the focus.
Edited the movie to just the section I wanted then rendered the video into
individual frames. Loaded the pictures into Photoshop as layers. Aligned
the layers then combined them and created an individual picture of ornamental grass.
As I wrote the lens was a 105mm micro lens. Aperture was at 2.8 and the camera
was in video mode. I like the way it turned out.
I wanted to capture the depth of a textured object while using a shallow
depth of field to retain sharpness. I put on my macro lens and set the
camera aperture at f/2.8 and in movie mode. Shot a movie while adjusting
from one extreme to the other end of the focus.
Edited the movie to just the section I wanted then rendered the video into
individual frames. Loaded the pictures into Photoshop as layers. Aligned
the layers then combined them and created an individual picture of ornamental grass.
As I wrote the lens was a 105mm micro lens. Aperture was at 2.8 and the camera
was in video mode. I like the way it turned out.