169. Beatles - September 4-10, 2016
Paul-
I had a lot of fun (during and after) announcing this theme. Mostly because I didn’t have a song I was gunning for in advance. Perhaps like the rest of you, I wanted to look through the Fab Four’s astounding number of songs to see what jumped out at me—and ponder I had the time and skill to do something with my selection. I boiled my choices down to about ten songs, a few of which are my favorites in the Beatles’ corpus of music.
In the end I choose “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” for three reasons: 1) It’s right up there in my top 10 favorites by the Beatles; 2) I wanted to see if I could capture the central theme of the song without any help*; finally: 3) I wanted a certain appearance to the picture based on a whimsical idea that surfaced in my mind as I was thinking about the song.
If you’re not immediately familiar with “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” give it a listen. It’s a delightfully (wickedly) peculiar piece that always makes me think of a story the London Times might have printed in the early 1900’s just after a spate of mysterious, nasty assaults. (Of course I’m taking some artistic license here.) But I wanted to capture just that: A yellowed, brittle, dated tableau a photographer might have created to sensationalize the despicable deeds that transpired.
So…
Hammering it out: 18-55mm lens at 42mm; aperture priority; 21-point metering, ISO 3200; 1/15 sec. at f/9. In order to give the image the qualities I wanted first set the WB for incandescence—one diffused incandescent light is affixed to and pointing down from the copystand in the background. I used a slow rear flash (with a compensation of -.5); dropped the EV to -2; and pretty much blew the top off all the Lightroom Sharpening elements (Amount, Radius, Detail and Masking); I boosted the graininess and roughness by about 75%, as well as the luminance by about 75%, while dropping the contrast and overall highlights to create (maybe?) a flatter-looking image. This was followed by a rounded/feather vignette to give an antiquated newsprint-like appearance, as well as tweaking to provide a slightly warm tone. I then imported the image to PhotoScape, used an auto-level feature I like, cropped a bit more, and then added an antique filter as a finishing touch.
I had a lot of fun (during and after) announcing this theme. Mostly because I didn’t have a song I was gunning for in advance. Perhaps like the rest of you, I wanted to look through the Fab Four’s astounding number of songs to see what jumped out at me—and ponder I had the time and skill to do something with my selection. I boiled my choices down to about ten songs, a few of which are my favorites in the Beatles’ corpus of music.
In the end I choose “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” for three reasons: 1) It’s right up there in my top 10 favorites by the Beatles; 2) I wanted to see if I could capture the central theme of the song without any help*; finally: 3) I wanted a certain appearance to the picture based on a whimsical idea that surfaced in my mind as I was thinking about the song.
If you’re not immediately familiar with “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” give it a listen. It’s a delightfully (wickedly) peculiar piece that always makes me think of a story the London Times might have printed in the early 1900’s just after a spate of mysterious, nasty assaults. (Of course I’m taking some artistic license here.) But I wanted to capture just that: A yellowed, brittle, dated tableau a photographer might have created to sensationalize the despicable deeds that transpired.
So…
Hammering it out: 18-55mm lens at 42mm; aperture priority; 21-point metering, ISO 3200; 1/15 sec. at f/9. In order to give the image the qualities I wanted first set the WB for incandescence—one diffused incandescent light is affixed to and pointing down from the copystand in the background. I used a slow rear flash (with a compensation of -.5); dropped the EV to -2; and pretty much blew the top off all the Lightroom Sharpening elements (Amount, Radius, Detail and Masking); I boosted the graininess and roughness by about 75%, as well as the luminance by about 75%, while dropping the contrast and overall highlights to create (maybe?) a flatter-looking image. This was followed by a rounded/feather vignette to give an antiquated newsprint-like appearance, as well as tweaking to provide a slightly warm tone. I then imported the image to PhotoScape, used an auto-level feature I like, cropped a bit more, and then added an antique filter as a finishing touch.
Jerry-
One of my first ideas was to illustrate "Nowhere Man" but I decided trying to get photos of street people might be hazardous to my health and kind of a downer in the first place. So I chose "I want to hold your hand". Our little dog Sam, is kind of on his way out after being here for 13 years and I thought I should catch a photo of my daughter Kathryn holding Sam's paw - before he gets too feeble. That's kind of sad on its own but I think it would be nice to have something for her to remember him by.
So I used the Sony A6300, 16-50 zoomed to 50mm, 1/160 @ F11, ISO 1600. Light came from a bounced Sony F32 flash held off to the side.
One of my first ideas was to illustrate "Nowhere Man" but I decided trying to get photos of street people might be hazardous to my health and kind of a downer in the first place. So I chose "I want to hold your hand". Our little dog Sam, is kind of on his way out after being here for 13 years and I thought I should catch a photo of my daughter Kathryn holding Sam's paw - before he gets too feeble. That's kind of sad on its own but I think it would be nice to have something for her to remember him by.
So I used the Sony A6300, 16-50 zoomed to 50mm, 1/160 @ F11, ISO 1600. Light came from a bounced Sony F32 flash held off to the side.
Don-
One of my very favorite Beatle songs written by
George Harrison while skipping work and getting
high at Eric Clapton's house.
One of my very favorite Beatle songs written by
George Harrison while skipping work and getting
high at Eric Clapton's house.
Byron-
Many to choose from. I choose a song from the "moptop" era of the Beatles. Using my long zoom lens and the Sun low in the West I shot this simple photo. The photo should make it obvious the the song choice is "I want to hold your hand". I was curious about Photoshop's lighting controls, I tried this one and it gave me an effect I like. Almost like looking through binoculars.
200mm, f5.6, 125 sec.
Many to choose from. I choose a song from the "moptop" era of the Beatles. Using my long zoom lens and the Sun low in the West I shot this simple photo. The photo should make it obvious the the song choice is "I want to hold your hand". I was curious about Photoshop's lighting controls, I tried this one and it gave me an effect I like. Almost like looking through binoculars.
200mm, f5.6, 125 sec.
Kevin-
So the photo theme this week is Beatles and our challenge was to "submit a photograph that captures your interpretation of any person, place, thing or action that appears in the title of any song performed by the Beatles."
Frankly no particular idea had popped into my head. Okay, a couple of them did but capturing another star trails shot for Across the Universe was impossible because of cloudy skies. And capturing a photograph of Michelle seemed too easy, so I promised Paul I wouldn’t do that if he would’t photograph a bunch of novels for Paperback Writer, Finally, the Yellow Submarine idea didn’t go anywhere as a) I didn’t know how to find one b) I don’t have an underwater housing for my Nikon and c) The fact that I can’t swim made the idea of scuba training seem especially daunting. So what to do?
As I said, it has been a very cloudy, rainy, mosquito-infested week here in Minnesota. Then on Thursday as I woke up I gazed toward the window and saw (very, very out of focus as I can't see a damn thing without my glasses) that the skies were clear and the sun, which had just risen, was shining! And in my mind I could hear Paul McCartney singing "Good day sunshine."
Great I thought! That’s it! Then I panicked a bit. Was Good Day Sunshine Beatles tune? Or was it a song McCartney had done later with Wings (which wouldn't count). Fortunately I confirmed that Good Day Sunshine was a Beatles tune, from their 1966 album Revolver. So I grabbed my camera, mounted a lens and set out to reproduce what I had just seen.
The trees, the leaves, the branches, bits of blue sky, and of course the sunshine, all out of focus, just the way it appeared to me as I woke up.
Nikon D4s, handheld (unheard of I know), 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 135mm. ISO 100, f/2.8 @ 1/60th of a second.
So the photo theme this week is Beatles and our challenge was to "submit a photograph that captures your interpretation of any person, place, thing or action that appears in the title of any song performed by the Beatles."
Frankly no particular idea had popped into my head. Okay, a couple of them did but capturing another star trails shot for Across the Universe was impossible because of cloudy skies. And capturing a photograph of Michelle seemed too easy, so I promised Paul I wouldn’t do that if he would’t photograph a bunch of novels for Paperback Writer, Finally, the Yellow Submarine idea didn’t go anywhere as a) I didn’t know how to find one b) I don’t have an underwater housing for my Nikon and c) The fact that I can’t swim made the idea of scuba training seem especially daunting. So what to do?
As I said, it has been a very cloudy, rainy, mosquito-infested week here in Minnesota. Then on Thursday as I woke up I gazed toward the window and saw (very, very out of focus as I can't see a damn thing without my glasses) that the skies were clear and the sun, which had just risen, was shining! And in my mind I could hear Paul McCartney singing "Good day sunshine."
Great I thought! That’s it! Then I panicked a bit. Was Good Day Sunshine Beatles tune? Or was it a song McCartney had done later with Wings (which wouldn't count). Fortunately I confirmed that Good Day Sunshine was a Beatles tune, from their 1966 album Revolver. So I grabbed my camera, mounted a lens and set out to reproduce what I had just seen.
The trees, the leaves, the branches, bits of blue sky, and of course the sunshine, all out of focus, just the way it appeared to me as I woke up.
Nikon D4s, handheld (unheard of I know), 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 135mm. ISO 100, f/2.8 @ 1/60th of a second.