65. Foreground and Background - September 7-13, 2014
Deron-
I was going to do some pedestrian photo, until a neighbor's motorhome burned down at 11:00pm on Wednesday night. WOOHOO! HOW LUCKY AM I?!
I wish the firefighter were a little more foreground (this is kind of a mid-ground/background photo), but I like it, nonetheless. I had a few others that were a bit more to the topic, but this is pretty striking, so I went with it.
I was going to do some pedestrian photo, until a neighbor's motorhome burned down at 11:00pm on Wednesday night. WOOHOO! HOW LUCKY AM I?!
I wish the firefighter were a little more foreground (this is kind of a mid-ground/background photo), but I like it, nonetheless. I had a few others that were a bit more to the topic, but this is pretty striking, so I went with it.
Paul-
It’s a great thing to know where you’re going. But sometimes it’s just as important to know where you’ve been. In this case, my daughter (on the left) and some of her family are starring out the back of a train that goes around the periphery of the Lincoln Children’s Zoo. The train has been lovingly restored and maintained, and has logged many hundreds of miles over the years it has operated. There’s also no shortage of aging trainmen who volunteer their time to run it. During special Halloween and Winter Holiday schedules, the train is decked with lights and is run at night. Beautiful. So, I guess this is a picture of the foreground looking back at a receding background…or is it the foreground that is moving and the background remaining static? These paradoxes always stump me.
Our story so far… “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” the stranger said, so “call me Ismael.”
“Please sir, can I have some more,” I replied, wanting to know more about this fascinating fellow and the information I required for this entry.
“You can’t handle the truth!” was his forceful reply, and his glaring eyes took me aback.
Trying to appeal to our common background, I tried to reason with him. “If you prick me, do I not bleed?”
But he would have none of it, and responded cryptically “I’ve seen things people wouldn’t believe…” and even more abstrusely “Keep watching the skies!”
I would not be turned away, “we are not so different, you and I.”
”I fart in your general direction,” was his acerbic reply.
“I really think you should sit down, take a stress pill and…” gods, I regretted the words the moment they left my lips.
The stranger scowled. “To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you.”
(I sighed to myself…”I hate people I don't like.”) But, “In a world where carpenters get resurrected, everything is possible.” So I tried one last time…if this missive ends and I don’t have the metadata I need, “you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.”
Hearing this, he relented: “Olympus E-500 and a 14-45mm zoom lens (shot at 24mm); 1/80 sec. at f5; and ISO 100.”
It’s a great thing to know where you’re going. But sometimes it’s just as important to know where you’ve been. In this case, my daughter (on the left) and some of her family are starring out the back of a train that goes around the periphery of the Lincoln Children’s Zoo. The train has been lovingly restored and maintained, and has logged many hundreds of miles over the years it has operated. There’s also no shortage of aging trainmen who volunteer their time to run it. During special Halloween and Winter Holiday schedules, the train is decked with lights and is run at night. Beautiful. So, I guess this is a picture of the foreground looking back at a receding background…or is it the foreground that is moving and the background remaining static? These paradoxes always stump me.
Our story so far… “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” the stranger said, so “call me Ismael.”
“Please sir, can I have some more,” I replied, wanting to know more about this fascinating fellow and the information I required for this entry.
“You can’t handle the truth!” was his forceful reply, and his glaring eyes took me aback.
Trying to appeal to our common background, I tried to reason with him. “If you prick me, do I not bleed?”
But he would have none of it, and responded cryptically “I’ve seen things people wouldn’t believe…” and even more abstrusely “Keep watching the skies!”
I would not be turned away, “we are not so different, you and I.”
”I fart in your general direction,” was his acerbic reply.
“I really think you should sit down, take a stress pill and…” gods, I regretted the words the moment they left my lips.
The stranger scowled. “To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you.”
(I sighed to myself…”I hate people I don't like.”) But, “In a world where carpenters get resurrected, everything is possible.” So I tried one last time…if this missive ends and I don’t have the metadata I need, “you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.”
Hearing this, he relented: “Olympus E-500 and a 14-45mm zoom lens (shot at 24mm); 1/80 sec. at f5; and ISO 100.”
Jerry-
I was kind of stuck until finding this $ .97 mask - this would be my foreground! It may get further use in October, thanks to Jason Voorhees and Friday the 13th. The background was an old M C Escher poster, devils and angels. I used my trusty desk lamp to light the poster and held the mask with some binder clamps a few inches in front. The D5200 with 16-85mm was precisely set to 38mm (sort of), iso at 3200, handheld at 1/60 at f16. I had tried using the tripod but it was a pain to get the little devils in the best spot. I also set the camera to black and white.
I was kind of stuck until finding this $ .97 mask - this would be my foreground! It may get further use in October, thanks to Jason Voorhees and Friday the 13th. The background was an old M C Escher poster, devils and angels. I used my trusty desk lamp to light the poster and held the mask with some binder clamps a few inches in front. The D5200 with 16-85mm was precisely set to 38mm (sort of), iso at 3200, handheld at 1/60 at f16. I had tried using the tripod but it was a pain to get the little devils in the best spot. I also set the camera to black and white.
Kevin-
I rarely drink, but when I was in Chicago last week I had a Mojito with dinner. Then the next night I had the same dinner, and another Mojito. Plus there were receptions with wine, another dinner with wine, and now I can’t get enough alcohol. So for the WPOTM it was obvious that for the Foreground I needed to make another Mojito. In the Background are a bunch of other liquor bottles so when I run out of Mojito ingredients I can switch to Margaritas, Screwdrivers, Rum and Pepsi (sorry Paul) or simply straight shots of whisky.
Somehow I was still sober enough to arrange all the props and correctly expose the image. Nikon D4s with 70-200 f2/8 Nikkor zoom set to 200mm and tripod mounted. ISO 100, 3 seconds at f/11. This was all available light, a mix of LED lights above the glass, tungsten lights behind the bottles and cloudy daylight generally filling the room. I triggered the camera remotely as I needed to stand next to the light switches and shut off the tungsten lights behind the bottles about halfway through each exposure attempt, or they would have been too bright.
Mojito anyone?
I rarely drink, but when I was in Chicago last week I had a Mojito with dinner. Then the next night I had the same dinner, and another Mojito. Plus there were receptions with wine, another dinner with wine, and now I can’t get enough alcohol. So for the WPOTM it was obvious that for the Foreground I needed to make another Mojito. In the Background are a bunch of other liquor bottles so when I run out of Mojito ingredients I can switch to Margaritas, Screwdrivers, Rum and Pepsi (sorry Paul) or simply straight shots of whisky.
Somehow I was still sober enough to arrange all the props and correctly expose the image. Nikon D4s with 70-200 f2/8 Nikkor zoom set to 200mm and tripod mounted. ISO 100, 3 seconds at f/11. This was all available light, a mix of LED lights above the glass, tungsten lights behind the bottles and cloudy daylight generally filling the room. I triggered the camera remotely as I needed to stand next to the light switches and shut off the tungsten lights behind the bottles about halfway through each exposure attempt, or they would have been too bright.
Mojito anyone?
Byron-
We live in a 3 dimensional world. With the type of photography we do, that 3-D world is viewed through a single lens and forced to become 2 dimensional. That can lead to some problems. Our brains are programmed to view certain visual cues and interpret them as reality. That is why foreground and background are so important in photography. We have to give our brains enough information to correctly interpret the scene. This leads to my submission for this week. It appears that the King of Hearts is a standard size card while the Queen of Hearts is a larger card, perhaps made for people with vision or small motor skill issues. As it turns out, the brain can be fooled. Both cards are from the same deck. The were photographed so the foreground and background are in reverse order of what they appear. Shot at ISO 400, 52mm, f/16 at 1/30 sec. I used a Nikon SP-700 flashing its light through my new softbox attachment.
We live in a 3 dimensional world. With the type of photography we do, that 3-D world is viewed through a single lens and forced to become 2 dimensional. That can lead to some problems. Our brains are programmed to view certain visual cues and interpret them as reality. That is why foreground and background are so important in photography. We have to give our brains enough information to correctly interpret the scene. This leads to my submission for this week. It appears that the King of Hearts is a standard size card while the Queen of Hearts is a larger card, perhaps made for people with vision or small motor skill issues. As it turns out, the brain can be fooled. Both cards are from the same deck. The were photographed so the foreground and background are in reverse order of what they appear. Shot at ISO 400, 52mm, f/16 at 1/30 sec. I used a Nikon SP-700 flashing its light through my new softbox attachment.