71. Clockwork - October 19-25, 2014
Paul-
I choose this theme primarily because it sounded fun and, secondarily, because I didn’t have anything specific in mind when the idea popped into head. (Well, okay, I was thinking about gluing an hour and minute hand onto an orange, but I decided someone else might do that so I opted for something different.)
My first effort—which took a lot of driving around town to bike shops begging for componentry that was just going to be tossed—was to create a clockwork-looking mechanism made completely of gears, sprockets, cogs, cassettes, chains, derailleurs, and whatnot from bicycles. It wouldn’t be functional, of course, but just look like it might be—if you were particularly generous with your imagination. To lend a little more credence to the effort, I was going to top the greasy, heavy metal mechanical mess with some actual small clockwork pieces from a nearby clock shop.
After collecting and thoroughly washing (with limited success) the bike hardware, I went to the clock shop with hat in hand…I even mentioned the reason I was there. (In my experience, people love hearing about the WPOTM and are happy to help in some way.) The woman behind the counter said she had two near-complete clock movements they were going to toss, but someone else had called asking for them already. To my surprise, she gave them to me anyway because she said I was more polite and asked nicely. (Thanks, Mom…you were right about that being nice to grown-ups thing.)
The bike paraphernalia looked ridiculous so I left that out. (I bet I’ll use the stuff some other day!) Instead, I mounted the older movement on top of the newer one to suggest a bit more intricacy, depth, and subtle range of coloration. My thought was to keep the image in sharp focus to show off the components but for some reason I liked it with the clarity dropped, so I went with that.
Our story so far…
As the glowing digital read-out on the bomb silently announced 1 minute before detonation, explosives expert Roger Semtex was faced with might well be the last decision of his life: Cut the red wire or the black one? He’d expertly bypassed a series of dummy switches and mercury-filled tiltometers to face this last step. His decision would mean the different between being a hero or the city having to pony up enough money to fill in a 70-foot blast crater in the middle of a trendy and recently evacuated shopping mall. Sweating beneath his bomb disposal armor, and with wire cutters poised in a trembling glove, he remembered something his (late) mentor once said. “Think outside the box.” At 19 seconds before local seismometers would be twitching like a rummy on a bad day, he did exactly that…whirling around and cutting power to the Orange Julius machine that stood nearby. Two blocks away, local yoga enthusiast Bridget Nasmaste just managed to snap off a stunning shot of the exploding mall’s nearly intact carousel being propelled into the sky (just ahead of a flaming Old Navy sign) with her Olympus E-500 and 14-45mm lens set to ISO 250, a shutter speed of 1/25 sec, and an f-stop of 9.0. (She did not mention using a ring light, copy stand, and two other light sources to the authorities.)
I choose this theme primarily because it sounded fun and, secondarily, because I didn’t have anything specific in mind when the idea popped into head. (Well, okay, I was thinking about gluing an hour and minute hand onto an orange, but I decided someone else might do that so I opted for something different.)
My first effort—which took a lot of driving around town to bike shops begging for componentry that was just going to be tossed—was to create a clockwork-looking mechanism made completely of gears, sprockets, cogs, cassettes, chains, derailleurs, and whatnot from bicycles. It wouldn’t be functional, of course, but just look like it might be—if you were particularly generous with your imagination. To lend a little more credence to the effort, I was going to top the greasy, heavy metal mechanical mess with some actual small clockwork pieces from a nearby clock shop.
After collecting and thoroughly washing (with limited success) the bike hardware, I went to the clock shop with hat in hand…I even mentioned the reason I was there. (In my experience, people love hearing about the WPOTM and are happy to help in some way.) The woman behind the counter said she had two near-complete clock movements they were going to toss, but someone else had called asking for them already. To my surprise, she gave them to me anyway because she said I was more polite and asked nicely. (Thanks, Mom…you were right about that being nice to grown-ups thing.)
The bike paraphernalia looked ridiculous so I left that out. (I bet I’ll use the stuff some other day!) Instead, I mounted the older movement on top of the newer one to suggest a bit more intricacy, depth, and subtle range of coloration. My thought was to keep the image in sharp focus to show off the components but for some reason I liked it with the clarity dropped, so I went with that.
Our story so far…
As the glowing digital read-out on the bomb silently announced 1 minute before detonation, explosives expert Roger Semtex was faced with might well be the last decision of his life: Cut the red wire or the black one? He’d expertly bypassed a series of dummy switches and mercury-filled tiltometers to face this last step. His decision would mean the different between being a hero or the city having to pony up enough money to fill in a 70-foot blast crater in the middle of a trendy and recently evacuated shopping mall. Sweating beneath his bomb disposal armor, and with wire cutters poised in a trembling glove, he remembered something his (late) mentor once said. “Think outside the box.” At 19 seconds before local seismometers would be twitching like a rummy on a bad day, he did exactly that…whirling around and cutting power to the Orange Julius machine that stood nearby. Two blocks away, local yoga enthusiast Bridget Nasmaste just managed to snap off a stunning shot of the exploding mall’s nearly intact carousel being propelled into the sky (just ahead of a flaming Old Navy sign) with her Olympus E-500 and 14-45mm lens set to ISO 250, a shutter speed of 1/25 sec, and an f-stop of 9.0. (She did not mention using a ring light, copy stand, and two other light sources to the authorities.)
Jerry-
This my paternal grandfathers pocket watch, an Elgin from about 1910 (plugged the serial number into an Elgin collectors database). I rescued it from my older brother this week and set about taking photos of it. It's missing the crystal and second hand but it still runs and keeps fair time. You can see "damaskeening" on the works. Much of the gold plate has been worn off to the brass. Before I got to the pocket watch, I took some photos of a battery powered stick on watch and of a Seiko self-wound 17 jewel wristwatch from the late '70's. I will send what I did with those later, maybe tomorrow.
I used my Nikon D5200 with 55mm micro nikkor at f22, 1/60 at iso 1600, handheld. Desklamp with 100 watt lamp for lighting.
This my paternal grandfathers pocket watch, an Elgin from about 1910 (plugged the serial number into an Elgin collectors database). I rescued it from my older brother this week and set about taking photos of it. It's missing the crystal and second hand but it still runs and keeps fair time. You can see "damaskeening" on the works. Much of the gold plate has been worn off to the brass. Before I got to the pocket watch, I took some photos of a battery powered stick on watch and of a Seiko self-wound 17 jewel wristwatch from the late '70's. I will send what I did with those later, maybe tomorrow.
I used my Nikon D5200 with 55mm micro nikkor at f22, 1/60 at iso 1600, handheld. Desklamp with 100 watt lamp for lighting.
Kevin-
I spent a lot of time contemplating this theme, figuring that perhaps I would do some studio shots of wind-up alarm clock or perhaps some clock parts. But ultimately I decided to go in a different direction, thinking about processes that run like clockwork. Train schedules, bus schedules, the rising and setting of the sun and the moon, etc. Then I realized that there was a place I love, that I visit all of the time, where things have to run like clockwork every single night. YoYo Donuts is just a mile from my home. And unlike store-bought donuts they are mixed, made, and decorated fresh every single night, by people, not machines. I have visited YoYo Donuts countless times, but had never been in their back kitchen/prep area before. YoYo's owner and creator Chris Moquist invited me to spend the night there with baker Rachel and the decorator Kayti. Before I arrived I had a few thoughts of setting up to do a carefully lighted shot with Rachel and Kayti as posed subjects but realized almost immediately that wouldn’t be compatible with their schedules, given the clockwork precision that goes into making all the varieties of cake donuts, raised donuts, old-fashioned donuts, donut holes plus products like cinnamon twists, apple fritters and the famous maple-bacon long johns on YoYo’s menu. These young women were seriously focused on their jobs and on all the different steps that go in to making each variety of donut, in the correct quantity, ready to be served when the doors open each day at 6:00 AM.
I arrived at 9:00 PM and stayed and photographed until 2:00 AM when I felt it was truly time to get out of their way. I captured many shots, but ultimately I’m going with this one - showing racks of freshly made donuts in the foreground and Kayti and Rachel working in the background. Shot at around 1:00 AM, so less than 5 hours before the doors open and still lots more donuts to make and decorate!
I believe that Deron is the only one of us who has not been to YoYo Donuts yet. But when we get him to Minnesota, it will be a place he has to visit.
Nikon D4s, handheld. 24-70mm f/2.8 Nikkor zoom lens set to 52mm. ISO 1600, 1/60th of a second at f/8. A mix of existing bakery light and a couple of Nikon flash units bounced off the ceiling.
I spent a lot of time contemplating this theme, figuring that perhaps I would do some studio shots of wind-up alarm clock or perhaps some clock parts. But ultimately I decided to go in a different direction, thinking about processes that run like clockwork. Train schedules, bus schedules, the rising and setting of the sun and the moon, etc. Then I realized that there was a place I love, that I visit all of the time, where things have to run like clockwork every single night. YoYo Donuts is just a mile from my home. And unlike store-bought donuts they are mixed, made, and decorated fresh every single night, by people, not machines. I have visited YoYo Donuts countless times, but had never been in their back kitchen/prep area before. YoYo's owner and creator Chris Moquist invited me to spend the night there with baker Rachel and the decorator Kayti. Before I arrived I had a few thoughts of setting up to do a carefully lighted shot with Rachel and Kayti as posed subjects but realized almost immediately that wouldn’t be compatible with their schedules, given the clockwork precision that goes into making all the varieties of cake donuts, raised donuts, old-fashioned donuts, donut holes plus products like cinnamon twists, apple fritters and the famous maple-bacon long johns on YoYo’s menu. These young women were seriously focused on their jobs and on all the different steps that go in to making each variety of donut, in the correct quantity, ready to be served when the doors open each day at 6:00 AM.
I arrived at 9:00 PM and stayed and photographed until 2:00 AM when I felt it was truly time to get out of their way. I captured many shots, but ultimately I’m going with this one - showing racks of freshly made donuts in the foreground and Kayti and Rachel working in the background. Shot at around 1:00 AM, so less than 5 hours before the doors open and still lots more donuts to make and decorate!
I believe that Deron is the only one of us who has not been to YoYo Donuts yet. But when we get him to Minnesota, it will be a place he has to visit.
Nikon D4s, handheld. 24-70mm f/2.8 Nikkor zoom lens set to 52mm. ISO 1600, 1/60th of a second at f/8. A mix of existing bakery light and a couple of Nikon flash units bounced off the ceiling.
Byron-
I call my photo - "Morning light on my nightstand". As you can see I don't trust just one alarm clock. I'm afraid it will fail. So I figure the more I have, the less chance of failure. Actually, as often happens, this theme came at a good time for me. I helped clean out Erleen's parents garage. One of the items was a box of clocks. Erl's Dad was a collector of many things. I set them all to 10:10 and arranged them on a table. for lighting I used a flash bouncing of an umbrella to the right of the camera and to left I had an undiffused flash with an orange filter on it. It was shot at f11 so I could get all the clocks in focus.
I call my photo - "Morning light on my nightstand". As you can see I don't trust just one alarm clock. I'm afraid it will fail. So I figure the more I have, the less chance of failure. Actually, as often happens, this theme came at a good time for me. I helped clean out Erleen's parents garage. One of the items was a box of clocks. Erl's Dad was a collector of many things. I set them all to 10:10 and arranged them on a table. for lighting I used a flash bouncing of an umbrella to the right of the camera and to left I had an undiffused flash with an orange filter on it. It was shot at f11 so I could get all the clocks in focus.
Deron-
This is my back up photo, in case I didn't get a chance to shoot my intended photo... which I didn't. That's ok, because this masterpiece is from the famous clock maker, Erv Ehrman. An Ehrman Clock is widely known throughout Germany and Switzerland... and Pelican Rapids. I'm proud to own an Ehrman and proud to show it off.
This is my back up photo, in case I didn't get a chance to shoot my intended photo... which I didn't. That's ok, because this masterpiece is from the famous clock maker, Erv Ehrman. An Ehrman Clock is widely known throughout Germany and Switzerland... and Pelican Rapids. I'm proud to own an Ehrman and proud to show it off.