I’ve been busy trying to stay out of trouble.

So far I’ve succeeded.

Our annual summer party rainfest (it has rained every year except for one that we’ve had the party) went off successfully again — no injuries, one broken fence gate, some assaulted frogs, and 2 overfed dogs.

I’ve been schooled and am schooling.

The latest person to school me was Rudy. I was refreshingly pleased to be given a few insights into his political thought processes. He argued some political points with me on facebook recently, but did so with intelligence and practicality. He’s someone that has made his own political decisions through reason and research rather than as a crowd-following Lemming.

I’m schooling myself in photography, as many of you know. It’s my newest hobby and I’m working my way through a stack of books, from visual composition, to using Adobe Lightroom. Playing with off-camera flash is the coolest thing I’ve come across in a very long time. It’s actually what’s keeping me away from this blog the most. Fragileheart has patiently volunteered her time to a couple of photosessions for me to work on my lighting.

Here’s an example of what off-camera flash can do for you. Take for example a painting that was created with heavy brush strokes or a palate knife. The surface of a painting like this is as important as the image itself. The strokes convey texture, emotion, and movement to the underlying image.

Straight-on, or flat, lighting produces this:

Lighting from the side produces this:

The trade-off (isn’t life full of these) is that the more texture you show, the less saturated your colours become. The trick is finding the right lighting ratio and angles to strike a good balance between colour saturation and texture and thereby do some justice to a piece that will still be best viewed live.

© Periapex for The Periapex, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments |

It was after my first year of university that I applied for a summer job at a photofinishing/camera store where a friend of mine worked. The pay was above average and supposedly there were some cute customers that were regulars there.

I knew that the job application required that I write a test so that I could be evaluated on my knowledge of photography. All that I knew about photography was how to load film into a point and shoot camera and which buttons to push to turn the camera on and then to take the picture. I also knew what a lens cap was.

I desperately needed some education on the basics. My dad was only too happy to bring out his trusty SLR and teach me, in one evening, all about exposure, depth of field, and lighting. The test turned out to be a fairly easy test of my knowledge of exposure — f-stops, shutter speeds, and their relationship to exposure values. I got the job.

During the summer that I worked at the store, I did not manage to hook up with any cute customers, but I did get a substantial discount on photofinishing and film. I took advantage of this opportunity and shot away at any and everything with my Dad’s SLR. My friend and I joined the photography club at school and so we had access to darkroom equipment.

After I stopped working at that store, the hobby disappeared from my life because I couldn’t afford to continue taking the same quantity of pictures — not with all the computer equipment that I kept buying.

It wasn’t until I started practising dentistry that I ended up buying a camera of my own. The intention was to use the camera for intra-oral photos, and also to digitally record xrays. I was asked to give lectures every now and then and I needed new material. That camera was an expensive, bulky, Kodak digital point and shoot which worked well but produced some really bad JPEG compression artifacts.

I eventually got pissed off enough about the large size of this compact camera with its artifacts and ended up buying a Canon compact. That camera blew me away with the pictures it took for me. I actually started this blog, partly because I wanted to showcase some of the shots I got from the camera.

I’m still happy with that camera. It’s small enough to fit in my pocket and take anywhere, it takes video, I have an underwater case for it. But…red eye is a problem. And…there is no real control for depth of field.

So I just splurged and bought a Canon full-frame digital SLR. Single lens reflex cameras sure have come a long way since that last film SLR I played with. After a week, I’ve finally gotten through the instruction manual. Next is the manual for the flash which is almost as thick. The camera is an expensive fishing pole.

Although I don’t intend to pursue photography in any professional capacity, the field as a hobby fits my lifestyle and personality. I have no problem watching grass grow, paint dry, or a bob attached to my fishing line float on sparkly ripples for hours.

I have no problem observing the most insignificant everyday objects interact with light. I have no problem sitting out in my backyard with the camera and a tripod and waiting for the moment that particular beam of light from the setting sun reveals a treasure worth recording.

© Periapex for The Periapex, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments |