Week 19 of 52 Theme: “Street Photography” Waiting on Main Street

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Street Photography Nothing scares and excites me at the same time quite like it. So when this weeks theme came up I decided to do something a little differently and I used my new Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens I picked up for my birthday. I tell you those little Amazon emails announcing a sale in “Cameras and Electronics” are dangerous. I decided to head downtown to take my wife out to lunch and then do a small photowalk to see if I could make a decent street shot with the fisheye, after walking around for about an hour here’s what I got…

Waiting on Main Street

The fisheye was a fun yet challenging lens to use for street photography as you have to get close! I mean really close, that guy was only 3 feet away and very aware of me and my camera, however the advantage of the fisheye is I can capture someone without having to point it directly at them and so I was able to capture him without making him or me too uncomfortable. A short train ride brought me to the heart of downtown Salt Lake City…

The corner of Main Street and South Temple with a Trax Train – 3 shot HDR Handheld

Making the Turn! The Trax rails at Main Street and South Temple  -3 shot HDR Handheld

Looking down Main Street from South Temple – 3 shot HDR Handheld

 

 

The LDS church’s Salt Lake Temple  -3 shot HDR Handheld

There are always tons of people taking pictures around here all day long. 3 shot HDR Handheld

The Temple and Reflecting pond – 3 shot HDR handheld

The South Temple entrance to the City Creek shopping center – 3 Shot HDR Hanheld

One of many fountains in the City Creek Center

Another fountain 3 shot HDR Handheld

The West End Plaza at City Creek Center

The Apple Store at City Creek Center – 3 shot HDR Handheld

I headed back to the Trax platform to wait for a ride back to my car.

3 shot HDR Handheld

Watched and ignored, probably my favorite shot of the day as I’m getting busted twice in this shot, can you see it? – 3 shot HDR Handheld

3 shot HDR Handheld

I apologize for the duplicate, but I like this version just as much!

Main Street and the Wells Fargo building – 3 shot HDR Handheld

The Wells Fargo building from the Gallivan plaza – 3 shot HDR Handheld

Kazuo Matsubayashi’s Asteroid Landed Softly Sundial Gallivan Plaza- 3 shot HDR Handheld

 

Back where I started, this is where my wife and I ate lunch before my fishy photowalk… 3 shot HDR Handheld

What a fun little photowalk, I love the new lens, and despite it being a manual lens it was easy to use I can’t believe how well it handles direct Sun flare, and I think the image quality speaks for itself. I look forward to playing with it much more in the future!

Thanks for joining me on this ultra wide experience and I hope you’ll be back soon.

Happy Shooting!

Howard

 

 

 

 

 

Week 18 of 52 Theme: “Weather” Spring in the Valley

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“If you don’t like the weather wait 5 minutes…” Never is this statement more true than Utah in Spring. In the space of only a few days we can go from shoveling snow to 90 degrees and absolutely everything in between.

To show this I decided to go to high ground and shoot wide (plus it gives you all a break from my long string of recent macros.) Located behind the State Capitol building in the foothills north of Salt Lake City is a 5,414 ft (1,650 m) knobby hill named Ensign Peak. It’s a short easy hike to a spectacular view, but we were short on time as sunset was approaching fast so we stopped at the “Vista Overlook” a small level area about 50 meters/yards up the trail that gives a view that’s still quite amazing. While setting up the canyon winds really started to pickp up. and my poor wife soon became a human windscreen using her open jacket to block the wind as I started cranking out 7 frame brackets in a large 180 degree Panorama.

I think the effort was worth it, Thanks Honey!

Salt Lake Valley at Sunset – 7 frame Panorama each frame a 7 bracket HDR using the Promote Control.

A typical Spring weather pattern was over the valley, you can see that the spacing of each “event” is about 5-10 minutes apart depending on the wind. This happens all the time here and we just learn to roll with it.

Sadly as nice as this is it should have been an epic sunset, but it faded as clouds rolled in to cover the Sun just before it would have lit these clouds up like no other.

Regardless I hope you enjoyed the view!

Happy Shooting!

Howard

Week 16 of 52 Theme: “Cookies”

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Hello my name is Howard and I’m a cookie-holic! That’s the first step right? Well here’s the thing, I don’t want to stop, that’s right I’m addicted to cookies and I don’t care what you say I’m going to just keep on eating them. So when this weeks theme was revealed I was excited not only because I was going to photograph one of my favorite foods, but because I was going to eat them afterwards.

The first shot I had envisioned was going to include my favorite Sesame Street character, that sugar induced quivering blue mass of fur known as Cookie Monster, but someone else in the group made a shot with him in it first so I decided to go macro and involve some friends from the front yard.

If Ants dreamed I think they would dream of something like this…
50mm f/1.8 with 12mm+36mm extension tubes @ f/11 1/250 sec.

This was a painful shoot for me, not because I was lying down next to hundreds of scurrying ants that crawled all over my arms, no it was because this was a cookie that my daughter and I had lovingly made just minutes before and then had purposely dropped on the ground all for the sake of a photograph, what is wrong with me?

Going for the chocolate!

This little crumb seemed to frustrate this guy as he kept dropping it (maybe he was just sneaking a few bites)

On the other hand this guy was all “Go Big Or Go Home!”

Like climbing Mt Everest
3 shot HDR @ 2EV handhled

Mine!!

Hey Carl, after we take apart this mountain of heavenly goodness how about we go get that dried up worm on the sidewalk?”

Ok so I might have gotten a little carried away with that last caption…

Although I had to sacrifice a cookie for these shots rest assured that the rest of the batch was dunked in milk and eaten in tribute to their fallen Brother.

Thanks as always for stopping by.

Happy Shooting!

Howard

Week 15 of 52 Theme” “Something I Don’t Like” Dandelions

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The theme “Something I Don’t Like” is one of those themes where it’s so open you get a little overwhelmed trying to narrow it down to one subject. It just so happens that ever since we moved into our home we’ve been locked in mortal combat with weeds in our backyard which seems to be specifically formulated to grow weeds, but not grass.

What will be… 50mm f/1.8 + 12mm & 20mm extension tubes – 3 shot HDR Handheld.

I caught this shot in a surreptitious moment as the seed from another Dandelion I was photographing fell off onto this blossom and absolutely made the shot! I’ll credit luck every time it happens!

This is what the seed fell from…

Going bald, I can sympathise! 50mm f/1.8 + 12mm & 20mm extension tubes – 3 shot HDR Handheld

50mm f/1.8 + 12mm extension tube – 3 shot HDR Handheld

50mm f/1.8 12mm + 20mm extension tubes – 3 shot HDR Handheld

Offensive Line… 70-300mm – 3 shot HDR on Gorrillapod Focus.

50mm f/1.8 12mm + 20mm extension tube – 3 shot HDR Handheld

A full seed head in the grass 50mm f/1.8 + 20mm extension tube

I love the dreamy abstract feel of this one. 50mm f/1.8 + 36mm extension tube – 3 shot HDR Handheld

Full Seed Head 50mm f/1.8 + 12mm extension tube – 3 shot HDR Handheld

Some new friends arrived this year to keep our dandelions company… 50mm f/1.8 +12mm extension tube – 3 shot HDR

They look like mini Venus fly traps. 50mm f/1.8 +36mm extension tube – 3 shot HDR Handheld

 

If these harden as they mature we’re in big trouble. 50mm f/1.8 12mm +20mm extension tubes – 3 shot HDR Handheld

50mm f/1.8 12mm + 20mm extension tubes. – 3 shot HDR Handheld

I have to inform you that although no weeds/vegetation were harmed in the making of this series of photographs that all of these died a horrific death at the hands of a rapidly spinning mower blade soon after…

I refuse to mourn!

Thanks for stopping by, my next post will show something I love and dislike, I hope this week you photograph something that you love.

Happy Shooting!

Howard