ObG Thursdays – Top of the Great Wall

Posted on February 14, 2013 by owencherry

Today’s Oldie-but-Goodie post comes from a year ago this week when I was high up on the Great Wall of China. I was in China for work (lots of photos here) and stayed for a few days to meet up with my friends Mark and Ling in Wuqing, on the south side of Beijing. They were wonderful hosts and on the second day of my visit they hired a car to take us to the Great Wall north of Beijing. The driver got a little lost and ended up taking us to a different section of the wall than we’d intended but we didn’t complain. This mountain pass, known as Juyongguan Pass, had a great ring of wall that went up the north side (Badaling) and back down again, across the valley and then up and down the south side. The climb was steep and grueling.

I had with me the D300s, AF-S 35mm f/1.8, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 and a borrowed AF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 and made good use of them all. The day was extremely hazy and visibility was a lot worse than the photos make it out to seem. When editing I added a huge amount of contrast and saturation to keep them from looking washed out.

The shot below was with the 11-16mm at 11mm 1/125s f/9 ISO200. Although it doesn’t look it, I composed this as a 4-shot high dynamic range (HDR) image. Each of the images that went into it were separated by a 1EV exposure difference. I found that the HDR process brought out a richness of colour that wasn’t there in the individual shots. To add separation between the individual mountain peaks and the foreground I did some dodging and burning with the curves tool and blending duplicate layers with soft light and screen modes. I used added a bit of glow to add an ethereal feel.

The Tragically Hip at the Aud – More Photos

Posted on February 11, 2013 by owencherry

This post is a follow-up to last week’s about my impromptu shoot at a Tragically Hip show at the Kitchener Auditorium. I thought I’d show a bunch more photos but also give a few tips and tricks.

Let’s start with packing gear. Because I hadn’t ever shot at an indoor stadium show and had no idea what kind of vantage point I’d have, I brought nearly everything (11-16, 17-55, 50-135, 35, 50, 85 and both the D300s and D7000… oh, and some strobes and light modifiers too). I really didn’t know if I would even have the chance to change lenses during the shoot but I wanted to be safe. At the time I also didn’t know the extent of the shoot…. would I be covering just the show? or maybe shooting the band afterwords? would the writer need some details to support an interview? In the end, when I found that I would just be shooting the first three songs, I opted for a simple and versatile setup that would need no lens swapping. I put the AF-S 17-55 f/2.8 on the D300s and the Tokina 50-135 f/2.8 on the D7000 and left the rest in the car.

Concert photography presents a few technical challenges due to the extreme contrast and colour of light and fast-moving performers. In the concerts I’m used to shooting, there is barely enough light to shoot 1/60s with a wide open lens at ISO 1600; however during this show there was ample light. I chose to shoot at ISO 1600 with the lenses wide open or near-wide open but was able to get very fast shutter speeds like 1/250s. Freezing the subjects was a breeze.

When shooting a concert the hall is usually quite dark and the subjects quite bright. Imagine trying to properly expose a backlit penguin in the snow and then invert the light and dark. The camera will want to expose for the shadows and completely blow out the subjects. When shooting wide angle with the D300s I dealt with this extreme contrast by setting the exposure compensation to -1EV and crossing my fingers. For the most part it worked and I got a lot of keepers. With the D7000 and 50-135 I used the spot meter instead of the matrix meter. I actually have the function button programmed to quickly switch to spot meter while pressed. Occasionally I would combine the spot meter with the AE-L (exposure lock) when I needed to recompose.

In all I got 20-25 shots that I consider keepers (not bad for three songs). Here is a selection.

ObG Thursdays – Fox in the Fog

Posted on February 7, 2013 by owencherry

Here’s a photo I took at Halloween in 2011, late at night on our way home from a party. Mitzy had spent a solid week making her Fantastic Mrs. Fox costume and I’d had a hard time getting just the right photograph of it. It was a misty night, and cold, but I convinced Mitzy to stay in the parking lot across the street from our apartment while I grabbed a tripod. I positioned her under the street light and took just one shot.

D300s on tripod with AF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 38mm f/4 1/4s ISO400

Tragically Hip at the Aud – Impromptu Shoot

Posted on February 6, 2013 by owencherry

Last night while cooking dinner I got notification from my friend Nathan that a Vancouver blog, http://www.unnomdeguerre.com/, was looking for a photographer. The Tragically Hip were playing at the Aud in Kitchener (with The Arkells) opening. Not being a huge fan of the Hip (and really keen for a relaxing night in) I reluctantly agreed to do the shoot. I had less than an hour notice and hadn’t even eaten yet but I did make it to the venue in time for the Hip to start (sadly missing The Arkells’ opening slot).

I was also only allowed to shoot the first three songs so I had to pack strategically. There wouldn’t be much time to change lenses, so i settled on using the 17-55mm f/2.8 on the D300s and the Tokina 50-135mm f/2.8 on the D7000.

I’ll put some more shots up in the future, along with some technical pointers, once I’ve made my way through the 350+ shots I took within my 20 minute window. Here’s a standout from my initial glean through the set:

Two Takes on a Flooded Road

Posted on February 3, 2013 by owencherry

During the work week I like to take my camera and lunch into the country. Of course I don’t usually get the chance in the wintery months. But last week, when the temperature went up into the double digits, I jumped into the car and headed out to my favourite spot on Three Bridges Road, just north of Waterloo. I had a feeling that the water would be high due to all the melting, but I didn’t expect the bridge to be totally covered. Here are two takes of the same scene. The first is a straightforward panorama with the D7000 and 35mm f/1.8 G.In this second image I went a little more artistic with a shallow depth of field Brenizer Method panorama. To really get the best bokeh in this image I should have been a little closer to the warning post that’s in sharp focus… but it was kind of mucky. Enjoy!

ObG Thursdays – Sweeping the Sky

Posted on January 31, 2013 by owencherry

I took this shot in the Summer of 2009 during the Kitchener Blues Festival. The reflecting pond water feature outside of city hall had been drained and a beer tent set up. Unfortunately there had just been a torrential downpour, flooding the pond. The surface is very flat and level (since it is also used as an outdoor rink in the winter) giving the water not much place to go. A group of people armed with squeegees started pushing the water away from the beer tent. I caught these two taking a break, where the smooth still water was incredibly reflective.

This was shot with the Pentax K20D and Sigma 24-60mm f/2.8 at 1/50s f/8 ISO 400. Yes, there is a bit of Photoshop to remove a few unwanted objects.

Screams at the Trepid House

Posted on January 28, 2013 by owencherry

Here’s a bit of nostalgia for those who were as lucky as me to have been part of the Trepid House in Waterloo.

For those who don’t know, the Trepid House was both a record label headquarters, music venue for house shows, art gallery and a great place to live. The house, mostly under the guidance of Jeff Woods, hosted in the range of 100 shows over its five years and served as a launching point for many local artists. I lived there from spring of 2007 until the winter of 2009, a time I will cherish forever. I do intend to write a much more expansive post about the house (and how my experiences there shaped me into the photographer I am now) but for now I’d like to show the images from an art installation I put up in the attic art gallery.

Called “Scream”, these images all have a common theme that should be quite obvious. They were taken mostly through 2008 using a lighting system that Jeff and I worked out with some trial and error. We worked with three lights, Vivitar 285HV, triggered with cheapo ebay triggers and then later on with Paul C. Buff Cybersyncs. A light was clamped to the door frame at the left and another on a window frame at the right. The third light sat in the back left corner of the room, pointed at the camera to provide rim lighting. Occasionally we would add a fourth light on the right side of the room, pointed at the drummer.

Enjoy!

ObG Thursdays – The Wrestler

Posted on January 24, 2013 by owencherry

I’ve decided to start a weekly post called Oldie-but-Goodie (ObG) Thursdays where I’ll revisit an old photo of mine and explain a bit about how/why it was taken. Last week’s post was technically the first installment, so here’s the second!

I call it The Wrestler and it was taken when a friend, Colin Hunter, asked me to cover a wrestling match for a book he was writing on the world of amateur/semi-pro wrestling. He got me full ring-side access at Club Element, in Kitchener, and free reign to set up lights (incidentally, Element is kind of sketchy, as I found out when entering the washroom with my camera around my neck and getting harassed extensively by the manager. I think he was worried I was going to document the washroom!).

I set up three lights around the ring, each pointing into one side of the ring. This gave me the opportunity to have rim light at nearly every angle and still have fill in front. I triggered the flashes (2 Vivitar 285HVs and a Pentax AF-500FTZ, all at 1/2 power) with cheapo ebay triggers that were about 80% reliable. As It turns out, it is quite difficult to juggle fast moving action, slow Pentax autofocus, flash refresh times and unreliable flash triggers… but I’m happy with the results that I got! There are a lot more from the day here.

Pentax K10D, DA 16-45mm f/4 @ 21mm, f/4.5, 1/80s, ISO 200.

Nik and Erin’s Arboretum Engagement

Posted on January 23, 2013 by owencherry

This past October I had the privilege of taking engagement photos for my friends Nik and Erin. Both Nik and Erin are wonderfully fun people who smiled and laughed their way through the entire shoot. Their good chemistry was instantly obvious… and infectious. This was probably the first time I’ve ever had to direct people to take a break from smiling and flirting once in a while for a few more serious shots.

We started the day off at the University of Guelph Arboretum, where the trees were just hanging on to the last of their fall colours.

The first image here is a bokeh panorama combining 30+ shots from the D7000 + Sigma 50mm f/1.4 at f/1.4. THe next three are from the D300s + AF-S 17-55 f/2.8.And finally with the D300s + Tokina 50-135mm f/2.8After the arboretum we headed down Gordon St. to the river and Guelph’s beautiful covered pedestrian bridge. First, with the D300s + AF-S 17-55mm f/2.8: And finally another bokeh panorama with the D7000 + Sigma 50mm f/1.4.
Your thoughts?

A Saturday at the Distillery District

Posted on January 22, 2013 by owencherry

This Saturday, Mitzy and I took a trip to Toronto and visited the Distillery District. Here are a couple of shots. The first is a panorama taken with the AF-S 85mm f/1.8 G at f/1.8 following the Brenizer method.

Owen Cherry Photography

Category Archives: Photos