Tonight I met Mr. Decot. He is the enthusiastic supporter of a company that sounds like he founded and has ran for multiple decades. His web site can be found here. We spoke for at least 15 minutes and I was inthralled with his enthusiasm and zest for life and his business. He is in his 80’s. It seemed as though he was my age or less. It was a true privilege to visit with him as he told me of his naval service, his friendship with General Schwarzkopf, and his relationship with Barry Goldwater. Sounds like a name dropper? Not in the least. His mentions of these men were a result of my insistent questioning. I intend on investigating further the benefits of his eye wear and more about him as an individual.
The first picture of the horseman above was what I was photographing when Mr. Decot and his daughter approached me. The assignment this week is to shoot in manual. I shoot very rarely in manual because it takes me longer to capture a photograph. Maybe it’s my very old school way of starting with the spot meter. Then determining the values in the whole scene or subject. For several years I shot with a Hasselblad and a spot meter. The process to determine the “perfect” exposure was short. But not nearly as short as my D3. All that being said, I shot all night in manual. It brought back fond memories of carry a gray card and my spot meter. The second photograph is an HDR image that took a little more experimentation than I normally have to deal with. Using the spot meter vs the matrix meter gave greater variations with the exposure range. Why is that? The average metering is more lenient than me putting a two or three degree meter on the brightest spot in the scene. Because of this I had to drop the top exposure and raise the lower in the 9 frame bracket. The final HDR image turned out very well and represented nearly perfect the scene I saw tonight.
The last photo is gargoyles on the 100 year old hotel. It should be obvious why I photographed them. First – they are wierd and very interesting looking. Second – The exposure was super easy!!!!
Fun assignment…but will still shoot most of the time in aperture priority.
Yes it’s two weeks late. And it was my idea for the assignment. Sunset Silouette is/was the assignment. Honestly I have never found or taken a shot I liked. If you know me my passion is wildlife. Wildlife needed to be in this assignment. The last two posts have been of my Heron friends. They are still around and fun to photograph. Most of the time very shy. This is a very simple exposure (shot in aperture priority). To get the deep shadows i dropped the EV to -1.3. The meter did a great job to average the scene (without my compensation). In post I cropped to a 3/5 ratio and let Nik Silver Efex Pro do the Black and White mastering.
