Posts Tagged ‘Photography’
Aerials – Photography From The Sky
Sometimes it is through complete chance that I get to do unusual things in my life, and the fact that one of my father’s many hats is that of ‘Federal aviation safety trainer’ has allowed me early opportunities in my career to do aerial photography. Though I’ve grown up having the occasional helicopter ride thanks to his connections, my first time doing aerial photography was during the summer of 2007, when I photographed Kipahulu valley for Haleakala National Park. (Note that these shots were taken with a Canon Rebel XT with my eventually-stolen 17-40mm f.4L lens)
I even got to capture a near-perfect circular rainbow!
Having seen my dad don his flight suit for various helicopter operations for the National Park, I was quite proud to put one on myself and join him in the sky. Plus, it was just cool!
One of the best parts of the experience was getting to fly with no doors! Being 10,000+ feet in the sky and looking over the edge is an amazing thrill. (And my dad is posing in the pilot’s seat in the following photo – he’s not a pilot himself.)
(I don’t care how geeky those helmets look, it’s totally awesome!)
Fast-forward three years to 2010, and I’ve finally taken my first helicopter tour of Oahu, my home-away-from-home for the last six years. I was joined by my father, naturally, as well as my great-aunt, for the tour provided by Blue Hawaiian Helicopters.
It was fascinating to see Oahu from the air! Unfortunately, because this was a tour helicopter, there were doors present, and thus my photos were of an infuriatingly degraded quality than they would have been otherwise. The aircraft was also moving very fast, so if I missed a shot, the opportunity was gone within a few seconds. The tour was a good refresher in being aware of keeping my shutter speed fast enough to compensate for the movement of the helicopter. I was using my 5DMKII with a 24-105mm f.4L lens for its focal range and Image Stabilizer. Here’s a sampling of some of the practice shots I took today:
Finally, here’s a shot of Kaʻaʻawa Valley, though there is some glare from the helicopter’s plexiglass. This is the valley, a part of Kualoa Ranch, where several productions, including George of the Jungle, Jurassic Park, and parts of LOST have been shot!
Hopefully the next time I’m flying, I can do it doors-free for optimal image quality! If any of you ever have a chance, take a helicopter tour and practice some aerial photography! I highly recommend bringing a polarizer and swift reflexes for balancing ISO with aperture (for as much depth-of-field as possible) and shutter-speed (for compensating for hand-holding in a moving helicopter).
Finally, check out my 365 Photo Blog for one more shot from today!
G11 – Fun Times On Diamond Head
A couple months ago, I ‘sold’ my Canon G9 to my dad, and upgraded to the Canon G11, mostly because I was interested in the better ISO performance as well as the swivel-screen, something I haven’t been able to play with since I borrowed my mom’s old point-and-shoot five years ago. I’d already hiked the 5DMKII up Diamond Head twice in the last few weeks, so this time I just took the G11 to see what I could do with it. Accompanied by Kaeo and Gabe, here’s what we came up with. (And yes, all shots have been post-processed.)
Overall, I feel the G11 is a great alternative for taking photos when you don’t want to haul your DSLR around! It might not have the tonal-range or sensor size of my 5DMKII, but it’s definitely capable of taking nice, fun photographs.
Deployment
I haven’t posted anything very personal on this blog yet, so here’s a taste of what’s been happening in my life. This past December, at the TBQ Anniversary Party/Tweetup, I met a certain Edward White, soldier for the U.S. Army by day, photographer and social media darling by night. It was the closest to love at first sight that I will ever realistically be, and, much to my happiness, he felt the same.
Fast-forward to two months later, specifically Valentine’s Day. On this day, he left for his year-long deployment to Afghanistan. I never thought I would be a military girlfriend dealing with deployment, but when you know, you know, and he is completely worth the wait. To help document my experiences over the next year on being the significant other of a deployed soldier, I’ve started a 365 Photo blog over on Posterous. I’m already 3 days down, with at least 362 days left to go, but it has already helped me get through these first few days.
Ed himself is also blogging his deployment via Posterous, so please check it out. I have contributor permissions for his blog, so I may post something once in a while from the POV of the ‘girlfriend back home’. His father, Mark White, is also blogging there from a fatherly perspective, so you, dear reader, will get the full deployment experience!
I’ll leave you now with a preview shot from our portrait shoot together with the fantastic Lisa Hoang of Windwardskies Photography!
In short:
There are a few more announcements of projects and such on the horizon, and I will hopefully be blogging a lot more now, so stay tuned.
project emocute ii
We start off the second half of project emocute with the most ridiculous emo image of the shoot:
Seriously, I couldn’t help myself when their balloons got tangled!
I love the dreamy look of this next image, and the slight smile she has:
We took a break from standing on rocks to get a few photos with the rising moon:
And then Reid joined Erin on the rocks.
All in all, it was an amazingly fun random shoot!
I’ll have prints of some of these images for sale soon in my brand new Etsy shop, so stay tuned!
Europe, Revisited, and More
As inspiration/research for my NaNoWriMo endeavors, I’ve been going through a lot of my old photos from my Europe study abroad in 2006. Here are a few that I decided to re-process, and most of them have never been posted, aside from my old study abroad blog, which is no longer in existence.
“Burano” – The island near Venice, famous for its brightly-painted houses.
“Remember Venice” – Gondolas on the Grand Canal.
“Meet Me At Como” – A cafe on the shores of Lake Como.
“Switzerland” – Somewhere near Interlaken.
The best part of these photographs is that while the first picture, “Burano”, was taken with my old Canon Digital Rebel/kit lens, the last three were taken with my old Canon Powershot SD400…and that last shot in Switzerland was out of a moving bus window! It’s looking back on photos like these, when I was still very new to the art of photography and had the most basic of equipment, that remind me I can be more than my equipment. There have been many times where I have taken a photo, and people’s only comment is “Wow, you are so lucky you have such a nice camera!”, without any credit given to me as the eye behind the lens. A few of my photographer peers have had similar experiences, so I know I’m not alone in noticing this.
In other news, there’s apparently a Wildlife Photography Contest going on over at deviantART, and it’s the first photography contest in ages that has interested me. Luckily, zoo photography is allowed, so maybe I’ll be able to figure something out before December 15th. Of course, it’d be much more impressive to go back to Maui’s rainforest looking for honeycreepers, but if I do that I’ll be wanting to rent a super-telephoto from Hawaii Photo Rental, and didn’t I just say I want to be more than my equipment? Plus, I’m a very small girl, and hiking one of those monster lenses into a rainforest is rather daunting. Where’s my entourage when I need one?
I also might be posting more fashion-related entries as time goes on and my interest in fashion grows. Check out this shot of Sarah Jessica Parker from Elle:
I’m in love with the styling here! (Matte jersey crepe top with cage shoulder, $295, leather vest, $1,190, both, Alexander Wang, at Barneys New York. Cotton tank top, Michael Stars, $38. Stretch briefs, Chanel, $900. Leather boots, Bess, $385.)
Finally, I wanted to promote my dear friend and travel partner, Cameron, and her new blog, Eyes on Etsy!
As a huge Etsy fan, like myself, Cameron puts together awesome themed collections made up of the best handmade and vintage items she finds! In her own words:
Etsy is a magical, bountiful land of online creativity and commerce, specializing in handmade and vintage goods. I discovered it one day while wandering along (virtually), and fell head-over-heels in love. Now, just like any realistic love interest, Etsy is not 100% awesome 100% of the time. However, with a little patience, you can find some true gems… and I have.
So, seeing as I spend at least some part of every day browsing Etsy – and seeing as my list of Favorite items is approaching 300 – I thought I’d share my finds with the world. Maybe you can afford to actually purchase something…
Happy browsing,
Cameron
So there you have it! You can follow her on Twitter too, for all the great finds she doesn’t post on her blog!
There, I’ve been a good blogger now. May I have a cookie? 
No Matter How Hard It Tries…
…digital can never be film.
This is a photo of Kuulei from Niche that I did a little experimenting with. We were shooting indoors, and it was kind of dark so I was pumping up the ISO with all the lovely nostalgia of film. Sadly, the noise of digital photos will never have the same romantic quality of film grain. Sure there are programs like Exposure 2 that will attempt to emulate the qualities of film, but it’s still not the same.
This is a self-portrait I took with Ilford Delta 100 last year, and printed it on matte RC paper. That’s the actual border of the print too! (This image ended up being used for making inter-negatives and experimenting with various hand-applied emulsions. So old school!)
I really need to start shooting/making small prints again. With my access to the UH darkrooms about half a mile from me, what’s stopping me? The laziness of digital is. Heck, I’m too lazy to edit a lot of the digital photos I have, let alone go venture into the darkroom again. But, my romance with the nostalgia of film grain keeps tugging at me to get out of my chair and back into the dark, so maybe…
Allison and Shugo – July 18th, 2009
Test Shoot – Haliimaile – Chloe
On July 26th, Daeja had a test shoot with Chloe in Haliimaile, with me there assisting and Kaeo using my 5DMK2 to video. I didn’t take too many shots as there was a lot of light/reflector holding to be had, but here’s a two shot with my 70-200mm 2.8L IS lens:
But, Kaeo made off with my camera after these shots to take advantage of its gorgeous HD video capabilities (and I’m still waiting to see video, Kaeo!) So, I decided to experiment with the capabilities of my Canon G9 while photographing Chloe and our male model, Joe:
Yelp’d For Hawaii Photo Rental
I wanted to post a shout-out to Hawaii Photo Rental today for being such a wonderful service to have here in Honolulu. I love it so much that I even signed up for Yelp today just to post a review for them. Josh, the owner, is extraordinarily helpful in getting you the equipment you want, and offers great prices too! Before Hawaii Photo Rental started, I had only dreamt of being able to rent high-end gear, as I would have had to order it from California, but now with their partnership with Imageworks in Kaimuki, they are a 5-minute drive from my apartment. They are always expanding their stock, and besides lenses and camera bodies (both Nikon and Canon), they are even offering underwater housings, lighting equipment, and more! I cannot be enthusiastic enough about having this service available to us local photographers on Oahu, because it gives us the opportunity to try a lot top-of-the-line equipment without spending thousands of dollars on it.
So, local photographers or those planning on visiting, be sure to check out Hawaii Photo Rental! Look them up on Facebook and Twitter too!
Photo of the Day – Kodachrome x2
Today, Kodak announced that they will no longer be making Kodachrome film. But it will live on forever, partly in Koda’s name, partly in Paul Simon’s song, and as a legend amongst photographers. I’ve never shot Kodachrome film myself, because by the time I was into photography it was far too expensive to buy and process for it to be wasted on me, but I do have this roll of Kodachrome 64 that I will keep as a memento of a different era in photography.
This photo was processed with the demo version of Alien Skin’s Exposure 2, set to Kodachrome 64. It’s unfortunate that this filter will be a ghost of film past, but at least it’s something?
© 2010-2012 Dallas Nagata White
