Sunday, October 05, 2008

Under Pressure
So there I am. Driving down country roads, not sure what I'm looking for. Eyes scanning every driveway, cow pasture and dirt road. It was Saturday night and time to get my weekly self portrait done. I knew Sunday would be too busy to get out and take a good one. Besides, this particular Saturday evening the lighting was perfect. A setting sun and clear blue sky was creating that "magic hour" photographers love. As I head farther from home, looking to come across something I had not seen before, my light and my hopes were fading. Suddenly, to my right, I see a wide open freshly cut hay field. This field wasn't empty before and wasn't very accessible. But it was now. I drive past it and quickly turn into the next road. I whip my car around and head back to the tractor trail leading to the field. I get parked, take out all my camera gear and get things setup. I fired off about 10 to 15 shots of what I wanted to use for this weeks self portrait. But the sun was now low on the horizon and this was such a great spot. I wanted to get a little more out of it. So I took my camera off its mini-tripod, put on my aviator shades and began holding the my 30D with 10mm wide angle out at arms reach and snapping away.

Later that night at home while editing, I came across this pic. It reflected the horizon and setting sun perfectly from my sun glasses. It looked ok in color. But then I thought, how would this look if i converted it to B&W and did some cross processing on it? Did some tweaking in Lightroom 2, then imported it into CS3 where I ran it through a film simulator called Exposure 2. This adds the true contrast (darks and lights) and grain of the film brand you select. I tried a few choices and settled on one. I think it was Kodak T-Max P3200. I liked the deep blacks and semi-rough grain. While I did not use this as my selfie of the week, i was really happy with how it came out.

See more of my shots over at www.flickr.com/thorpeland

Thursday, October 02, 2008


34\52: Looking Ahead
Originally uploaded by Thorpeland
Looking Ahead
Well its October now and less than one month till the big day, October 25th! Which for those that do not know, is mine and Emily's wedding day! Its fast approaching and we're finalizing all the details. I never knew there would be this much to do for this event. Mainly its been Emily, working every night and weekend to make sure its all perfect. She's very organized. I offer to help but there's not a lot I can do. I feel like Im just along for the ride! haha So, I'll sit here on the shore of the lake, and just look ahead at whats to come. For our honeymoon, we're going on a very nice cruise. Im really looking forward to it and it should be a blast. I am amazed I was able to talk Emily into going on a cruise. hehe She gets easily sea sick, so this could go well or not so well. But at least she's willing to try! What a little trooper!