Tag: Photography
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A Story Behind Every Picture
They say every picture is worth 1,000 words. In the best case, a good picture tells a story. Sometimes the picture itself is the story. This is one of the cool things about photography. Take the photo below, for instance. Not a very good picture – out of focus, not well-framed, and the subject…
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Ansco B2 Cadet: Photography with an Old Box Camera
Sure, today’s fancy digital cameras have a lot of tricks to ensure your photos turn out picture-perfect. But compared to the simplicity of an old box camera like Ansco’s B2 Cadet, the photos aren’t THAT much better! Basically a wooden box without any real lens, and a 1/60 second shutter that allows light into a…
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Vintage Camera: Kodak Duaflex II
One of the key aspects of the vintage cameras I collect is that they should function. This was the case with the Kodak Duaflex II, a plastic (bakelite) camera manufactured from 1950 to 1954. It is normally held at waist level, and you look down into the brilliant glass viewfinder, which shows where the camera…
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Diwali Fireworks – 7 Steps to Help Photograph them Effectively (Even if it’s Cheating!)
Yesterday I posted about scenes from Diwali (Deepawali), the festival of lights, as seen during the day in Chennai, India. The firecrackers that had been steadily and constantly building over the last few days continued to build until Saturday night, when the nature of the sounds changed. Wandering up to our roof, I was amazed…
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Photowalk: Triplicane
After the long series of posts on Goa, we’ve been back home again for a few weeks, and I’ve been able to join another photowalk. This time, it was to the part of Chennai known as “Triplicane”, which is one of the oldest parts of the city. Much of the city that became Madras and…
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Going to Goa: Rome of the East
When I asked some photographer friends what I should look to photograph in my (then-) upcoming trip to Goa, I was told, “Churches! Goa is the ‘Rome of the East’”. I did some digging around and discovered that in fact “Old Goa” with its many churches is a UNESCO World Heritage site for that very…
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Going to Goa: On the Beach
Sharing a few photos from our recent trip to Goa, a former Portuguese colony in west/south India. One of the things tourists love about the beaches here is how clean they are. Whether it’s the currents, the population size or some other reason, we can definitely say there is a huge difference between what we…
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Street Photography: Is Black and White Best?
A few days ago, I came home from work and sat down at the computer to see what folks were up to on Facebook, and I saw the “Photographic Society of Madras” was hosting a talk by an American street photographer, to start in 15 minutes – and it was only a mile away! So…
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Getting Better at Black and White
I love my Kodak Monitor 620 – this camera from the 1940s has taken a bit of time to master – especially since I’m new to film / analog photography anyway – but I’m finally getting quality images out of it. Just wanted to share: I’m amazed at the detail you can get from medium…
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The Trouble With Black and White Photography
I enjoy looking at good black and white photographs. But maybe it’s just me – I find it extraordinarily difficult to create good black and white photographs. The problem is, we see in color. And I use color references to help me select and frame photographs before I press the shutter button. Then I get…
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R.A. Puram, Chennai in Photos 3
This is the second part of a post describing a 90 minute “photowalk” around my new neighborhood in Chennai, India. Everything you see is within a 500 meter radius. So continuing yesterday’s story, the main destination I’d had in mind when starting this walk was yet to come. The other day I had heard drums…
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R.A. Puram, Chennai in Photos 2
This morning I decided to take my camera for another jaunt around the neighborhood in what seems to be called a “photowalk”. So I discovered today. It wound up being kind of a crazy 90 minutes or so – I came home soaking wet (sweaty) carrying a bag of jasmine and my forehead covered in…
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Afghanistan: The Power of Photography
Free and open media are at the heart of maintaining a free and democratic state. This is especially applicable to photojournalism, due to the power of photographs to convey emotion and meaning often eluding other media forms. This was a key component of the thinking that led me, in 2009, to conceive of a photo…
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Denver Photo Essay
Missing a flight can be frustrating…but can have unexpected benefits. We missed our flight from Denver to Eugene, Oregon, and were told the next flight was not until the following night at 9:54 pm – and to Portland. While we were disappointed, the added benefit was that we’d have an opportunity to spend the day…
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Redscale Photography – First Attempts
Being new to film photography, I had never heard of “redscale photography” until I spotted this on on Flickr and had to know how he had gotten this effect: Wanting to try it out on my own, I did a bit of research and discovered that the “redscale film” being offered by some vendors is…
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First Results, Agfa Billy I Vintage Camera
It took weeks, but we finally got back our first eight photos from the Agfa Billy 1 (mfr: 1952) we were testing for functionality (see previous blog post). The good news is that the camera works! Mostly. We know that photos have to be taken within 6 meters, because the lens, which rotates to achieve…
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Getting that “Wild West” feel – “down under” in Namibia
Just outside the vast “dune sea” of the Namib Naukluft Park is the last place you can get gas, before you venture into the coppery-red dunes of Sossusvlei, a dry but harsh landscape where only the most well-adapted creatures can survive. The place consists of the Solitaire Lodge, a small coffee shop and gas station,…
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HDR Photography: First Attempts
I’m sure everyone else has heard of “high dynamic range” or HDR photography, but for me, it’s “The Latest Thing” I’ve discovered. You know how you sometimes come across this amazing scene with lights and darks and bright colors, and you snap a photo to preserve it exactly as you saw it, and then you…
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Exploring Madagascar’s Jungles at Night
If you ever find yourself in Andasibe-Mantadia National Park in Madagascar, be sure and check out the “night walk”. You can hire a tour guide who will walk you down a quiet, dark road flanked by thick jungle, and alert you to various types of lemurs, reptiles, amphibians, and other creatures you’ll never see by…
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Zebras at Dusk
The “golden hour” directly before sunset offers really interesting options for photography. If you’re on a game drive in Namibia at the right time in the right place, you can get some truly stunning photos. Unfortunately, however, you’re at the mercy of the driver many times, and if you’re facing directly into the sun it…
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Making Ordinary Photos Panoramic
Sometimes I wish I had one of those fancy panoramic photos where you can capture the full breadth of something – usually the horizon – don’t you? Well, it turns out that with today’s high-resolution digital cameras, you can easily turn an ordinary photo into a panoramic. With a little planning beforehand. See something that…
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Supermoon + cheetahs: nature goes out of her way to cooperate
Namibia really is an amazing place for photographers. On this occasion, everything lined up, but as a photographer I was unfortunately not fully up to the task. Still, some amazing photos. The location: Okonjima / Africat, where two organizations collaborate on a 22,000 hectare plot of African bush to rehabilitate injured carnivores. Africat has taken…
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Macro Photography: Grasshopper After Rainstorm
Check out these macro photos of a grasshopper (or, as my daughter felt was more appropriate, “locust” – it was a good 3 inches long!) that was perched outside out front door. If you look close, you can see little droplets of water on his face.
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Spring has Sprung in Windhoek
Spring is definitely in the air in Namibia. At least that’s what my daughter tells me – she informed me that September 1 was “spring day”. Apparently in South Africa and Namibia, it’s not the 21st that heralds the coming of spring, but the 1st of September. And given the weather these days, it’s not…
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Moon over Windhoek
This morning when I woke up, the moon appeared full and orange in the sky just above the horizon. Here are a couple of shots of it.