Just a quick note – I upgraded the blog today. If you notice anything weird/not working/uglier than normal, let me know, ok? Ok.
Archive for June, 2009
Jun
09
2009
Fire Hydrants Are People Too
Not that you would have any way of knowing it, but some of my favorite pictures are of fire hydrants. I had to go back and look to see if I’d ever posted any, but a little textual mention was all I found. The only picture of mine I have up at home is a fire hydrant, and then this weekend when I was out at Gas Works Park, I saw this (or rather I had it pointed out to me by my sister):
| Camera & Lens | Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT (N/A) & no lens info | Shutter: | 1/401 s | |||
| Creation Date: | 2009:06:07 10:57:58 | Aperture: | f/3.5 | |||
| Artist: | Ari Brown | ISO: | 100 | |||
| Exposure Mode: | N/A | Focal Length: | 50 mm |
It’s a fire hydrant. With eyes. On a beautiful sunny day in Gas Works Park. I shot this one in HDR using my standard method (Av Mode, auto bracketing at +/- 2 stops, attempt to hold still) and I think it came out nicely. I like HDR for simple subjects because of the way the details are highlighted really gives a sense of depth and seperation between the foreground and background. Or because it looks cool. One of those.
Jun
06
2009
100 Posts
So it took about 7 months, but that last post, the one full ‘o cones, was post 100. I had to wait until post 101 to talk about it because you can’t cheap out on #100, right? Well anyway, I had to write something. When I started doing this, I had a lot of pictures saved up that I never bothered to do much with. I loved taking them but didn’t have much motivation to do it, and I didn’t know all that much about post-processing them because I never did much after I pressed the shutter release on the camera. This blog has taught me a ton, but I just wanted to say that more than I probably should, I appreciate the folks who read it. I started this for me, but I know who you are. Thanks for checking in. Double thanks for commenting and letting me know what you like and what you’re interested in. Triple thanks to Christopher Frizzelle The Stranger, who linked to a couple pictures I took and brought about 100x more traffic than I’d ever seen for a period of two days as well as some Arabic language Flickr group who continually makes one of my bokeh posts the most visited on the site. I’m going to keep doing this as long as I can and if you agree to keep coming back, it would make things that much more fun.
-Ari
Jun
06
2009
The Artificial Forest, Via The Orange Trees
Sometimes I see a scene that has promise, but the background isn’t right. I’ve been walking past this sea of cones, you see, for a few months now.
| Camera & Lens | Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT (Canon) & 12.0-24.0 mm | Shutter: | 1/640 s | |||
| Creation Date: | 2009:06:01 11:46:42 | Aperture: | f/18.0 | |||
| Artist: | Ari Brown | ISO: | 1600 | |||
| Exposure Mode: | Normal program | Focal Length: | 24 mm |
Lots of cones. There are a bunch of signs next to it as well, which also have something cool going on, if I can figure it out. Anyway, as you can tell from the signs picture above, this area is a bit surrounded by fence, cars, trees – lots of things that, as some friends of mine used to say are all great tastes that taste funny together. So I’ve been thinking about these cones and eventually I think I figured it out. Get low, get close. This picture was taken with my wide angle, which means I was REALLY close to the cones to not show what is around. But the cones are thick enough that it just doesn’t matter. Sea of cones. That’s what I wanted, and that’s what I got.
Jun
03
2009
Tilt-Shift Photography On The Cheap
So there’s this thing called Tilt-Shift Photography, which I guess could also be called “using a tilt-shift lens on your camera. What is a tilt shift lens? It’s a horrendously expensive specialty lens often used by people taking architectural photography. Why are you reading this? Because tilt-shift is fun stuff:
Alright – I admit it. That’s not real tilt-shift. The good news is that you can fake it too – easy! Click the link and I’ll tell you all about it. It’s easy. Did I say easy? I meant easy. Click the jump. Do it.
Jun
02
2009
The Man In Charge
Pioneer Square has some pretty cool stuff in it. Mostly it’s bookstores, rock shops, and your odd vintage pottery store, but they’ve also got these statues of firefighters in all their bronze glory. 
| Camera & Lens | Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT (Canon) & 50.0 mm | Shutter: | 1/500 s | |||
| Creation Date: | 2009:06:01 12:04:47 | Aperture: | f/5.6 | |||
| Artist: | Ari Brown | ISO: | 1600 | |||
| Exposure Mode: | Normal program | Focal Length: | 50 mm |
I’ve been looking at these statues trying to figure out how to work a picture in since I started working in the area almost three months ago. They’re not so big that they drown out the surroundings and they’re not so intricate that it’s macro lens material, but yesterday I had my trusty nifty-fifty with me and the big wide aperture seemed to do the trick. The man means business, you know?
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