“Portrait” -it is the artistic representation of character,or persona, with the intention to portray the likeness or personality of something about someone that is individual.  The setting and the context are a concept I like to explore. I enjoy shooting on location & I don’t mind taking the time to work a scene , to let it breathe, until we love the results. Curiosity and ambition drives my eyes.

Post processing

This important studio time is equivalent to darkroom processing.I review each photo then I place an emphasis on how it could be used for the most impact. Most of the time this happens in planning before the shoot, & is polished up in post production. depending on your publishing or print needs I optimize the files for the best resolution, mood, concept or overall feel depending on the approach. I consider the retouching and other optimizations and the best use of them. Then I label catalog, back up and then finally process the files. They get selected edited and re selected…until I upload the batches online for you to examine on the proofing gallery of the site. From here we can determine what gets final edits and you can download the images.
My style is a mixture of journalistic and representative shooting…if I shoot a portion of your project with film, then the process is obvious  that I will have to convert the print to digital.
For clients who require graphical, layout and web uses, your digital files are readily available, Usually about 1200×800 pixel , a decent HQ resolution. I am also available to configure installations for my clients.

Most people do not realize the extent of this “digital darkroom” processing of images. Even though I shoot to get the best effect in camera, the way your files are handled from the camera to the finished product can make a tremendous difference in the quality of the photos. I use Adobe Photoshop, Apple Aperture and Adobe Lightroom for handling my photo developing. If you are considering a larger project, I recommend that you invest in your own external backup drive for your assets along with your prints, this way you always have a clone of your memories available.

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29 September 2012 Jamie Lynn test shooting results…

Jamie is going along with me at IKEA, I have my 7D in tow; 50mm 1.8; radio strobe, occasionally firing out of a handbag for some lighting effects. I kept the crops tight to reduce the appearance of actually being in the store for an impromptu photo shoot. The results seem pretty good…

would you like to see more of our shots? You can see them here: http://store.lucidmojo.com/jamieselections

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You wouldnt believe how long it took me to find information about this lens. I used google, the manual focus lens forum, I even gave them a call @Tamron. I will admit, this is my first Tamron branded optic and my first Adaptall mount.

I have realized that in my relentless search to find a way to get the best quality with less than enough money can often yield surprisingly good results if you practice some tenacity. I like the discovery , it makes you understand photography better.
All of my high style friends have fancy white lenses, with ultrasonic autofocusing motors, image stabilization, and nice red stripes on them. This is not one of those lenses…This is however the DNA of those current lenses, and being one of those lenses of its day it is no surprise that it has achieved a cult like status with the few engineers that I managed to talk with on the phone from their  inner workbenches, somewhere deep in the KEH building in New York and  response from around the world on these specialty forums. So much so that I felt that maybe this deserved its own post.

I was searching for a fixed , fast aperture at 200 and even 300. Some point I found this copy on the bay for a low bid and I placed one so I could remember it later and search about this “LD” element of this lens , say compared to the other fast telephoto of its time, the Tokina 80-200ƒ2.8 was a tempting prospect so I was comparing the two. My later Tokina 19-35 is a great companion. I learned that Tokina got its start from some Nikon engineers. I like the couple I have tried. Thats only two, but they have been good.
Anyway, I won that bid. I was now the owner of this thing.
What stood out to me the most was that it has a green DO ring which means it contained an optic of “low dispersion” glass, to correct for chromatic aberrations, the achilles heel of zoom lenses. It was a generation after the Tokina, an innovative evolution. This information is from what I could find from bench research on the lens. I didn’t do the tests, nor can I say that I have the Tokina to test it against, or can I say with scientific certainty  the factor of age on either specimen. No this is just about me acquiring this lens and how it is today :)

Build Quality is not like anything today. its a hefty ø77mm inner thread diameter, 3LB behemoth, made entirely of metal. I believe it was about 800 bucks new in 1994, or something, which, by todays standards would be like twice as much. (800 dollars back then would be like 12-14 hundred now, 2012, and that might be a conservative guestimation. Regardless, it is a professional class lens.

SP is designated for “special performance” issue. LD designates a “low dispersion” element optically. BBAR is the name of the multi coating applied that was licensed, first, to MC lenses and SMC ( super multi coated, ) then eventually the same formula as Nikon uses today, just under their brand & marketing name. 2.8 is a fast aperture, especially at that telephoto length, and is still today. Finally, the “adaptall” mount system was a pro use system. If your unfamiliar with this concept, Tamron was the developer of these universal mounts. It works because they left enough room at the end of the barrel, basically, to allow compensation for the thickness of an adapter to put the lens in the correct distance from the film plane
or in todays sense, where the sensor is. If you don’t have a basic understanding of  this yet, you need to know that most of the lenses out there could be utilized for DSLR rigs with a few exceptions, and this has been covered extensively alllll over the web.

Ok so lets get to it.

Day one: it looks like a Canon FD lens grip ( waffling style of that era ) its barely used, someone babied this lens. It has a sweet form fitted leather case bearing its name. The metal lens hood has a surprising 82FH! Yet it didn’t really seem obtrusive or difficult to tote with me. But thats just me. Im rather ambitious. I searched the net to find some newer ( or older) style grip material, considered several options and then finally after the horror of a few older guys who I called  with the idea about this, found a rubber manufacturer who is sending me some samples to try to update the cosmetic looks of my lens. Ill let you know how that turns out.
It came in Nikon mount so I promptly ordered an AF confirmation chip for canon EOS and an adaptall to EOS adapter mount ring, and surprisingly was priced at 20$ for a chrome one:)

Then I did the unthinkable, I used a Nikon to EOS adapter and stacked this on the Nikon adaptall and mounted it and started shooting with it. I couldn’t stand it anymore to see what my BARGAIN 80-200 2.8 could do…

On a 7D crop sensor, it becomes a 120-305mm at ƒ2.8. and it shoots bright. I was getting shots at 1/60th- handheld at 200mm… so far my focus needs a little tweaking but that is from user error, When I look thru the busy 7D viewfinder, its harder to judge focus with a throw like this one has and all the focus confirmation grid obscures the view! but When it is in, it is pin sharp, contrasty, and quite bright. Did I mention that it also focuses down close to 1.5 Ft????

Sure, its not everything, especially with out AF. but the way the thing focuses, I dont miss it. A well dampened push ring and a short throw to turn the 77+ barrel grip makes for smooth fast focus, even tho it is so heavy, It did pretty good…
Other downsides are that the front element does in fact turn when focusing.
Its heavy
Its heavy
It looks like it is from that era… It definably has its own “look” of classic Tamron; it was a different company back then, actually, when it made adaptall lenses. a canon lens cap and a tripod mounting ring, maybe even a follow fucus ring ought to be the only improvements Ill need to make and it is worth it for its performance. It is one of the best manual focus lenses that  I have had.

The good, AF confirmation on 7D, 50D, im sure it will work on the others; obviously the pro quality, build, fast aperture, LD glass and range are great,& so is the price.

One more little detail is that this lens has the “half stops” along the way, another characteristic of a quality lens during a time when a photographer would meter and shoot in half stops. This was only found in professional lenses.

hopefully, if any more of these turn up, this will be helpful information to you :) more photos based on my lens collection to follow. Thanks for reading. If you have any information about this lens, stories, shots or questions please leave a comment, Id like to hear from you.
 

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To sum it up, I was left without any ideas of what to do. So, that allowed me to throw any caution to the wind and try for whatever.

I have been playing with my remote trigger for a while – and after losing my friends as they went off in search of the muse I decided to make a self portrait… this is the second time I tried this and even tho I didnt get any startling groundbreaking images, Im getting closer to the control I envision with a multiple exposure.

what I mean by this is setting the camera up to take a “long exposure, of 8 -10 seconds long, stopping down one or two stops below the ambient light exposure, then popping the strobe on me after I have had a few seconds to change the arrangement in my position in front of the camera- which can be hard to estimate.

needless to say I couldn’t burn up all 12 shots for one scene, so, after a few tries I went on to make 3 scenes, none of which I really wanted to show, but It is noteworthy to tell you that I did not alter the photos in photoshop or an editor, these are the way that they came out of my camera.

by my estimation, I think that the light wasnt far enough away from myself to get the right balance. The shot returns to my bucketlist of things to do :)

have a great day- always push yourself!

Post Script, no alcohol was actually harmed during this exercise! Location was at Coyote Ugly and at Gaspars Grotto, Ybor City, Tampa
 

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most offers are still available as art prints, but a few of my photos only available on iPhoneography have been converted over to a small format for card print, including some macro flowers and a few other random musings.
I set the price for 5.oo and to get around the default mailing price, I made a coupon for 4.00 off shipping and 1.00 off of the total order, so it ought to ring in under 10.00$
which last time I seen cards seems like a good deal for one of a kind art.

Turnaround time is less than 24 hours and I am offering custom calligraphy for local orders for an additional 5$

just use the coupon code VDAY2012 when you order from the lucidmojo.zenfolio.com portfolio.
& Thanks for supporting my site :)

these designs and much more can be seen at this link to the gallery of cards. take a look around and let me know if there is something I missed that you might like on a card.

http://lucidmojo.zenfolio.com/vdaycards/h260dcfdd#h260dcfdd

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time for a not so much the news category.

I Hang out with the Tampa Bay Strobist Collective, and some of the members casually practice whenever we can. It is pretty much the only real active “club” I engage with- whenever I can. Rick Sammon held a seminar last night & offered members of this meetup group free admission.So My friend Phil from the group called me and we rode out together in search of enlightenment and fresh ideas to bring into our artistic shooting.Rick Sammon has written quite a bit about photography so to get to hang out in in and discuss photography is indeed a rare occasion. If you want to know more  an easy google search will reveal the multitude of articles attributed to his name.
The man is a fantastic, engaging speaker.

Along the way  we decided to leave early and look for something to practice shooting at. Deterred by the rain I made a few shots from out of the window, where the Phenomenon of low altitude sunset and obscured by clouds, the light coming under the umbrella of low ceiling, dark storm clouds leads to eerie lighting. [I tried to capture it in the photo above]

It was quite rainy in Tampa Last night -and this morning, but that should’t stop you from trying to make something from that kind of light. There were a few moments where the sun coming under the storm from the west made some fascinating ambience against the dark clouds and popped foreground zone elements. It was like subtraction of light occuuring for a brief moment in nature… However, the  conditions were changing quite rapidly and I couldn’t get out of the truck fast enough to get the shot. I will be looking for these conditions again.

practice practice practice:

So with the onslaught of rain I decided to try to put that into my pictures since its what I had to work with. I wanted to burn the reflections in low light with a slower shutter speed, but handheld thru the windshield. No worries, I had my friend at the wheel so I could hold the camera for a longer than usual exposure and play around.

rainy day in Tampa

rainy day in Tampa :) Southbound on Racetrack road, North of Oldsmar, Florida

I hope this will scroll well when I am done trying to upload these. fingers crossed they look right:

•extended shutter light painting… actually these are cars in intersection, right before the tail light exposure  taken above. The advantage point to shooting the taillight is just that, they are moving away from the center of the frame. But I happen to be moving (panning) left past the stopped oncoming traffic. I was going to cut this one but a my friend Phil liked it on facebook. So, here it is:

So we arrive at the Seminar…One of the best things about the Rick Sammon Seminar, In my opinion,is that he is an engaging speaker, and that energy supports his technique of looking your subject in the eye & keeping the flow.

The discussion then took a turn for conscious choices that we make technichally, to get the shots we want. We Discussed in an open forum, considerations to make when capturing the subjects eye & how to use a catchlight. The presentation was done with  a projected slideshow with shots of his workflow & behind the scenes around his office that does double duty as a photostudio to recreate some great shots. The Ideas about shooting instinctivly were creativly displayed as a flow chart that shows your concious awakening of skills.
The Mirror effect of meeting with your own energy in the photo is deeply interesting. I wonder perhaps if it is possible to just reflect upon, rather than be a part of , what is portrayed in your subjects mood. you know, to be subjectively detached, and still capture a certain mood… However I love the idea that infusing your energy results in it showing in your shots.
To think like a painter, he said, will allow you to open up your photography
its all about photographing the light and its opposite- the shadow and with that the rule of thumb is always to keep it simple.
that is brilliant.
I also wonder if thats why nobody brought out any strobes. I didn’t get out my speedlight. just my 1.8. I sort of wish I had set up a dignified portrait of the man with a long snoot and grid with a shadow of the cover of his book in the bokeh. but instead there are a few candids to show that I got to say hi to Rick Sammon, and thats cool enough for me. I didn’t realize it, but I just finished reading his book at the Hillsboro Public Library. It was the cover that caught my eye. It was great to see exclusive photos from his Africa trip. If it had occurred to me, I would have checked the book out again and had him autograph it and then return it to the library. Oh well.

Seminars like this are really good boon to an artists creativity & will be valuable to anyone who wants to progress in their craft Keep these conventions of the brilliant minds on the radar. There are Online resources like never before, webinars and you tube, but just getting out and shooting and challenging your self and practice is what its all about so getting something serendipitous into that moment , blending the viewer and the viewed, looking both ways thru the camera. & doing so without overthinking it.

by Scott

my photo of Rick & Gina Marie                                                                &Gina’s Pic of me & Rick :)

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Cheri is in a couple of bands, too, the “Cotton Eye Does” is an all female lineup that you can often see around the campfires and gatherings of the Sertoma Youth Ranch and the Central Florida Bluegrass Association, amung other stuff. Her graceful presence contrasts and compliments the men on stage, and she makes playing the double bass look so easy.
These folks are passionate about the music and it shows. And they are just regular local folk that you love to meet and are fun to know.
The Dreadful Snakes just played Skippers Smokehouse in Tampa, 18 January, 2012. photos and audio are available from several sources on the net. The fastest way to reach the band for booking or for your own copy of the music is thru the Facebook page.

more links to come:)

 Taken @ Boones Tree Farm, 11-11 2011 near Plant City, Florida EF50mm

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I have recently been awakened to the joy of the quality in M42 mount lenses. There are an abundant selection still functioning quite well made back in the day that will inspire you if you give them a try.

I could not afford a Canon 50mm ƒ1.4 , but after knowing what to look for and some diligent hunting, I have found some alternatives that have been inspiring. I really LOVE all of the Mamiya lenses I have and been looking into their manufacture and history to determine what gives them these optical charachteristics that I have noticed.  Until later, I just wanted to try them out, so I adapted the mount on to my 50D and in the dining room, handheld, I snapped a few test rounds :)

This was handheld, with a Mamiya/Sekor- 50mm ƒ1.4 on an m42 bellows I scored from the camera guy at the flea market…just as an experiment. The dining room table light is on as my primary source, so my ISO is jacked up… but I like the initial result.

close up of my beer!

here are a few other pictures from this session- I have left them as is in camera mostly- no sharpening, shooting wide open or at most, ƒ2. I did brighten some on the bottle picture,

as my MBP screen everything looks brighter to me by default and not as bright as on other computer screens.

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…and the other , most important one

by Scott Ewdwards…

Hipstamatic, “Lomography”, Holga, Dianna- none of these now trendy, popular cameras made very decent photographs, yet the significance of the these applications are increasing  day to day on camera phones and becoming a staple application for other camera users too.

The iPhone & Android is for this decade what Polaroid was yesterday, except with the advantage of instant review on a digital screen. The implications of the  digital aspect of it today could mean a rather unlimited audience, if one so chooses. Everyone knows now that they can share their snapshots on facebook and other internet sites with scads of onlookers.

Almost everyone has some sort of digital camera, (over 6.4 million US active iPhone users last year, I read somewhere.) The little phone cameras are capable of producing noteworthy photographs too, much more technically agile in today’s terms- (iPhone4 has a*5mp camera that also doubles as a rolling shutter HD video cam and the new iPhone 4s has an 8mp rear camera), compared to these plastic toys cameras  of yesteryear, which really can not be compared to a digital sensor would crudely relate to about 1/2mp in estimate. So why is it that holga apps and other lomo effects are emerging as such a hot trend, not only in digital apps but also in the resurgence of the actual film eaters? While writing this note, I discovered there is quite a healthy market for these cameras, (*see links in notes.)

-downgrading the picture, artistic merit?

Have you ever wondered why the burst of popularity for these applications to simulate lower grade, problematic photos? Things like vignetting, chromatic aberration, lens distortion, flares, spherical aberration, burnt film from light leaking thru the body… that engineers worked hard for decades to eliminate in order to obtain the clinical and sharp documents  almost take for granted every day?

Is it ironic, at all, that we desire to manipulate photos to downgrade them?

It turns out, that even back then, these cameras were widely produced and distributed after the effects of there faults were found useful and praised. Somewhere in the course of time, we forgot about them. You can read a little more about the history in the links at the end of the article. The idea I am wanting to talk about though, isn’t about these cameras in particular.

It’s about the visual equivalent to mechanical resonance.

Quite another human sensory phenomenon, that I hope to maybe discuss at some point. As someone who has always been interested in art, I have given enough thought about this to make it a topic for a post. I read a few interesting articles that made me examine my own practices, so in the theme of this being my photography blog, I will try to write about this concept in our making of pictures.

I make pictures.

Weather I paint them or weather I use a box with a lens on it- with a sensor and a cf card on one side, or film, I am in the business of making pictures. This is a very technical business indeed.

I have attended classes and read books and plied the minds of some of the people whom I trust and respect in this business both in painting and  in photography in my pursuit of creating  good work. There are many factors that can go into the end of making a picture, such as

• Subject – thats a complete variable about what the picture is about
• Technical-  …form, light, shadow, composition, context, relationship, all that stuff,  like the rule of thirds, the ‘invisible tools, as well as the kind of  physical,  tools that make it, like brushes, lenses, films…
• tactile stuff, like the canvas, pigments, and the application

…and then, of course the most important element

• the viewer.

I know that goes back into the subjective nature of the picture. But one thing happens weather or not they like the subject pictured:   they view it and complete the experience in their minds eye.

Let me further explain, that when we take in an experience, we have amazing sensory perception that has yet to be matched by anything, although a photograph in itself is not reality, it is quite a realistic impression of reality.

For example, I don’t know of any lens capable of achieving stereoscopic ability of the human eye. The filed of vision, the range of color, the fluid dynamic.

When a person sees something, there is an added sense from the environment, and this completes memories for the viewer, smell of the air, the temperature, sometimes the texture of the way it feels.

So when a viewer interprets the reality presented in a photograph, ( and for all intensive purposes here, a painting, and what topic I started with, a lomo-graph or histomatic, or whatever app deteriorated picture, our brain, by being a comparative creature by nature, starts to fill in what is missing from the experience with clues from what the picture tells us.

With a less defined picture, the viewer is engaging even more to make the connection, possibly filling it with their own preference, good or bad, and having a sort of pseudo experience with it, by engaging with it more.

That’s why I think the resurrection of the style of cheap old photography is now becoming a photographic phenomenon. It’s believable, likable, and fun. It can make an ordinary average snapshot look a lot less ordinary, a lot less than perfect…and in the case where ordinary is clinical and detailed and rather good, this is a welcome throwback.

iPhoneography is great, you can take crisp detailed photos of a document and have it transferred into text, or money in your bank account, have a real time face to face conversation with someone remotely, and make pictures that look like the plastic toy store cameras of the 1980′s with a few taps. and you can still print them :)

(if your interested in that, I can do it for you, even tho i’m sure there is an app for it somewhere) It’s sheer versatility makes it more than just a fun toy, it is a real camera, with an aperture, shutter speed, ISO and it makes great pictures that look pretty good at 8×10 and remarkably better at 5×7, raw from the phone , without PS.

The magic of looking at a photo, well, that hasn’t really changed much- if anything, our ever gaining insatiable consumption of electronic media has conditioned our minds somewhat to believe in even more less convincing files of pixels and dashes and dots over the analog counterparts of our golden era… where the machines are faster than our brains can decipher the difference… and that too is for another blog post Im sure:)

A little extra history about these “classics”

~Cheap Chic …from http://www.bohemian.com/bohemian/09.08.10/feature-1036.html

Aside from sharing strange but somehow charming names, the cameras that are making a comeback have more than a few things in common. Most of the models are made completely out of plastic, even the lens. Some operate on 120mm film, some have fixed lenses; all are inexpensive.

Holgas are adored for discrepancies in their plastic construction that allow light to leak into the body, often resulting in bursts of overexposed film. Both Holgas and Dianas are famous for their marginal field coverage and low-quality plastic lenses, which produce the much sought-after vignetting, or blurred-edge look, and highly saturated color photos.

In the 1980s, Holga cameras were mass-produced and widely distributed to the Chinese public. Intended to bring photography to the working class in an affordable way, the camera slowly gained international popularity a few years after its introduction. Professional photographers appreciated the image abstraction Holgas produced, as well as their affordable price, which was as low as $15.

Diana cameras predate the Holga and were brought into the United States from a Hong Kong plastic factory in the 1960s. They were widely used as cheap prizes for carnivals and fairs, and produced dreamy images with their soft focus. LOMO LC-A’s are Holga’s communist equivalent, developed in Russia during the ’80s.

And, of course, there’s the Polaroid. First introduced in 1947, the camera, which instantly produced square photos with a white margin, had its heyday in the 1960s. Ever since Polaroid announced its decision to discontinue production of the film in 2008, though, the cameras have practically become an item of lore.

Thanks Bohemian, and further noted that “lomo’ is a trendy name in low grade style after two russians resurrected the flailing plastic camera from oblivion into what it is today- not like the Diana and the Holga or the polaroids.

more history , here: http://microsites.lomography.com/holga/history until next post, Scott@lucidmojo.com

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When I first started I had an ambition that surpassed my technical ability. Here are some of the results of that. I had a few hundred dollars, and I was looking at the cameras on Craigslist.org. I found one, a Sony “dsc-h5, (review), an 8MP manual camera that had a nice 3″lcd and a 2.8 ziess fixed lens.(and another review, here.) I paid around 250 dollars for it. I also had my iPhone 3gs. I bought a data card and some batteries for the sony and went for it. These photos are the unedited results. I still have and use the Sony, exploring the confusing menus from time to time, and using it mainly as a video camera nowadays. It has a fixed lens, but at least it is a Zeiss 2.8

This place is a special, non public, bird sanctuary beach area of  Presque Isle, on Lake Erie, Pennsylvania, where I am from. I first visited during an ecology field trip years ago, and is tricky to locate. Its along the northern shores, looking westward. After getting the car  stuck elsewhere in the sand and hiking thru the dunes and marshes, I finally  found it  just in time to catch a nice sunset and did not get caught in a storm. I like the results. When I shot this, I was specifically trying to observe the beach for a reference for a painting- and I have made a few attempts here. Even though it has been 3 years, im still referencing the photos for this project.

I am happy I had the iPhone with me, because it was the first time that it surpassed the usefulness of the other camera. The battery went dead in my Sony, I forgot an extra, and all I had was the 3mp apple phone. I like the results. I hope you enjoy them, too (:

Year 2008. finally putting it out there. hope you enjoy

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