Indy SoJourn

IndySoJourn will be undergoing a series of changes in the next couple of days to polish up the new look. Please bear with me as I hope this turns out to be a positive change. As always enjoy the imagery and thoughts. Feel free to comment on anything you see here.

So we've got some new functionality going on here! Hit the Email Post button to send it to any friends or enemies you think might like to see it. No username or anything is required, you just need their e-mail addy.

Labels: Changes

Today I have the pleasure of returning to Canon, via Amazon, an incredibly sub-par copy of what is otherwise an incredible lens. After waking up bright and early, having a Sprite and a breakfast cookie, it's off to the post office for me.

I do have a bit of a worry about what will become of this expensive utterly defective chunk of glass, hopefully it won't simply be repackaged and sold to another unsuspecting customer. Thankfully I don't think Amazon is in the habit of doing such things. Back to the manufacturer with you I say.

It makes one question the purchasing of professional level goods when manufacturing processes can't keep up with quality control. Unfortunately, such occurrences are all to common in today's consumer driven market.

I could step out of that market and move up to what I basically consider the boutique camera arena. Leica. In hopes that such faults would be a thing of the past, but even then, there is no guarantee with any brand or system.

Unfortunately it is simply a reality one must deal with, Kudos to Amazon.com for making the whole process relatively pain free.

Many years ago a professor told me there was a thread of "quiet violence" that runs throughout my work. I suppose all these years later it still surfaces from time to time. I can only guess that on some level the act of creation is inherently violent to me on a psychological level, almost a trauma in and of itself.



A sucessful creation becomes catharsis and re-invigorates my passion.

I had the pleasure of covering the Broadripple Art Fair for the Indy Star today. It was a beautiful day and as usual the artists were very friendly and really appreciative towards anyone that showed a genuine interest in their work.

The predominant art fair aesthetics are really interesting. Generally work needs to be attractive, easily accessible, and bright and shiny work seems be more popular than dark and brooding. I'd say less than five percent of the work there was really thought provoking or challenging. Not to knock the work, on the contrary, kudos to the artist for making and selling art.

It all makes me question the perception and role of art in our society. Obviously lots of people like looking at thought provoking work, go check out a local art museum. A large quantity of the work there will be pretty happy shinny pieces that illicit very little in the way of thought processes, but there will be lots of little gems that make you stop and contemplate something in your or someone else's life.

Does anyone in the general populace have an interest in buying that type of thought provoking work though? I mean consider the percentage of the population that buys art from actual art galleries (the havens of thinking controversial art that they are).

It all just makes me scratch my head and wonder what Thomas Kinkade thinks of his own work.

Labels: Art Fair

One of my favorite tricks when I'm out taking photos and the light isn't cooperating is to focus on near macro photography. On a dull overcast day it works a treat. This photos was taken with an inexpensive point and shoot. If the grand vista your attempting to capture just isn't there, look around your feet instead.

Indianapolis had the pleasure of hosting the Gyuto Monks during the month of May at the Indianapols Museum of Art. On the 7th the Monks began the creation of a traditional Buddhist sand mandala.


The process was truly amazing to witness and continued from the 7th thru the 9th. Each day before work on the sand mandala commenced the monks performed a cleansing and blessing prayer. After the basic layout of the mandala was completed using pencils and drafting tools, the application of sand began. The sand used is colored using dyes, then the sand must be sifted to remove the fine particulate mater, it clogs the tools. The sand is placed in the mandala via specialized tools called Chakpu (pronounced more like tam-pu).

The monks representative, Sonam Hangchuk, took the time to sit and chat with me about their history. The Monks originally started their temple in Lhasa Tibet in 1474 where it stayed and prospered until the 1950's when they fled to India in exile. Today the temple still has a regular influx of new monks and is doing well. It accepts new monks from as far as Korea, but the number of monks originally from Tibet continues to fall.

The sand mandala was complete on May 9th, later that evening it was ceremoniously destroyed. Some sand from the mandala was passed out to visitors at the destruction ceremony, the rest of the sand was poured into a local canal that feeds into White River, blessing the body of water.

On May 10th the Gyuto Monks held a tantric chant performance. Attendance was amazing, and many people could be seen listening and meditation on the upper levels of the museum.

Click on any image in this post to be taken to a gallery of images from the 4 day visit at the Indianapolis Museum of art, new images will be uploaded over the coming week. Contact me for prints from this series, special discounts for IMA staff as a thank you.

This is bloody wonderful! Check out Imaging Resource's preview of what High Tone Priority Mode for the New 1D camera can do here!

Hopefully this will signal the begining of the end for complaints about blown highlights on DSLRs compared to film.

Welcome back s-curve shapped response! We missed you.

Labels: 1D, 1D Mark III, Canon, EOS, High Tone Priority, Technology

The world outside is melting and it's absolutely wonderful. It's so nice to go outside and not feel the inside of your nose freeze. Sensationalist news stories of impending flash floods to the area due to melting snow have been the order of the last week. Sigh.

This photo was part of a self imposed assignment to capture the melting and thawing that is taking place. No one else is gonna push you to make work like yourself, self assignments are excellent motivators.

This image makes use of the Orton Effect. This technique was originally done with sandwiched slide film and harkens back to era of Pictorialism. It is an attempt to evoke a mood and feeling within an image rather than a straight representation of the subject. I occasionally switch into this mode of working when my concepts and subjects are both being difficult. Tricks in a bag.

Labels: Flooding, Flower, indianapolis, Melting, Snow, White

"Hey, your flash didn't go off!" I love hearing that. Most of the time. Except when I look down at my camera's screen and see a mostly black square.

In this shot I bounced my flash off the ceiling. Par for course during interior events with ceilings under 20ft tall or so. The subjects don't end up looking like deer caught in headlights and it's relatively easy to balance the ambient light. In this situation E-TTL works well. The camera is set on manual to set the ambient exposure, here about 1/2 stop under exposed. While the flash illuminates the subject.

Depending on the surface I'm bouncing my flash off of, ambient light conditions, and the subject bounce flash doesn't always produce the best skin tones. In such situation the on/off switch on the flash works wonders. Here I switched from Manual mode to Aperature priority and shot at f/4 without flash. It's a different look that might work in some situations. In this particular situation I'm slightly partial to the flash shot, but the boys expression is better in the ambient light shot. It happens.

Labels: College Mentors for Kids, colts, indianapolis, Tony Dungy

Concert Photography... dark pictures, neon lights, blurry pictures, looking up the performers noses, the hallmarks of concert pics. Lets step away from that for a minute and try something different.

The aim of this ongoing series is to share techniques and new looks for live music photography. On to the first photo. I introduced myself to the coordinators of the event where this image happened and they gave me free reign.. handy. Elevating yourself from the crowds perspective is a handy trick to kick up your concert pics a notch or two. For this photo I was on top of a low lying speaker. Face to face with the performers.

Lighting was dull and consisted of badly focused spots and occasionally colored strobes... hm. So I set a slow shutter speed in an attempt to capture a strobe burst or two and bounced my flash off an acoustic panel above the performers. Adding some vignetting in post production completes the look and draws attention to the brass man.

Stay tuned for more...

Labels: concert, music, photography