Tagged
300mm, ISO 400, f/4, 1/1600

Another week, and one step closer to a break. At least, that’s been my train of thought for the past month. As always, it seems, the times leading up to finals week (starting tomorrow) are always a killer in trying to find time for photography. In a way, however, writing posts on here is a way of taking a break from studying, though I do feel a bit productive at the same time. Besides, last week I couldn’t afford any time to do an update. Not today!

A lot has happened lately. Let’s get down to it.

For starters, I’m back in the swing of spring sports (what little I can afford to make time to shoot, that is), and manually focusing has never been easier:

Rushing By
300mm, ISO 100, f/4, 1/1250

Form
300mm, ISO 400, f/4, 1/1000

Shout
300mm, ISO 100, f/4, 1/1250

Jump Shot!
300mm, ISO 200, f/4, 1/1000

Goal-Run
300mm, ISO 100, f/4, 1/1250

Chasing
300mm, ISO 100, f/4, 1/1250

Blocking
300mm, ISO 100, f/4, 1/1250

On Target
300mm, ISO 200, f/4, 1/1250

As I briefly alluded to in a recent post, I have spent most of my photographic time lately working on a final project for class. My idea to do panoramas on street murals didn’t really pan out, so I started over. Our assignment was to “simply” tell a story. I had a lot of trouble, at first, because I couldn’t really think of anything interesting to tell a story about photographically. After a lot of frustration, I thought, “Hey, what about a story…about me figuring out a story?” Meta, I know. Regardless, I tried to follow the steps towards telling a photographic story in a book we’re reading and visualizing them as much as possible. As it turned out, I developed a style of extreme symmetry and purposeful awkwardness in all of my photographs. This made for some interesting compositions; on the flipside, each photograph took around 3 hours to make. That part…I didn’t particularly care for. Oh well, it’s done now, here we go:

Looking Back
35mm, ISO 100, f/2.5, 1/6
The first picture in my meta “story of telling a story” project literally portrays the looking-back on previous photographs for inspiration. The symmetry and awkwardness here sets the style for the entire project. I used two lamps at each side to evenly illuminate the photographs and give heavy accent lighting to my head.

Writer’s Block
35mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1 Second
This still-life visualizes the order and tension that a writer may exhibit when struggling to come up with new ideas. I used it here to relate to my own struggle with the project. I took picture to follow this one, showing the objects in disarray with words written relating to figuring out an idea (with the exact same framing), but in the end it didn’t fit with the project’s overall art style.

Brainstorm
35mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 30 Seconds
I wanted to play with perspective in this photograph. By focusing on the top row of concepts to photograph (music, games, photography, searching) and gradually de-focusing their respective subjects, accompanying objects, arrangement, and lighting, I created a not-so-subtle hierarchy. By placing each row of sticky notes double the previous distance between each other (1/2 inch between top two rows, 1 inch between next, etc.), the separation is strengthened even more. To make the notes appear to be floating in nothing, I placed them on a black refrigerator and photographed in dim light to ensure there were no reflections.

Choose Your Lens
105mm, ISO 100, f/2.8, .4 Seconds
Another literal interpretation of photographic storytelling, a way to ensure uniformity of perspective in a story is to use the same lens for every shot. For this project I chose a 35mm f/1.8 lens that, on an APS-C camera, gives a typical “normal” field-of-view as a 50mm lens on film would. I placed emphasis on actually “choosing” the lens by symmetrically arranging some of my other well-used AI-s lenses on white paper. By exposing for the lenses, the paper is mostly whited-out. The large f/2.8 aperture ensures the proper blurring-out of the other lenses. This is the only photograph in the project taken with a lens other than the 35mm, of course.

Game-Man
35mm, ISO 100, f/4.5, 1/6
What college-aged guy doesn’t enjoy a few video games every now and then? To show one of my three hobbies/passions, and keeping with the symmetrical style of the project, I paused an adventure game known as Skyrim right in the moment where a dragon is attacking the player. I then set the TV down close to a table in front of some dark cloth to blackout the background. The game console is placed in the center of the photograph, but the only objects in focus are the two controllers both connected to the system. Avid gamers may pick up the humor in this, since Skyrim is only a single-player game!

Music-Man
35mm, ISO 100, f/13, 30 Seconds
In this photograph I wanted to portray my wide-ranging musical abilities—in addition to knowing somewhat how to play all other instruments, I can play all brass instruments with varying levels of proficiency. I had to find two members of each of the brass family for this to work, forming a mirror-image of each instrument next to each other. Tungsten-spotlights provided a warm yet edgy light to emphasize the reflectiveness of the instruments. To put importance on my primary instrument, a trombone mouthpiece is front-and-center among the symmetry of the other instruments—as well, only the trombones have mouthpieces attached.

Photo-Man
35mm, ISO 100, f/1.8, 1/3200
The last of the three personal passions, figuring out a way to portray myself as a photographer proved a challenge both at the conceptual level and in fitting with the style of the project. By taking a mock picture of what it might look for me photographing a macro—but with both the flower and lens impossibly in focus—I can give a much better “in-action” representation than a typical self-portrait, myself merely holding a camera.

Searching
35mm, ISO 100, f/8, 1/4000
The closing photograph in my meta-story, I return to myself as a subject. Through silhouetting myself against a dynamic sky, holding binoculars by my side, I abstractly visualize the concept: I’m always searching for new things on the horizon, whether it is a hobby or finding a passion such as photography. Still keeping with the theme, there are bits of awkwardness to pick up on here too such as the unnatural way I hold the binoculars by my side, or even the cow-lick of hair on my head I forgot to brush down that day.

And in case you were wondering, no, I did not develop OCD after this project, as much as it may seem.

A quick aside, a Salsa troupe came to campus one day and held a brief group dance. Gotta love it:

Leading
35mm, ISO 800, f/2.2, 1/80

Group Fun
35mm, ISO 800, f/2.2, 1/100

As mentioned above, it’s finals week for everyone at Transy. To combat the stress inherent in exams, term papers, and final presentations, the campus holds “Stress-Fest” events for students to blow off steam. There will be a puppy petting room again this semester (like I talked about here) among other venues, but I probably won’t be able to find the time to photograph these and get some much needed rest before my exams. I did make it to one special event though. Deemed “Demo-Day”, students can pay a few bucks to have a minute or so with a golf club/baseball bat/sledgehammer and beat up on a junkyard car. The closest equivalent to having a “breaking room”, for sure.

Pre-Demolition
85mm, ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/1000
Notably, it wasn’t in good shape to begin with…

Choices, Choices…
85mm, ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/1600

Spoiled-Spoiler
85mm, ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/1000

Safety Goggles?
85mm, ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/2500
Someone forgot to tighten up their eye protection

Limber Up
85mm, ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/1250

Girl and her Hammer
85mm, ISO 100, f/2, 1/3200

Banners
85mm, ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/1250

A lot of fun, though all the chipped paint and metal pieces flying everywhere seemed like a safety hazard. They might have to rethink face protection next year!

Now that the weather is starting to warm up to a typical Kentucky spring (that is, 80 degrees one day, 40 degrees the next), outdoor events at night are getting more common. I stopped by a small bonfire/concert event for just a little bit recently. Were it not for holding a camera, I would have definitely made a s’more:

Lighting
35mm, ISO 800, f/1.8, 1/80

Group Roast
35mm, ISO 800, f/1.8, 1/200

A Bit Burnt!
35mm, ISO 800, f/1.8, 1/15

Tuning Up
35mm, ISO 800, f/1.8, 1/100

Finally, a good friend of mine had his senior recital this past weekend. I volunteered my NEX-7 to take video of the entire recital. When I eventually I get ahold of the off-camera recorded audio, I’ll splice the tracks together for better audio quality. The NEX-7′s microphones are “okay”. They can handle a wide range of sound, but there’s no way to adjust or turn off the volume limiter; disappointing for group events where dynamics change rapidly. Nonetheless, the NEX-7 on a tripod (with my 105mm f/1.8 at f/2.8, 1/60th, ISO 200) produced some seriously smooth and sharp video. I just wish Sony didn’t let the camera out with its overheating problem. Though I managed to record the entire recital (in stop-and-start segments), the overheating indicator came up during every song, and there were times I wasn’t sure if the camera could make it without shutting down. A real shame. Hopefully the upcoming NEX-7 replacement (and maybe later full-frame NEX-9?) won’t have this problem. Anyways, here’s Alex Yaden performing Paul Dukas’ Villanelle (ca. 1906), accompanied by Loren Tice. Music starts 30 seconds in, don’t forget to watch full-screen in 1080p:

That’s all for this long-overdue weekend update guys and gals, thanks for dropping by! Due to the hectic nature of this week, I’m unsure if I’ll have enough photographs to warrant another post this weekend. However, if the weather plays nice, and I can make time, there’ll surely be more.

I’m happy I got this ladybug on camera. (Sorry, bad camera quality)

If not, I’m doing my best to make it one.

Hipstamatic actually captured these faster than I thought they would. If you scroll through the five pics quickly, does it look like the train is moving?

Worry, scurry and flurry

Always in a hurry

Running to and fro

Grumbling as they go

Afraid to take it slow

Wanting you to know

There is pain in their gain

Fretting in the brain

Insisting life is rough

The path to success quite tough

Demanding we all admire

Is what they do require

Life on earth is hard, they say

Even anxious as they pray

Worry, scurry and flurry

Your future is truly blurry

When always on the run

Refusing to have much fun

Consider the lily, how they sprout

They do not toil, they do not pout

So stop the worry

Rest the scurry

And let the flurry cease

For God loves you, my nervous ninnies

And wants to grant you peace.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

03.15.13. Købnhavn.

Two women walk their small children in carriages of similar origin toward the last of a walkway’s pillars and the corner from which other streets could be had. They see, between the edifice wall and a string of fortified orthogonal guardians of the economies above, a dark figure beset in woolen blue place a small thing on a ledge. They watch him steel himself behind the concrete column as amber lights rhythmically flash in the vector of his escape. A member of the pair introduces herself with a universal “Hi, hello?”. With an accelerating light show and no audible response from the figure she produces a string of fearful noises, grips the arm of her companion, and proceeds with apparent terror to lead them back down the dimly-lit sidewalk in the direction from which they came.

En route to a cinema date, well buzzed in a light and heady Moroccan fog with a whiskey-sour tongue, I spot in gleeful side-to-side panorama of my Købnhavn a mild perch and think to take a portrait of a man in a hurry. I turn the dial to select the appropriate delay for the man to dash beside a pillar, lean in that way, adjust his coat, find his smile, and cast his eyes upon the lens. Undeterred by the advances of foreign women, I maintain the lean and wait for a brilliant, telling flash to seal the moment in digits. I waltz self-satisfied to verify the theme and tone of the latest sample to be vague and muted and meet glimpses of recently assuaged terror.

“Oh, he’s taking photos” is what I translated between heavy breaths and unsettled glances.

Tonight Lily was playing with her soft toy cell phone. She help it up to her face and said “picture…smile”. So of course I smiled. Afterwards i asked if i looked okay, and she looked at her phone and said “yes”. I asked her to take another picture…I smiled, she looked at her toy phone and said “blurry”…this repeated a couple times with blurry pictures until finally she got a good “picture” of me!! I do love her imagination!!

(c) Sandipon Choudhury

The currents of time ebb and crash into each other
And then only memories remain like distraught water.

one more shot from the “going..” series. hopefully i´ll put the “going final” shot up soon.

on the other hand, the weather still sucks and i dont want anyone to be happy, so maybe not.

April 5th, 2013

Canon EOS 5D Mark III 85mm f1.4