David Griffin Photography » Lightroom

March 2012 Wallpaper

Dave — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:25:15 +0000

March arrived hear like a lion (it’s still snowing as I write this) but until yesterday it felt a lot like Spring here and I suspect that feeling will return soon enough.

This is a photograph of Nashoba Brook in Acton taken a couple of years ago. There is a small mill building next to the brook — perhaps a pencil mill (they used to make pencils along the brook).

I’ll use this opportunity to also plug an upcoming film festival — OARS, our local river stewardship organization, is hosting the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival on Wednesday, March 7th at the Fine Arts Theater in Maynard. Come to town, grab a little dinner before or after, and enjoy a wide range of short films featuring people working to raise awareness of our environment. To learn more and reserve tickets (this show often sells out) visit the OARS website.

If you like the above image you can download it to your computer and use it as your desktop or tablet wallpaper. A few of the common screen sizes are available:

Download the 1024×768 version here. (Perfect for your iPad)

Download the 1280×1024 version here.

Download the 1680×1050 version here.

Technical stuff:

Canon 5D Mark II, 24-70mm f/2.8 at 24mm and f/16. 1/8 second exposure. ISO 1600. (filtering not recorded, likely a polarizer)

Processed with Lightroom 3: this is a pseudo-HDR image: essentially compressing the shadows and highlights and stretching out the mid tones. The goal was to keep the shadows of the stream while not losing detail in the trees/sky. Consequently a fair amount of fill light and black point to restore contrast, clarity +44, vibrance -21, saturation -15 (restoring something closer to natural color saturation). A bit of dodging was done in the lower left-corner for this rendition so the calendar wouldn’t be lost amongst the rocks.

River Abstracts

Dave — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:45:04 +0000

OK, maybe not true abstracts, but bending in that direction. I spent a bit of time this afternoon looking to do some long-exposure work with the river – in broad daylight…

My goal is to continue to explore the boundary between the surface and what lies below and that requires some interesting lighting conditions and ways of visually working into the water column without getting too wet in the process.

The really cool part of these images, for me, only appears in good-size prints. The water’s surface is inscribed with patterns of light so as you pull back you see what is below but upon closer inspection you can tell that there is a layer of water above (see zoomed inset below).

Technical stuff: Canon 5D Mark 2, 24-70mm f/2.8L, exposure times vary but generally around 10 seconds, f/18 to f/22, ISO 100, 3 stop ND filter stacked with 2 polarizers. I believe the first image was done with the ND filter, polarizer and a 3-stop graduated ND filter running left to right. Lightroom processing varies slightly between images but generally fill +10, black +9, vibrance +5-+15, strong contrast curve. Some of the images pulled down the saturation of the red and orange channels to remove some color casting caused, no doubt, by the mass of filters piled up in front of the lens. (That these photos work in color at all was pretty amazing. I was expecting a lot more skewing of colors.)

November 2011 Wallpaper

Dave — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 21:59:08 +0000

Caught this scene a day or so before the very unusual October snowstorm slammed into New England. I was hoping for some great color and snow photos, but nothing about how the snow came and destroyed a lot of trees was particularly photogenic in my area. One side of our Japanese maple was particularly brilliant and I was trying to capture the melting morning frost on the leaves.

If you like the above image you can download it to your computer and use it as your desktop or tablet wallpaper. A few of the common screen sizes are available:

Download the 1024×768 version here. (Perfect for your iPad)

Download the 1280×1024 version here.

Download the 1680×1050 version here.

Technical stuff:

Canon 5D Mark 2, 100mm 2.8 Macro, 1/40 second at f/5, ISO 800.
Lightroom processing: Tweaked the black point, lots of clarity, smidge of vibrance, default sharpening (in haste — I should have done some masking and slightly more edge sharpening). That’s it!

October 2011 Wallpaper

Dave — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 18:06:27 +0000

My favorite season is nearly upon us and I thought this backyard scene from last year would set the mood…

If you like the above image you can download it to your computer and use it as your desktop or tablet wallpaper. A few of the common screen sizes are available:

Download the 1024×768 version here. (Perfect for your iPad)

Download the 1280×1024 version here.

Download the 1680×1050 version here.

Technical stuff:

Canon 7D,500mm f/4L, 1/25 second at f/4.5, ISO 400. (the branch was still but the flying insect under it was not…)
Lightroom processing: Tweaked the black point, bit of clarity, smidge of vibrance, sharpening. That’s it!

SMAC Barn Burner with Dennis Brennan

Dave — Tue, 31 May 2011 00:14:24 +0000

It has been a while since I did some concert photography for the fun of it. We were up at our favorite place for live music, the Stone Mountain Arts Center in Brownfield, Maine, for the second in their “Barn Burner” series of music there. Held in their lobby barn instead of the main hall and it’s a lot closer to a club feel. Pizza, beer, and dancing are the order of the day. The Iodine Brothers, one of Dennis Brennan‘s ongoing bands, rocked the hall with ballads across several genres and, of course, the amazing backing of Duke Levine and Kevin Barry on guitar, Billy Beard on drums and Richard Gates on bass.

If you’d like to see a short series of photographs from the evening head on over to my SMAC gallery. If you’d like to read a bit about how the photographs were made, read on.

After a rousing first set I thought it would be fun to capture the feel of the barn burner shows and the image above is what I was after. The band said it was OK to take a few shots so I grabbed my 5D Mark II, cranked it up to ISO 3200, opened the iris and hoped for the best (there is NO stage lighting — just the dimmed overhead lights and some christmas tree lights). I headed to the back the room, grabbed a bar stool and, while co-ower Jeff Flagg spotted me, I climbed up and grabbed a few shots with a 16mm lens. This is more or less a straight shot, not much Lightroom tweaking to speak of. (Not so for the rest of these.)

The hands of Duke Levine on guitar.

That’s Richard Gates on bass and Billy Beard on drums.

Dennis Brennan is well-known in the roots rock-and-roll circuits around Boston with a solo career stretching back to the early 90′s. His band used to play all the time here in Maynard at the Sit ‘N Bull (which I walked by every day for years on my way to work but, sadly, didn’t head in because while I like great music I hate cigarette smoke even more… sigh)

With no stage lighting the only source of light were the colored christmas lights ringing the stage (I think they were six inches from his head). I like color but for this photograph of Dennis they were competing, so I went with a black and white version. Frankly, Dennis feels more like a black&white photograph kind of guy anyway.

Duke Levine. Another great example of using black and white to extract a decent photograph from an otherwise useless file: the process of pulling detail out of the shadows, coupled with the saturated lighting looks horrific in color but attenuates nicely once you throw that out…) Like the other black and white images here I added grain with Lightroom to give it a bit more “grittier” feel.

Kevin Barry (seen recently on television with Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs). Go Kevin!

I’m shooting at 1/30th of a second so motion blur is a constant factor with musicians doing their thing. The 5DMk2′s auto focus is nearly useless in low light — making this especially challenging. If this was something more than a casual shoot I would have attached my viewfinder and used the electronic viewer to manually focus.

This was subtly tweaked in Photoshop. The primary lighting are the hanging fixtures along the ceiling. To create more emphasis on the stage I added a neutral density filter just above the beam, darkening the upper half of the image by a half stop.

All images were taken with a Canon 5D Mark II at ISO 3200, 16-35mm f/2.8L or 70-200mm f/2.8L IS. All handheld. All wide open. Between 1/25 and 1/40 second — and that was underexposing a 1/3 stop. At ISO 3200 you really can’t under expose much more or the resulting image will have too much noise. It’s still a frickin’ miracle.

My thanks to Dennis Brennan and his band for allowing me to photograph them, and to Carol Noonan and Jeff Flagg for their support and bringing great live music to everyone. If you haven’t been to Stone Mountain Arts Center you are missing something special.

In case you were wondering why there haven’t been as many photos coming from Stone Mountain LIVE shos the past year, I’m working on a video project with SMAC and that has seriously cut into the still shooting. But we’re not filming the June show so I’m looking forward to finding those moments while behind the shutter again.

Take time to enjoy your rivers

Dave — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:45:23 +0000

A quick reminder (to myself as much as anybody) that warmer weather is nature’s way of saying “c’mon outside!”. Whether you are a paddler, angler, or just like to walk along the shoreline, go visit a nearby river or stream and take in the lifeblood of your neighborhood ecosystem.

Photograph of folks enjoying the Concord River at the Old North Bridge crossing, just downstream from the confluence of the Sudbury and Assabet Rivers.

Technical details: Canon 7D, handheld in the kayak, 70-200mm f/2.8L at 200mm. 1/1250, f/2.8, ISO2500. Lightroom 3, black and white processing, lots of tweaking in the B&W mix panel (de-emphasize greens, brighten up the yellows). By choosing B&W over color and mixing the luminosities of the colors I was able to remove a lot of the distraction of the background trees and make the foreground bridge and people pop out much more. Sometimes color is a distraction.

Blue and Gold

Dave — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 22:49:07 +0000

A scene from the Concord River in Billerica a couple of years ago (you can tell it’s not this year because there’s not 5 feet of snow on the shoreline). I have to admit that I was a bit let down by how this renders in the browser’s colorspace — the blues are much more vibrant on my monitor in Lightroom. That single leaf trapped in the ice also appealed to me a bit.

Technical: Canon 1D Mark II, 24-70mm f/2.8L at 28mm, 1/125 second, f/13, ISO 200. Filter configuration unrecorded.
Lightroom 3: Lens correction applied, exposure +1/4 stop, fill 48, blacks 35, clarity +37, vibrance +7, sharpened to taste. White balance was set to 6300K – which probably isn’t far off from “reality” (such as it was). This was one of those images where the white balance dramatically affected the intent of the image. Keeping it around 6000K balanced the warmth of the setting sun with the cool ice reflecting the sky.

Winter Stream Study

Dave — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:58:30 +0000

A little study of a winter stream in Effingham, NH. Each of these photographs has various flaws that keep them from being really great, but they still manage to capture a bit of the dynamics of water in a winter environment.

All captured with a Canon 5D Mark II, 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, ISO 200. Various shutter speeds and f/stops.

Fairly heavily processed with Lightroom 3. Just about every setting used in some way to compress the whites of the snow with the darks of the water and subtle glow of the rocks below the surface. Mostly fill light and black point for the latter and recovery/tone-curve for the former.

River Abstract 2

Dave — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 03:48:40 +0000

Another abstract with a solid chunk of reality acting as an anchor.

Technical: Canon 1D Mark 2, 70-200mm f/2.8L + 1.4x teleconverter at 200mm, 1 second, f/22, ISO 100.
Lightroom 3, exposure -1/3, recovery 38, fill 39, blacks 53 (“poor man’s HDR”), clarity +30, vibrance +20, highlights -50. The goal of the processing was to take an image intentionally exposed right to the edge of the camera’s dynamic range and then bring the bright white ice down far enough that the eye (and screen) can handle the details there. Compressing the dynamic range on the other end accentuated what was happening under the water’s surface.

Maynard Fest 2010

Dave — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 01:03:02 +0000

Probably the biggest annual event here in town happens the first Saturday of October. The morning starts with Maynard Fest. Organized by the Assabet Valley Chamber of Commerce it celebrates commerce, community and culture. They close down Main and Nason Streets and the downtown becomes one big fair from 9am to 3:30pm: vendors selling crafts, toys, and various trinkets, numerous food stands, a wide variety of civic groups from in and around Maynard, a number of local music groups performing in Memorial Park and, of course, rides, bouncy castles, and other activities for kids.

After Maynard Fest the Octoberfest starts down the street with lots of food and music — and the evening ends with fireworks. It’s a full day of fun if you’re up for it. (I wasn’t so I didn’t photograph either evening event…)

If you would like to see more images from the day, I have two albums set up. One is rather complete (some might say exhausting), with over 200 photographs from the day — the other contains 40 of my personal favorites — a handful of those are in this article.

Maynard Fest 2010 (full set)
Maynard Fest 2010 Highlights

Here are a few more of my favorite photographs from Maynard Fest with a bit of commentary.

While editing 400+ images from the day I was struck with how hard it is to catch kids smiling. Thrills and new experiences doesn’t always equal a constant grin. This fellow here was caught at the right moment:

I endeavor to make one photograph of every part of the event, but not every one is going to be a winner. So in addition to “coverage” I also try to find “iconic” images of a small town fair. For a number of reasons this one said “Maynard” to me…

The artists at Earth Changes Pottery were demonstrating their skill right on the sidewalk. I could photograph potters all day…

Springbrook Farm, just over the border in Stow, had a corner of Memorial Park with a few of their Alpacas and various goods made from their wool. These shy animals were doing pretty well considering they are normally on a tranquil farm and they spent the day next to a busy street and had hundreds of people stopping by. They are also too cute for words…

I normally seek candid images, but when I tried to take a photograph of these Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School students they just struck a pose. I’m not complaining.

We had the remnants of a tropical storm dump a couple of inches of rain on us yesterday but today was clear blue skies. Great for the crowds but really lousy for photography — the light was quite harsh and I spent a bit of time in Lightroom tweaking a lot of the images taken in full sun.

While I “made” this photograph, I didn’t take it. After a couple of minutes at this bouncy castle I knew that one of the tunnels would probably be well lit by the sun — but there was no way for me to get there without climbing on the ride. I could barely reach the bottom of the tunnel so I stuck my camera in there and fired a shot to check my exposure. I locked that in, set my focus and opened the 16-35mm to 16mm wide. I then handed the camera to the young lady in the upper left of the previous photo and asked if she would just point and shoot it at the next kid who came along. She was pretty nervous about doing this but she did it 3 times and 2 of images were exactly as I visualized them. Here’s one of them:

Fire trucks and ice cream — that’s the life!

Lots of live music all day…

… and, apparently, free hugs:

And every once in a while, another smile…

Technical stuff:

I carried two cameras with me all day: Canon 40D with 70-200mm f/2.8 L and a Canon 7D with a 24-70mm f/2.8L (for 1/2 of the day) and a 16-35mm f/2.8L (for the 2nd half of the day). Both cameras were in Auto ISO mode most of the time and either in aperture or shutter priority mode as needed. As noted the light conditions were very harsh and I was moving between full-on sun and shade/shadow constantly. In retrospect I probably should have had a -1/3 stop or so exposure compensation dialed in more than I did to take the edge off the bright sun. I had a fair number of images compromised by the wide dynamic range and I should have cheated under a bit. Metering was evaluative and center-weighted, depending on the subject and conditions.

Post processing done in Lightroom 3. I took about 450 images and tossed about 20 right away (half of them were shots of the sidewalk — I guess the release button hit my leg or something). I then did a pass for white balance — first everything at around 5700K and then I use the “spray” tool to “paint” a 7000K setting on images taken in shade or shadow. Everything got a +20 clarity and +20 vibrance — my standard tweak for raw images.

After working one image that had particularly harsh light I realized that the settings would probably work for a lot of other similar images. I dropped the exposure by 0.8EV, set Recovery to 38, set Fill to 38, and the black point to 28. This provided a base that worked surprisingly well across a wide variety of images: the EV drop and Recovery softened the harsh highlights, while the fill brought back what would normally be midtones and the black point restored the contrast.

There are always special cases and I tweaked those images as needed, but the great majority were handled with the above workflow settings.

I happened to turn on Lens Profile Correction for one image and liked what it did so much that I applied it to all of the images. A spot check of the set indicated that this was the correct decision. I may now make this part of my standard Lightroom workflow. What a frickin’ cool feature.