David Griffin Photography » Staring

Ice Hats

Dave — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:36:26 +0000

A quick study from this morning on the relationship of rock, ice and water…

Just missed it!

Dave — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:21:38 +0000

Taking a break from an editing session I walked into the kitchen to get a drink and saw what is a very rare sight in our neck of the woods: a nice sunset. The only problem was the good part was probably about 5 minutes before I saw it. I grabbed a camera that had a lens attached and a tripod (taking no time to find a jacket, but the weather here is back to unseasonably mild), ran out to the river and grabbed a few exposures.

Oh to have been there a few minutes earlier with another lens or two in hand! There are so many good photographs hiding in these frames…

Anyway, as Dewitt Jones says, celebrate what nature gives you – and I do. So here’s a little “fire on the water” from our little corner of the world.

You might be asking “No sunsets?”. Nope. I live right next to a river and, for all it’s beauty when you are next to a river you are, by definition, at the bottom of a valley. To the west from where we are the land rises up, so the sun drops below the horizon a good 30 minutes before it “sets”. Only when the clouds are in the right configuration do we get anything resembling color in our sunsets — and believe me that doesn’t happen very often (like maybe a couple of times a year at the level that these photos are at). Over the past 8 or 9 years I think I only have one other set of images with similar conditions. And now you know why I wish I was thirsty a few minutes earlier!

Photowalk at Danforth Brook

Dave — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:55:09 +0000

On Saturday I “led” our local meetup group, the Metrowest Photography Collaborative, on a photo walk in nearby Hudson, at the Danforth Falls conservation area. This is one of my favorite local spots to photograph year-round and I enjoyed sharing it with my fellow photographers. Here are a few selections from my short visit there. (I shot a bit of video as well and may put together something in the next few days.)

August 2011 Wallpaper

Dave — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 02:22:55 +0000

As you probably know most of the wallpapers come from my archives, although from time to time I do try to create something new for the upcoming month. I had that in mind for a late July camping trip we made up near the Canadian border in the Great North Woods of New Hampshire. I had several candidates in mind but this one sorta edged the others out…

In this particular case, the photograph was made on August 1st (well perhaps a few minutes before). Unfortunately (?) I was well out of range of the internet so you had to wait until August 2nd to see it… August’s image is the Milky Way setting over Lake Francis in northern New Hampshire.

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, 16-35mm f/2.8L at 16mm, 25 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 1600.
Processed with Lightroom 3, WB 3300K, +1.5 stops, clarity +30, vib -20, lens profile corr, luminance and noise filters.

March 2011 Wallpaper

Dave — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:09:28 +0000

This is one of those “forward looking” images — dreams of a languid ice-out along our local rivers towards the end of March. Exactly one year ago, you might recall, things were a wee bit different (see below)…

Anyhoo, 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.

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.

Stow Stream Scenic

Dave — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 19:12:59 +0000

A tiny stream that feeds the Assabet River in Stow — probably 100 yards from busy Route 62. Sometimes color adds to a scene and some call out for no color — and as I was working through this image the color just kept getting in the way.

Technical: Canon 1D Mark II, 24-70mm f/2.8L at 70mm, 5 seconds, f/16, ISO 100. (Probably a polarizer.)
Lightroom 3: lens profile correction, WB to 9960, Exposure +1/2 stop, fill 60, blacks 19, brightness +65, clarity +25, highlights -45, sharpening 40/0.8/39/14; burned the snow in the lower-right 1/3 stop.

River Abstract 3

Dave — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 21:56:46 +0000

There’s something about how the shape of the ice seems to radiate out — even though the water is moving right to left — that makes this just interesting enough to share with you all.

Technical: Canon 5D Mark II, 70-200mm f/2.8L at 150mm, 3-stop ND filter + polarizer, 1/5 second, f/16, ISO 100.
Lightroom 3: Recovery 20, Fill 25, Blacks 20, Clarity +30, Vibrance +43 (brings out the blue in the ice).

Icicles

Dave — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:40:59 +0000

A couple of years ago we took a trip down a part of the Kangamangus Highway in New Hampshire looking for interesting winter scenes. While we don’t have the terrain of that countryside here in Massachusetts we pretty much have the same snowfall this year — and we’re about to get hammered again. We have icicles though, but they tend to be hanging off of houses rather than gorges. I recalled this scene while driving by those houses.

These are fairly impressionistic images, more heavily processed in Lightroom than I normally do – but I wanted to bring out the cold feeling of the blue in the ice and waterfall pool.

Technical: Canon 1D Mark 2, 24-70mm f/2.8L at 32mm, 1/50 at f/8, ISO 200.
Lightroom 3: Lens profile correction (flattens it out nicely), fill 40, blacks 19, clarity +100 (yes, over the top), vibrance +20, aqua and blue saturation +100. (Reference the “before” image below.)

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.