Junk Culture

These recycled flowers are planted in front of the Luther Place Memorial Church on Thomas Circle in Washington, DC. There’s an entire junk garden around the 1873 church, which doesn’t quite match its stately architecture.

This photo of Thomas Circle is from 1922 — you can see the church at the top center, and there’s the giant Martin Luther statue out front.

Tin Can Alley

At the Albany Tulip Festival the pathways through Washington Park are lined with vendors selling jewelry, kitchen gadgets, hand-blown glass, etc. Usual stuff you'd see at any craft fair.

The one booth that really caught my eye had these ornate votive holders — with a candle going inside they shine intricate patterns onto nearby surfaces. After looking for a minute you realize the lamps are made out of old vegetable cans. Wow, really cool.

Fountains of Wayne

Headlining the Albany Tulip Festival this year was Fountains of Wayne, a band I learned about from a friend in grad school. (The music you listen to in college is essential, even if you're older.) I loved seeing them for free!

They write hooky music with clever, snarky lyrics with frequent references to the northeast — even better. You've probably heard Stacy's Mom, a masterclass in how to write a pop song — it was a definite crowd-pleaser in Washington Park. Adam Schlesinger (in black on bass) wrote the key songs in the Hugh Grant & Drew Barrymore movie Music and Lyrics. Katy Perry covers their song Hackensack, but their original is better.

I never get to use my monster 200mm lens, it looks and weighs the same as a bazooka; this was the perfect chance to try it with some concert photography. I keep forgetting how good it is, I got some great up-close photos. Here's the full set on Flickr.

Mess of Pottage

One of the scariest things is when you realize you’re turning out just like your parents.

When we were growing up, if there were two top things we complained about to my mom, they would be:

1. She smiled at everybody at church all the time.
2. When she made boring lentil soup for dinner.

I did both today.

I didn’t think about it being Mother’s Day when I started making soup this afternoon, but it was ironically fitting.

Happy Mother’s Day, Universe — you win.

Night Vision

This weekend at the Father-Son Campout I brought my camera and tripod to do some time-lapse star trails. It didn't take long after getting the camera set up for the teenage boys to want to commandeer my shoot. I'll do star trails another day.

Most of these are 30 second exposures — we're out in a field in the dark, but over that length of time the camera can collect quite a bit of light, provided by the stars, iPod touches and flashlights.

In the case of the globe and spiral we twirled a flashlight tied to a rope. To give a bolder beam, we tied a fluffed napkin around the flashlight lens, sort of like the hair on a Troll doll.

Here are the rest of the photos on Flickr.

A Three-Hour Tour

Last Saturday I hopped in the car and drove 3 hours to the Boston Temple. It was a last-minute decision to go, and a lot to cram into one day. But I ended up having a perfect day.

Someone in church said the next day how nice it is to be 3 hours away from the closest temple — it's a chance to prepare yourself to go inside. You can have some quality alone time with your spouse, listen to music, or listen to church talks, which is what I did. Along with enjoying the pretty scenery passing through the blooming Berkshires in western Mass. The idea once you're inside is to forget about the world and your problems for a while, so the drive time helps get me started toward the right frame of mind.

Not that we'll see a temple in Albany anytime soon, but if I ever moved to a different city and lived closer by ... would I miss that preparation time? Would I miss the sacrifice in time or expense, the planning and dedication it takes to go regularly? I think I might.

You Should Be In Pictures

Miracles never cease: it’s April 30, and the General Conference issue of the May Ensign magazine is in my mailbox. This is the thick issue that’s usually here around May 10th because of the logistical nightmare of rounding up 40 different speakers’ addresses from the semiannual conference. I think the immediacy of the Internet is making everybody get their acts together.

One of the wonderful changes to the May and November Ensign in the past years has been the addition of color photos. As a former printer I used to love looking with my loupe at the subtle craftsmanship of the old duotone rosettes that came from combining two ink colors. But the very first time they ran the photos in color it blew me away. This is my COJCOLDS, no longer Brother Brigham's.

And am I crazy or is the quality of the photography increasing every six months?

The first thing I did was flip through the entire thing to see the photos, and just about all are stunning. Most photos are candids of people visiting Temple Square. I wish I could shoot people this well. Page 2 says there were 13 photographers contributing from Temple Square. I see 87 photos in here that look like they came from that setting, so that means a photographer has to get 6 or 7 outstanding shots out of hundreds of photos taken over two days. The adventurous side of me thinks it would be fun to be the 14th photographer; the rational side knows I would be a stress case — this assignment is way harder than it sounds.

Photoshop is making us all better photographers these days, and I see its influence here for sure. Some of the photos in here are impossible to get without its help. I don’t consider this cheating; this is just the way things roll today.

Since multiple people are going to ask me how they did this or that, this post is my photo critique of the May 2012 Ensign magazine. Let’s go through and I’ll tell you what I see. Discussion (or disagreement) about what you see is definitely welcomed!

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Cover: There’s no way you can shoot this well under overcast skies, in the rain, with faces halfway under umbrellas. This involved major surgery. Shadows obscuring the mother’s, father’s and middle son’s faces have been lightened. Detail of the temple brought out of the haze. Colors shouldn’t pop like that in the rain, either. Look at the goosebumps on mom’s right arm — this is an expensive camera. A lucky shot for as cluttered as it is, and wonderful post-production.

p. 5 aerial: Made me say wow. This photographer spent hours on a balcony to get two shots printed in the magazine. But the variety they contribute makes it so worth it. Printed across two pages like that really adds to the scale, it just about makes you want to be Mormon.

pp. 6-7: Do you notice when the editors pick choose a photo that matches the talk title? If you don’t, you should — both photos on this spread do. The nonplussed preschooler holding white iPad made me laugh, it's a different spin on "A Little Child Shall Lead Them."

p. 8: Photoshop used to bring back detail in the background tree after lightening the faces all in shadow. Impossible otherwise.

p. 17: Great backlighting. Curly hair goes great with this.

p. 18: The rain gives really nice variety opposed to the regular photos we see in here, just like the snow in May 2011’s issue did. I listened to Conference with audio only so I had no idea what the weather was doing. Love the slow shutter speed used to show rain blowing sideways — it totally makes the shot.

p. 20: Looks like HDR or tone mapping used to saturate all colors. Nice focus on the flowers throwing people into blur, not what you’d expect. Foreground blur may have been faked.

p. 30: Long exposure with a tripod, might be HDR with all the blurring of people, plus tone mapping to equalize detail throughout. Some people’s faces on the left were blurred manually — their bodies are in focus.

p. 43: Best photo in the entire issue. Love the diagonal line. Love the golden color palette, though it would also be outstanding in b&w.

p. 46: A very observant photographer at work.

p. 49: Long telephoto lens used to compress the humans into scale with the bronze from far off. Outstanding framing.

p. 71: Faked. The tree was not that bright and saturated next the lighted temple.

p. 87: Disturbing use of the blur brush in Photoshop. Tone mapping to saturate colors. The fountain should be a lot brighter than that. This may be 2 photos put together.

p. 89: Nice stakeout by the photographer watching all his light sources, plus probably a flash on his end. Left bush fake blurred.

p. 91: Both eyeglass frames are at a diagonal to the camera. Older sister only has one lens in focus; younger sister has both in focus. What the...?

p. 100: Love it, love it, love it. The photographer was exclaiming for joy for a week after he got this candid of a black man and a white man walking arm in arm. It demonstrates the message of the gospel perhaps more powerfully than many of the talks in the magazine. I love capturing something like this, it happens once a year.

p. 104: I love looking for genetic similarities in families. It’s like a hobby.

p. 107: The eyeglasses are the window to the soul: absolute worst photo in the issue. The photographer thinks it’s the best. She’ll look at it in two years and wonder: Oh my heck, what was I thinking??? Not even the eyes are in focus. Hopefully this fad will pass.

p. 110: You can see the bead next to the journal in sharp focus, yet not read the notes on the page. Privacy maintained with the Blur tool. Just like what they do with sensitive photographs in the White House Situation Room when you're getting terrorists.

p. 127: I have this theory that personalities repeat themselves among different groups of people. Who do you recognize in these women and young women?

p. 143: The final wheelchair photo in the issue. How many wheelchairs total did you spot in this issue? I know the answer; in my work we have to portray diversity, so I watch these things.

Back cover: Photographer thinks — stupid baby! Photo editor thinks — maybe everyone will notice the boy’s tilted head and fabulous backlighting more than the stupid baby.