Archive for the ‘Action’ Category:
Do Not Feed The Bass Player
I love a captured moment like this – Donavan was in the middle of some wild headbanging during a recent Smokescreen show. I was on the side of the stage trying to get a perfectly focused capture of the headbang – which is difficult since i’m using a long lens, a long exposure, and a big aperture. That all sums up to “blurry”. The trick is to catch it at one of the ‘stopping points’ between bangs. In one of those moments, he noticed me focused on him and he shot me the perfect metal glare. Bang! Got the image.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 135mm f/2L + Canon 1.4x Extender ISO 6400, f/2, 1/200 sec.
The Devil Went Down To Lakeville
This is a photo of Dwight, the lead singer of Smokescreen. I took this shot at Babe’s in Lakeville as they played a rockin’ gig for a full house. It is so much fun shooting this stuff.. they are great to shoot and the 5D Mark II is a total rockstar in low-light club conditions. I could crank the ISO to the moon – and it still delivered the goods.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 135 f/2L
Round ‘Em Up, Cowboy!
A couple of weeks ago I posted an amazing picture of a cowboy chasing a train in Southern Colorado. It was really a striking picture of a red shirted cowboy galloping down a steep rocky path to catch a train. He was the real deal – not some stunt put on by the railway. Earlier in the day, my father and I watched them round up cattle in a corral to relocate the cows out of the high country. Recognize the cowboy in red? Yep.. same guy. I’ve got some video clips of them in action as well – the noise of several hundred cows mooing is the most amazing sound! This was marginally hazardous to shoot as well – there were ‘tailings’ from the cows underfoot everywhere.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 70-200 f/4L @ 126mm ISO 1600, f/8, 1/640 sec.
It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll
Today’s picture was from a live music shoot that I did right before taking off to Colorado. The band is Smokescreen – and the drummer Jesse is a very good friend of mine. When I heard that they were playing within a reasonable distance of my house on a Saturday night, I made the trek to Lakeville with my camera to get some sweet live shots. The guy in the picture is Chris – he’s one of the guitar players.
I continue to be amazed and fascinated at how well the Canon 5D Mark II does in low light. I spent the entire evening at 1600+ ISO – and usually at 6400 ISO – and the noise is really well controlled. I swear that it’s less than on my 40D at ISO 800. Even the 6400 ISO shots were great – they just required a pass through Noise Ninja and they were good as new.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 135 f/2L + 1.4x II Extender ISO 1600, f/2.0, 1/200 sec.
Jeepers Creepers!
Here’s an action shot of Papa John creeping his way down a jeep trail in the San Juans at dusk. We were descending from Engineer Pass late in the day trying to make it back to Animas Forks by the last rays of light. This had the fantastic by-product of giving me great light to take a picture of him on the trail.
We still had about 2 miles to go before Animas Forks where we could easily find our way back to the main road. We did make it back to the main road by the time darkness fell – but not by much!
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 17-40 f/4L @ 27mm ISO 200, f/8, 1/80 sec.
Ride ‘Em Cowboy Slim!
Now here is something you don’t see every day..
Shortly after the train from Antonito, CO went past on its way to Chama, NM, this cowboy who had been working in the corral by the tracks went galloping at us at full speed. He spurred the horse up and over a rocky embankment before plunging down the loose rock toward the track. He rounded the corner and went after the train at full speed. Luckily, I had my camera in hand with a big zoom lens and I had it set to take multiple shots.
Later in the day, we saw this cowboy and his fellow hands heading for the bar in Antonito. We stopped him and asked what had happened since we assumed he was chasing a runaway cow. He smiled and said “Oh, my buddies bet me that I couldn’t catch the train”.
As we later found out, he did catch the train – and high-fived the passengers as he went passed.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 70-200 f/4L @ 200 mm ISO 400, f/8, 1/400 sec.
My State Fair is a Great State Fair
It’s apparently abstract week here at T3 Imagery – this makes two in a row. I really dig this shot because of the color and the feeling of motion you get – it just screams “FAIR!”. This one wasn’t shot with my DSLR, or even my point ‘n shoot – it was shot with the iPhone. Hey, if Chase Jarvis can do it..
Vital Stats: iPhone + Polarize effect to give it that ‘Polaroid’ look.
The Twilight Zone
This picture was taken over the weekend at a cabin we were staying at in Northern Minnesota. This was an incredibly difficult picture to get since it was very close to sundown and things were getting pretty dark. It was also challenging because: a) the subject was moving – a lot, b) the boat was moving (even more!), c) the subject was far away and d) Big difference in exposure between sky and water.
Normally, to deal with the difference in brightness between sky and water, a graduated neutral density (GND) filter is used. I didn’t have one with me, and I didn’t see being able to use it bouncing around in the back of a boat. In this case, the GND filter in Lightroom had to do. I also had to use a big lens (280mm) and crank the ISO to the moon (2500) to get a fast enough shutter to stop all the bouncing around.
Then it was a simple matter of having the driver aim the boat away from the sun so I could get the awesome sunset over the person tubing.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 70-200 f/4L + 1.4x II extender. ISO 2500, f/5.6, 1/400 sec.
One More From The Road
Here’s another RAGBRAI shot – this one from 2005. This one was from the last day that year at the top of a long climb. I made it up first – and stopped to wait for the rest of the crew. Again, this was shot with a cheap point and shoot – and I’m playing it up by using some Lomo-style processing.
Duck.. duck.. duck.. duck..
I can’t describe how blazingly hot it was when I took this picture. It’s not that the temperature was super high, it’s more that it seemed that it shouldn’t be that hot right at dusk. We went for a quick run to the park at that time because it was simply too hot earlier in the day. This was also a really good excuse to bring my new Canon 135mm f/2 out to play. It did a fantastic job of freezing the action in low light – William was rocking vigorously at the time this was taken.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 135mm f/2 ISO 400, f/2, 1/1600 sec