Life In The Lines

A delightful old man with a lot of life drawn into the lines of his face. Canon 7D, EFS 50mm 1.4 at f2.8 1/60, ISO 400A Perfect Photographic Morning Part 3

After I had climbed down off of the scaffolding, ignoring a few strange stares, (see previous post), I headed towards the mall because I wanted to cut through to go to a waffle restaurant that I wanted to have breakfast in.  I paused for a moment, and a thought occurred to me, “nothing interesting ever happened in a mall, this morning is about ‘interesting.’”  I kept walking, heading around the block.  I had walked about 15 steps and I looked to my left and there I saw a most interesting face, I thought, man I would like to photograph him, so I screwed up my courage, walked in and asked him if he would mind if I took some pictures of him.  He laughed, asked if these pictures were going in Penthouse.  I took some photos as she cut his hair moving around them but my favourite image was this one, he was laughing most of the time but I love the slightly wry smile that he is giving here, the heavily lidded eyes that have seen so much of life. I like the old newspaper clippings and old photos taped on to the mirror and the busy countertop.  How much more interesting this was than walking past the Gap.

-Russell Berg

A Hole In The Sky

A hole in the glass provides the perfect frame for a building that is being destroyed. Canon 7D, EFS 50mm 1.4 at f18 1/80, ISO 3200A Perfect Photographic Morning Part 2

As I left the parking lot with the view of the blue window I walked around the block and came to the other side of the building that was being destroyed  I really wanted to see what was inside but the bottom floor was all boarded up and I couldn’t see anything.  There was, however, scaffolding over the sidewalk to protect the people who were walking by.  This was a Sunday morning so there wasn’t any work going on but I still hesitated, a little unsure of myself, as I swung my camera over my neck and scrambled up the scaffolding.  I thought to myself “no one is going to look up.”  I was initially really disappointed as the second floor was all windows but they had been painted from the inside, really strange.  But then I notice the hole, it wasn’t large, smaller than my fist but I could see inside and it looked like there was some real possibilities here.  I loved the fact that hole in the window provided a frame for the image, I loved the fact that I could just barely see the window frame in the top left corner from my previous image, and I loved the way the planks on the floor lead your to that mysterious darkened doorway.  I had to stop the exposure way down to f18 or the glass just became a blurry amorphous mass this pushed my ISO up to 3200 but luckily the 7D handles that pretty well.  As I brought the doorway into focus something really interesting happened, I could see writing on the glass in the top right corner. At first I thought it was a sticker on the glass but I pulled my eye off the camera to look and I realized that I was looking at a reflection from a store on the other side of the street and even though the glass itself is out of focus the reflection is the same apparent distance from the glass as the doorway is, (remember your high school physics?), so it was in focus as well.  I really liked how many layers I was playing with here and was really happy with the image.  Afterwards I pulled it into Aperture and did the black and white conversion with Nik Silver EFex Pro and I darkened the image, and increased the grain to add some drama and mystery.

-Russell Berg

As I looked to the left, in the middle of the all the destruction was a circular life preserver. Irony, anyone? Canon 7D, EFS 50mm 1.4 at f8 1/60, ISO 1250

Beauty In The Decay

Beauty in the decay of a city. Canon 7D, EFS 50mm 1.4 at f9 1/60, ISO 400A Perfect Photographic Morning Part 1

I went out walking around Victoria one December morning as my wife slept in and I had a wonderful photographic adventure.  It started as I walked past a parking lot that had, at one end, an old building that was in the the process of being demolished.  This idea of finding beauty and art in the midst of decay and destruction was one that has always appealed to me and it became sort of a theme for the morning.  I took a few photos and then turned to my left and saw the blue grating and window frame over the tumbled red bricks and I knew I had a pretty good image.  I really liked the contrast of colours and textures.  After I had imported into Aperture I did increase the saturation of the blue around the window and red in the bricks a little until I had the image that I was looking for.  I will tell/show you more about my morning in future posts.

-Russell Berg

Light In The Shavings

Combining two of my favourite hobbies, woodworking and photography Eos Rebel XSi, EFS 17-85 f/4-5.6 at 85mm, f/5.6, 1/20, ISO 1600

When two of the things that we love to do come together in an beautiful way it can be especially gratifying.  I really enjoy both photography and woodworking.  I am a teacher and I love it but there is something very satisfying about being able to look at what you did and say “there it is, that is what I made.”  In teaching you don’t get to do that so I really enjoy making stuff on the weekends.  I was surfacing a table that I was making for our back yard and the light through the dusty window caught the shavings in a particular way that was very pleasing to me.  I knew that it was too dark in there for hand held photography so I hauled a tripod down into the garage and set up.  I really like the way that the light plays in the shavings and then hits the hard metal surface of the block plane.

-Russell Berg

When Cultures Collide

A curious Papuan child wants to take a peak at the strange white people. Konica DiMAGE Z10, 44mm, f/3.2, 1/40

When you are in a place where no one knows you, where there isn’t anyone who understands your language within a 1,000 km, and there are none of the support mechanisms that we westerners take for granted it can get a little disorienting.  My family and I lived in Indonesia for a year in the province of Papua and at Christmas we went out to visit friends who live in the very remote village.  In this village there are no cars, no TV,s no radios, no electricity at all, their experience of the world outside their valley only happens through the planes which occasionally come and go on the primitive dirt airstrip.  Because of the way that the flights worked, these were tiny little jungle planes; Cessna 206’s, we had to stop and wait in a village all on our own for about an hour.  We were the only westerners within a 1,000 km and the whole village came out to see us.  As we waited, we wandered around the village of Biome and about a 100-150 people followed us around to watch us, to see what we would do, to listen to our strange language.  There was never any feeling of danger but we walked past the hut pictured above and I saw another child climbing out of his hut to come and see us.  I quickly pulled up my camera to grab the image and as I did the father pulled his child back inside.  I guess, perhaps, we were a little too strange for him.  The camera was on full auto so I can’t claim artistic intent when I snapped the picture but I love the way that the slow shutter speed allowed the child’s head to blur as he looked back at his father and yet the father’s hand, the other child’s face and the walls of the hut are crisp.  It was an amazing experience and this is one of my favourite photos of the it.

-Russell Berg