photonelly.com

It’s been a few months since my last serious photo shoot at the end of February, but I got the call yesterday in the afternoon to come out and shoot for the Nighthawks Hockey club I used to play for and also coached.

I have a quite a long history with the team – which you can read about in this recent post over at my web development blog – and since I’m on the Board of Directors and was already going to the game anyway, it wasn’t that much effort to pack the gear and bring it with.

Up Closer

Seeing as this was just a JV hockey game in the hockey rink I practically grew up in, it was pretty easy for me to find my way over at the end of the home team bench and getting the most unobstructed view of the action I’ve had so far in any of the hockey shoots I’ve done. The majority of the photos were right from the bench area and not shot through the safety class along the boards.

Shooting with both my Canon 20D and my Rebel XSi at the same time allowed me to shoot telephoto for the far end of the ice and more wide angle for the action up front.  That, and having the extra room not being confined in single seat at the other arenas made this shoot very enjoyable. The low lighting was an issue as always, but I just left the ISO at 800 and ran with it.

Hack Job

When we last chatted, one of the primary reasons I’ve put things on hold was because I didn’t have time for processing in post. That was the case here as well which I spent a few hours on Sunday to process these photos.  Not something I had planned for my weekend, but that’s how it goes.

The saving grace was that the primary purpose of these photos was for the team’s Facebook page, so I knew going in that my post processing workflow wasn’t going to be the same as it is for my vacation and landscape shots. In fact, it was pretty much a hack job flying through about 40 of the best shots using Adobe Photoshop Elements on my Mac. For the intended purpose, it did the job.

More Photos

If you’d like to see the rest of the images, you can view the Nighthawks vs. New Trier photoset on my webnelly Flickr account. Not sure if I’ll take on any more games this spring season, but it would something I’d definitely want to pursue when the Fall season starts depending on where things are by then.

– Kris

Another step in the transition to my new(er) Flickr account, I’ve created a new photoset that displays all the latest photos featured here on the blog.

The name of this new photoset is: Blogged. You weren’t expecting anything fancier in a title, were you?

Seeing as my new Flickr account is aimed at being the best of my work to date, and I’m only committed to show of my favorite works here on the blog, it’s like the best of the best. It also helps me keep track of the shots I’ve already posted in the Daily Photo series, but that’s another matter.

A Little History

Since there’s not much else to say about a photoset that mainly speaks for itself, I thought I’d throw in a few fun facts about the website and the blog to fill the rest of the post.

• The photonelly.com website was launched in September ‘08, and took roughly 2 weeks to put together. Obviously much has changed since then.
• The above mentioned Daily Photo series currently has over 175 posts in it. Not exactly a new photo posted every day, but a good goal to strive for.
• The first entry in the Daily Photo series was posted in November ‘08 and was titled: Footprints in the Sand. The photo to follow was Snow Covered Road, talk about a contract in subjects.
• Of the 175+ entries in the series, only about 70 of them are currently tagged as Maui. I bet you thought that number would be higher, eh? Well it probably is since I haven’t gone back and tagged all the previous posts since moving over to WordPress in November.
• Speaking of WordPress – gratuitous bunny pic!
• My Kris Nelson Photography page on Facebook was launched about two weeks ago to further spread the reach of my work. It currently features close to 30 photos, with more being added soon, and is already closing in on 100 fans. Won’t you join us?

Well, that seems like a good list of fun facts. Thanks for stopping by.

– Kris

Although it all came together sort of at the last minute, the aerial photo shoot I scheduled for our most recent visit to Door County, WI was one of the things I was looking forward to this time around.

That is, until the rains came and washed out my first scheduled attempt. I managed to get another flight the following day with a small break in the weather, and I’m wrapping up the edits from the photos I took on that little excursion.

My First Aerial Shoot By Plane
Although this was my third serious attempt at a shoot from high above the ground, it was my first from an airplane. The previous shoots were with Blue Hawaiian Helicopters over Maui, once with the doors on and most recently with the doors off arranged by the great folks at the Maui Photo Festival. That reminds me, I need to write up a similar post about what it’s like shooting out the side of a moving helicopter looking straight down with nothing but a seatbelt. What a rush!

Anyway, back to the recent flight. I went up with Dave from Grizzly Scenic Air Tours, based out of Ephraim. The Grizzly folks were a great couple of guys and did everything they could to make sure I was able to get a flight in that weekend with the weather being what it was.

It was a small two-seater airplane, which was the first difference I noticed from the helicopters I went up in previously. At first glance, it looked pretty cramped, but I actually had more room to move around and switch cameras than I did sharing the back bench of a helicopter with 3-4 other passengers.

The other benefit of such a small aircraft was the one-on-one communication with the pilot and being able to customize the 70-minute flight to my needs. Dave was great at making sure I knew what there was to see throughout the entire peninsula and taking me to the better views.

The Downsides
Now, to the things I struggled with during this flight, through no fault of the pilot or the plane, have you.

• Shooting through the window – the option to fly door-less with these guys is available, however, with the weather what it was and the time of the year, the temps were too low. I’m hoping to go up again around the May timeframe, so it’s something I’m looking into again.  The window on the door wasn’t that big, at least compared to a door-less helicopter, so that was a limiting factor, too.
• Plane Stability – I’m probably not the first to observe that, as far as taking aerial photos go, helicopters tend to be a lot more stable than a small airplane. Combined with the weather and the high winds in the area, we were bobbing up and down a little more than I had anticipated. That, and shooting a lot through my telephoto lens even made me a little airsick near the end. Just more experience for me to take with on the next flight.
• Move Along, No Hovering Here – Along the same lines of stability, I certainly missed the flexibility to hover over a subject to better compose and capture a shot like we did during the helicopter tour in September. That added more pressure on me along with the clouds (mentioned below), but I took it in stride and did the best I could. In addition to not hovering, I also felt that the speed was a little faster in the plane then the helicopter, which makes quite a bit of sense considering even basic aviation principles.
• The Clouds – As you can see from one of the shots below, the clouds had let up enough for us to fly, but they were playing havoc with my exposures. While I’ve come a long way with adjusting on the fly for changing lighting conditions, it still was tricky with light that was changing so often, working with fast shutter speeds and not a lot of time to get the shot I wanted. I ended up bumping up the ISO in a few places and working with the exposure compensation, but having a more professional camera like the Canon 5D Mark II would have been a big help in some of the noise and blur I was getting. Someday.
• A Focal Gap – I ran into another unforeseen problem on my part, leading to more knowledge for next time. I shot with two camera bodies like last time, my 20D with a 70-300mm telephoto and a my Rebel XSi with my newest lens, a 24mm f/2.8 wide angle. What I soon realized after starting to shoot was that I had a fairly large gap between my wide angle and telephoto selection that proved detrimental to some of my composition efforts. I shot with the same pair of gear on Maui, but we were able to get closer to the ground below in the helicopter to where my 24mm frame was full of all the wonderful Aloha goodness done below us. Time to rethink the gear selection for the next trip.

On to the Goodies
That list of downsides is more educational for me, and maybe others, to learn from in future attempts. As it’s been said before, we learn more from our mistakes and failures than our successes, so calling them out and having them to revisit later is helpful for me.

Moving on to the good parts of the flight, it was a great scenic tour and something I’d recommend to anyone who frequents Door County and wants to see it from a whole new vantage point. The guys at Grizzly Tours have a few flight options to fit just about every need, and as they did for me, they’re happy to customize to any special requests you might have.

A few of my hopes coming into this flight and photo shoot were to see the full autumn colors from high above and to see some of the lighthouses, towns, etc. that we’ve visited on our previous visits. Photography aside, those goals were more than accomplished.

I also learned there was even more to see than I knew coming in. For starters, there were more bays, lakes, and harbors than I had thought, and bluffs like the one below were quite a sight from the air after standing near the edge of a few of them.

On top of that, Dave mentioned there were 27 islands that surround the peninsula, and they even have tours for visiting those and even shipwrecks, too. Needless to say that has my interest piqued for another flight in May, and I’m fascinated that there’s so much to shoot that one or two 70-minute flights couldn’t even cover everything.

A More Photos Left to Go
I tried to go through my best shots from the flight for this post, but the truth is I still haven’t gotten through all of them.

All of these photos, plus some that I didn’t show here, can be found in my Above Door County photoset on Flickr. As I get to the last few photos that need some TLC in Photoshop, I’ll be adding them there as well.

Enjoy, and if some of these notes helped you out or you have aerial shots of your own, please let me know. I’m also trying to carve out time for writing a similar post about the doors-off helicopter tour, which of my three aerial shoots has been my most successful, by far.

My wife’s been collecting Swarovski figurines for about 3 years now, and it was the idea of bringing photos to an upcoming designer signing nearby that got me inspired to break out the gear and shoot some photos of her crystal treasures.

Eventually, I’m hoping to build a small lightbox, probably black or navy blue, to take out individual and related pieces to shoot something more staged and play around with some of the lights bouncing off the crystal at different angles.

But for now, I went ahead and shot them right in our curio cabinet. When I get to do the lightbox project, I’ll probably spring for a macro lens, just to do it properly.

The Project
The lighting in our living room isn’t that great as far as shooting crystal figurines goes, and the cabinet lighting is a not so flattering yellow lighting (which is why we hardly turn it on). So, in order to get the best lighting I could without an elaborate setup was to use the natural light from our balcony doors.

We have a south facing balcony, harsh sunlight wasn’t going to be a concern until later in the afternoon.  I was planning the shoot in the morning on Sunday, but ended up sleeping in (which I hardly ever do anymore) and these shots were taken at around 1pm. It actually worked out nicely because the skies were overcast enough to give me some soft light to work with, although I did do a little testing with the cabinet lighting and a small flashlight.

HDR to the Rescue
There were some scenes I was shooting that just weren’t working for me as is. So, I shot a few of them as bracketed shots, since I was already using my tripod and remote shutter release anyway. I went with the realistic tone mapping for this one and not any of the surreal settings like you see with other HDR photos. I’m still playing around with PhotoMatix, and I probably could have done a better job had I not been using the trial mode still and went with the Details Enhancer.

Still, I’m fairly happy with the results, and of the 16 original photos in this photoset, 4 of them are HDR.  Other than checking the Flickr tags for “hdr”, can you tell the difference as to which ones are single shot exposures and which ones are HDR?

More Photos
You can see all the photos over at the new Swarovski Collection photoset on my Flickr page, and if you happen to be at the Woodfield Shopping Center for the designer signing event on Saturday, stop by and I’ll show you the prints, too.

From the beginning of my photography work, albeit somewhat recent, I had convinced myself that I would not be shooting portraits. The beauties in my viewfinder were always meant to be created by mother nature, and my efforts were to be spent capturing my memories of the paradises I’ve seen.

Yet, when I saw that one of the golden hour sessions at the Maui Photo Festival last month was for a private sunset hula session being led by Maui photographer Randy Jay Braun, I knew it was a very special opportunity and that I really needed to step out of my comfort zone to give it a shot.

At the time, I really did feel out of my element. Not that I was nervous or anything, as I really didn’t have to do any posing of the subject or any of those types of interactions. For the first maybe 30 minutes, I guess I was just set back by all the great, talented photographers instinctively shooting to my left and my right, knowing which shots they wanted and the proper settings to get them there.

And as I had somewhat left my shell socially, so to speak, with my fellow attendees at just about every other excursion or session, it was about this time that I sunk deep back into my own head. And while I was still one of dozens of photographers with cameras in hand, I had an isolated feeling.

As I moved from station to station, where different hula dancers were setup in different scenes and natural backgrounds, I wasn’t thinking 100% like a photographer at the time. Looking back, I can envision the creative wheels of all the other photographers around me making amazing portraits and photographs for their portfolios, but for me, it was different. Sort of spiritual, or about as spiritual as I get from time to time.

The Hula
I guess one of the reasons I was drawn back was from the beauty of the hula itself. Most ordinary Hawaii visitors associate hula dancing with the typical luau they find at the nearest resort during their vacation. And they associate those luaus with the loud, exotic music, fire knife dancers, and Mai Tai’s.

But during our many trips to the islands, and our own desire to learn more about the culture and history of the Hawaiian people, my wife and I have found the hula to be much more meaningful than that. I think the true beauty and the majesty of the hula really struck me last year when we were lucky enough to see one our favorite Hawaiian music groups, HAPA, live in concert at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center.

Now, it wasn’t just a magical night because of the talented musicians and their music that we have come to cherish. My admiration for the true beauty of the hula that evening came courtesy of one Malia Petersen as she performed hula so eloquently and effortlessly to the music. I was captivated, to say the least. From that point on, my respect and appreciation for the hula, and the performers, has been so much greater.

The Photo Shoot
Getting back to the photo shoot at the Maui Photo Festival. I knew this was special because it was going to be that same type of beauty and majesty of the hula that I was given the unique chance to capture. I think that sort of stage kind of spooked me a little bit to, confidence-wise, since I dreaded the thought of having such an amazing opportunity only to let myself down because of my previous desire to only shoot landscapes and nature.

But alas, I was lured into stepping further out of my comfort zone. Perhaps it was because of the opportunity itself, yet there was still something magical about the beauty of the talented young ladies that volunteered their time and effort for us that evening. It was the way they performed their craft, demonstrating the dances and steps that they had learned and rehearsed for much of their young lives. The dances that have been passed down to them from so many generations before them, as it was one of the ways their ancestors gifted the legends and stories of the Hawaiian people onto their children.

And as beautiful as the dances were, it really struck me that they did all this without music. Not a single note or melody was being played, and yet the grace and beauty of the hula was so perfectly displayed. It was as if each girl was dancing to the music in her heart, and seeing how that came together when 2 or even all 8 of them held their poses and motions in total unison was incredible. Not to mention that they were doing all this with the chaos of no less than 8-12 cameras in front of them at any given time. Thinking back on it still gives me chills.

The Results
With being out of my norm shooting that evening, I wasn’t in a real hurry to dive into the virtual pile of images I captured from the sunset hula session. It wasn’t until just hours before I started writing this post, a full two weeks after the photo shoot, did I finally sit down and review what I took.

I already mentioned I wasn’t thinking 100% like a photographer at the time, and considering I don’t have a lot of practice photographing people, I really blew away the lowered expectations that I had for my results. They are by no means perfect, and like any artist or photographer, I can clearly see flaws and places for improvement, but given the circumstances, I am very proud of what I captured in those 90 minutes.

I’ve only processed and uploaded about half of my “keeper pile”, which I’ve shown here and are also viewable on my new Sunset Hula Session photoset on Flickr. I’ll likely be getting around to the remaining photos in the coming weeks or months, so it will be worth checking out again to see a few more when they’re up.

I realize this is quite a long post for only a handful of photos, but if photography is truly about telling a story, I was hoping to give the uninitiated a little bit of an introduction chapter before the photos themselves got their chance to speak. If anything, it gave me a chance to put into words the emotions and spirituality I felt that day, which is always good therapy in and of itself.

One last special “Mahalo Nui Loa” to Randy, the dancers, parents, and all the folks behind the entire Maui Photo Festival itself for such a special opportunity to capture images like these. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I could return home with such treasures to cherish and share with the world.

The entire experience was truly magical.