USA » Larry Clark's Photo & Travel Blog

About a Picture – 20

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Dec 302012

Dawn — Somewhere Out West…

Airplane window shots are problematic. You’re typically shooting through three layers of glass and plastic. Some of those surfaces are probably dirty. Most of the surfaces are reflecting the other surfaces — and also whatever is in the airplane cabin, including your camera.

But there you are above dawn just breaking “somewhere out west”. A full moon. You have to give it a try.

Somewhere Out West — Dawn from the air.

I shot this with a Panasonic DMC-TS3 which, thoughfully, has an “Aerial Photo” scene mode. Holding the camera upside down for some shots to position the lens. The real work is in post processing. Noise reduction with Noiseware. Curves, contrast and brightness in Photoshop. Graduated ND filter effect with NIK Color Efex Pro. Color balance back in PhotoShop. A sharpness pass with NIK Sharpener Pro. Final “save for web” in PhotoShop. The two control points were the moon (keep it from turning into a solid white orb) and the terrain faces near the front edges of the engine nacelles (keep the details and sharpness of line).

P.S. Another reason, on coast-to-coast daylight flights, for picking a window on the right side westbound and on the left side eastbound.

Poland 2012, Day 3: Auschwitz/Birkenau

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Sep 032012

I seem to be having a hard time finding sunshine here in Krakow. However, for a trip to Auschwitz and Birkenau, a bright sunny day might be a bit too incongruous.

Auschwitz

The main gate at Auschwitz — from the inside.

Below is one of the early attempts to deal with the remains of murdered persons. One pair of a total of four ovens at Auschwitz. The turntable on the floor allows operators to pull ashes out of an oven, turn the cart 180 degrees, and the push the cart over an ash pit to be dumped. This particular setup was abandoned as more efficient equipment was developed to handle the mass of murdered people.

Early ovens at Auschwitz.

Birkenau (Auschwitz II)

The other iconic gateway.

The rail gate to Birkenau.

A railway wagon of the type used to transport to Birkenau for work or to be killed. This is the place seen in many photos showing people being taken off the trains and, in many cases, immediately sorted and taken to the gas chambers.

Railway goods wagon of the type used to transport people to Birkenau.

Electrified fence line.

On the Birkenau site, opposite from the railway gate, are the remains of gas chambers and crematoria — destroyed by the SS at the Soviets advanced westward. A picture of the structure is on the sign to the left.

Gas chamber and crematorium destroyed as Soviet forces drew closer.

The memorial, opposite the camp from the railway gate. The group in the center are Israeli students. The government of Israel sends thousands of students every year to tour the death camps. This practice is considered controversial by some. The students are accompanied throughout their visit to Poland by Israeli security guards (I counted at least 4 with this group).

Israeli students at the memorial.

Inside one of the wooden barracks. These were designed as stables for the German Army — to house 52 horses. They held up to 400 prisoners.

Inside a wooden barrack.

Israeli students light candles in one of the brick barracks.

Visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau

Many people take an organized tour, but I’d recommend avoiding them. You can do all the research you need online, and I don’t think Auschwitz and Birkenau are best absorbed when you are part of a herd. Also, during the peak tourist months, you can only enter Auschwitz I between the hours of 10:00 am and 3:00 pm as part of an organized tour– due to the crush of visitors. There are no such restrictions at Birkenau.

My recommendation is to take a bus from the Krakow bus terminal (right next door to the main Krakow train station). Get a bus that will get you to the museum no later than 11:00 – 11:30. Then take the free shuttle to Birkenau (Auschwitz II). You likely find it very quiet. Take your time and then take any of the shuttles back to Auschwitz that leave Birkenau after 2:45 pm. You will have managed is to avoid the surge of tours that starts at Auschwitz, then goes to Birkenau, and then home.

Panoramic Photo of Birkenau

A 360-degree view taken midway between the railway gate and the memorial. (Right click on photo and then select “View Image”.)

Two Washington D.C. Galleries

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Feb 262012

A Saturday visit to two centers of art in Washington, DC.

The Phillips Collection

My favorite art museum in DC, this is the place to take visitors from out-of-town. Located about a block from the DuPont Metro Station (at 21st and Q NW), Duncan Phillips started the collection in the family residence in 1918, and opened it to the public in 1921.

The most famous painting in the collection is Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party”. People really love this painting, and for good reason.

Leica M9 w/Zeiss 18mm f/4 lens; ISO 800; 1/25 sec.

A detail of the ceiling and mantlepiece in the Music Room.

Leica M9 w/Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 lens; ISO 1600; 1/15 sec.

The gallery rooms in the original residence are intimate and calming. They stress that the furniture in the rooms is intended to be used, and these galleries are nice places to relax.

Leica M9 w/Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 lens; ISO 400; 1/30 sec.

Staircase in the Sant Building, looking out onto the courtyard. This used to be an apartment building, and a complete interior rebuild was completed in 2006. It added additional gallery space, an auditorium, a library, classroom, and workshop space.

Leica M9 w/Zeiss 18mm f/4 lens; ISO 800; 1/500 sec.

National Gallery of Art, East Building

Part of the immense Calder mobile (untitled) completed just before he died. It weighs about 1,000 pounds but moves subtly in the air light currents inside the building.

Leica M9 w/Voigtlander 90mm f/3.5 lens; ISO 800; 1/90 sec.

On the main floor with Ellsworth Kelly’s “Color Panels for a Large Wall” in the background.

Leica M9 w/Voigtlander 15mm f/4 lens; ISO 400; 1/30 sec.

Painting, viewed from above.

Leica M9 w/Zeiss 25mm f/2.8 lens; ISO 400; 1/25 sec.

“Multiverse”, by Leo Villareal, is a light sculpture that lives alongside the underground moving walkways between the East Building and the cage/museum shop at the east footing of the West Building. This shot looked awful in the Leica’s monitor, but it actually “cleans up pretty good” in the computer. I need to go back and try a few more shots.

Leica M9 w/Zeiss 25mm f/2.8 lens; ISO 1600; 1/30 sec.

About a Picture – 23

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Feb 122012

One from the Northcoast (Redwood Coast) of California

A friend just made a trip through this area, and that gave me an excuse to look around the archives a little…

This picture was taken in December, 2004 along US 101 between Eureka and Crescent City — just south of Wilson Creek.

Near Wilson Creek, along US 101

This was shot on color film with a Voigtlander rangefinder and scanned. The color image was very flat so I used Nik Software Silver Efex Pro to render the image in B&W simulating Fuji Neopan 1600 film with a green filter.

Seneca Rocks, WV

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Jan 282012

Taking a break on the drive from Charleston, WV.

There are several routes between home and the Charleston area. The shortest, 329 miles and (according to Google) 6 hours non-stop, passes by Seneca Rocks. It’s roughly half way so it makes a nice break in the drive.

The rocks are a quartzite formation that almost looks like a blade slicing up through the surrounding countryside. The current satellite view on Google Maps shows this well.

Seneca Rocks and the North Branch of the South Fork of the Potomac River

On the way home last Friday I stopped and spent about 1 1/2 hours just walking around. It was a pretty dreary day so I was shooting with the hope of coming up with a decent black & white shot, as well as some close-up shots of whatever else caught my attention.

For Distant Viewing

In 1943 and 1944 Seneca Rocks was a training area for the 10th Mountain Division.

Base of the Telescope

The Sites Homestead was established in the early 19th Century. The log cabin that forms the basis for this house was built around 1839. It was expanded in the 1870s and remained in the Sites family until the Forest Service acquired it in 1968. Quite a view when you step out the front door in the morning.

The Sites Homestead

Chimney and Window, Sites Homestead

Barrel, Sites Homestead

If your GPS can’t find Seneca Rocks, the coordinates of the road intersection (US 22, WV 55, & WV 28) are 38.834576, -79.376246. The entrance to the Discovery Center is a few hundred yards to the south. The Seneca Rocks Discovery Center is closed until Spring, but you can park on the lower parking area.

About a Picture – 20

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Dec 112011

Lincoln Memorial, May 2008

I stumbled across this picture while working on another project.

Not traditional composition and framing, which is why I like it.

Lincoln

It was shot with a Leica M8 and a Voigtlander 90mm lens. The image is very low key, with no startling whites or deep blacks. Typical for an M8 image, the DNG (RAW) file required very little post processing.

About a Picture – 19

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Nov 122011

A Favorite Spot for Shooting

I go out to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport to test new cameras and lenses. It is a challenging venue, and if things go wrong, they go wrong in a very noticeable way. From the overhead walkway, this particular location always draws me.

Vantage Point

I like the open space, gray concrete, shadows, the pieces of “museum stuff”, and seeing what people are doing.

The camera being tested is the Fujifilm X10 — which hit the dealer shelves on Tuesday. This shot was made as an EXR JPEG (EXR’s SN mode, for you Fuji geeks) with only a little bit of Noise Ninja in post-processing. Everything else was done in the camera: 1/35 sec., f/2.5, ISO 640. EXR makes all the selections once you decide which of three modes you will use.

The intelligence in cameras is getting a bit scary…The X10 produced a very nice image with almost no input from me.

About a Picture – 18

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Sep 062011

Earlier from Philadelphia…

The previous posting has pictures from a recent trip to Philadelphia. That reminded me of a shot taken in 2004 (I believe) early one morning from a hotel room window…Hand-held, pressed against the window for steadiness

I’m not sure how good a picture it really is, but I’ve always liked the “atmospherics”. This how it feels to be in a strange room in a strange city early in the morning.

Early Morning in Philadelphia

This was shot with a Leica M6, using a 35mm f/2.5 Cosina/Voigtlander lens on Ilford chromogenic B&W film and scanned.

Penn’s Landing, Philadelphia, PA

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Aug 272011

Evening Walkabout With the Fuji X100

Attending a conference earlier this week a couple of blocks from the river game me a chance to do a little walking around with the Fuji X100. The X100 imposes one significant restriction; it has a fixed focal length lens. No zoom, so you have to compose by thinking through things a little more, and moving the camera (an yourself) instead of zooming the lens (or changing lenses). That said, the camera’s large sensor and good low-light characteristics give the photographer more technical capacity to work with.

USS Olympia and USS Becuna: To say that the cruiser Olympia is iconic is a bit of an understatement. Commodore Dewey’s flagship at the Battle of Manila Bay, Olympia also transported the remains of America’s Unknown Soldier from France to the United States in 1921. The fate of Olympia is uncertain, and the ship may be moved, sunk for a reef, or scrapped. Keeping old ships afloat is very expensive and requires period dry-dockings which may run into the millions of dollars. Dry berthing, now being studied for the battleship USS Texas, is initially expensive, but may be the only practical way to save these very old hulls.

Becuna is a late WWII submarine which made five war patrols. Becuna was decommissioned in 1969.

The cruiser USS Olympia and submarine USS Becuna

USS New Jersey: Berthed across the Delaware River in Camden, New Jersey as a museum, this ship is an Iowa class battleship, the final class of battleship completed by the US Navy. New Jersey was laid down in 1940 and commissioned in 1943, the second of six ships of her class, four of which were completed. New Jersey was decommissioned for the final time in 1991.

USS New Jersey, framed by the restaurant/club ship Moshulu

I like the swans and the color…

Swan boats and kayaks

Local guys fishing near the observation tower. USS Olympia and Philadelphia in the background.

Fishing

There’s just something incongruous about these swan boats watching over an old warship through the night. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

Swan boats and USS Olympia at night

An Afternoon With the Fujifilm X100

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Aug 142011

It’s been a while…

I’ve got a new camera — a Fujifilm X100. This is a bit of throwback, since it emulates the classic 35mm, fixed lens rangefinder cameras of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. In practice, I think that the X100 will be both a complement to my Leica digital rangefinder camera, and a good camera to carry as the camera — when I don’t want all the other stuff.

With bad weather threatening today, I decided to take Metro down the the Phillips Collection. I really haven’t taken the X100 out on enough trips so…

This first shot deals with my fascinations with motion and with mass transit.

Fujifilm X100, ISO 800, 1/6 sec, f/16

The gauze effect of the special shades at the Phillips Collection — looking onto the Hunter Courtyard.

Through a Window at the Phillips Collection

Fujifilm X100, ISO 400, 1/50 sec, f/5.6

And heading home on Metro, during a wait at one of the stations.

Fujifilm X100, ISO 800, 1/9 sec, f/4.0

About a Picture – 14

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Jul 282010

This isn’t my shoe. It was just sitting there. Honest.

Tuesday morning — sitting on one of those granite Metro benches as I changed trains at Crystal City.

So I grabbed a shot with my phone in the two minutes before my train came.

I had to rest the camera on the bench because it is dark in there and flash would have been totally inappropriate. The picture is still pretty cruddy. So as much as I dislike doing it, I “rescued” the shot with PhotoShop’s Dry Brush — and the result probably says as much as an image more precisely captured and rendered.

I’m sure there is a story behind the shoe, but I don’t know if it would be at all interesting.

About a Picture – 11

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May 292010

Women’s Soccer…

Today I shoot the home opener for the Northern Virginia Majestics. They are an amateur team which is primarily made up of collegiate players — though occasionally foreign players are on the roster.

This shot is from last year (Majestics in blue)…

You can learn more about the Majestics through their web site. All the game shots on their site are mine — I’ve been shooting the team since 2003.

Technical: The photo was taken with a Nikon D300 camera and Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 lens with 1.4x converter, using a monopod. 1/4000 | f/4.5 | ISO 800 | Aperture Priority with Matrix Metering | Auto White Balance.

About a Picture – 10

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May 162010

(Actually, about eight pictures.)

Here is a little background on the photos in my slideshow “Dawn” which ran on World Hum…

Capturing dawn presents some technical problems – photographic and geographic. A “dawn” picture may be taken before the sun comes up, or after. But somehow it has to meet our expectations of what dawn looks like.

One of the difficulties is figuring out where the sun will be coming up. NOAA has a great web site that lets you calculate matters solar. One thing you can do is calculate the azimuth of the sun (the point at or above the horizon, expressed as an angle, measured clockwise from north) observed from any particular point (e.g. If I’m standing at the corner of the Metro parking garage at sunrise, which direction will I face to see the sun as it rises, or an hour later, etc.). Operationalize this information a couple of different ways: (1) With a decent handheld compass, you can line up your camera in advance to capture the rising sun; or (2) by using Google maps, you can identity landmarks that can be used to align the shot.

Here is info on the pictures. You can copy and paste the latitude and longitude into Google Maps to see some of my shooting positions:

Opening picture: I was looking for a general shot and figured that shooting across the water would be good. I went to Google Maps and looked for a location down the Potomac from Washington, DC that would give me clear shot. I picked the Virginia shore looking towards Fort Washington, MD. The very faint light-colored vertical object near the water under the sun is the Fort Washington Light. I selected a shooting position just off the bike path to Mt. Vernon using the NOAA site. (38.711318, -77.051588) (Nikon D300 on tripod with Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 lens; 1/250 @ f/8, ISO 800, 19mm.)

Philadelphia: This is one of those shots that makes you glad you remembered to take your camera along. I was on a business trip and looked out the window early in the morning. (Voigtlander Bessa rangefinder film camera, handheld with Voigtlander 35mm f/2.5 lens.)

Commute: I tried this shot the week before from the top deck of the Metro parking garage in Vienna — but the sun was a little too far to the right (over that clump of trees). I went to the NOAA site and found out that the following weekend was probably my only chance from that location until autumn. On shooting morning I set up the tripod and made shots over a period of time. I collapsed the tripod and had put it in the car when I looked back, and saw this. No time for a tripod, but I used a stabilized lens. (38.878309, -77.272347 ) (Nikon D300 handheld with Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens – stabilization on; 1/125 @ f/4, ISO 400, 102mm.)

Dulles: This shot happened in the opposite way from the commuting picture. The selected frame is one of a few shots I made checking the camera setup — before the sun actually came up. Shooting as the sun rose, the terminal “paled” out and lost that glow. (BTW: I emailed the airport authority media relations office ahead of time to advise them what I would be shooting. They only asked that I call police operations when I showed up. The police were very pleasant when I called them.) (38.953767, -77.451961) (Nikon D300 on tripod with Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 lens; 1/10 @ f/4, ISO 200, 32mm)

Car: I knew that I should have a road shot, so I rigged the Benbo tripod in the car. I checked the map and saw some straight east-west stretches of Highway 7 west of Leesburg, VA. As I drove west, I was checking my mirrors and saw that the time was right. I made four laps back and forth between two overpasses. A shot from earlier that morning is also posted on this blog. (39.144473, -77.68791 to 39.143808, -77.655573) (Nikon D300 on Benbo tripod with Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens; 1/320 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 800, 11mm.)

Krakow: I discovered how nice it is to walk around Krakow early in the morning on the last day of my first trip there. For these pictures I had another project in mind that didn’t really pan out, but the sequence of four worked out fine for this slideshow. The first three frames show for a little less than one second each in the slideshow. (50.062472, 19.936835) (Olympus E-1 on tripod with Zuiko 11-22mm f/3.5 lens; 1 sec @ f/8, ISO 100, 11mm.)

Zoo: The National Zoo in Washington DC is open around the clock. In the summer you can beat the crowds and beat the heat by showing up really early – and also find parking in their lots. This shot just happened. (Nikon F100, film, on monopod with Tokina 300mm f/2.8 lens

Airplane: This is the source photo for my blog banner and is discussed in an earlier blog entry. From a technical perspective, this is an almost hopeless picture. The one I used in the slideshow hasn’t been fixed up in PhotoShop like the blog banner version. (Minox EC camera, film, handheld.)

“The shot from my iPhone hardly does it justice.”

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May 032010

We’ve all been there.

Somehow, what we shot isn’t what we saw. This especially seems to be the case with pictures from the cameras in cellular phones.

But with a little work using some inexpensive (or even free) software, you can bring those photos a little more in line with your memories.

Take a look here to see what I did to put a little more life into this picture.

(…And maybe this will lead to a little more in-depth work…)

About a Picture – 06

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Mar 282010

Good Morning!

Sea Lion and Keeper - National Zoo

A picture from August, 2002, at the National Zoo.

This was shot early in the morning, when the zoo was just waking up. It’s the kind of shot you don’t get during the “regular” hours — one of the nice things about the National Zoo is that it’s open 24/7. In the summer it is particularly nice to visit the zoo at the crack of dawn — and you can even find a close-in parking place.

This was originally shot on film using a Nikon F100 and a Tokina 300mm f/2.8 lens.

Ghosts (Audio Slideshow for WorldHum.com)

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Mar 172010

It’s nice to be published…

(That’s not me)

This audio slideshow was published on March 11. It started out as a class project for a Travel Writing clinic.

This is one of those projects that starts out as a pile of pictures (actually, a bunch pictures I picked from around inside my files). You look at them for awhile and then kinda let them speak for themselves.

My title is “Ghosts” but the World Hum editors thought that “Travel Ghosts” was better for their site — and I agree.

New Camera…Ricoh GXR

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Jan 112010

A quick test run with Ricoh’s very interesting GXR.

I like to test new cameras at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport.

The museum is a very difficult place to shoot since it is generally dim, has several different light sources (it is not unusual to have four light sources in a single picture) and the curved ceilings and all those airplanes make for some compositional challenges. With shooting conditions right on the edge, the bad habits of a camera or lens (or photographer, for that matter) don’t stay hidden.

This WWII vintage Vought F4U-1D Corsair is one of the first planes you see as you approach the first overlook (on the right in this photo), and is one my regular test subjects from that vantage point. But I also like this view from below since you can get visitors in the picture. (As a side note, this is one of the few situations where you can somehow manage to get only one airplane in the frame.)

Most of my serious travel photography is done with a Leica M8, but it’s good to have a point-and-shoot camera available too. The Ricoh GXR features different lens/sensor modules that slide into the camera body. The module I have on my GXR is a 5.1-15.3mm zoom — which is equivalent to a 24-72mm lens in 35mm film cameras. The GXR will replace my current GX100. Ricoh cameras are a bit of a niche item in the U.S., with very few dealers. However, Ricoh seems intent on designing cameras for more experienced photographers and their functions and control layouts are, in my opinion, the best of any compact cameras made. The small sensor models suffer a little more from noise than other brands, but the GXR is quite improved over the GX100. (I need to build some Noise Ninja profiles for making larger images, but you can’t really see any noise issues at this size.)

About a Picture – 03

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Jan 062010

Approaching SFO

Usually I don’t like applying PhotoShop’s filters and effects. This picture is one of the rare exceptions.

I shot this photo using a Minox EC Subminiature camera around the 1999/2000 holidays. I was flying into San Francisco on the first-of-the-day United Express flight out of Arcata-Eureka Airport (ACV) in an Embraer EMB 120 turboprop. From up in the air, we could just see the rising sun in the east, while the Bay was still shrouded in darkness and clouds — just a few clear spots here and there. The situation was photographically “hopeless” but I shot with the Minox anyway. With ISO 100 film and a fixed aperture of f/5.6 camera shake was a certainty. But the lights of San Francisco were reflecting on the engine nacelle, and there is a little streak of light on the lower right corner…Angel Island or Tiburon?

I scanned the print and then “PhotoShopped” the image. I mounted a print and hung it by my desk at work. After a couple of job changes the print is gone, and I lost track of the final image file.

Flying into San Francisco from Medford, Oregon (MFR) early on January 4th, I again had that dawn view of San Francisco Bay. I was reminded of that photo from a decade ago and decided to rescan the print and resurrect the final image. ( The filter is PhotoShop’s Dry Brush.)

Rain…

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Dec 272009

…The Morning After Christmas

(A one-picture audio slide show)

I woke up about 2:30 a.m. on the 26th. It was raining steadily and beating down the snowfall from the weekend before — probably 16″ to 18″ in my neighborhood.

So I decided to take a picture from one of the front windows. And then I decided to grab a little bit of audio.

Later in the day I decided to put the two files together as a one-picture slide show. Click here or on the picture to link to the slide show.