Now that the semester is out I’m taking some time to learn how to edit video in Adobe Premiere CS4, as my experience heretofore has been with Final Cut Express on the Mac platform, but also to flip through my archive of photos from the first five and a half months of 2009.  I’ve found a few images that I either missed the first time around, or simply forgot about.  This is one of them:

Gate C5, Lambert International Airport, St. Louis, Mo. - 20 March 2009

If I recall correctly, I used the Live View mode on my 5D Mark II to make this photo so that this woman might remain “natural.”  I was just about to ask her name when they called our respective flights at the same time.

And one more, from earlier that morning:

Florescent, Tungsten and Pre-dawn light mix at the arrivals lane at Lambert International Airport, St. Louis, Mo.

Tags: airport, environmental portrait, found portrait, photojournalism
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Canon has finally announced firmware to address the total lack of manual control (save white balance and exposure compensation) that one has for video recording on the 5D Mark II. Still missing in action is manual audio level control…….maybe they don’t want to kill the sales of the new BeachTek adapter? I wouldn’t mind, though–it’s $380 that I don’t want to spend!

The firmware will not be available for download until 2 June, but at least it’s coming!

Tags: Canon, EOS 5D Mark II, firmware, video
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I’ve been battling a cold ever since grad school got out for summer–a great way to celebrate the end of the year, but at least it didn’t strike during the week before when projects were due!–but yesterday, for the first time since getting home, I felt like making some images.  The bird activity at home has been really great, although I picked a slow day to photograph (less likely to disturb the migrating species, though!).  The suet feeder has been getting a lot of activity from our resident, nesting pair of Red-bellied Woodpeckers and our Downy Woodpecker, but it was really the nuthatch that let me get a good look at him.

Three flash units were set up on stands, combined with the late-afternoon sun, made for a four-light setup, albeit back-lit.  I was trying to get some rim-lighting, and between the sun and another strobe back and to the right, I figured I would get quite a bit.  I certainly got some, but not quite what I wanted.  My key light was backed up quite a bit, and I had a fill on the left, which is casting the nuthatch’s shadow that you can see on the suet feeder.

More after the jump…

White-breasted Nuthatch on suet feeder, Racine, Wis.

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Tags: birds, light, lighting, lit, photography, wildlife
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I’ve finished my introductory piece about Wild Bird Rehabilitation in St. Louis, Mo., the subject of a year-long profile that I began last December for “Fundamentals of Photojournalism.” Eventually, this will be an individual chapter in an interactive Flash interface:

Tags: birds, photography, photojournalism, stories, story, Wild Bird Rehabilitation, wildlife
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At long last, our group project for Advanced Techniques is done….sort of.  In many respects, this is a first draft of our story of Hulett House Gym, a mixed martial arts team in Columbia, Mo.  I’m sure that come this fall, when classes reconvene, we can find a way to perfect this into something that we might submit to cPOY.

Many thanks to my teammates, Chris Dunn, Elisa Day and Matt Cloud, for their hard work towards making this project a success.

Tags: Advanced Techniques, Hulett House Gym, mixed martial arts, MMA, multimedia, photography, photojournalism, slideshow, Sound Slides
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Starting last night and not really ending until early this afternoon, a large storm system passed through Columbia.  It was pretty severe at times: I lost power a multiple points last night, often regaining power just to lose it once more twenty seconds later.  Unfortunately, the storms this morning produced pretty heavy rain, so I did not feel comfortable with following through with my original plan to drive out to St. Louis to visit Wild Bird Rehabilitation, the focus of a long-term project.  I’ll be going tomorrow, instead.

However, the storm did provide the opportunity to photograph lightning from my balcony.  Sadly, by the time I was really set for it, precipitation had finally reached my building so I had to move indoors quite quickly.  The most interesting photo, really, was a 30 minute exposure of the patterns the lightning was producing on the walls of the bedroom of my apartment:

Canon 1D Mark II N & 16-35mm f/2.8 L II; exposed 30 minutes @ f/8, ISO 200

I would have used the 5D Mk. II for its superior noise performance, but its battery was dead.

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Tags: lightning, photography, shadows, thunderstorm, time exposure, weather
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