Photos and the Reasons Why

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Taken on April 12, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 105 mm
ISO Speed: 800

Location and Musings
Like Yesterday’s post, this one features an elephant getting washed in the river. It was taken within a few seconds of the previous photo. The elephants in question had finished their washing and were entertaining themselves by getting their mahout’s wet.

I was sitting on a bench a fair distance away taking this photo, rapidly switching from subject to subject. I was desperately trying to capture each of several different elephants and mahouts as they splashed water on one another.

Technical Thoughts.
This is a fairly poor photo. I chose it to contrast with yesterday’s. The dark skin of the elephant provides little contrast. She stands out from the river, but the spray from the water is very distracting. It doesn’t for a clean arc, but scatters all over the place and looks a lot like a really dusty scan of an old photo. This feeling is slightly enhanced by the washed out colors in the background. I suppose I could have edited it a bit to look more like an old fashioned photo.

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Taken on April 12, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 200 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Musings and thoughts:
Mahout is a hindi word for elephant rider/trainer. The thai is ดวาญชาง or kwan chang. In doing research to write this blurb, I learned about the depressing processed used to break elephants to their lives as tourist attractions. It involves small cages, starvation, chains, nail-boards, and all sorts of other unsavory things. The process sounds rather miserable, but I suppose the elephants lead somewhatgood lives once they are done being broken. I’m not sure, I’m probably just trying to justify something terrible and my complicit guilt in the matter here.

Still, this is probably my favorite elephant shot. The mahout and the elephant appear to be sharing a rather touching moment as the mahout gives the elephant his bath. I like the way the elephant’s trunk rests mostly in the water, but just peaks above the surface so he can breathe. She looks pretty relaxed, sitting in the river with the mahout’s hand on his head.

Technical thoughts:
It is very difficult to take pictures of wet elephants in a river. Their skin turns from light grey to dark grey. The river, already dark green, provides no contrast. If I had lighting options other than the sun, I might be able to do something about this. As it is, I just have to hope the elephants are standing in a sunny patch or, as in this case, there is a nice lightly colored reflection.

Really, I couldn’t ask for a better position for the elephant. Her light colored trunk is nicely echoed with the lightly colored background above her back. The light-yellow reflection nicely transitions to dark green as it moves towards her head. The mahout’s light blue shirt is a nice contrasting color from the elephants yellow-orange trunk yet complementary color to the green water. The mahout’s legs echo the trunk color and contrast with the shirt color. The only thing I don’t like is the shadow on his legs from the hook strapped to his back. That’s distracting and undesirable.

There are also some very nice vectors here. The line from the elephant’s back runs straight up to the brim of the mahout’s hat, which then runs nicely over his head and down his other shoulder. Clean and uninterrupted. I could do without the little bit of water dripping from the basket. That is kind of confusing as it’s not quite clear what it is. It’s also a vector that runs down and away from the subject, down and away from the photo.

The vector running along the bottom of the elephant is also nice, with the mahout’s legs entering the river at about the same point as the elephant, the little bit of height difference is echoed by the curve in the trunk, so it’s forgivable.

I’m also a little concerned about where I cropped it on the left. There was a very undesirable log in the river in the upper left that I cropped out, so I could not have gone any further to the left. You can get away with cutting off an obvious edge like the hind side of an elephant, but you have to be very careful not to give people an uncanny valley “I should be seeing something I’m not” experience. I may be too close here.

All in all, a photo that I’m very happy with. I’ll put this one up there with Superb Starling Startlingly Stares at Me as “photos I particularly enjoy.”

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Taken on April 12, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 135 mm
ISO Speed: 400

Musings and thoughts:
The painting on the left was created by the elephant on the right. The gentleman in the center handed paintbrushes of various colors to the elephants who then applied the paint as they saw fit. It’s pretty clear that the whole exercise represents learned behavior, but it’s still fun to see the elephants create works of “art.” The colors of the branches were created by dabbing repeatedly semi-randomly at the board, an act that the elephant appeared to particularly enjoy. Perhaps that is because the trunk is not a particularly accurate tool to be using for painting and the elephant didn’t have to be very accurate when dabbing semi-randomly.

Technical thoughts:
The photo is not quite sharp, and I’m not sure why. Perhaps there was some dust on the lens or in the air that gives a slightly blurred effect. At 1/640 of a second and with plenty of light and time for focusing, there is no technical reason why the shot should be anything other than perfectly sharp.

I could do without the elephant legs in the background, though I think they’re sufficiently abstract to provide a pleasing thematic pattern. If they were any stronger they’d be way too distracting. The person behind the elephant is far worse in terms of how distracting he is for the photo.

I like the color palette of reds and browns with a few greens in the painting. The elephant taking a bow tells the story immediately and the trainer looking at him provides as nice a vector as I could ask for. Naturally if I could have controlled the situation I would have set things up differently. As it is, it turns out to be a quite passable shot.

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Taken on April 16, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.033 sec (1/30)
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 800

Musings
Well, after a week of downtime, I’ve got a lot of pictures. I’m sure I’ll be able to make it to the next vacation without having to drop into the archives at non-prescribed points. Since I missed a week and am no longer properly participating in a 365 project, I will no longer be putting the 45/365: prefix on posts. I will still be posting a new picture every day.

This photo is a pretty good representation of my past week. I booked my flights to Chiang Mai hoping that I’d have the opportunity to see something new and not be too entirely bored. I figured I’d have a lot of time to sit around and relax, post here about what was going on, and maybe even do some non-internet writing in my free time.

I was totally wrong. Turns out Christie was also going to Chiang Mai. I had some scheduling issues with my airline, so we ended up flying together. This involved a wonderful night at the top of a skyscraper in Bangkok. A few days later, I rearranged my flights again and it turned out we were flying to Koh Phi Phi, also together. Though this time we were not just together, but “together.”

This shot is representative of one of the most thrilling weeks of my life.

Technical Thoughts.
It’s very difficult to take one-hand-extended self portraits with a big DSLR. The camera just isn’t made to be held that way. It didn’t help that I was holding a couple grand worth of equipment with one hand at arms length over 8 inches of ocean water. A drop would have been a fatal mistake.

I looped the strap around my hand and held on tight. The sunrise was just to perfect to go without the classic sunrise kiss shot.

It still came out a little blurry, both from camera wobble and poor autofocus. The style of the shot means I can totally get away with it. I’m super happy about the lighting and I like the near-silhouette. There is nothing in any of that which needs razor sharp lines and crisp clean focus.

I knew I was going to make this shot into my Facebook profile while I was editing it, so I blew the colors way out to make a catchy thumbnail. As a result, the sunrise looks a bit ridiculous.

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Taken on September 7, 2008
Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture: f/14
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 400

This is a quite old photo which I still think of as one of my favorites. I took it at some random beach on the Oregon Coast one day while driving around. I thought the ball in the basket would look great as super saturated yellow amongst desaturated blues. It rare that a photo looks the same from in my head, to shooting, to post processing. Usually the final product and what I was originally planning on getting are quite different.

Usually you have to approach each stage as “ok, I have these tools, what can I make from this?” Sometimes “what can I make from this” is always the same.

It’s always a nice surprise when you’re able to achieve a close representation of your original goals. Perhaps that’s why I like this photo more than it’s fair share’s worth. I find that the emotion presented by the ball, neglected in the basket, the muted tones, and the two guys sitting on the beach is a nice, flat, attractive melancholy.

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Taken on April 3, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1000)
Aperture: f/10.0
Focal Length: 35 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Location and Musings:
It’s now moving into the hot season and it sure is hot. I had planned to spend all Saturday traipsing about the Pluakdaeng region, taking landscape photos and enjoying a peaceful day. I had an invitation to go out drinking on Friday night, which was an amazing time, but it left me a little hung over on Saturday morning.

It was just a little headache, so I drank some water and figured I’d be fine. Turns out that you can’t sweat off a hangover. Almost immediately after I parked my truck and started walking around, looking for a shot, my headache got worse. I was sweating out the fluids I had managed to put back into my body. I quickly finished off the remaining water then drove to a 7-11 and got some aspirin and gator-drink. I had only managed to shoot a couple of pictures, but I was starting to feel ill, and I just wanted to go back to sleep. So I jumped back in the truck and headed back home. This was the only shot I was happy with.

Oh well, maybe next time.

Technical Thoughts:
I wish I had framed it a little more towards the right. When I took the picture, I thought it would be nice to get a bit more of the road to have a nice “path” element for the eye to follow. It wasn’t a very good plan as the path was ugly and didn’t lead anywhere except for outside the frame.

Perhaps I should have been a few steps back towards the middle of the road, as well. That way the temple would have been more apparent up on the hill. Another possibility would have been using a longer zoom lens and standing way back from the pineapple. With the right framing, the temple would have been much larger in the frame with the pineapple still in focus.

I’m also a little worried about the clouds. I think my post processing, where I pumped the blues in the sky, make them come out a little too blue, a little too cotton-candy.

I do, however, like the far away mountain cradled in the distance. There is some nice depth there.

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Taken on October 24, 2009
Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1600)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 70 mm
ISO Speed: 400

This somewhat dreamlike shot was taken at the Khao Kheow (Green Mountain) Open Zoo. They feed the tigers meet on the inside of the pool you can see here, a pool which has a large glass wall so you can see inside. It’s great to watch, but the glass is always dirty, which usually makes photography difficult. It does, however, make for a nice soft focus effect when the tigers are some distance away and the krud on the glass is out of focus. In that instance, it acts like a soft focus filter and gives a nice dreamy look.

I like how calm and relaxed he looks, especially with the beautiful markings on his face. The damaged ear gives him a slightly war torn look. It’s nothing spectacular, just a good solid photo.

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September 5, 2007
Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture: f/7.1
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Location and musings:
This photo is very representative of the road trip, a least in my mind. This was taken in Illinois on my way to Chicago. I found myself getting drowsy about an hour before sunset, so I pulled over to the side of the road and took a nap while I waited for the sky to begin it’s nightly light show. It was a gorgeous evening and was plenty warm enough to roll down the windows and enjoy the air as I listened to the corn rustling in the breeze.

Every time I think about the time I spent doing that, I feel a great calmness. Of course, then I remember the fears and worries I had back then and I’m glad I’ve got a new set now.

Technical thoughts:
This was definitely early on in my study of photography, I have next to no lighting control. My only flash is the on camera flash, so there ends up being far too much debris being lit to have the photo be particularly interesting. I probably should have taken the photo over closer to the corn stalks to be more midwesty.

Still, that is one gorgeous sunset.

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Taken on January 16, 2010
Camera: Nikon D300S
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture: f/10.0
Focal Length: 35 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Location and Musings:
This was one of the many symbols and statues that surround the big buddha on the hill in Pattaya. It is representative of the mixed bag of religion that appears here, as this is not a buddhist statue. I think it might be a hindu statue that has been absorbed into the new buddhist religion much in the way that judaism was absorbed into Christianity.

The markings on the hands are probably in some way related to the chi. Chi is a Chinese concept, so perhaps this statue is of Chinese origin and a much more modern addition to the thai belief structure. There wasn’t anything next to the statue to explain what it was, but I’m posting this image as brief explanation of what sorts of non-Buddhist imagery you can find in Thailand.

Technical Thoughts:
I’m happy with the soft shadows, despite the harsh midday light. I like the imposing size of the statue, but I’m not such a fan of the nasal upshot or the weird branch in the top left.

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Taken on November 21, 2009
Camera: Nikon D40
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 200 mm
ISO Speed: 800

Location and musings:
This shot was taken at the Tiger Zoo in Sri Racha, the same place I took the tiger-through-the-hoop shot from last weekend. People putting their head in the crocodile mouth is a pretty famous circus trick, and suppose I’m not surprised they do it here. Before she puts her head in there, she spends a while banging a stick around inside the animal’s mouth. One theory is that she does that to remind the animal of the beating it will get if it closes it’s mouth. My theory is that it provides some sort of instinctual incentive to keep it’s mouth open. I’m unsure of how well a crocodile can be trained.

Also, she puts her head right up in the corner of the croc’s mouth, I’m sure part of the reason there is to keep the animal from getting much in the way of acceleration on the mouth.

Technical thoughts:
This photo was taken at the extreme limits of my old D40. At 200 mm, I was at the longest end of my longest lens. The photo has been further cropped, so that, with the additional APS-C crop factor, means this was probably effective 4-500 mm. I fired the flash, and it did have an effect, although not enough for the camera to register a return. The aperture is wide open. 1/125th of a second is the absolute minimum speed I could possibly imagine holding this shot steady. 800 ISO isn’t the highest setting the D40 has, but with the amount of noise that registers in the shot, I don’t think I could have feasibly bumped it up any more.