Abstract in the Park

I am starting to warm up to the idea of just getting out and shooting. Sunday, I took Hadley and Annalee to the park and I was determined to shoot something. Anything other than kids on swings and slides.

This picture is of a side-by-side slide, converted to black and white, and very little else. One thing I did notice is that, although this was shot at f8, the focus is not sharp from the front of the slide to the back. Why? I suspect the compression from the zoom lens was the culprit. Lesson 1: There's this thing called a LCD screen--use it and zoom in to check sharpness every once in a while.

EXIF data:

Nikon D80 + 70-300 VR at 300mm
ISO 100
f8 at 1/320


This shot was inspired by those pictures you see from the desert southwest. You know, somebody has crawled down in one of those wind-blown, striated rock formations and taken a picture that looks like one of Saturn's rings on acid. It's a close up of a plastic rock wall-looking thing near the slide shown above. Not a whole lot was done to this in post--simple black and white conversion using channel mixer, minor curves adjustment, unsharp mask, and some selective dodging and burning to accentuate the curves (guys like that sort of thing, you know). I dig the potential of this one, and I'll go back with the tripod and get a sharper capture.

Nikon D80 + 70-300 VR at 122mm
ISO 100
f9 at 1/100


Lesson #2 (and this applies to both shots). Both of these shots were taken in a small park in bright sunlight at a little after noon, hopelessly poor light for shooting many things. But remember, black and white is about contrast--whites, blacks and many shades of gray. Mid-day light is harsh because of the shadows it makes, and shadows makes for good contrast in a black and white photograph. This one needs more black, but you get the idea.