This was made with a DSLR and a swinging lens to provide selective focus on the milepost at left. This moved the plane of focus to be non-parallel with camera, yielding only a sliver in focus.
Image was was captured at "Park Junction" in Philadelphia, where the former Reading Railroad once met the former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. What caught my eye was the old school graffiti moniker on the base of the milepost, in a style traditionally used by yard workers and hobos to tag freight cars.
Captured with a DSLR and a Zeiss 21mm Distagon lens. Handheld (there was no room to set up a tripod).
in 2009, I was fortunate to join a "top to bottom" tour of former Air Force Titan ICBM site 571-7, now preserved as a museum. Titan II missiles carried a 9 megaton(!) "physics package" in the "reentry vehicle" (which they emphatically assured me had been removed from this missile, but I still wouldn't advise upsetting them too much).
I often mention something called "shift movements" that were used in many of the photos I post. I did a short thread about what that is and why one might use them last week: https://federate.social/@mattblaze/112544286031247617
The Adobe Creative Suite absolutely owns significant portions of professional creative production workflow, some aspects of which have essentially no good quality or interoperable competition. So a lot of people are locked in. "Just don't use Adobe products" isn't an option for many of the people affected by these insanely grabby new terms.
There are so many bad ideas competing for my attention these days that I hadn't looked closely at the Microsoft Recall thing. Others have by now said everything there is to say, so I will only add this: WTF?!! This is on by default? What are they thinking. Please stop.
Captured with the Rodenstock 32mm/4.0 HR Digaron-W (@ f/6.3 lens, Phase One IQ4-150 back, and Phase One XT camera. Composite of two shifted images (+/- 12mm from center horizontally, -12mm vertically).
Technically the "House of the Temple, Headquarters of the Supreme Council, 33°, Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, Washington DC". The local Masonic temple, museum, library, and, I'm told, a gift shop. Definitely no human sacrifices performed there.
This is a stitched composite of two captures made from the same position, using horizontal shift movements to get a wider field of view on either side. This was really the only way to capture this building from in front of a tree that would otherwise have obstructed the facade, while also keeping its geometry undistorted. The final result is roughly the angle of view of a 14mm lens (in 35mm full frame terms), with a total of about 190 megapixels in the combined frame.
This was captured early afternoon on a clear day with a Rodenstock HR Digaron-W 50mm/4.0 (@ f/7.1) lens, Phase One IQ4 150 Achromatic Back (@ ISO 200) and Phase One XT camera (10mm vertical shift). 760nm IR filter, which effectively blackened the sky.
This is an abstract view of modern midtown skyscrapers, as perhaps Georgia O'Keeffe might have seen them. The composition is a nod to the Precisionist school of a century earlier, emphasizing the lines and essential geometry of the buildings.
This image attempts to highlight the difference between realism and more abstract schools like Precisionism. While it's a realistic image in the strict sense that it's a straight, basically unaltered photograph of buildings, it deliberately omits elements that might distract from the abstract lines and and shapes that make them up. The black sky (aided by the IR exposure) and harsh, almost threatening diagonal shadows add to the unreal feeling.
The Call for Presentations for the 2024 Voting Village is open! The Voting Village, held at DEFCON (Las Vegas, Aug 9-11, 2024), is the premier event for exploring voting technology, vulnerabilities, and solutions. We invite research and educational presentations on a range of election security and integrity topics; see the CFP here: https://www.votingvillage.org/cfp
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For the kind of photography I do, I make better pictures if I take my time. This seems almost stupidly obvious; attention to detail matters.
So I often bring along "luxuries" that make me comfortable and effectively give me permission to take my time when composing a photo, waiting for the light to change, etc. A favorite is a small camping stool. Being able to comfortably sit and think instead of having to pace around makes a surprisingly big difference for me.
It would not ordinarily be notable that at the Hunter Biden trial, no one is outside the courthouse demanding that the charges be dropped or claiming that the entire criminal justice system is "rigged" or threatening the judge, prosecutors, or jurors.
Captured with a Rodenstock 50mm/4.0 HR Digaron lens (@ f/5.0) and the Phase One IQ4-150 back, shifted vertically by 12mm.
This is a straightforward, somewhat abstract, composition, emphasizing scale and lines. It converges out of sight below the foreground pier, suggesting an infinite roadway.
I shot this several times, day and night, and the nighttime image, in which the steelwork under the bridge is closer in brightness to the sky, was much more interesting. The cloudy night helps, too.
The more famous bridge just to the south, named for another borough, gets most of the photographic love, but I think the Manhattan Bridge deserves respect, too.
Captured with the Rodenstock 90mm/5.6 HR Digaron (@ f/7.1) and the PhaseOne IQ4-150 "Achromatic" back. 12mm of vertical shift kept the geometry in line. The sharp lens and achromatic back reveal a lot of detail zoomed in at full resolution (full res is downloadable on flickr).
This is a very simple composition, the frame filled with the Memorial from roughly the perspective shown on the $5 bill. The National Parks Service does a superb job lighting the site.
Rupert Murdoch is currently a leading candidate to replace Henry Kissinger as my go-to for asking "why is this person getting more years on this earth than my father did?"