chromedecay

This week’s project was pretty straightforward. I’ve been interested in trying out Adobe Lightroom 3 for a while, and this week I downloaded and installed the free 30-day trial in order to put it through its paces and try it out.

I have been using iPhoto for many, many years as my photo library software, and overall I’m quite pleased with it. However, as I continue to build up my library of photos, iPhoto becomes a less viable option. In large part, this is because all your photos have to be saved on your computer’s internal drive – there’s no way to have part of your library on your internal drive and part of it on an external hard drive. Because I use a laptop, this means I’m perpetually crunched for drive space since my photo library is at least 100GB by itself, not to mention my music and video work.

One thing that became immediately apparent upon installing Lightroom 3 is that I would have to spend some time getting used to its paradigm. The interface is somewhat familiar since I use Photoshop CS3, but there’s a lot that’s different. However, I started to dive in and figure it out.

I quickly began to enjoy the way that I was able to unearth old photos that I’d taken but never seriously considered as usable before – the cataloging features of Lightroom really shine. I’m still getting used to the editing controls, but the ability to quickly switch from Lightroom into Photoshop CS3 and have edits in Photoshop automatically show up in a new version in Lightroom is pretty great. The ability to export with a watermark automatically added is also wonderful – saves some tedious work in Photoshop.

To finish it off, here’s a new background image I made with a photo I shot last winter. The cropping, toning, and watermarking with the chromedecay logo were all done in Lightroom 3. Click below for the full size (1280 x 800) on Flickr.

For this week’s project, I wanted to pull out a creative tool I haven’t used in a few years: my Lomo Fisheye film camera. I decided to make this week’s project about the juxtaposition of shooting film and digital to capture the autumn colors and mood. My goal was to shoot all week, with both film and digital, and I think these images get across the feel of autumn in Michigan.

Using the Lomo Fisheye was interesting. I have to confess, I have a like-hate relationship with film, which is why I haven’t shot any in a few years. I like the tactile feeling of holding a print, and there’s still nothing quite like getting an envelope of prints back from the developer, but the lack of instant feedback and high cost of getting film developed keeps me from loving it.

The Lomo Fisheye is especially quirky, since it’s literally point and shoot – fixed focus, fixed shutter speed (around 1/100th second, from what I’ve read), fixed aperture. I shot everything on Kodak Portra 400, which is a good fit since a lot of the days were cloudy (the 400-speed film helps with that).

Along with the fisheye, I also shot lots of digital images, with a variety of lenses. Here are a few with the Canon 50mm f/1.8:

I also shot a few photos with the Canon 70-300 IS USM in order to zoom in tight or isolate individual leaves against the blue sky from Monday:

A lot of the photos I shot with the Lomo Fisheye were done in the car, driving from place to place.

This morning, the last day of the project, I decided to make a couple long exposures in the early morning light as my car warmed up in the dark.

It’s funny – the last few frames I made with the fisheye ended up being strong favorites, even when I felt like I was out of time and just trying to use up the last of the film in order to get it processed.

See the full set of images on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chromedecay/sets/72157625195810147/

For this week’s project, I drove up to Holland, MI to shoot promotional and live concert photographs of The Press Delete, a great band that my cousin Jamie Pierce plays in.

The Press Delete were playing a show at the Park Theater in Holland, and we intended to shoot some promotional photos they could use for the band, as well as live photos of their set. The theater had some interesting armchairs that were pressed into service for a quick pre-show shot:

The band’s live set was great – they sing mellow, introspective songs that have great layers and atmosphere.

Joel, lead singer for The Press Delete:

Pedals:

Jamie, lead guitarist for The Press Delete:

Joel, lead singer for The Press Delete:

See the full set of photos here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chromedecay/sets/72157625128845360/with/5065536097/