Green-Wood Cemetery in the snow at night + workshop announcement!
Hi! Just wanted to share some photos from Green-Wood Cemetery from last night. Gabe and I walked around after hours (with permission, of course), shooting the lovely snowfall in this historic and beautiful cemetery. Have a peek:
I packed light for this shoot. I brought only one Fuji X-T1 with 23mm f/1.4 Fuji lens plus my trusty (and tiny) MeFOTO Backpacker and Fuji remote cable release, all nestled in a Tenba Messenger DNA 15 bag. I usually roll with 2-3 cameras and two tripods plus a variety of lenses in my monster fstop Loka ultralight backpack. Using one outfit creates a challenge to compose and craft a variety of photos from one angle of view. I highly recommend it to those of you who roll heavy like I do. It's liberating and an opportunity to grow.
If you dig this... April 25-26 – Historic Cemeteries of New York Night Workshop – Green-Wood Cemetery
Join Gabriel Biderman and I as we open the gates to historic cemeteries of New York and grant you access to many wonderful sculptures and mausoleums – at night! We typically plan these around no moon so that we can help you fine tune and finesse your lightpainting skills. Our last workshop was Woodlawn - next up is Green-wood in 2015! More details soon
Polar Bear Plunge at Coney Island 2015
New Year's Day... What's better to clear the hangover than a swim in the brisk Atlantic?
Please Help Fund My Kickstarter!
You may have read or heard about my camera gear being stolen a couple weeks back. I decided to make lemonade outta those lemons. I posted up a Kickstarter rich in art rewards including pigment and carbon transfer prints, cut paper masks and fashions, and private workshops. Interested in helping me get back on the horse? Read more here: http://kck.st/1wDjvNy
Woodlawn Cemetery Night Photography Workshop 2014
Woodlawn Cemetery is a 400-acre outdoor museum with an unrivaled collection of monuments, over 1300 significant mausoleums, which were designed by legendary architects, landscape designers, and sculptors. You will be transported in time as you walk the grounds and take in Art Nouveau, Egyptian, Greek, and Romanesque Revival architecture styles.
Since it’s inception in 1863, Woodlawn has become one of New York City’s irreplaceable treasures and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2011.
And now you have an opportunity to capture this magnificent place at night. Matt Hill and I are offering a two-night workshop on November 14th-15th. There will be no moon while we are shooting, so this is a great workshop to hone your light painting skills. We will have access to go inside several grand mausoleums, illuminate beautiful stain glass, and get lots of hands on training from Matt and I.
You can choose to shoot just one night – or if you take both you will be able to get feedback on your work at the critique on Saturday. We also feel that by shooting on consecutive nights you will become more proficient with your night photography skills as well as explore more of this amazing location.
Tuition, per night: $150
REGISTER HERE
Date: Friday November 14th from 4pm-11pm and Saturday November 15th from 2pm – 11pm
Instructors: Gabriel Biderman and Matt Hill
Where: Woodlawn Cemetery, Jerome Avenue Entrance, Bronx, NY
Required Gear: (Film or Digital): camera, tripod, and cable release. A full gear guide will be sent to you upon registration.
The above photos were taken by Matt and Gabe from previous workshops at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
The below images are examples from the Woodlawn Cemetery and taken by workshop coordinator Peter Nagy.
ADC School of Craft: Creating Mixed Media Masterpieces
I am late announcing this, but I am truly delighted to be featured among the first twelve Art Directors Club members to be featured in their new SCHOOL OF CRAFT created in conjunction with Skillfeed.
I spent a half day with the film crew from the ADC making an educational film titled, "Creating Mixed Media Masterpieces."
Course Description: Apply your creativity with someone else’s, and you will both do something better together.” Matt Hill is passionate about fusing all his passions, effectively creating his own mashup masterpiece. In this course, Matt shows us how to combine long-exposure night photography, cut paper art and barely-clothed models to create an incredible project that he calls “Night Paper."
Skillfeed requires a subscription, but you can watch my video and anything else on Skillfeed during a 30 day trial. If you use this link, then Skillfeed knows that I sent you and it helps me greatly :-)
Thanks for checking me out. I hope you enjoy the video, and those from other ADC members and Young Guns.
Below is a gallery of images from the shoot. Not all made the video, so enjoy! Deepest thanks to my Production Manager Mabel, plus Gymnos Aliithea and Sincerely Yours for being both photographic and video stars. Also lots of thanks to Margina Dennis for handling our hair and makeup. You are a star, and we appreciate you.
Photo Gear Stolen in San Francisco
On 10/11/2014, my rental car window was smashed by thieves and they stole all of my camera gear, laptop, GPS and wallet while on vacation in San Francisco.
What gear was stolen? Here is a specific list of all the things I can remember being in the bag:
Nikon D700 camera body S/N 2056827 $2,999
Nikon D7000 camera body S/N 3084139 $1,499
Nikon AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF Lens $1,996
Lomo Petzval 85mm Lens (backer Kickstarter!) S/N 00001896 $350
Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G Autofocus Lens $425
Nikonc MC-36 Remote Trigger / Intervalometer $160
four spare Nikon EN-EL3E Rechargeable Li-ion Battery Pack $160
two spare Nikon EN-EL15 Rechargeable Li-ion Battery Pack $92
Two SanDisk 16GB ExtremePRO CompactFlash Card $140
Two SanDisk 16GB ExtremePRO UHS II SDHC Memory Card $130 Lexar Multi-Card 25-in-1 USB 3.0 Memory Card Reader $25
Tenba Messenger Photo & Laptop Daypack, Orange $154
Flashlights for light painting (three) $150
Rechargable AA batteries (16) $50
Travel Charger for Nikon batteries (universal) $46
Total $8,376
non-camera gear:
MACBOOK PRO (RETINA, 15-INCH, LATE 2013) C02MX0LQFD58
If you have any information about this crime, please contact San Francisco Police with the following information:
Case Number 140-860-405
Company D (Mission) 415-558-5400
Night Photography at Goblin Valley State Park in Utah
I took the advice of friend and colleague Joe Brady to visit Goblin Valley State Park in Utah. Why? He said it's one of the darkest night sky areas around the Moab region. Indeed, it was.
(And thanks, Joe, for the fantastic suggestion!)
I arrived in late afternoon after driving from Salt Lake City to Moab for lunch, then to Canyonlands National Park for a first scouting of the area for future night photography workshops. What a breathtakingly beautiful park.
Here's a few stitched daytime panoramic photos of Canyonlands:
After madly driving from spot to spot in Canyonlands, I turned my car north and then west and then south again to get to the remote Goblin Valley State Park. I repeat - it's remote. 4 hours' drive from SLC if you do it in one shot.
I rented a yurt since Goblin Valley closes at 10pm and there are no towns nearby. I had a fantastic time; what a cool experience. Highly recommended. Fully functional with beds, couch that becomes a bed, gas-heated stove, heat pump, electricity, propane grill, picnic table and a place to build a fire. Great deal at $80/night.
Inside view of Yurt #2
The moon was not going to rise until after midnight, so I had plenty of time to get some Milky Way star point shots. I started out near the Goblins area (away form the campsites).
I am posting both color and black-and-white here for feedback. Please tell me which you like better in the comments! Much appreciated.
Personally, I am torn. I usually only do the B/W but somehow the delicacy of some of these color shots really tugs at me.
Honestly, I was a bit uncomfortable about how quiet and alone I was, especially in near-total darkness. I read the park materials and knew the largest predator was a coyote and I had nothing to really fear, but still I was wishing Gabe or Mabel or someone else was my buddy. It is very, very remote and dark.
I drove back to the yurt and discovered that my neighbors in Yurt #1 were building a campfire, and it made this amazing glow on the mountain walls adjacent to their yurt. Lucky me :-) And then I applied the same to my yurt, too, turning on and off my lights a little bit for a 37.5-minute image stack of 2 1/2 minute exposures.
Since the nap I tried to have during magic hour was ruined by houseflies that would land on my face as soon as I drifted off, I was more tired than I hoped to be at that point in the night. So I took another micro-nap while this last set was burning and hoped to wake up for moonrise. I did.
Wow. It was a half-moon, but rose deep orange directly across the desert from my yurt. Amazing. I banged out some short and long exposures of it coming up into the light clouds that were forming:
So at this point the moon was high enough to start casting interesting shadows – the moment I was waiting for this entire trip.
My only regret is that I chickened out and did not go for bust going back to the Goblin fields to romp around in the moonlight with my Pixelstick and flashlights. Sigh... I was wiped out. Tired. And a little frightened that I didn't have a buddy with me (safety first!). Which is why I plan on holding a night photo workshop in Goblin Valley. Leave a note in the comments if you are interested! Or sign up for my mailing list.
Here are some shots of the Goblin fields during early morning hours to whet your appetite. Tons of room for photos to spread out and light paint without stepping on each others' toes.
Night Photography in the Utah Mountains or Bust
File this one under: you never know what's going to happen, so put it all out there!
So I was going to Salt Lake City for work to attend a conference and I posted this little Instagram:
And I got a reply from a local photographer, Paul Carter (website, Instagram), asking if I wanted to go shoot some night photography. Um, yes! So we connected and decided on going out someplace with no light pollution because there was a report of the POSSIBILITY of Aurora Borealis visibility in our area and much of northern USA.
Paul graciously picked me up and drove us hours into the mountains east of SLC. Utah is truly a beautiful state, and I got to see even more of it guided by a local. And Paul is a also great guy. We chatted about photo tech, techniques, tools, life and other stuff. And then we got up to umpteen thousand feet in the air... (( <---hyperbole!)
I was shooting a side project for the launch of Vü Filters, making example photos with and without filters of many subjects during sunset in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest.
10-stop ND Filter - where have you been all my life???
After that was done down near Mirror Lake, we headed back up to Bald Mountain Pass - where we bumped into a crew from Adobe with a RED camera mounted in the back of a minivan chase car filming a crazy decked-out BMW. Can't wait to see where that goes...
The last moments of sun... (This is not the Adobe crew.)
And then the sun was gone. We descended a little bit to Lilly Lake / Lost Lake. Perfect. The moon would not rise for at least 2 hours, so we focused on making photos of the Milky Way.
And since I was rocking the Pixelstick, I made a portrait of Paul:
Well, we made three, but this is my favorite :-)
And finally - it was cold. I didn't mention that. It was high 30's up there. Brrr. So we did a couple of long exposures for stair trails. (Perfect weather for it!) My batteries kept dying.
ADVICE: Put a fresh battery in if you are starting a long exposure in very cold weather!
Featured Photographer of the day on Art Director's Club blog
I'm delighted to share with you a short interview I did with the ADC - published on their blog at ADCglobal.com. Read it here.
Bannerman Island on a New Moon
Our latest workshop on Pollepell Island, a.k.a. Bannerman Island, was held this weekend past.
We had a more than full class of seven and the weather decided to cooperate with us. In amazing ways.
After many hours of group light painting, star point and star trails work, we broke out to do some free shooting. I was crazy excited to exercise some files and ideas with my new Pixelstick. Like this group shot!
And worked on capturing some Milky Way shots. Hard to do so close to Beacon/Newburgh and West Point.
And then I made this monster star trail stack of the Bannerman Armory over an hour and twenty minutes. (Twelve, ten-minute exposures). The lights along the grass and stairs are Gabe's light-painting class :-) Thanks, everyone! You made the armory look so very good.
I then set up my 14-24mm on the Nikon D700 facing south for some long star trail stacks form 2-4am and the dew point caused lots of water to form on the surface of my lens, The result was this interesting, almost analog-feeling star trail stack.
In the morning, I broke out the IR-converted Canon G9. Here are Gabe, then our friend and fellow night photographer Rob Yasinsac
On the boat ride out, I was fortunate to capture all these morning-sun drenched IR shots of the island. Thanks for taking us around the south side, Thom :-)
A future update will include some 3+ hour film shots from my 4x5" camera. What a wonderful night and great group of students.
