Botany Bay? Botany Bay! … Oh no!

Posted on March 19, 2015 by garbergeektography

On our first trip in the camper to Edisto Beach, SC, Michelle mentioned going to Botany Bay Plantation. I knew I had heard that name somewhere before, and I kept racking my brain to figure it out. Turns out, that SS Botany Bay is the name of Kahn’s ship in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn (and later in Star Trek: Into Darkness). Of course that name came from the original Botany Bay in Australia, which was a penal colony. After discovering the geeky nature of my recollection, I repeatedly quoted this line from Pavel Chekov when he discovers the identity of the mysterious marooned ship.

When Michelle showed me pictures of the old trees on the beach, I couldn’t wait to get there to capture the sunrise. Of course, the weather didn’t cooperate very well … or maybe it did. A dense layer of fog blanketed the sun. This gave a certain mystical and lonely quality to the shots that I had not anticipated, but that I thoroughly enjoyed. The fog was like a giant softbox, giving even lighting over the trees and lightly shrouding the other objects in a distance. This really helped me isolate my subjects and also gave me an interesting canvas in the background to use various processing techniques and textures. I processed all of the following shots with a combination of MacPhun’s Tonality Pro and Karen Hutton‘s and Tanya Wallis’ forthcoming texture pack.

We have several more images from the Botany Bay Plantation shoot on the way, but I am grouping them in different blog posts. The area has so many types of landscapes: bogs, marshes, ponds, streams, dense forest, farmland, and beaches. It really was a great place to practice a variety of landscape and nature shots.

This was one of my telephoto images with the a6000. I used a basic black and white conversion in Tonality Pro and added the Bursty Blur texture from the texture pack. Print Available.

i had some fun with the wide angle distortion on this one! I liked the effect that the Sandy Cool texture had on it. It seemed to fit the beach theme. Print Available.

I went for an authentic Ceti Alpha 5 look to this one, with the reddish goodness. To add texture, I used "Face it - Scratched" from the texture pack.

I went for a Ceti Alpha 5 look to this one, with the reddish goodness. To add texture, I used “Face it – Scratched” from the texture pack. Print Available.

Since I saw the name "Alien Skin Burn" in the texture pack, I've always wanted to use it. It seemed to fit the mood of this photo very well.

Since I saw the name “Alien Skin Burn” in the texture pack, I’ve always wanted to use it. It seemed to fit the mood of this photo well. Print Available.

After the split tone processing in Tonality Pro, I added the “Cold Skin” texture to this photo. It enhanced the blue tones and added a cool vignette. Print Available.

One of my favorite split-tone presets in Tonality Pro is “Blue Morning.” Split-toning involves taking a black and white image and adding two different tints to the shadows and the highlights. In this case, the shadows get a blue tint, and the highlights get a golden tint. I decided not to use a texture on this one because I liked the contrast between the textured ocean and the smooth sky. Print Available.

San Diego Fun Fest, Chapter One: Tips for Shooting at the Zoo

Posted on December 3, 2014 by garbergeektography

Baby and mama orangutans snacking on grass.

It’s been a whirlwind week for the geektographers. Last week, we travelled to San Diego for a work conference and were able to add a few days to our trip for some great photography adventures.

One of the highlights of our journey was the chance to meet two of our hero photographers at the San Diego Zoo. Michelle has wanted to go to the San Diego Zoo since she was a child, and the visit definitely brought out the kids in us. There we met my master in The Arcanum, the marvelous Karen Hutton, and her friend and fellow Arcanum master Laurie Rubin, who specializes in wildlife photography and knows the San Diego Zoo like the back of her hand. It was great to watch them work–and work alongside them–in the field! Laurie also filmed the following short video of Karen and I to chronicle the experience!

Karen’s question about what I’ve learned got me thinking, and like most introverts, I came up with tons of things to say after the fact. So here are my top tips for shooting at the zoo:

There was some harsh light on the orangutans but if you wait around a bit, maybe they will dodge the stark shadows for you.

Go on an overcast day. This seems counter-intuitive, especially if you are not a photographer or just started. You would think that it would be best to have a lot of light and a bright blue sky. But too much light washes out the animal fur and can create some very stark shadows given the nature of the obstacles in the habitat. I found this was true with most of my shots of the orangutans. Sometimes I would get a great expression, but there would be a huge shadow caused by their hands or some other element across their faces.
I shot this polar bear through tinted green glass. With the power of post-processing, you can remove most of the tint and other yucky effects of the glass. I processed this using the MacPhun Tonality Pro plug-in.

Don’t be afraid to shoot through the glass. Sometimes this will give you the most intimate portraits, but you need to keep a few things in mind. Try to shoot with the lens as close to the glass as possible, and shoot with the lens perpendicular to the glass. Both techniques will help you eliminate glare.
Don’t be afraid to shoot through chain link fences. This is a bit tougher, but if you use a large enough aperture, the fence will blur out under certain conditions. The subject should be far enough away from the fence to get the blurred effect. If the critter is too close, the fence will be in focus as well. This counts for fences on the other side of the habitat as well, which can make for some not so pretty backgrounds.
I got some great eye contact with this takin while waiting in the line for the pandas.

Try to find out something about animal behavior. We were lucky enough to shoot with wildlife photographer Laurie Rubin, who knows a lot about the ways animals act under certain circumstances. For example, when a bird splashes water on its back, get ready, because the bird will flap its wings for a great motion shot. Likewise, it helps to know when the animals will be the most active. When we went to the San Diego Zoo, for example, the Lions were happy just to nap. The next day at the Safari Park, we got to the Lions earlier in the day, and they were quite animated and playful. Likewise, we saw the cheetahs at the Safari Park right after feeding time. We got to see them eat and frolic before settling down to clean themselves and nap.

We were lucky and got to the pandas right before feeding time, which meant they were curious and playful.
The keepers hide the food in the habitat to encourage the pandas to hone their foraging skills.

Use a long focal length to crop in tight to the action. We had our Sony a6000 with a 70-200mm focal length. Since that is a crop-sensor camera, we had the equivalent of 300mm. Now that pales in comparison to the 100-600mm Tamron lens that Karen was lugging around. Not that I’m jealous or anything.
If an animal is feeling lazy, check back with them later in the day. In the morning, we walked by the snoozing polar bears. We went by later that afternoon and were able to catch a few waking moments for some portrait shots.
Regardless of the circumstances, have fun shooting anyway. We visited both the Zoo and Safari Park on very bright, harshly-lit days. That didn’t stop us from trying to find good shots or from having fun. Sometimes you can’t plan a shoot around the weather, especially if you’re visiting another city, so make the best of it!

All of the pictures here are from our morning at the zoo. We will have another gallery and post with images from the Safari Park soon!

It’s Finally Fall!

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Michelle Garber

Happy Autumn everyone! My favorite season is finally here, and to celebrate, we present you with some fun fall photos. First up is one of my favorite pictures, inspired by Karen Hutton and taken in Chattanooga at Rock City.

My photo of the Rock City swinging bridge. I have a metal print of this hanging in my office that allows me to escape every day.

I confess—I have a fascination with bridges. And doorways. And fences. And with bends in the river and turns in the road. I enjoy the in-between-ness of the space, exploring boundaries and transitions.

The “Flying Dragon” fruit (Poncirus trifoliata) becomes golden in the Fall and hangs out near the bell tower at Historic Oakland Cemetery.

Maybe that’s why I love the Fall and Spring seasons so much. Standing at a threshold, my imagination engages, and I find myself drawn to both mystery and possibility. In these moments, I see the promise of adventure and the potential for newness and transformation. In capturing the moment on camera, I hope to give color, shadow, and form to the liminality.

Dave’s shot of our crop of apples from Mercier Orchards last Fall.

How will you embrace the mystery and possibility this Fall? What are your favorite spaces, places, and activities?

Dave’s shot of a sunburst at Uncle Shuck’s Corn Maze from last year. We hang a canvas wrap of this print above our mantle every year to usher in the season.

Dave’s note: If you are looking to decorate for Autumn, prints of the above images are available. Just click on the photo!

Poisonous Perspectives

Posted on August 20, 2014 by garbergeektography

It’s time to put the “geek” into “Garber Geektography” with a look back at one of my first photo assignments on “perspectives” in The Arcanum. Karen Hutton presented us with a pretty basic, but eye-opening challenge to produce three images of three different subjects from three different vantage points. She wanted one shot from below, one shot from above, and one from a straight perspective. So what’s a geek to do when presented with such a challenge? Go grab Michelle’s Poison Ivy figurine for a date at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, of course (the date was with Michelle, not Poison Ivy … ’cause that would be weird).

Poison Ivy from the low angle.

I really did not know how tricky this was going to be when I started, given the size of the small bust designed by comic book artist Amanda Conner. I wanted to place Ivy in her natural habitat and sought out flora that complimented the color scheme. This meant lying down on the sidewalk along the gardens, figuring out the best light and angle, while also trying to find a slight slope to get the “from below” angle. This proved the most elusive perspective, given the fact that Ivy is looking up while I wanted to focus on the eyes. I also had limited myself to using the 35mm prime lens that I had at the time, which meant that in addition to lying on the ground, I had to get pretty close. I wasn’t as happy with this image, because the angle didn’t feature the eyes or face as well as it should. I do like, however, how the lines of the background landscape look from this angle, something that would later influence my landscape photography. I probably also looked more than a bit strange as I was arranging the dead roots to camouflage her base. I think at one point, a mother came by as I was lying on the ground and said to her daughters, “Awww, look, he’s taking pictures of a fairy.” I don’t think Pamela Isley would like that one bit. Continue reading →

Launching …

Posted on August 18, 2014 by garbergeektography

Fourth of July, 2014 in Farragut, TN

Michelle and I have been tooling around with “Garber Geektography” for a while now. In fact, it has been about two years since I bought my first “real” interchangeable lens camera, and the past two years have been the most creative of my life. So we are starting this blog to share our photographic musings with the world. It has been a whirlwind summer for me, and I have quite a bit to share–from my trip with 13 students and 1 colleague to India, to our vacation to visit our good friends (Doug and Lindsay) in Alaska, to my rather eventful journey to Israel in the beginning days of the most recent Middle East conflict. So, I will be sharing some thoughts about each of those trips in future posts. This blog, however, is meant to be a more “fun” outlet for our creativity. While I will obviously touch on my vocation as a theology professor in various posts, we want this blog to be much more about our general life experiences and creative processes in the nexus between photographic images and geeky adventures (hence our tagline, “Adventures in Imagery”).

Continue reading →