Shooting the Stars

This year I’ve had several advanced photo students take an interest in night and astrolandscape photography. We’ve been to different venues such as, Chesterfield Reservoir and Craters of the Moon National Monument. Last night, we stayed nearby and went up to Crystal Summit, just south of town. We had another excellent evening of clear skies and bright stars. It did drop to about 22^o F and our gear was getting icy…my Mountain Dew froze! So we cranked up the camp stove and made hot chocolate, made photographs, and listened to howling coyotes that were a little too close for comfort!

© Kim Dodge. A first attempt at star trails. 6 stacked shots.

© Jacob Valdon

Fall Outing to Chesterfield, Idaho

Here’s a few shots from our recent fieldwork at the ghost town of Chesterfield, in southeast Idaho.

Paul Rasmussen busy photographing an old windmill on a restored farm at the Chesterfield ghost town.

Amy Millward chatting with fellow student Alyssa Stone.

View from the general store at Chesterfield, looking towards the Wyoming border.

Ghost Town Photo Trip

Earlier this week a number of students from the Advanced Photography class joined the Photo Communication class on their photo trip to Chesterfield’s ghost town. Here’s a few shots of students at work.

Lauren, Andrew, Sarah, and Marlae preparing to document the Chesterfield ghost town. © 2013 Kathy Hayward.

Lauren photographs the advancing herd of cows! © 2013 Kathy Hayward.

Kathy and Stefanie hiking up a hill to investigate a 19th century homestead. © 2013 Terry Ownby.

Mike preps for image capture. © 2013 Terry Ownby

Dustin laughing at something Mike was saying. © 2013 Terry Ownby.

On-Camera Flash Demo

Today we out to the quad to practice working with on-camera fill flash techniques. Although it’s still officially summer, a cold front came through and it was a more brisk than we anticipated! Our group worked with a variety of manual and dedicated DSLR speedlites. We even had some furry friends stop by to check out what we were up to!

This shot of Stefanie Call was without the fill-flash. As you can see, the shadows are very harsh.

Here, fill-flash was used in an automatic, dedicated mode on my Nikon. The flash was set to about -2 1/3 EV.

Ashley Schmidt and Alyssa Bartlett practicing their fill-flash techniques.

A curious little furry friend stopped by to check out what Kelsey Wright and Presley Brown were doing in the quad.

 

5-n-1 Lighting Demo

Yesterday I took my Advanced Photography class out to the Quad here on campus so we could work with a 5-n-1 light disc (reflector). These are handy tools for the serious photographer to have in their grip kit, as they allow for the manipulation of light. They can function as fill light or as a primary light. Further, as the name suggests, the kit has five reflective/transmission options: diffuser, white, gold, silver reflectors, and black for absorbing light. The brand we were working with is from Westcott and can be purchased from B&H Photo. Here’s some shots of the class in action.

Lauren poses while a gold reflector is used for rim light effect and another student takes a light reading.

Presley takes a turn being the model while Lauren angles one of the light discs.

A smaller group, including Ashley, Mike, and Dustin, work with a silver disc directly below Mike’s face.

While Presley continues to pose, Alyssa, Lauren, Kelsey, and Kathy take turns working the reflectors and shooting.