real doctors, real people is back!
I’m excited to share the January episode of real doctors, real people featuring Dr. Paul Godley.
The real doctors, real people series is produced for the UNC Medical Center News Office by Nathan Clendenin.
I’ve been collaborating with Nathan Clendenin as co-producer and editor for the series since 2011. I generally help Nathan shoot and conduct interviews and then we work together on the edit. This is the 15th episode! We shoot the series on Canon 5d Mark IIs.
This episode was fun because I got to try a motion tracking technique that you can do with Apple’s Motion program. You can see this technique in the section of the video when Dr. Godley is looking at the pictures on the back of his camera. I shot over his shoulder with a 50mm 1.4 lens with a wide-open aperture to really isolate the back of the camera. Then I used Motion to lock the images to the camera screen. It’s fun because it attaches points where you ask it to (in this case the edge of the camera LCD screen) and then tracks them for each “keyframe” of the shot. Then, it uses that info to track the edges of the overlaid photos, so it looks like the photos are moving along with the camera screen. It’s not perfect, but I think it works for this video. What do you think?
Flammable Evergreens: Post Holiday Catharsis
Tonight I took my new 16-35mm lens out for a test drive. What a fun lens! The only challenge I ran into was forgetting how close I was to things like people running away from exploding Christmas trees. The lens allows you to be a few feet from your subject, but it looks like you’re shooting from much further away. It should come with a warning: objects in viewfinder much closer than they appear! Enjoy the shots.
*Click on any image to view larger versions.
Under a clouded-over full moon we drove through rural Orange County near Chapel Hill, NC.
Nathan, our evening's chauffeur, invited me to his church's annual Christmas tree burn.
After loading up on hotdogs, many attendees bring their own trees and drag them toward the fire.
As the crowd looks on, the real pyromaniacs brave the heat to throw trees on the fire.
Sometimes they experiment with several trees at once!
The event organizer stokes the fire in a very manly way.
Embers filled with Christmas spirit past race toward the moon.
The event organizer calls on the pyromaniacs to fetch more trees.
Nathan is entranced by the scene.
We watch one more burst of tree-fueled fury before heading home. I'm already looking forward to next year!
Pleasant Surprise on the Plains: Meeting Jim Richardson and Seeing the Sites in Central Kansas
Pigeons fly between grain silos in Buhler, Kansas
Just before leaving for Kansas on December 26, 2011, my father handed me a list he wrote entitled “Exciting Things To Do While in Kansas.” It went like this:
1. Listen to dogs bark
2. Watch ice freeze and tornados form
3. Watch paint dry
4. Listen to old men talk about the weather
5. Listen after asking “right wing enough for you?”
6. Watch paint dry
7. Ask for a bowl of cold soup
8. Spread a rumor that a Super Walmart is taking over downtown businesses
9. Claim that you are a “Mormon Southern Baptist”
10. Attend a thumb twirling competition
11. Watch traffic lights change in public
Having never been to Kansas, I wasn’t sure what to expect – but I hoped I wouldn’t have to break out my father’s humorous to-do list out of boredom. As it turns out, there are plenty of reasons why a visit to Kansas is worthwhile!
A plane flies high over a grain elevator in Buhler, Kansas
I spent the first evening between Wichita and Hutchinson, Kansas with my girlfriend’s family opening Christmas gifts. I was surprised and delighted to receive an amazing DVD ROM set that includes a searchable archive of every National Geographic magazine published between 1888 and December 2009. What a treasure!
The next morning, we traveled to a small town called Buhler to see where my girlfriend grew up. The short trip uncovered two interesting geographical facts about Kansas that make it different from most of the states in the Southeast where I have spent my youth and young adulthood. The first is that Kansas roads were laid out in a near-perfect 1 mile X 1 mile grid. I’ve never seen roads so straight. Occasionally, the roads jog a bit this way and that, but that’s to account for the curvature of the Earth!
The second thing is that most of the small towns seem to be constructed around towering grain elevators. These concrete structures are a series of tall connected cylinders that store grain collected from surrounding fields which is then distributed to points beyond. I was fascinated by these grain elevators because of their cool shapes and colors.
A couple makes their way through the Kansas Underground Salt Museum
Later that day, we returned to Hutchinson, Kansas to visit the Kansas Underground Salt Museum. The museum is located 650 feet underground in one of the largest seams of rock salt in the world, left behind by an evaporated Permian sea. After watching a brief safety video, donning a hard-hat, and strapping on a rescue breathing device, we were carted into a double decker elevator that can carry 30 people or so. Then, a large clanging metal door shut and soon we started to drop into a pitch black mine shaft that cost over $6 million dollars to dig.
Salt mined here is used for salting roads, in animal feed, for ice cream production, and in pharmaceutical products. Basically, miners blow up parts of the seam, crush up the rubble, and cart it to the surface, which they’ve done here since 1923. Table salt is mined using a different process that involves pumping large amounts of water underground, collecting the brine and evaporating out the salt.
Besides the exhibits explaining that salt-making process, we were able to view Hollywood memorabilia and other items stored safely underground by a company called Underground Vaults and Storage. Since the salt mine is so far underground, relatively far from fault zones, and has very low humidity, it makes a perfect place to store precious goods and documents.
The next day, we toured through a family cemetery and farm and then made our way to a small town that was founded by Swedes called Lindsborg. Lindsborg is very proud of its Swedish heritage and is filled with small gift shops and galleries. I enjoyed looking at the “Dala horses” that dotted the main street. Dala horses were originally carved from wood and were given to children as toys. Lindsborg has some creatively decorated Dala horses, my favorite being “Salvador Dala.”
As we enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather and took in the Dala decorations, we passed by a photo gallery. I was captured by the incredible quality of the photos that I could see through the window, some of which looked familiar. As it turned out, and to my great delight, we had stumbled upon the beautiful gallery of Jim Richardson, a photographer who has shot over 25 stories for National Geographic. Mr. Richardson lives in Kansas and travels the world photographing for magazines and teaching workshops. He specializes in environmental photography and rural life. One of his projects has been to document everyday life in a tiny town called Cuba, Kansas, which he has done for over 30 years. He also shot the December 2011 cover story about the King James Bible for National Geographic.
Mr. Richardson was very kind and spoke to me for a while about running a gallery. He explained that as a photographer, he wishes that his photojournalism sold, but that people want pictures that they relate to. Since he lives in Kansas, he sells Kansas to his customers – mostly landscapes and nature shots. We bought a box of 8 postcards that feature his work on the Kansas Tallgrass Prairie. He signed all 8 shots! It was an honor to meet him!
Over the next few days, I was treated to some other surprises. I loved watching huge flocks of Canada geese heading westward in the huge skies. We stopped near a field so that I could try to get some shots of the geese and then I noticed two men power paragliding. I ran out in the field to get some shots and then was treated to some really close passes as the men hot-shotted by me to give me some better pictures.
Kansas sunsets are fantastic too – especially at the confluence of the Arkansas (pronounced ArKansas (not like the state)) and Little Arkansas Rivers in Wichita. There, a beautiful monument to the Plains Indians is guarded by the “Keeper of the Plains.”
The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center houses an amazing collection of space artifacts – including the real Apollo 13 capsule. There, I learned so much about the history of the US space program and its direct link to the team behind the Nazi development of the V1 and V2 rockets.
So yeah. I had a good time in Kansas and didn’t twiddle my thumbs even once.
Enjoy the rest of my photos below and leave a comment if you like. What photos did you take of your adventures over the Holidays?
Happy New Year from EmpyreanMedia!
Statue of St. Lucia in Lindsborg, Kansas
"Salvador Dala"
Fields stretch to the horizon from Coronado Heights Park near Lindsborg, Kansas
A huge flock of geese fly high over cattle in a field
Power paragliders dance in the sky above a field
A power paraglider treats me to a close pass
Real Kansas sunset color
Sunset over downtown Hutchinson, Kansas
The Anchor Inn is a great place to eat Mexican fare in Hutchinson, Kansas
The Keeper of the Plains guards Wichita at the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers
Footbridge at the Keeper of the Plains monument in Wichita, Kansas
Moon and Bridge detail at the Keeper of the Plains monument in Wichita, Kansas
A real SR-71 Blackbird laid to rest at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Museum
Looking up at a real discontinued rocket at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Museum
Inspired by Jim Richardson, I attempt my first star shot - without a tripod. The reflection you see is a car roof - the light pollution is from Wichita
Photo Shoot at Top of the Hill’s New Distillery, Topo Spirits – Chapel Hill, NC – 22 December, 2011
As 2011 comes to a close, I’ve been thinking a lot about the goals I want to set for myself in 2012. The first goal is that I would like to expand my business into shooting more still photographs – particularly architectural photos. I love capturing spaces and details. People photography is fun but people don’t sit still for long. Spaces are more fun because I can obsess over angles and light and not feel like anyone is getting impatient! Also, I love my video work but I love shooting stills even more. So I hope to make connections, build clientele and steer my work toward more photography.
The second goal is that I want to blog more. I’m just going to put that out there and see if I can actually follow through with it!
Today I got a chance to shoot in a very interesting space, thanks to my friends Nathan Huening and Bronwyn Lewis at the amazing Chapel Hill-based design firm Sprocket House. Check them out (after you read my post!) They asked me to shoot some interiors for a website they are developing.
One of Sprocket House’s clients is the iconic restaurant Top of the Hill. The owner of “Topo” is opening a new distillery, Topo Spirits on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. He purchased the old Chapel Hill News office, which has a warehouse space in the back. There, he has installed some really nifty looking German-made distillery gear. They had to cut a hole in the roof in order to fit the thing in. It looks like a troop of Dr Seuss robots surrounding a fractional distillation tower from an oil refinery. Inside this contraption, they will distill North Carolina’s only vodka made from locally-grown wheat and eventually will produce bourbon and gin.
I’ve been investing in new lenses for both my photo and video work for my Canon 5d Mark II, but still do not own anything wider than 24mm. So I borrowed a 15mm lens from my friend and colleague Nathan Clendenin and I’m so glad that I did!
The distillery space was actually pretty tight so I would have really been pinned in by the 24mm. This particular 15mm (I haven’t used others) is almost like a fisheye lens and I like the effect in this case. Since I do all of my post-production in Adobe Lightroom, I’m aware of the lens profile corrections it offers. For those of you who aren’t aware of what I mean…
I shoot in RAW and bring my digital photos into a program called Adobe Lightroom to color tone and correct exposure if I need to. Lightroom also knows what lens you shot with and knows the characteristic distortion that each lens can add to your shots. Wider lenses tend to curve edges of your frame. In this case, though, I didn’t really like the “corrected” shots because of how it stretches the edges in another, more awkward way. So I left them the way I shot them. I think it accentuates the weirdness of the machinery.
I also used my 100mm macro 2.8 lens and a 50 mm 1.4 to shoot some details of the equipment. I love the macro. It’s such a sharp lens and allows for some very interesting photos.
As I build my arsenal for architecture work, I’m looking into a 16-35mm zoom and perhaps a tilt-shift lens. I can’t wait to book some more gigs so I can justify the expense!
Click on any of the thumbnail shots above to open up a larger version of the photo. Little arrows will appear on the image and you can click through a gallery of shots from today’s shoot.
Enjoy the photos and thanks for reading! If you have any pointers or questions, please post a comment!
Wishing you Happy Holidays and a wonderful 2012!
-Stephen
