11:30 P.M. I here whoo whoo and think that is an Owl but I live in town. In the past two years of living in Toledo, Iowa I have never seen or heard an Owl around here. So I jump up Throwing my boots and jacket on and grab my Trusty E3 with 50-200 swd lens attached and throw the FL 50 R flash on top.
I run (walk) out the door and listen. Sure enough I hear Whoo Whooo and then a little further south Whoo Whooo. There was not just one owl but two. After just a minute I was able to locate
the one closest to me. So I get a good focus and start to slowly walk closer. He knows I am there and checks me out once in a wile but does not seem to concerned that I am getting a little closer.
As I aproach the tree that the Owl is in he starts showing sings of being nervous at about 20 yards from the tree. He knows that I am there so I take a shot. Drats it is a little to dark so I push the flash 2 stops to help with the reach and adjust the Iso to 640 giving me a little more room and shutter speed. This way I was able to keep the shutter at a 250th. I take another photo, not a bad shot just he was not looking at me. Then he shows He is really uncomfortable and starts to ruffle his feathers. So I quickly take another photo (the top one) and sure enough he said that is enough and leaves. Swooping down the first 15 feet leaving me very little chance to get an in-flight shot. I really would have liked to been able to get a owl in flight at night but no such luck. Maybe Next time.
Thanks for reading and God Bless
Corey Brown (Glory 2 Jesus 4 Photography)
What do you do when you are feed up with being in the house all day watching the kids and trying to get work done. (If anyone does not know getting work done with kid is usually a losing battle on all fronts.) So as soon as I could get out of the house I did. Unfortunately this was after dinner around 7:00 P.M. In a small town such as Toledo Iowa where I live every thing is pretty dead in the evening.
With the streets being empty gave a great opportunity for some long exposure night photography. So that is
exactly what I did. Night time street photography can be a lot of fun. However there are some challenges that do come with it. One is the street lamps and the color cast they put off to me is just ugly and if you WB (white balance) correct for the lights the scene can look unnatural. That is why B&W can be nice in this kind of shooting not only can it give you more leniency with your WB but it also can give your photography a more dramatic feel.
To achieve the photo above it has to be a long exposure night shot. by shooting it this way instead of a high ISO shot I get a very clean photograph that you can see the light on the snow all the way up the street. Giving the photo above a lot of depth.
This photo has a lot more light to the overall scene. As you can see there does not seem to be as much depth however it has other benefits. The lights in the garland are not blown out and ugly they to me have a very nice timeless feel. I also used a unique composition to draw more effect out of the lines not only with the strings of lights but the single middle of the street traffic light as well as the building behind. In photographs like these it is hard to get the full impact at such a small size so feel free to visit the Gallery and check them out in full detail.
So next time you go for a walk take your camera. If it is after dark then grab the tripod as well Image Stabilization will not work for this kind of photography.
I hope you have learned a something and feel free to leave your feedback and comments.
God Bless,
Corey Brown (Glory 2 Jesus 4 Photography)
Last week a friend of mine & I went to Lake Red Rock in Pella Iowa to try and Photograph eagles. Usually Lake Red Rock is a Very popular place for many birds this time of year. However This particular day there were no eagles to be found anywhere. The wind had came in on our way down from Grinnell and was blowing at 30+ mph with gusts of 45mph. However the birding was not a complete loss from across the river south of the damn some birds spotted us.
And came over to visit. So we proceed to try and take photos in such high
Winds. As you can probably tell from the water in these photos that it was very windy.
After coming across the river it did not take long for them to come on up and check things out. I do not know the particular breed of these birds They have some similar markings of a white-fronted goose however they do not seem to have enough black on their breasts and their bills look different. 
After coming a shore they started looking for food. Since this is a public park area it is not unusual for people to feed the birds. However something a little unusual happened a pair found a piece of bread and stood side by side taking turns eating the bread. They did not honk charge or show any aggressive behavior to one another. I found this very intriguing.
After a few minuets of searching for food and successfully clearing the area they started to do their normal cleaning. It was not long before they were comfortable enough with us that they were almost posing.
The sun came out just enough for a nice back lighting making some very nice portraits.
All in all not bad for 30+ mph winds and what was beginning to look like a bust for shooting.
If you would like to see more photos and larger then the above you can check them out HERE.
Thanks and God Bless,
Corey Brown (Glory 2 Jesus 4 Photography)
On a recent mission to photograph eagles at Pellas Lake Red rock had come to the point of calling it quits a bit of light started to poke out. It was soon pointed out to me that we were on the wrong side of the damn and quickly running out of sun.
So we Ken Norton and I quickly crossed
The damn and set up not only putting our faces to the sun but the 30+ mph winds that were coming right off the lake.
Even with the wind and quickly fading sunset I managed to get a couple reasonable sunset photos. With the cloud deck being so low and the thin opening for the sun to peak through made for a very dramatic scene with the frozen lake adding just that much more to it.
The opportunity did not last long as we knew it wouldn't. However in this case it was fine because be the time the sun went below the tree line and bluff on the other side of the lake I was cold enough I was not to worried about getting one last photo.
If you would like to view these as well as other images in a larger size you can visit the gallery here.
Thanks and God Bless,
Corey Brown (Glory 2 Jesus 4 Photography)
What do you do when you have a photo that is just OK. You know that photo that just really lacks the drama and punch you were going for. You go EXTREME.
The photo above was not processed in Photoshop or any layered graphics program. It was achieved in Capture One 4. Most of us have seen presets for other raw converters and how they work for them but when the normal person tries to copy it something goes wrong and you can not achieve the same kind of punch. I will give you the setting to the above photo first and then we will discuss how and why this is working.
EV: 0, Contrast: +14, Brightness: +1, Saturation: -29, Shadow: 0, Highlight: 16, and Levels: Black: 4, Mid: +0.16, and White: 253. Curve: from left to right, input first then output. A: 6, 6 B: 35, 44 C: 86, 106 D: 155, 159 E: 208, 69 F: 242, 224.
WB: Kelvin: 11100, Tint: +16
A friend of mine (Ken Norton) and I were discussing conversions the other day and how it is difficult to get a repetitive conversion VS film. So I started to play. Below is the same image as above that has been converted using Capture One 4.2 and you can see it is not terrible but just lacks anything that grabs your attention. It has been sharpened, curves applied and so on.
This last image is just straight in and straight out only applying the Capture One camera profile.
So how do you go from this image to the first one. well it is not that hard. First you apply a funky curve. A curve set to hold the shadow detail and highlights. If you look closely at the screen shot below it relieves some secrets. Age old I am supposed to kill you if I tell you secrets.
First I place a mark at ma shadow to hold it where I want it then one just to the right of it we will call them A and B just for lack of better creativity. Now the point of mark A far left is to keep my black point stable. B will work for my shadow detail. Now lets go all the way to the other end of the spectrum to the highlights Z will be the mark far right and Y is the one to the left. Now Z will control the white point the highlights and some cool back lighting effects on certain extreme conversions. Y will control the cool darks and colors you see in the sky. Now every point in between is just as important to keeping your photo together so to speak. By now you should have the basics of how with one mark it will cause the curve on the opposite side of any mark on either side to move in the opposite direction. So play with these even after the WB stage.
Then you saturate or desaturate as needed I usually end up desaturating a photo more often then saturating one for this kind of conversion. With the photo above and any that you want to give a look like you used a type of ND or split filter with desaturation is key. It works with the curve and WB because on the scene at hand I wanted to increase the sky's drama and that is mainly in the upper mid tones so that is where the curve is set for and will cause the most abstract when you shift the WB
Now the Biggest trick is WB (White Balance) yes that is correct. WB will play a vital role in the look you are going for more then just color. It will give different tones, contrasts and gradations to an image that can not be had any other way. That is why (My Theory) is that digital is so inconsistent when trying to make a B&W or other conversion for that matter. Your WB is always changing. With Film you got the WB for that whole role. You did not go back and forth and constantly changing for the environment you were in. Now just adjust highlight and shadows to taste.
Keep in mind you should not be trying to copy a style or a cookie cutter preset, Play with your image and make it how you think it should look.
That is it. I hope this is helpful and feel free to ask any questions and leave your comments & feedback.
If you would like to see the images larger and some others you can go to the gallery Here
Thanks and God Bless
Corey Brown (Glory 2 Jesus 4 Photography)
