Images by John 'K'
Life as seen through my lens…
Category Archives: Photography
Blogged…
Posted by on November 21, 2010
One of the things I love about photo hosting sites like Flickr is the opportunity to have your photography seen by others – to share your vision of the world and its beauty with other people in the hope that people get the chance to see things they might otherwise not see, and also to inspire others to look a bit more closely at the things around them.
With that in mind, while some people on Flickr hate it when others take their images and post them on blogs, I am honored to have my work chosen by someone else to illustrate a theme or help make a point (so long as the blogger links back to my original post on Flickr). My view of my photography is that it’s a hobby that brings me pleasure, and if that pleasure can be shared with others who also get enjoyment from my images, then that’s just a big bonus – the cherry on top as it were.
I’ve had my work used by a number of non profit groups, many with themes close to my heart for a variety of reasons – if my hobby can help them, I’m more than happy to play a small part. It’s rewarding and gratifying to have my images used in this way, but at the end of the day I know they’re looking to do something on a low budget and the fact that I’m happy to have them use my images or nothing more than a name credit probably plays a large part in their selection criteria.
Where I start to feel a little humbled though (because I don’t think my stuff is that good) is where people have included one of my photos in a “best of” blog collection. Typically the only way I see this has happened is when all of a sudden my Flickr usage stats show an image I posted some time ago has started to attract fresh attention. Often I’ll look at what the blogger has chosen and think “but I have better examples of this theme than the shot you chose”, but clearly they chose what they did for a reason, so who am I to argue? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all.
A few examples of where this has happened can be found at the following pages…
- 34 Superb Wild Bird Photos to Inspire and Fascinate You
- We Love M&M’s – 14 Yummy Pictures
- 17 Awesome Squirrel Pictures
- 40 Beautiful Flower Pictures
- 10 Great Shots With the Nikon D5000
Every time I see one of these kinds of posts use one of my shots I find myself thinking “with the huge number of excellent shots out there from so many talented photographers, why on earth are you picking one of my images?”, but then I step back and realise that I’ve been picked by someone else with the same eye for things that I have (as I won’t share a shot if I don’t like it myself), and the more this happens the more I feel that I’m not so different from the other people out there after all…
Am I a lunatic?
Posted by on November 18, 2010
Originally uploaded to Flickr by Images by John ‘K’.
I had been hoping to get a clear moon shot every night this week to track the moon’s transition to being full, but the weather was against me. Tonight the sky was covered with fluffy white clouds through which the moon would make an occasional appearance. The moonlight on the back of the clouds made for a beautiful scene though, so even though this wasn’t the crisp clear moon shot I was hoping to grab, I decided to get an image of the sky anyway.
Now anyone who knows anything about digital photography will know that there is no way I got this picture from one shot – to get the right exposure for the clouds the moon ends up as a ball of white light. To get the right exposure for the moon, the clouds in the sky disappear into the darkness of the night. So to make this image I had to take two shots and then merge them together. I’m quite pleased with the result though.
My friends on Flickr call me “The Moonman” because I seem to be fixated with photographing the moon. Am I The Moonman or simply a lunatic? 
Shooting the moon
Posted by on November 15, 2010
Moon, 38% off, originally uploaded by Images by John ‘K’.
After much early experimentation trying to get something I considered to be a half-way-decent photo of the moon using the equipment I have, I came up with the following guidelines….. (these are based on my experiences with 2 Nikon cameras, a D40x and a D5000, usually with my AF-S NIKKOR 70-300mm 1:4.5-5.6 G lens – feel free to adjust this to fit your equipment!)…..
* Have no filters on the lens (you want as little unneeded glass between you and the moon as possible)
* Have the camera on a good tripod (if not possible, be sure to brace yourself against something solid)
* Don’t use VR unless you are shooting freehand (if the camera is stable you don’t need it)
* If you can (especially if on a tripod) use remote shutter, or timed shutter release (eliminates shake from shutter press)
* Set to spot focus and spot metering
* Use Shutter Priority
* Set shutter speed so the camera thinks the exposure will be dark (this will vary dependent on how full the moon is and what lens you have)
* Use as low an ISO setting as your camera will allow (ideally 100)
* Pre-focus the shot and then turn AF off for when you take it (sometimes AF will do funky things when you don’t want it to).
* If you want clarity, don’t shoot with the moon low on the horizon.
* If you really want clarity, you want the moon to be fairly high in the sky at a time when the sky itself still has some light (dusk).
Moon shots typically need a bit of post-processing, but be careful to not overdo it.
* Contrast and level adjustments give the most bang for the buck.
* Keep sharpening to a minimum.
* Do what you can to remove noise from the sky
* If the color is odd (and you don’t like that!!) consider converting black and white.
If you use my suggestions, please let me see how your shots come out! If you have a recipe of your own that works well, please share it!
BOOM!
Posted by on November 11, 2010
BOOM!, originally uploaded by Images by John ‘K’.
This picture was taken on October 10, 2010 during the San Francisco Fleet Week air display.
I was lucky enough to have it featured in a recent Flickr site blog article, and as a result I went from getting an average of 500 or so photo views a day to a staggering 25,000 a day for the time that blog page was current.
BOOM! indeed 🙂
I spy a spider’s eyes
Posted by on November 11, 2010
I spy a spider’s eyes, originally uploaded by Images by John ‘K’.
It’s still spider season in the Sunol Regional Wilderness and so I had another eight-legged encounter on the way home from work today. This one seemed more than happy to pose for me!
I was right down at spider-eye level to get this shot – he was looking right at me 🙂
© John Krzesinski, 2010.
Images by John 'K' 