Random Shots

I had an interesting comment for one of the images in my most recent blog post. The image was part of an experiment with my Fuji EF-20 flash unit. The commenter asked what settings I used to get the image, as in shutter, aperture, and ISO. I can't understand what significance that could have for anyone unless he/she were to know the exact ambient lighting conditions at the time the photo was made. Otherwise the settings are just numbers without context. Oh well ....

I recently purchased a photo book entitled Robert Frank In America. Frank's best known work was is book The Americans which was released yet again this past year. The Americans, the result of the work Frank produced while funded by his Guggenheim Fellowship, consists of eighty three photographs he took while traveling across the United States. Robert Frank In America places those photographs in a more complete perspective that documents the routes he took in his travels and the mapped locations at which the images were shot, and more importantly the book includes many more images that were shot during those travels. I highly recommend both books.

Occasionally I like to go back through my catalog to find images that I flagged for processing but didn't have a chance to work on. I get a chance to look at work that has had time to percolate, and if I don't get out to shoot for one reason or another, I can still exercise my creative juices. So here's a few random shots from this past week.

Fuji X with Flash

Using an on camera flash has always been a bit of a crapshoot for me. In my DSLR days I shot TTL or TTL-fill flash and took the results as they were. But learning a few principles and practicing using them can allow for much more flexibility, so I spent the afternoon yesterday with an experienced friend and experimented a bit. The Fuji EF-20 is a power packed little unit, with a guide number of 20 meters (about 65 feet) that allows for five different power modes in increments of 1/2 stops. When we went our separate ways the evening light was well underway, so I had a chance to play a bit on my walk back to Penn Station.

My goal was to understand how to shoot with the flash with the camera in completely manual mode - except for autofocus, using shutter speed and aperture to control the effects of the flash and ambient light, and how to use ISO in conjunction with them.

Here's a few shots with the flash, and some shots I took during the afternoon without flash (those are his big feet on the right in the first image):