Showing posts sorted by date for query sound shooters. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query sound shooters. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Watching maple tree blossoms ripen into spinning seeds

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Photographer Hitomi Dames, who wrote columns for the Shoreline Area News on photography in 2015 (Sound Shooters) sent in this series on a four day evolution of maple tree flowers.

Photos and notes by Hitomi Dames

The first three were shot on April 20 when I went for a walk.

#1 April 20

#2 April 20

#3 April 20

The maple trees on NE 155th St were all yellow with blossoms on April 20. But soon they turned to yellow green because their leaves opened. 

#4 Samaras forming - April 24

#5 Samaras are well formed - April 24

And if you look carefully the flowers were becoming samaras. The 4th and 5th photos were shot on April 24.

Mature samaras are the winged fruit of the tree which spin through the air by the hundreds.

#6 A different tree at Hamlin Park
April 25

Those flowers on NE 155th St didn’t became samaras completely, but I found this last one at Hamlin Park yesterday April 25.




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LFP conducts two Active Shooter Drills in Town Center

Saturday, November 4, 2017

Volunteers in moulage wounds
Photo by Steven H. Robinson

On a busy shopping day, a man armed with a military grade weapon walks into LFP Town Center and opens fire. Within minutes, dozens of people are dead and wounded. Others are taking cover or running. Business employees are trapped in their stores. The scene is chaos. 
Police need to locate and neutralize the shooter and clear the way for fire and medics to get to the wounded.

On October 25th and November 2nd, after the close of business, the Lake Forest Park Police Department dealt with such a scenario in their Active Shooter and Rescue Taskforce Training.

Fire and aid cars arrive on the scene
Photo by Steven H. Robinson

Just as in a real situation, LFPPD, partnering with the Northshore Fire Department, called in all the regional response agencies, such as Shoreline PD, Shoreline Fire, Bothell PD, Bothell Dispatch, Kirkland PD, Kirkland Fire and Rescue, Mercer Island Fire, Norcom (Dispatch Center), King County Sheriff’s Office, Bellevue Fire, Woodinville Fire, and the Washington State Patrol, American Medical Response (AMR) and TriMed Ambulance services.

This training has been in the planning stages for many months and is the culmination of the LFPPD’s effort to train all city employees, community groups, area business employees, police employees and fire personnel in the nationally recognized Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events (CRASE) and the King County Scenes of Violence Response Procedure.

The King County Scenes of Violence Response Procedure was developed by the King County Police and Fire Chiefs to “provide a framework for King County Law Enforcement when responding to scenes of violence in mutual aid jurisdictions and with Fire/EMS support; Establish a regional, multidisciplinary policy, doctrine and planning, and; Integrated and interoperable incident command and communications.”

Police rush the door to enter the mall
and look for the shooter
Photo by Steven H. Robinson

The two training sessions were both held at the Lake Forest Park Town Center from 10pm-2am. Volunteers from the Northshore Emergency Management Coalition (NEMCo) and Moulage Mayhem provided logistical and actor support. The Mall ownership, Merlone and Geier, and the local businesses within the Mall were extremely supportive of this effort.

The first session focused on police response to the shooter. The second session, with Northshore Fire, focused on locating, transporting, and treating the victims.

Evacuating the injured to a safe place
Photo by Steven H. Robinson
This realistic training was developed for an active shooter scenario with the lessons learned from a coordinated response to a mass casualty situation.

This type of training is valuable in all types of mass casualty situations, such as those we have seen happen recently in other communities across the world. 

The coordination of a police and medical response to an active situation has been developed to improve communication and response between law enforcement and other emergency responders to quickly respond to save lives.

The scenario included officers using “Simunition” paint marker modified weapons which create a realistic but safe training opportunity. Officers responded to the mall and formed up teams to enter the mall and search out the shooters (Go to the sound of gunshots).

After the threat had been stopped, officers assisted in first aid and meeting medical responders from the various agencies to provide a safer entrance into what is called a “Warm” zone. This coordination ensures a quicker response in addressing any medical needs created by the incident. In coordination, the law enforcement officers and medical response officers evacuated the injured to a safe area where proper medical treatment could be administered.

As seen from mass casualty events around the country, this type of training is essential to ensure our citizens and first responders are prepared if this comes to our community.



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Sound Shooters: Tethered Shooting 2

Monday, November 9, 2015

By Hitomi Dames

♦Tethered Shooting with Aperture

Unlike EOS Utility with Aperture, you can’t see remote LIVE VIEW.

In Aperture, the remote control is ONLY to press the shutter button.

Therefore with Aperture, you have to do all the settings on your camera. To set Live View on camera and to control the exposure metering, watch this video.

Camera Live View
  1. Connect camera and computer. 
  2. Turn on camera and enable LIVE VIEW. Set ISO, mode everything on camera. 
  3. Open Aperture: Choose File - Tether - Start Session (fig.1)
fig 1. Aperture Tethered Shooting 

4. Tether Settings appears. (fig.2)
fig 2 Tether Settings
  • Type Name Text (file name). For example, “test.” As you shoot, your image file will be named test 01, test 02, test 03 …
  • Click Start Session. 
5. Tether window appears. (fig. 3) This is a remote control just to shoot. Click Capture.

fig. 3 Remote to capture images 

6. The image you just captured will be in Aperture on your computer. (fig.4) To check histogram, click Adjustments tab (fig.d, red arrow) 

fig.4 Preview after capturing image


Joel Dames Photography
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Sound Shooters: Tethered Shooting 1

Friday, October 30, 2015

By Hitomi Dames

Since Joel wrote about Tethered Shooting in our last Sound Shooters, I will write about applications for tethered shooting. We have two applications; today I will write about Canon EOS Utility and the other for the next article.

♦Tethered Shooting with EOS Utility

If you are using Canon EOS, EOS Utility comes with camera. So just install EOS Utility in your computer and why not use it? Images will be in your PC as you shoot, so it is very convenient.

So set your camera on tripod and connect camera and computer with a USB cable which also comes with camera.

1 ) Turn on camera and open EOS Utility. Remote Control (fig.1) will appear on your desktop.

fig. 1) EOS Utility Remote Control

Note: if you have an older version, you won’t see this first, but just choose Remote shooting. But updating this is free, so it’s good to update.

As you can see where I outlined the red rectangular box, this is how camera is set now.

  • Top row: M for Manual, Shutter Speed (0”6), F-stop (5.6)
  • Middle row: White Balance (AWB), ISO (125)
  • Bottom row: Metering Mode (You have to choose this in the beginning of session. If you forget, quit application and reopen.) Format (RAW or Jpeg or both), Recording Images – PC or both PC and CF card
Click Live View Shoot. ( fig.1, red arrow )

2) Remote Live View window appears. (fig.2) If the Remote Control disappears, click the button at the bottom left corner of the Live View Window. (fig.2 red arrow) The Remote Control should reappear.

 fig. 2) Live View and Remote Control

3) Focus on the subject and click the shutter button on remote control. (fig.1)

Quick Preview window appears. (fig.3)

fig.3) Live View, Remote control and Quick Preview

Note: If you have another screen such as TV, you can connect your PC with TV, and then move Quick Preview to TV to show it as full screen. This is what we do for our Photo Booth.

4) Right after you shoot, another Canon application Digital Photo Professional opens automatically. You can check histogram (see previous article)

5) All the images or files will be saved in the image folder on the desktop if you don’t specify where to save in the beginning. (fig.1.under shutter button)

Joel Dames Photography
We serve Greater Seattle
Photo Booth – Not Just a Tiny (Open with huge background),
Portraits, Events, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Weddings, Real Estate, Commercial, and Albums



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Sound Shooters: Tethered Shooting

Monday, October 19, 2015



Text and photos by Joel Dames

When you connect your camera to your laptop, this is called shooting tethered. Shooting tethered allows you to instantly get the images you take into your laptop. The reason why you might do this is so that others can view the images instantly after they are taken. You can view the images even larger if you connect your laptop to a large TV screen.


Set up a background and and you’ve got a photobooth. This is our second year at City of Shoreline’s annual Monster Mash Dash 5K. When runners come in and register, they get a free portrait taken. Since they view the image instantly, they might opt for a retake, which is fast as another camera click.

 

Soon after the race —walk, jog, or run — judges decide the winners in several different categories and awards follow within a short time. Included in this article are a few of the images from this year’s event. 



You can view all of the images from this year and last year at our Facebook page.

If you missed this year’s Monster Mash Dash, put it on your calendar for next year. It is such a fun family and community event.

Joel Dames Photography
We serve Greater Seattle
Photo Booth – Not Just a Tiny (Open with huge background),
Portraits, Events, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Weddings, Real Estate, Commercial, and Albums



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Sound Shooters: Kaleidoscope

Monday, October 12, 2015


By Hitomi Dames

Do you remember this image from my last article “EMP museum and Affinity" in which I used Mirror Filter in the application Affinity Photo?

I made this video. It may help to understand how the Mirror Filter works.

a data-flickr-embed="true"  href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hitomi1234/20265090703/in/album-72157631677122096/" title="kaledoscope">https://farm1.staticflickr.com/658/20265090703_6502e0eea6.jpg
" width="500" height="281" alt="kaledoscope">

 If the video does not display in your browser, you can see it here

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Sound Shooters: EMP museum and Affinity Photo

Monday, October 5, 2015

Hitomi Dames
EMP museum and Affinity Photo
By Hitomi Dames

Finally we went to the EMP museum at Seattle Center when my husband’s friend and his family came to Seattle this summer!

At the EMP museum you are allowed to take photos without flash, which is very nice. The entrance of "THE LURE OF HORROR FILM" was cool, so I wanted to get a few shots. But I had set the ISO to the factory default and sadly I didn't remember how to adjust the ISO to high, in order to shoot with a faster speed. So I was forced to use a slow speed handholding the camera.

The shutter speed was 0.5 second for these screaming faces on the wall along the stairs entering to "The Lure of  Horror Film."  (image below) 

  ƒ/5.0, FL-17 mm,  Shutter Speed-0.5sec, ISO-1600

During post processing, I used Depth of Field Blur Filter with Affinity Photo. Affinity Photo is a brand new Mac program that can do just about all that Photoshop can do.

For this gigantic tower of string instruments, you may want to lay on the floor to shoot like Sam, our friend's son was doing (below).

 ƒ/4.5, FL-20 mm, Shutter Speed 1/15, ISO-1600

Left below is the image as I lay shooting.


I created a kaleidoscope image and a fish eye image from the images above A & B.

◊ kaleidoscope - created with image A

 Created this kaleidoscope from image A

1. Open a file in Affinity Photo
2. Rotate the image 90 º anti-clockwise from Document
3. Duplicate the original image
4. Choose Filters > Distort > Mirror (See the drop-down menu below)
5. Pop-up Mirror control: You can choose numbers of mirror; manipulate Input and Output


◊ Lens Distortion (FISH EYE) - created with image B



1. Open a file in Affinity Photo
2.  Click the Lens tab
3. Slide the Distortion until you are satisfied. I stopped @ 72%.


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Sound Shooters: 4 Ways to Create Bokeh (blur) Background

Saturday, August 22, 2015


By Hitomi Dames

One of our photographer friends loves deep focus. Everything in each one of his images must be in perfect focus.

But wouldn't you sometimes want to focus just on the subject and blur the background? You might even want to blur parts of the subject in a composition? It is difficult to have everything in focus and express it as art, isn't it?

So, what do you to blur the background or create bokeh? Bokeh comes from boke in Japanese, meaning blur.


1. Aperture

An f-stop of 2.8 or lower is great for bokeh. But just in case your lens doesn’t have 2.8 or lower f-stop, I selected f/4.5 for these tests below (fig.1,2,3).

FL 48mm, f/4.5  Starting position for images
2. Focal Length

Remember, I wrote in “Telephoto Zoom Lens”: The longer the focal length, the larger the subject becomes, but the image covers less area. (narrow angle)

So here is the image of zoomed in 70 mm taken from the same place as fig 1. The books in back are more blurred than in fig. 1. ( f-stop is the same @ 4.5).

FL 70mm, f/4.5  Here I changed the focal length to 70mm.

If your lens doesn't zoom to 70 mm or more,  

3. Bring the subject toward you as I did in fig. 3 (or you get closer to the subject).


FL 48mm, f/4.5, I brought the subject (king) closer to me.
Actually, I moved the entire board towards me.

I set all of these shots with Manual Mode (M), but I could have set Aperture Priority (A or Av) since all three shots above are the same f-stop. A or Av keeps the f-stop constant.
Graphic from Wikimedia Commons
Althepal Derivative work: Mehdi (ModeDial.svg)

4. For this last image below (fig. 4), I got closer to the subject and used f/2.8 
to create the most bokeh, making the chess pieces and books in the background the most blurred.


FL 58mm, f/2.8  I got closer to the subject (king). I also opened the aperture to f/2.8.

Bokeh makes all the difference in portraiture. Here is sample of a portrait with bokeh.

FL 100 mm, f/2.8


We serve Greater Seattle
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For other articles in this series, select Sound Shooters under Features on the webpage.



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Sound Shooters: The most powerful pictures of atomic bomb victims in Nagasaki

Friday, August 14, 2015

By Hitomi Dames

At 11:05 A.M. on August 9, 1945, an atomic (plutonium based) bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

On August 9, 2007, American photojournalist Joe O’Donnell passed away at the age of 85. He was in Nagasaki a month after bombing.

“The cause [of his death] was complications of a stroke, said his wife, Kimiko Sakai. She said that he had had more than 50 operations, among them surgery on his colon and his heart, and that he had attributed his poor health to radiation exposure resulting from his visits to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. ” (New York Times)

It’s been seventy years since the World War II ended on August 15, 1945.

"Brothers at Cremation Site"


You can see this image "Brothers at Cremation Site” at Tyge O'Donnell's (Joe's son) flickr site.

This reminds of the anime "Grave of the Fireflies” one of best movies that I've ever seen, that I never wish to see again.

"I saw a boy about ten years old walking by. He was carrying a baby on his back. In those days in Japan, we often saw children playing with their little brothers or sisters on their backs, but this boy was clearly different. I could see that he had come to this place for a serious reason. He was wearing no shoes. His face was hard. The little head was tipped back as if the baby were fast asleep. The boy stood there for five or ten minutes.” 
"The men in white masks walked over to him and quietly began to take off the rope that was holding the baby. That is when I saw that the baby was already dead. The men held the body by the hands and feet and placed it on the fire. The boy stood there straight without moving, watching the flames. He was biting his lower lip so hard that it shone with blood. The flame burned low like the sun going down. The boy turned around and walked silently away.” Joe O’Donnell.

23-year-old O'Donnell was sent to Nagasaki and Hiroshima for seven months as a US Marine photographer, one month after the atomic bombs dropped in Japan. His duty was to document the destruction caused by the atomic bombs. However, he was not supposed to take pictures like these. So he had to use his own camera, too, in secret. He kept them in secret for 43 years, even from his family.

"A Girl in a Kimono"

The deaf girl in kimono


This girl in a kimono became deaf from the sound caused by atomic bomb, the mother of the girl said to O'Donnell after he shot this image. (I wonder if this was on November 15, 7-5-3 festival, as it would explain her formal kimono.)

"Burned Back of Young Boy"


Framed image of “Burned Back of Young Boy [Taniguchi]” is right on wall. 

This screenshot above is at the O’Donnell photography exhibition in Nagasakin in 2008. The man showing his back to Tyge O’Donnell (who continues his father's mission) is Sumiteru Taniguchi. 

While Joe O'Donnell was photographing wounded people at a hospital -- one of whom was Mr.Taniguchi -- he saw a person who had no hair, no eyebrows and ears, and was just a lump of flesh. "You are enemy, aren't you," said the person, "please kill me." O'Donnell only escaped from this person to face another patient. But when he was leaving the room he saw the first shapeless person again, and who once more begged "Please kill me." He saw tears in the eyes of the shapeless face.

Mr. Taniguchi was in the documentary film "Dark Circle” In the film he said (which I can never forget) and this is my own Japanese-to-English translation):

I hated my parents.
I hated all grownups.
Not only was a war hateful,
but every parent 
who didn't oppose the war was hateful.

Later on in life, O’Donnell had backbone pain and he had skin cancer that spread throughout his entire body. He knew it was caused by radiation exposure, as he was present in Ground Zero just a month after the atomic bomb. The military didn't give any information about radiation when he was sent to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Joe O'Donnell himself was one of the atomic bombs’ victims.



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Sound Shooters: Telephoto Zoom Lens

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Hitomi Dames
By Hitomi Dames

I like a zoom lens because it is very convenient, so I enjoy it more than a fixed lens. There are Ultra-Wide, Standard and Telephoto Zoom Lenses. I use our telephoto zoom lens most when I go out shooting for fun.

Our telephoto Zoom lens, 75-300 mm, is old — you can only buy a used one today — and cheap. But it works pretty well.

A Subject is Far

When a subject is far away, you will naturally use a telephoto lens and want to zoom in, especially with birds.

These Mt. Rainier images are shot from a ferryboat.

A) ƒ/13, 170 mm, 1/320, ISO-250

The focal length of image A (above) is 170 mm; B (below) is zoomed in 300 mm. The longer the focal length, a subject becomes larger but it covers less area (narrow angle area).

B) ƒ/13, 300 mm, 1/250, ISO-250

A focal length is a distance between a lens and image censor (film). The illustration below shows the angle view of focal length.

Focal lengths and Angle of Views

The angles shaded in purple get smaller and smaller, as the focal length in mm gets larger and larger. This Nikon site may help more to understand.

Two subjects – near and far

Experimenting using different focal lengths, when shooting two subjects near and far is very interesting.

This silhouette image C is zoomed in (300 mm). It’s nice because of the sky color and a seagull happened to be flying by.

C) ƒ/7.1, 300 mm, 1/125, ISO-125

D) ƒ/7.1, 75 mm, 1/125, ISO-200

But, image D is more interesting to me —  to see the differences of size and distance of two subjects, and the gradation sky color.

My initial purpose for using a telephoto zoom lens was taking birds, but it is one of my main lenses now.

My hardest experience for using telephoto zoom lens was bar /bat mitzvah ceremonies, where we had to be stationed far back from bima (stage) or had to shoot from an upper balcony. And we were not allowed to use flash. The lighting was usually bad, either dark or too bright and made images contrasty.

Keep these in your mind:
  • The longer the focal length, the more shaking; so images tends to be less sharp. Faster shutter speed helps. Turn image STABILIZER on when you are not using a tripod.
  • The longer the focal length, the shallower depth of field. Even though two subjects are next to each other,  one may not sharp as the other. So watch your f-stop.

Photo Booth - Not Just a Tiny (Open with huge background), Portraits, Events, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Weddings, Albums

See other articles in this series by clicking Sound Shooters under Features on our main webpage.



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Sound Shooters: Silhouette

Saturday, July 25, 2015

By Hitomi Dames

I wrote about negative space as background in White Space/ Negative Space

But you can photograph subject(s) as negative space — just shoot your subject as a silhouette.

♦Silhouette

    Expose for background: The background has to be brighter than the subject.
    You may have to manually focus the lens since the subject is dark.

Canadian geese

Jumping on Richmond Beach


♦Multiple subjects and Partial Silhouettes

December Morning

George Washington and Olympic Mountain Range


The best time for shooting silhouettes is around sunset or sunrise.

Photo Booth - Not Just a Tiny (Open with huge background), Portraits, Events, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Weddings, Albums



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