This was one of those moments when weather did not matter. I just wanted to get out with the camera and capture something new, something different. It was cloudy, no not cloudy, it was overcast. One solid layer of clouds covering the sky in all directions. Pretty much a guarantee of no special light that evening. Forget sunset! It was also drizzling. I put my waterproof marine coat on and headed out. I kind of had this location in mind for other opportunities, but a lake and a pier just sounded good for a rainy evening.

What you see in the first photo is my establishing shot. I like to do those to make sure I don't miss opportunities while I mess with the settings of the camera or with filters, or with whatever.

It's shot at ISO 100, f/16, and 1/5 sec. Thanks to the overcast sky and diffused light, the sky actually fit in the dynamic range of the sensor and the photo's exposure was fairly balanced, with still enough contrast though. You can see the small water ripples on the water since the exposure was not all that long. Now with the establishing photo on the card, it was playtime. I started wondering what different tools could do with the prevailing grey tone.

With colors lacking and water present the first thing that came to mind was the Cokin Blue/Yellow Varicolor filter. As you can see in the second photo, the effect was not what one would call subtle. The water just turned this great blue and the grayness acquired a purple cast, which I thought went nicely with the blue. One filter and what a change!

Exposure was ISO 100, f/16, 1.3 seconds. The filter not only transformed the colors but also cut the light by over 2 stops. The water texture is much less obvious now.

At this point, with the gadget bag handy, I wondered what else I could do here. The biggest transformation was done I knew, since I do not have any other filters that would alter the scene so significantly. 

While the sky was actually rather well balanced with the rest of the photo and did not need any holding back, I decided to try a graduated neutral density filter anyway to see if I could add more drama, more mystery.

So this third photo added a second filter, the Cokin Strong 3-stop Graduated ND filter. As you can see, all as expected here. The sky a bit darker while the rest of the photo remains mostly unchanged.

On the exposure side, still at ISO 100 and f/16 but with a little bit of light taken away from the sky area, I was now at 1.6 seconds, barely noticeable difference even blown up full size.

Now as far as the second and third versions go, I am sure that is a matter of preference. I still like the third one a little more, but there's also something about that pier heading into a bright distance.

Two filters already in place, what could be next? I decided to extend the exposure quite a bit more to see how much I could obliterate the water texture. Since I had the Cokin P Filter Holder directly on my Nikon 18-200 mm lens using the 72 mm adapter ring, the whole rig had to come off to give way to the light blocking 6-stop neutral density filter.

A Pier on Lake Erie, Buffalo, NY This fourth version now had the B+W 77 mm 6-stop neutral density (64x) filter on using the 72 to 77 mm step up ring, the Cokin 77mm P filter Holder using the 77 mm adapter ring, and the Cokin Blue/Yellow Varicolor filter in the slot.

To prevent significant vignetting the 77mm holder only allows for two flat glass filters or one thick one like the Blue / Yellow. So the Cokin Strong 3-stop Graduated ND filter had to be handheld in front of the filter pack. I knew from the previous shot just about how much of the filter had to stick above the filter and moved it slightly up and down during exposure to make the transition even smoother.

I was still at ISO 100, f/16, but my shutter speed was now at 3 minutes! My camera only goes to 30 seconds and then to bulb, so bulb time it was along with a stop watch built into my phone to measure approximately 3 minutes. To hold the shutter open, I've been using a cheap alternative to the name brands remote cables. It's an ADIDT M1 remote cable, which I think is no longer available. However, it works like a champ.

If you were wondering what I could possibly add next, I am here to disappoint you. My final trick was to remove what I started with. I pulled the Cokin Blue/Yellow Varicolor filter out to return to the original color scheme while preserving the other filtration.

My shutter speed was back down to 20 seconds for this photo, still ISO 100, f/16.

And that completes my fun on the lake. Don't let bad weather hold you back and have fun!

Full Moon Fighting the Smog Layer over Buffalo, NY April 5, 2012: A day before the full moon. Googling the Internet, Time and Date comes up with 18:50 for the moonrise and 19:47 for the sunset. The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE) confirms that +/- one minute  and also shows the perfect place to be for the event to get the rising moon just behind downtown Buffalo.

On that note, I'd like to note that TPE is a truly great simple powerful tool that makes planning for sun and moon rises and sets much easier than anything else I had used before.

The choice was to head out this night, or to wait a day for the actual full moon and a different timing, especially of the moonrise, which would be at 20:06, more than an hour later and after the 19:48 sunset.

I decided to head out this night reasoning that the daylight would make it easier to balance the bright moon with the landscape underneath. I arrived on location about half an hour early and enjoyed the views of the Buffalo skyline bathing in the warm light of the setting sun. I've captured several individual photographs, and also some sequences to be stitched into a wide sweeping panorama of the city's waterfront. Then the watch showed the moonrise time and I kept my eyes glued on the east, not 100% sure what building to look at. As time went on I felt I should have seen the moon by now, ... and then I did! This very faint but huge ball rose right over the beautiful Buffalo City Hall. What a sight!

Full Moon over Buffalo and a Layer of ? The primary lens of choice for this night was the Nikon 80-400mm zoom lens so that I could capture the moon as large as possible with only a building or two, but also with a moderate skyline when zoomed back out to 80mm.

That is how the first two photos were created, one close up of the Buffalo CIty Hall and one wider, capturing a large portion of the Buffalo skyline. Another thing that became obvious was that the moon was gradually getting brighter as it rose higher. With the zoom in action, the reason may not have been so obvious but looking at the wider angle, it is quite clear why. In my Flickr post, I called the layer a layer of smog but got slight pushback. Whether smog or not, it surely is air pollution that kept the moon barely visible at first, then nicely balanced. And as the moon rose higher and the daylight became dimmer, the balance vanished later.

So, did my plan work? I completely loved this night and had a blast shooting the moonrise and sunset. However, my plan for the remaining daylight balancing the bright moon worked too well. I did not factor the pollution in. As a result, the size of the moon truly was awe inspiring, however, its faintness took much away. Too much to my taste because I really wanted a jaw dropper.

Solution? Back to my initial dilemma of which night to chose, another option emerged. How about both nights? And that is just what I did and came back to the same location two nights in a row.

Full Moon in Buffalo

April 6, 2012: I checked the weather, evening was supposed to be clear despite the rather cloudy Friday. What I did not do was recheck TPE for the different position of the moon at sunrise. I knew the moonrise / moonset times vary by quite a bit day-to-day but I did not remember that the azimuth changes so much too! So there I was watching the City Hall waiting for the moon. And then I saw it!

It really was not even close to the City Hall but rather a few blocks to the right, or south. But the size was as amazing as the night before while the air pollution worked with me, not against me this time. Since I was well into the blue hour at this point about had an hour past sunset, the city lights and the ambient light were nicely balanced and dim. Clean atmosphere would have rendered the moon too bright out of range to capture with any detail. Instead, the smog held it back like a gigantic neutral density filter. While I was relatively close to the skyline and thus not much pollution was between me and the buildings, the moon was a bit further and the filter thickness much stronger. Not that I like smog, or any other air pollution, but this night it worked to my advantage, dimming the moon just right and also warming it up.

What a difference one day can make! The moonrise was more than an hour later, about 7 degrees more to the south, the city lights came on by then, daylight fell into blue hour, all in all just the perfect combination! What a wonderful show the Nature put on!

Plan, revisit locations several times, use tools available and most importantly, have fun!

Lake Erie Rock in Fog Minimalism seeks to expose the essence of a subject by eliminating all non-essential features. It started developing in the Western Art after World World II, especially in the 60s and 70s in the United States. In a minimalist photograph, the focus should be fully on the main subject. Standard methods of focusing the attention can be used, like converging lines, framing, colors, reflections, etc. As always, elements that do not make the main subject stronger and could even distract from it should be omitted. And this last concept is taking an even more important role in minimalism.

Not everybody likes minimalist photography or other art. I find myself going through phases when I enjoy it more or less. Right now I am in the upswing and have played with the concepts quite a bit, partially assisted by luck.

Heading out for a colorful sunrise over rich landscapes and arriving at a location with thick fog makes you reconsider the goals for the day. That is what happened to me the other day and with visibility not much past 30 feet, I found myself looking for simplicity, objects with blank backgrounds, or with just a hint of color when the sun hit the fog just right or when the sky showed through it momentarily.

To play along with the concept even more, in the first photo above, I decided to go for a very long shutter speed and used my neutral density filter to smooth out the waves and ripples on the surface of Lake Erie and thus remove any texture or patterns that would be otherwise present. I like to use a screw on 77 mm B+W 1.8 (64x, 6 stop) glass filter for that. That works directly with my 11-18mm Tokina super wide angle soon, or with a step-up ring on my other 72mm thread lenses. The 6 stop light loss is usually more than plenty during dawn or dusk. In midday sun, especially if trying to use shallow depth of field, there's an even stronger glass filter you can put on - the 77 mm B+W 3.0 (1000x, 10 stops) glass filter. While my camera somehow magically still focuses through this black piece of glass, I would definitely not recommend it. First, you want to make sure you have your composition right, and second, even if relying on auto-focus, it is good to visually confirm the intended object is truly in focus. Then, switch to manual focus to retain it over several shots if you plan to bracket your exposure. To finish things off, I decided to present the submerged rock in black and white, thus eliminating color, which was barely present anyway and the tones could take one's eyes from the rock.

In the second photo I wanted to show nut just a submerged rock, but its relation to the vast, endless area of Lake Erie, thus wider angle lens. By that time, the initially thin fog lightened up a little and blue sky showed up once in a while high above. I chose a composition that included all three layers - water, fog, and sky. That however changed the shooting conditions. The lake was still very shaded by the fog and thus appeared very dark when I kept sky within the dynamic range of the sensor to train its blue color. The ND filter used for the first photo came off and on came my Cokin graduated neutral density filter. While the Cokin filters get mixed reviews and some claim that they're not completely color neutral, they're also very reasonably priced and allow for trying this tool out without a significant financial commitment. This kit includes the P filter holder and three strengths of neutral density filters (1, 2, and 3 stops). They all have a soft transition, which makes it somewhat more challenging in straight horizon photos like here, but work in less straight situations too. For this scene, a hard edge filter might have been better but I do not have one yet.

I feel both of these images meet the minimalist definition by including only the necessary elements needed to communicate the essence of the subject. They're also somewhat abstract since the natural character of the lake surface was modified into a smooth layer of something not necessarily obvious. And since there are so few other visual clues as to what is happening in the photograph, it may not be obvious. But you can be a better judge of that since I know what my lens was aimed at.

Now, can there be too little in a minimalist photo?

Have fun!