Noel's Photo Blog

The Art of Making A Peanut Butter Sandwich

Noel Livernois — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 08:30:10 +0000

I’ve had this series of photos for a while, and when I first took them with my granddaughter I thought they would make a great “how to” series. It just seems appropriate to use photographs to inspire someone to attempt a task that might be challenging to them. I am not saying you are challenged by the thought of Peanut Butter and Bread, but then you came here to see, so maybe? So here is the most direct and simple method for making a Peanut Butter Sandwich from a child’s point of view anyways:

Collect all the necessary items (Peanut Butter, Bread, Butter Knife)

Carefully select two slices of Bread

Put the bread in the toaster

: Turn on the toaster (it must be plugged in, that’s important)

: Wait for the toast to be done

Open the jar a Peanut Butter

This may take a little extra effort

Plunge the knife into the Peanut Butter jar, the deeper, the better

After removing the bread from the toaster, spread the peanut butter

Spread some more

Spread a little more

OK... just a little more and then...

Simply cover with the other slice of bread and enjoy!

And there you have it!

But seriously, instructional photography is not much more than you see here. The key is to determine the steps required, then find an appropriate model and follow the process with your camera. For complex processes and assemblies this may require several different camera angles. Not all processes are as easy as making a sandwich with peanut butter. Good Luck!

Super Scorpion Hunt

Noel Livernois — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:46:45 +0000

Last night was rather interesting. My wife found a small note in the newsaper suggesting an activity for the weekend. One of the many nature parks in the Phoenix area does a Scorpion Hunt several times a year. I know, sounds a little “different”, but it also sounded like fun. I figured a nice short hike in the dark moonless night, in the middle of the desert, with small ultraviolet flashlights, what could go wrong? We rounded up a couple of the neighbors, and set off on this unique adventure. I brought my camera along hoping for a few photos. I thought about bringing the tripod, but did not know what to expect in terms of terrain and left it at home. That proved to be an obvious error.

We met at the trail head with about 80 other hikers and got a brief run down on what to expect. The Park Ranger was quite entertaining and made sure we knew to stay on the trail and not shine the ultraviolet lights in each others eyes. I hate to admit it, but we were some of the oldest in the crowd, most were younger families with young children. But you know what, I did not care, this sounded like fun. Basically are job was to use the lights to find the scorpions for everyone to see. If you did not have your own ultraviolet lights, the ranger had some to pass out. So it was a pretty basic task. Walk along the desert trail and pass your light along the edge of the trail in search of scorpions.

For those of you who do not know, the scorpion’s exoskeleton has a substance in it that glows green when exposed to ultravilot light. This makes them really easy to spot! I have known this for quite some time, but had never tried it before. It was not long before we came across our first sighting. A very small, less than 3/8 inch long scorpion. I did not even attempt a photo of that little guy. I was already pining for my tripod.

A few more yards down the road was a larger scorpion about 1.5 inches long, this one I snapped a shot of. I snapped a photo with the flash and have included that. This was most likely a Bark scorpion. We saw several more like it that night. You’ll notice that they blend in well with their surroundings.

The most interesting find though was a couple of Desert Hairy Scorpions which seemed to be in a death match. Not quite sure if that was what they were doing, for all I know they may have been mating as well, but I did get a couple of photos of them. The black light we had was not enough to get a good shutter speed, even at my max ISO setting, but I have included the photo to give you an idea of the green glow they give off.

All and all, we adults had as much fun as the kids and next time I will take my tripod, so the blacklight photos can be crisp and clear!

Children Portraits

Noel Livernois — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:29:43 +0000

After today, I have a new found respect for Child Portrait Photographers. That’s not to say Portrait Photographers who are children, but rather Portrait Photographers who take photos of children. This afternoon I decided to take my two granddaughters to a local park and find a few spots for some nice photos of them together. Both of these adorable children are well behaved and listen well to instructions. So I expected to have some exceptional portraits to dazzle their parents with later that evening. But alas that was not to be. I rarely had both of them looking at the camera together. The smiles from the oldest one were very forced and the the youngest always looked down or up for any of the posed shots.

At some point I abandoned the portrait approach and went for spontaneity. By letting them do their thing, I was able to do mine because they were relaxed and in their ”element”. The children ran around the fountain and sometimes through it. This was one of those fountains that squirt water streams into the air in varying patterns so the kids never know where the next one will pop up. On a hot Arizona August day, the water was just the ticket to provide a little distraction away from the camera and photographer. We had fun and I got some great shots. Compare them to the “posed” portraits from above.

Hand Modeling?

Noel Livernois — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:53:55 +0000

Left Hand pinky finger inner edge

You just never know where your next photo shoot lead may come from. Technically, this was not a photo shoot in the truest sense, but close enough. After my wife made the request to have me photograph her hand, I was reminded of the Seinfeld episode where George becomes a hand model. As usual, things don’t work out so well for George, but then my wife only intends to be a model for this one shoot and maybe a follow-up down the road, so I don’t think she has the same concerns.

Left Hand pinky and ring finger outer edge edge

I don’t know if there are many photographers out there that use their wives as models, but I would not recommend it. My wife and I get along very well, she has tolerated my many quirks for many years, but this was different. For instance…. “I did know her hand was not made of modeling clay, right?”, Of course I knew that. I may have been trying to position it in an unnatural position though to capture the right angle. After all, we did want the doctor to see as much detail as possible right?
And then another example.. “Do you really want to use a red background when the ink on my hand is red?” Yes, I had chosen red originally, but I was ready to swap it out with a white background if necessary. We decided on white.

Left Hand pinky and ring finger from top

Well I say all’s well that ends well, and we got the shots we needed and we are still happily married. So now I can add Hand modeling photography to my resume! Ok, maybe not, but here are the results. (For those of you who may be curious, the red lined areas identify where her hand is numb.)

Left Hand palm, pinky finger and ring finger

I would say this could open up a whole new path for me in medical photography, but then there would be the real gory details of reconstructive surgery or any surgery for that matter. I am not a huge fan of blood. This is probably as far as I delve into medical photography

Meteor Hunting

Noel Livernois — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 06:48:28 +0000

The Perseid Meteor shower occurs when Earth passes through a trail of dust and larger debri left by the Swift-Tuttle comet. This year the event peaked on Wednesday morning of this past week. This was an obvious challenge for me to attempt a photograph of one. I had never seriously tried to capture the night sky, let alone a streaking meteor.

The best viewing was supposed to be Tuesday and Wednesday. The camera was prepped, the tripod was positioned and the camera was mounted. The evening air was somewhat warm, but much more comfortable than the heat of the day… it had to have cooled down to almost 100 degrees!

After several practice shots, this is one of Cassiopeia in the Northern sky. ISO was 400, F-stop set to 4.2 and the shutter was open for 20.5 seconds.

Cassiopeia in the North-East night sky

Cassiopeia, if you are not familiar with the constellation is the combination of brighter stars in a sideways “W” just to the right above the tree in this photo. The bottom of the “W” is pointing to the right. The light pollution around my home makes night sky photography more challenging, so it took some time to achieve an acceptable exposure. I also found that the exposure required varied depending on how close to the horizon the subject of the photo was.

Having missed the peak of the event, there was some time between each meteor sighting and I also quickly re-discovered, as I have from other photo opportunities, that nature can be tricky to catch on film. Any natural event requires a lot of photos taken randomly at intervals and a lot of luck to get that one awesome shot. Luck and weather (clouds moved in after about an hour) were not on my side that night, so I missed capturing the meteors we did see. I tried again the next night and following morning when the sky was clearer, but did not even see one meteor. I did get to photograph the planet Venus and the constellation Orion in the Eastern sky at about 5:00 AM though. Below are the photos.

Venus in the Eastern sky

Constellation Orion in Eastern morning sky

Both photos were taken at ISO 400, with Venus at F-stop 4.5 / 9.4 seconds exposure and Orion at F-stop 3.5 / 12.0 seconds exposure.

I realize not everyone is as interested as I am in night sky photography, but this was an opportunity for me to combine two of my interests in one adventure. I am looking forward to next year’s Perseid Meteor shower with anticipation. I hope to plan an outing into the desert where I will have minimal light pollution and will keep my fingers crossed for clear skies.

Hello and welcome.

Noel Livernois — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:55:00 +0000

I have read so much about photo blogs, I figured it was time to try one on for size. I have no idea where this journey will lead us, but I am hoping it will be fun and rewarding for all of us involved! Of course, I have to try and add photos in addition to these wonderful words, so this first blog entry is more of an experiment than anything else. If a picture shows up just below these words that will mean I have succeeded.
This looks like I have succeeded! I guess I am on my way. This closeup photo of fire truck controls was actually taken a few months back in Seattle at the end of our Alaskan Cruise. We happened upon a classic vehicle show in one of the parks. Many old fire trucks and police cars were on display. There were several variations of police vehicles as you might expect. Some were from neighboring cities and others were from much further away.

This was quite a delightful find on our walk around Seattle. The city and surrounding area looks to offer a lot of opportunity for photographer and vacationer alike. It is on my list for a revisit!