Rules of the Gallery

Rules of the Gallery, a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

Taken just outside the Wisconsin Assembly Gallery, September 2011.

Sign reads: Rules of the Assembly Gallery, In accordance with Assembly Rule 26 the following are Not Allowed in the Gallery: eating, drinking, smoking, loud talking, mobile phones, laptops, video cameras, photography, newspapers, wearing of hats, signs, posters, placards, leaning over the railings, sitting in aisles or on the floors, standing in aisles, outbursts (cheering, jeering stomping). Contact the Assembly Sergeant at Arms concerning Gallery policies.

I'm a sucker for photos of signs. So when we visited the Wisconsin State Capitol in September, I spent some time trying to get a photo of the sign above with the background in the mix. I thought the sign was funny as it forbid the "Wearing of Hats" - not so much the rule itself but how it was worded. With the light streaming in from the stained glass ceiling in the Assembly itself, it was pretty difficult to set up and capture the shot the way I was envisioning. But I managed to get my settings right and stand still enough to capture the above shot.

There was a big hubbaloo on Twitter last night about something going on in the Assembly. I'm a little ashamed to admit that despite being a reporter, living less than a mile from the Capitol, and being currently betrothed to someone very interested in state politics, I am usually pretty ignorant as to what goes on up there. I catch snippets from Twitter and one in particular from dane101 last night stuck in my head: "Staskunas talking about signs with Assembly rules, Speaker says, "Actually a number of them have been stolen."

No matter how you feel about the current situation in the State of Wisconsin, stealing is just not nice. Even if you disagree with them, taking the sign isn't going to make the rules go away. But I'm sure it's a case of the actions of only a few reflecting on the many.

Ladders

Ladders, a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

I set out on Monday to get a photo of this construction site on Main Street in Reedsburg. Jeff suggested standing against the dry cleaners with my back to the sun, as it was mid-morning by that time. Good tip.

I am five feet tall exactly, and I've been considering more and more lately getting a small step stool and keeping it in my car, just in case. It would only need to give me another foot or so in height, but there's been at least three times in the last few months where I could have used one. On one of those occasions I actually pulled my car into the spot I wanted and stood on the hood to get the shot. I would have done the same in this situation had I not been on Main Street in a skirt and heels in the middle of a weekday. One more foot or so and I would have been able to shoot over this fence instead of through it.

I've shot through a fence before and it hasn't been a big deal. But in this situation, the straight fence shot gave me too much shadow from the building next to me, and the diagonally-placed fence piece gave me the shot I wanted - except I kept catching the fence through it. I climbed a small cement stoop and was able to shoot over the fence... but through a spindly little tree. I was so frustrated; it was a simple assignment, to take a photo of a construction site, and I was having more trouble than necessary in making it work.

I took the above photo as a joke. My assignment was to, "Get a picture of all the equipment in that big hole" (Jeff). As I looked over the construction site, considering my shot, I noticed the ladders perched against the cement walls of the underground parking garage. It reminded me of movies set in the Middle Ages when people stormed castles and got shot at by burning arrows. I imagined someone storming the construction site, giggled and took my shot.

I took a few other photos once I figured out what I was doing. This turned out to be the one Jeff liked the most but not for the same reasons - he pointed out that there was a nice color contrast between the two red pieces of equipment in the photo, and he pointed out that it wasn't something people can see just driving past. I agreed, and we printed it in this week's Indy as an inside color photo.

My new telephoto lens is scheduled to be delivered today, and I am ridiculously excited. I have a new case sitting on my dining room table just waiting for it. I bought it because there were three or four times in the last couple months or so that I needed one, and looking forward to this summer, I don't want to take Butterfest and Demo Derby photos without one. I also look forward to using it for my personal project. I always swore I would never buy new equipment (editing software included) until I felt like it was holding me back, and the telephoto started to be that way. Maybe a stepladder will be my next purchase.  :)

Engagement Ring Photo Shoot

I got engaged on December 12.  :) Since then, there's been only two questions on everyone's mind: the date and the ring. Everyone wants to see the ring in all of its sparkly goodness, but it's been hard for family who lives far away. On the night John popped the question, I took a photo in all of the excitement but received complaints that the photo was "too orange." You can thank the brick and human-skin friendly lighting in our apartment for that one. Anyway, I set about figuring out a way to take a decent photo.

Jewelry is notoriously difficult to photograph without the right lighting and equipment. One of my first assignments as a reporter was to cover the reopening of a jewelry store in town, and I had a lot of trouble trying to capture the jeweler's designs. So I knew going in that trying to take a decent photo was going to be a difficult task.

I did some reading on the good ol' Internet and tried to copy this design using the materials I had on hand,  which included my Canon (regular ol' lens), a clip-on desk lamp, a clip-on work light, a ring box, a wine glass,  a cheap tripod and some tracing paper. I only had enough lights to do a light on one side of the ring, which I taped tracing paper to in an effort to diffuse the light. The other clip light I positioned below and aimed directly into the diamond to try and catch that sparkle.

The next hour and a half was trial and error over and over again, adjusting the light, adjusting the camera, adjusting the settings on the camera, moving the ring, moving the light, moving things just a fraction of an inch, having a cat sit on my whole set up. It was frustrating, but out of the 150 photos I took, I wound up with four good ones. Doesn't it always go that way?

The very last photo I took, which I posted above, was taken at last second with my iPhone 4 and then converted to black and white. I also edited out some minuscule hairs and dust on the ring box. I thought that turned out to be the best of the lot, and I am equal parts pissed and pleased about that.

Overall I think I did a pretty bang up job.  :)  It's a goal of mine to learn more about lighting in the next year or so, and how to illuminate things, and how to control where light hits things. I can already see it's going to take a lot of patience.

More photos of the ring after the jump.

Detriot at Night

Sort of. Taken from a plane on October 31, 2010.

I was trying to get a good night, aerial shot of Detriot, obviously, but I think the camera initially was set to an automatic setting, causing the very slow shutter speed. Regardless, I like the result. Night shots from a plane are never interesting anyway, and they all look pretty much the same to me. But I'm always compelled to take one even though I know I can hardly replicate what I'm seeing out the window.

Fourth

Published in the Reedsburg Independent, July 8, 2010. Taken at Pineview Elementary School,

Fireworks are notoriously difficult to photograph. The challenge is in the timing. Fire too soon and it's just the tail. Fire too late and it's just smoke. You've got to get the camera settings right too, otherwise the lighting is all screwy.

Jeff's instructions for taking Fourth of July photos always include the phrase, "If you mess it up, we can always use a photo from last year," which is mildly comforting.

This year's fireworks  seemed good to go, despite the sky having been overcast most of the day. Then, right before dusk, a downpour started. Apparently the organizers decided that because they'd already spent the entire day setting up, they were just going to shoot em off anyway and all at once, so that's what they did in probably the shortest fireworks show in recent memory. I ran down to the park to get this shot of the few brave souls who were left. We put it on the front page.