Daniel Peters Photography

Sometimes it pays to be early!

2009-09-17T21:49:00.000-07:00

Got a very early start to work Wednesday this week and was able to arrive at the office well before the sun was too high in the sky. I walked down the pond near the office where several groups(gaggles?)of geese where chatting noisily and no sooner did I flip on my camera and uncover the lense, they were lifting off. Fortunately my settings were left from a previous morning's shoot, because I barely had time to point and shoot to capture this group as it passed overhead.

Photography helps you "experience" a location you always drove by

2009-09-05T20:01:00.000-07:00

Today I visited the site of a long abandoned limestone house just outside a rual area called..of course...Limestone. For years I have driven by this site and contemplated the ruin and its lonesome stature. It crossed my mind that Photography provides this curious ability to pull you into a location and really tactically engage with it. Today this abandoned building became a whole lot more interesting because I spent time with it and grew to know it, not just see it fly by at 55 MPH.

Nature's Soft Focus

2009-09-05T13:43:00.001-07:00

With fall fast approaching, the warm days and cool nights are producing copius amounts of grond fog in the early morning. Knowing the conditions were right, I set my alarm for 4:30 am and headed out to Kankakaee River Valley area and positioned myself for sunrise. I wasn't disappointed with the scenery and I was able to spend a few hours enjoying Nature's way of doing the "soft focus"

Amateur Lesson #1 - Just because your are getting serious don't expect everyone else to...

2009-08-31T19:53:00.001-07:00

Ok, so you decide, you really want to start "mastering" all things photography, so you figure you'll set up and try and do some portrait stuff. You cobble together a piece of canvas, a few spot lights, place your one lowly flash unit hoping to even come remotely close to what your teacher pulls off. You place a stool strategically and you call your "senior" down since its prime time to do pictures of him.

So what do you end up with? Well, not anything to write home about on the photographic front, but you can end up with some fun and frivoulous behavior if you just let things go and not worry. And if you snap away without worry, you may end up catching a rare and elusive smile not always seen on your teen's face.

So sometimes the photo thing isn't all about getting the intended result, but simply getting a good laugh and a captured memory...

Doing time in Joliet Jail

2009-08-29T17:05:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Gene and everyone involved in getting an opportunity to enter the defunct Joliet Prison . The site was tremendous and the opportunities to shoot were boundless. It was unfortunate the time there was so finite, because I am sure it would have been interesting to shoot as the day hours wore on.

How Many Licks to Get to the Center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?

2009-08-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

I spent the afternoon playing with a new FL-36R flash unit while I took this photo and as I took the same shot over and over again, I thought of the Tootsie Pop commercial from the 70's. "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?".

Well, obviously if you are a newbie like me on photo equipment, the "chewy center" of this picture was not acheived until somewhere around shot number 48. When you are using yourself as the subject, thats a lot of jumping back and forth, playing around with F stops, Shutter speeds. While you are dealing with remote flash misbehaviors, hot spots, dull spots, too much movement, and bad exposures, sometimes one wonders...am I ever going to get to the center of this "sucker?"

First Blog - What to Say?

2009-08-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

Well, I have commited to blogging about my photographic experiences and sharing with the rest of the students. First thing one wonders is "What am I going to contribute??...I am still trying to learn how to control my $&#?! camera!!!"

I figured I would start by sharing a recent photo I took late one Sunday afternoon. Why do I like this? Vanishing Point Perspective! Vanishing Point Perspective was one of the first techniques I ever learned as a youngster in art classes and something Leonardo DaVinci was a master at.