Light Field Work

Delicate details

lundpix — Sat, 26 May 2012 00:50:32 +0000

Made another video about the Lytro™ camera use recently. I had the blooming jasmine from my wife’s garden as my subject. We shot in the morning, so the birds did a great job of making a background track. Here are a couple of shots that I liked, followed by the video. The first is using “everyday” mode, showing off the focusing range. The other is from the “creative” mode, making the very close image possible. Have a look.

Ciao. Thanks for stopping by.
Richard

Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth

lundpix — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 06:07:49 +0000

Sometimes I just have to shoot pictures. This morning was one of those times. Near where I park my car there is the apple tree that Grandma Thunstedt gave us years ago. And under the tree is a small patch of dandelions. And they were calling me this morning. The soft overcast gave me enough of a soft box and the jacket in the car let me lay down with my little Lytro® to get dandelion height. I will share some of my favorites. At times I poke focused on a leaf when the screen was not responding to my choice of focus on the “lacy” parts.

Please, if you like it, share it. And thanks for stopping by. Ciao, Richard

Quick pix: the light field of bloomin’ cactus

lundpix — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 02:53:28 +0000

We have a cactus, well a pot of cacti. Not really sure if it is one or a bunch. But just every so often, we get flowers. And they are gorgeous, as you can see for yourself. I was on my way somewhere in a hurry the other day during Holy Week and my wife called out, “It’s blooming.” So, I grabbed my Kaleidoscope shaped Lytro® and went to work. In five minutes or less, I had shot a lot. Then I was off to do my life stuff.
Parked later on my laptop, I picked a lot that I liked. And uploaded them. And now I share a few. I looked at the plant a couple days later and the blooms were just pale droops. Glad I could turn on the camera and just shoot.

Thanks for stopping by. Share it if you like it. And see my youtube comedy webisodes. Richard

Woody Allen Light makes the Light Field even better

lundpix — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:32:29 +0000

Years ago I was working on a film in New York City. Our location guy had been also working on a film for Woody Allen and said told us a story. According to my friend, Woody was shooting an exterior scene in Central Park, but had held up production because the sun was out and he wanted it behind a cloud, at least. So my friend was dispatched to call the National Weather Service contact that they had (pre-cell phones and iPads). He did not see any clouds in the sky. So he asked the person at the other end if clouds were coming. The response was no. Then he pleaded, “Do you even see any clouds on the radar?”
Well, if you are fan of Mr. Allen’s films, you will see a characteristic light, soft and flat. This last Sunday morning it was trying to rain at my house, but could not quite get it together to pour. So I dashed out to the lemon tree loaded with fruit and also beginning to blossom to try some shots. Here I present “When life gives you lemons, make light field pictures.”

Remember, if you liked it, share it. And thanks for stopping by. Ciao. Richard

LA Theatre to Whitney Houston: We Miss You

lundpix — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 02:04:25 +0000

Today is just about a landmark theatre, on Broadway for longer than I have been alive. The owner that I met when working on the latest Tonight Show translite himself passed away last year. And now it is time for the theatre and those who are behind it to send their love to Whitney Houston. (Check out the link for a very complete history of this amazing place.) The last time I was working the neighborhood, it was a good-bye to the king of pop.
Today I am reminded that our time here is limited, sometimes coming to an end as a surprise, at least to us.
The work:

Thanks for stopping by. If you liked it, share it. Ciao, Richard

So get closer…touch the lens

lundpix — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 01:44:35 +0000

Not all cameras see up close well. In snapshot cameras, like the Brownie my family owned when I was a kid or event the famous Instamatic, the pictures were square, like my new Lytro®, but if you dared to get within a meter (about 39 inches for us Americans), it was game over. Blur, blur, and more blur. But my new lipstick pix machine invites me to turn on the creative mode and to move in really, really close, click on the screen to set focus, and shoot away. I had a minute in the patio of the local hospital yesterday afternoon to play with it again and found some evergreen shrubs in bright sun and in excellent health and shot a few frames. I post them for you now.
I got my degree in Biology from a department chair who was a botanist. So we did lots of field work with plants. I remember him with his Exakta and his close-up rings- I think- and wonder if his life of examination would have been much easier and more fulfilling if he had my current tool. Who knows?
(And btw, my wife did well and came home around 8. Thanks)
The work:

Thanks for stopping by. If you liked it, share it. Ciao, Richard

QWERTY or how I started to stop fearing the keys…

lundpix — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:01:12 +0000

Today’s quick pick is from a visit to a neighborhood store. (Not my neighborhood, or course. But, hey, somebody’s neighborhood.) I plan to go back there, so I won’t give the store name yet. I dropped by when they were closing. A million possible light fields, well almost. Here is the one I am calling “Remington Rand Revisited.”
The name in the title is not some relative from the old country, but the nonsense word spelled out by the upper six left hand letters from a standard keyboard. As you likely know, the arrangement of the keys was done this way to slow us down when we typed to allow the hammers to strike the ribbon, transferring the ink to the paper and then get out of the way of the next hammer. Believe it or not, I once visited a Beverly Hills house originally owned by the guy who invented the bell that would ring when you only had five spaces left on a line of typing so that you would not end up with a ruined paper and could hit the carriage return lever to rescue your typing job. That will not make sense to most of my readers, but just understand that those who were born in the mid twentieth century had other technologies to master before the iPad. We did drink much the same beer as you might now and did sing the rock and roll songs the first time they were popular. It was fun.
The work, albeit one.

Remember, if you liked it, share it. Thanks. Richard

In the studio with the light field camera

lundpix — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 05:58:16 +0000

Well, it had to happen. Controlled light. A plain background. A good operator. A tripod. And so… they look like this.
Elmer is my friend from Minnesota who got laid off from his job at the Hwy 61 Filling Station awhile ago and now with be returning to the Hwy 61 Filling Station Show as soon as I can find the music and graphics files. He shot his first promo episode today, thanks to Laura León, his DP. I will share the link later.
Here are the publicity shots with the lipstick pix machine. (And the replacement lens cap arrived today. Very happy owner, btw)

Thanks for stopping by. If you liked it, share it. Richard

Melrose is the medium and “the medium is the message…”

lundpix — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:13:47 +0000

Living in flyover country in the sixties meant that we had to depend on others to explain the complexity of the world around us. Yes, we had network television and even a PBS station when it “came in.” But there were gurus that popped up from time to time. One was Marshall McLuhan. His one sentence summary was “The medium is the message.” He described cool and hot communications and we were listening. Take a listen on youtube.
So here is my proposal: that Melrose Avenue itself is the medium. Hence, it is the message as well. Have fun.

Thanks for stopping by. If you liked it, share it. Ciao. Richard

Melrose Mandy has the look…

lundpix — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:16:45 +0000

Went to Starbucks for a coffee on Melrose and used my coupon for a free one. And I took the lipstick pix maquina along. Took a few pictures of Mandy the hair stylist and her scooter, explaining to her and her posse about the camera. I think that they will understand it better by playing with the pix. And you might enjoy them too.

If you liked it, share it. Thanks. Richard, happy coffee drinkin’ man.