everwas

a blog by Ian Kennedy

Tag: photography

  • Photographing Fireworks

    For the past two years I’ve had the good fortune to live right next to the largest fireworks event in North America, the Macy’s July Fourth fireworks “Spectacular” on the East River between Manhattan and Queens.

    Last year I walked out on to the FDR highway which was blocked off to traffic both North and South from 42nd street. It wasn’t too crowded (probably because of the pandemic) so I was able to find a spot over-looking the river a few blocks north of the UN. I only had my iPhone with me but was still able to get some good shots as well as video.

    This year they only blocked the freeway South from 42nd so it was too crowded to stroll on to the highway so I decided to try my luck with an DSLR and take some photos instead. I have never been able to get decent photos of fireworks so I read up on it beforehand and found this helpful guide that was written specifically for Canon cameras (mine is a Rebel 5Ti) which was quite helpful.

    I used an 18-55 mm lens at around a 10-second shutter speed with a 2-second delay after pressing the shutter button. A tripod is key and you’ll need to practice timing when to press the shutter in order to get the full “starburst” effect. I also set the lens aperture to between f/10 to f/16 so the brightness of multiple bursts didn’t wash out the exposure.

    • Tripod
    • 18 – 55 mm lens
    • Long shutter speed, at least 5 seconds
    • Set aperture to f/10 or above
    • Photos best early in the show, less smoke

    Also, your best shots will be early in the show when the sky is still clear. Later on in the show it’ll be too smoky to get decent clarity on the burst trails.

    It should go without saying to take as many photos as you can. These are just a subset of the 100+ that I took. As with all my photography experiments, it’s a numbers game. Out of many, you get a few that turn out decent enough to share.

  • two mountains

    Fell into a Reddit hole and found these.


  • Story behind iconic Steve Jobs portrait

    How do you get a portrait subject to relax so you can get their true essence? What if your subject is Steve Jobs? You know the photo – here’s the story behind how it was captured.

    the pair got to work and Watson began to approach the process like he was conducting a passport photoshoot; within minutes, Jobs was told to “slightly lean forward towards the camera” and give the expression he would give if he was at a table with a small group of people that didn’t agree with him, even though he knew he was right.

    – via Hypebeast

  • San Francisco Bay on a clear day

    Back in February, while everyone was watching the Super Bowl, DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-3 satellite took this photo from its vantage point about 800 miles to the West out over the Pacific.

    Normally haze would cause such and image to blur out from such a distance but this satellite is special. From the Mapbox blog where I found this remarkable photo.

    We don’t often see pictures like this one. The problem is haze: as a camera in space looks toward the horizon, it sees more water vapor, smog, and other stuff in the atmosphere that obscures the Earth. But our friends at DigitalGlobe built WorldView-3 with a sensor suite called CAVIS, which lets it quantify and subtract haze – making atmospheric effects virtually invisible. Only WorldView-3 can see so clearly at this angle.

  • As Above, So Below

    My sister noticed that a recent photo I uploaded to Instagram looked familiar. The photo I uploaded below is of my two kids on a recent trip to Mt. Shasta.

    The next photo is from a hike in Yosemite with my sister when I was a student at UC Berkeley.

    Brother – Sister. 20 years hence.

  • Timelapse of the Golden Gate

    Timelapse of the Golden Gate

    I had some time to kill over the weekend so tried out a timelapse of the fog rolling in over San Francisco. Here’s the result.

    Sunset on the Golden Gate from ian kennedy on Vimeo.

  • Gabby Douglas = Grace

    Gabby Douglas = Grace

    I’ve been keeping half an eye on the Olympics this year but this photo by Greg Bull of the Associated Press stopped me in my tracks. (click image to enlarge)

    UPDATE: Some details on how the photographer captured this shot over on Poynter.

  • Those Who Seek Beauty, Will Find It

    Over the weekend I saw the film, Bill Cunningham New York, a documentary about the New York Times street fashion photographer. It’s been years since I’ve wandered into to the Style section of the Times where Bill’s weekly On the Street photo-scrapbook lives (this week’s column, Reality Check). The film is an inspiration to those who live to work at their craft which Mr. Cunningham has been doing at the New York Times for many years.

    Those who seek beauty, will find it is a quote from a charming speech Bill gave when accepting the chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the Ministry of Culture in France.

    Bill Cunnigham at work

    Related Links

    1. Bill Cunningham New York – official movie website
    2. Bill Cunningham – Times Topic page
    3. Man on the Street – 2009 New Yorker article
    4. Bill Cunningham (Photographer) – Wikipedia entry