Ice Fishing

Tuesday night I went out to Cooney Dam to ice fish for ling with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks and the Wildlife Management class. The nice thing about going with FWP is that instead of only setting up two lines, we set up 55, so we were bound to catch something. On the other hand, we had to set up, check, and take out 55 lines. This picture was taken at one of our first holes. The sun was setting as we arrived, so not only did the lighting get tricky, but it got cold! Sticking our hands into icy water did not help, but eventually we got all the lines set in time for one last look at daylight.

After dinner we headed out to check our lines, and had success!




We killed all the fish we caught (except one who is now living in the lab at Rocky), then weighed, measured, and dissected them. We looked at sex, stomach contents and otoliths (ear bones that show how old the fish is). I had fun taking pictures of Ben and Jeremiah using only the lighting from the headlamps.














After several rounds of checking lines, then dissecting fish we finally pulled all the lines and I got this last shot of Mike pulling in a ling.

Trail Running Take 2

For our second trail running shoot Hil, Anne and I headed up to Lake Fork trail outside of Red Lodge to attempt to run (and take pictures) in snowshoes.

For this picture my camera was in landscape mode with the flash on full power and f-stop of 4.0 and a shutter speed of 1/400 sec. I was hoping that the flash would light Hil up, but keep the background darker, but it didn't work as well as I had hoped. I did like the contrast between the red jacket and dark trees though.

This picture was taken on the same settings and at the same location, but I let Hil get closer to me. I wanted to get a shot that didn't have the subject right in the middle of the frame. I like the effect, except the background snow is overexposed and she's looking down (which was better than her looking at me and falling over).



By the time we moved on the sun had disappeared for good and we had moved back into the trees, which made lighting even more difficult. For this picture I switched my camera into manual and had an f-stop of 4.0 and a shutter speed of 1/500 sec and the flash set to full power. I still wanted the lit up subject with a darker background, but I was also trying to play with the angles of Anne, the bridge and the trees in the background. I like how the diagonals worked, but Anne is not as bright as I would have liked.












This photo was taken with the camera set to manual, the f-stop at 4.0, the shutter speed at 1/160 sec with full flash. It was cropped from part of a larger image that I didn't particularly like, but we had talked about sharpness and blurriness in class, and I liked the contrast between the one sharp foot and the blurry foot.

Flash Tips

For this weeks blog I looked online for some tips that adventure photographers use in winter setting. The first article I read was by Darren Rowse about photographing a skier in good light while not overexposing the background. To accomplish this, Rowse used a fill-flash with his camera while dropping the exposure from the automatic settings.

After reading this I went back to the main site and found another article about using flash in action photography. They had three tips that I'd like to try: slow sync flash, panning, and zooming during exposure. Slow sync flash is when you pair a flash with a slow shutter speed. Panning is moving the camera with your subject to give a blurred background, and zooming during exposure also blurs and conveys movement.

Exposure

Basically exposure is a measure of the amount of light let into the camera while taking a picture. The idea behind exposure is to control how a subject appears, which for artistic purposes may be lighter or darker than the average light of the scene. The term overexposure is used when all detail is washed out of light areas, and underexposure used when all detail is lost from dark areas. On an automatic exposure setting the camera matches the average tone of the scene and adjusts the exposure for you.

Sometimes, however, you want an image to be over or underexposed. Then you switch to manual controls and use the shutter speed and lens aperture to create the exposure you want. The shutter is a thin sheet covering the light sensitive portion of the camera. When it opens it allows light in, allowing the picture to be taken. Shutter speed is the measure of how long the shutter is open and is measured in fractions of a second so the lower the shutter speed the more light is let in. Slow speeds introduce blur, while fast ones reduce it, but may not let enough light in. Lens aperture is similar: it is the opening in the camera lens that regulates how much light is let in during the time the shutter is open. The measurement is called an f-stop, and the smaller the f number the larger the opening. Generally a low f-stop requires a high shutter speed.

On my camera, a Canon PowerShot SX110 IS, there is a manual mode that allows me to control both the lens aperture and shutter speed. Additionally there is an aperture priority mode and a shutter speed priority mode that allows me to control that aspect while automatically selecting the opposite element.

References here, here and here.

Skiing Weekend

Bridger Bowl and Red Lodge Mountain

Friday was $15 lift tickets at Bridger Bowl if you had 3 or more people in your vehicle, so the Outdoor Rec program got a van and took eight of us up for a day of skiing! Even though the light was pretty flat I decided it was time to start experimenting with my camera. I kept switching back and forth between the landscape, portrait and snow settings.

The snow setting seemed to work best for the action shots, but the lighting on the mountain was always changing too. My next goal was to get some face shots, so I switched back to portrait and annoyed my friends by skiing around them with a camera. Hopefully it was worth it.

At the very end of the day I decided to get artistic and take pictures through my goggles because that's what you actually see when you're skiing. I'm still undecided about how they turned out, but it was fun!

The next day Outdoor Rec went up to the ski team race at Red Lodge, and because it was much colder I didn't take very many pictures outside, but did take this one of Anne frantically trying to activate her hand warmers in Midway Lodge. We did venture back outside and had a great afternoon attempting to land jumps and generally enjoying the snow!

Trail Running in Billings

Riverfront Park and Meyer's Trail

Thursday turned out to be a day of running, right after class Hil and I headed to Riverfront Park to do some trail running/photography. To be honest, I was doing more running than photography, until we turned a corner to find what I thought was an otter! We stopped and started snapping pictures. The otter was eating a fish and we got to watch it for a few minutes before it dove into the river and disappeared under the ice. Later, I showed the pictures to my Environmental Science professor Kayhan who decided it was not an otter, but probably a mink because of how fluffy it appeared and the shape of the head. Either way, it was exciting!

Later at cross country practice, Carrie and I headed up Meyer's trail to the top of the rims. This is one of my favorite runs, and since it was so warm we had the rare combination of running through the snow in shorts. We ran towards Zimmerman to an arch that we found exploring last year, and I got a silhouette of Carrie running across it.

Sample Release Forms

Adult Model Release Form

For good and valuable consideration herein acknowledged as received by signing this release I give the photographer Mary Louise Schvetz and assigns permission to license and publish photos of me in which I may be included in part or in whole in any media for any purpose. This includes, but is not limited to advertising, marketing, promotion and commercial uses. I agree to the use of these images in any way the photographer sees fit including being combined with text, other images and graphics and being cropped or otherwise modified. I agree that I have no rights to the images and that all right belong to the photographer and her assigns and that I will make no further claim to the images for any reason. I acknowledge that this release is binding upon my heirs and legal representatives. I agree that this release is irrevocable, universal, and perpetual and will be governed by the laws of the United States at the time of signing. I agree that I am at least 18 years of age and have the full legal capacity to execute this release.
Model Information
Name (print):
Adress:

City:
State:
Postal/Zip Code:

Phone:
E-Mail:
Date of Birth:
Signature:
Date:

Property Release Form

For valuable consideration herein acknowledged as received, the undersigned being the legal owner of, or having right to permit the taking and use of photographs of certain property designated below grants the photographer Mary Louise Schvetz and assigns permission to license and publish such photos in any media for any purpose. This includes, but is not limited to advertising, marketing, promotion and commercial uses. I agree to the use of these images in any way the photographer sees fit including being combined with text, other images and graphics and being cropped or otherwise modified. I agree that I have no rights to the images and that all right belong to the photographer and her assigns and that I will make no further claim to the images for any reason. I acknowledge that this release is binding upon my heirs and legal representatives. I agree that this release is irrevocable, universal, and perpetual and will be governed by the laws of the United States at the time of signing. I agree that I am at least 18 years of age and have the full legal capacity to execute this release.

Property Description

Name of Representative (Print):
Name of Property (Print):
Address of Representative:

City:
State:
Postal/Zip Code:

Phone:
E-Mail:
Date of Birth:

Address of Property if different than above:

City:
State:
Postal/Zip Code:
Signature of Representative:
Date:


These releases were based off of releases found at istockphoto.com and dpcorner.com