Premiere of the beautiful new ambient music of Eleven Shadows!

Today is the premiere for my Eleven Shadows album “The Seahorse in the Center of Your Mind“, full of beautiful deep ambient music. You may listen to or download the entire thing! And of course, it also features otherworldly visual images and elements, although no night photography!

This is the first Eleven Shadows since probably about the year 1791, haha! I had eye surgery for a detached retina and was recovering. I wanted to listen to a ambient music featuring deep otherworldly bell-like sounds while convalescing or working on things while at home. To my surprise, I couldn’t find any. I decided to create it. A week later, in an flurry of inspiration, I had twenty-one tunes that sounded quite beautiful. I began realizing that I could release this as Eleven Shadows music instead of one The Mercury Seven or one of my other musical projects.

The first song, Marismas Oscuras, also has a video!

Listen or download the entire Eleven Shadows album today on Bandcamp.

VISIT ME, VISIT ME!

BOOKS AND PRINTS:
Head on over to the Ken Lee Photography website to purchase books or look at night photography and long exposure prints and more.  My books are available there and Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, Booktopia, Books A Million, IBS, and Aladin. If you enjoy the book, please leave a nice review, thanks!

NIGHTAXIANS VIDEO YOUTUBE PODCAST:

Night photographers Tim Little, Mike Cooper and I all use Pentax gear. We discuss this, gear, adventures, light painting, lenses, night photography, creativity, and more in this ongoing YouTube podcast. Subscribe and watch to the Nightaxians today!

SOCIAL MEDIA:
Ken Lee Photography Facebook Page (poke your head in, say hi, and “like” the page if you would, uh, like)
Instagram

PODCAST:
Behind the Shot video podcast – interview February 2020

VIDEO PRESENTATION:

How We Got the Shots: Five Photographers, Five Stories – Night Photo Summit 2022

VIDEO INTERVIEW:

Ken Lee’s Abandoned Trains Planes and Automobiles with Tim Little of Cape Nights Photography
Conversation about night photography and my book with Lance Keimig of National Park At Night

ARTICLES:
A Photographer Captures Haunting Nighttime Images of Abandoned Buildings, Planes, and Cars in the American Southwest – Business Insider by Erin McDowell
A Photographer Explores Southern California’s Desert Ruins – Los Angeles Magazine article by Chris Nichols

 

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Featured Photo – Beautiful Bokeh: Best Lens Bargain for a Nikon!

Camera equipment can be quite expensive.  But not always.  There are some fantastic 50mm lens out there for not so much money.  Nikon, for instance, makes a 50mm f/1.8 for somewhere around US$100, and a 50mm f/1.4 for under US$300, lens with large apertures (openings) to let in more light (see links at bottom).

And remember last week when I was showing you photo examples taken with really small apertures (the long exposure shots at Goat Rock Beach)?  You may remember that I mentioned that small apertures keep more elements of the photo in focus, or, in other words, has a large depth of field.

I’m going to show you the opposite of that this week.  If you shoot with the aperture wide open, using large apertures of f/1.4 or f/1.8, *less* elements appear in focus, or, in other words, a shallow depth of field.

Why would you want to do that, you ask?  To accentuate features and have backgrounds (or foregrounds) blur out.  This would be effective for portraits, focusing our attention on the subject and not the background or foreground.

Portraits can be people.  Or reptiles.  We may have friends or family members who qualify as both.

Reptile near 49 Palms.  Since I was using a 50mm lens and not a zoom, I was surprised at how close this guy let me get to him.  This was taken at f/1.8.  You can see how in this photo, our happy prehistoric looking subject is in focus while the foreground and background have this lovely bokeh, or blurred areas due to the shallow depth of field.

Or maybe another use might be taking photos of bottle trees in the desert…you know, the usual things one might use a 50mm prime lens for…

Bottle tree in Joshua Tree, taken with a 50mm f1/4 prime Nikkor lens, illustrating the shallow depth of field for the lovely readers of this photography blog.

Dengue Fever. For those who don’t know this Los Angeles-based band, who combine Cambodian pop-rock with psychedelic rock. They were formed in 2001 by Ethan Holtzman after he visited Cambodia and was inspired to start a band. This was taken with – you guessed it – the 50mm prime, illustrating another fine use…it’s a fast lens. Meaning it lets in lots of light through its large opening.  Meaning it does well in low light situations such as at this concert.

There’s a few other bonuses of a 50mm:

– As I mentioned, they can be quite cheap.  You can get Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 for a hair over US$100.  Not bad.

-They’re prime lens, or, in other words, fixed.  Good and sharp.  Of course, you can’t stand around and use your zoom lens.  You’ll hafta move your feet.

– As mentioned in the Dengue Fever photo caption, the lens is a fast lens.  It lets in lots of light through a larger, wider opening.  Which means that it’s also better in low light situations, where you might need to use a faster shutter speed to capture the action without blurring.  Cool, eh?

– And 50mm primes are small and light, perfect for the photographer on the go.

Flute player for the band Dengue Fever, shot wide open at f/1.4. 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor lens. For this photo, I also shot at 1/100 at ISO 2500, focusing on his eye. I really like the bokeh on his hat and flute, a beautiful sense of depth that this lens is capable of doing.

Equipment:  Nikon D90, 50mm f/1.4 prime Nikkor lens