Ty's Out-Of-Synch

Home Run Coming, originally uploaded by Ty Randall.

I call these type photographs "out-of-synch" because they are slightly out of synch with reality. Perhaps for brevity, camera manufacturers have dubbed it "slow synch."

This photograph was done in New Orleans, Louisiana with a Nikon D70 using the built in speedlight flash set to Slow Rear Curtain Synch mode. In this particular image, I wanted to do a shot that would please both the girl's family and myself. That meant a shorter exposure with less camera shake so you could still make out the girl, the bat, and the ball, while still blurring some of it.

In this case it was shot with the very last remaining ambient light left in the day, almost an hour after sunset. I used a 24mm lens with no filter, ISO 200, and exposed for 1/2 second at f/5.6. I watched the pitcher, waited for the ball, and when it got in the frame, I just moved the camera to follow the ball, slightly downward and to the left. You can see the full image on my website.

As with all these type of photographs, I hand-hold them and move the camera during the exposure so it blurs most of the image except for where I point the flash. I do this because it says right in my D70 manual that "use of tripod is recommended to prevent blurring caused by camera shake."

Some photographers might follow that advice, but I'm not one of them. You know that early lesson you learn in photo class or your camera club that says, "first you have to learn the rules before you can break them?" Well, I learned and I break. I actually prefer the overall blurness for my vision. God forbid I get a straight line.

I like how the camera appears to not understand what I'm doing or what it is that I want, so it gives me whatever it can. I love how colors blend when I move the camera so it looks like a painted streak. I move the camera in all different ways and for a variety of times, usually between a half to 4 or 5 seconds, but sometimes longer.

It took a couple tries for this one because the little girl didn't know what I was doing. All she saw was that a flash kept going off and she kept missing the ball. I wanted to get the ball as close to her bat as possible without showing that she missed it. On this shot, she actually connected with the ball so the next shot I took is the one of her running to third base (because she didn't quite know the order to the bases). I'll put that shot at the bottom of this post.

As usual, you can read more details about this on my website at www.TYRANDALL.com.

Girl Runs Through Yard.

Portrait Of Ty Self

Pinhole Self Portrait, originally uploaded by Ty Randall.

Welcome to the Ty Randall Photography Blog.

I thought I would start off my photo blog with a self-portrait so you could see the real me.

As you can see, I don't like to reveal the real me in perfect focus, which should reveal part of the real me to you.

I wanted to create a photo blog to post some of my photos with a bit of explanation about them. Being a photographer, I don't usually like to talk about my photographs, but my split personality also fancies itself as sort of a writer, so I find myself on occasion wanting, or at least willing to explain a little something about a certain photograph. I do this mostly for the younguns (or "young ones" if you are not from the south) in hopes they might possibly pick up a pointer or two or maybe some inspiration from somewhere. Hey, you never know.

In this particular self-portrait image, it's a photograph of me. I find that it is usually important when you are doing a self-portrait to include a portrait of yourself occasionally. That kind of sounds like a ridiculous statement, but actually I don't think a self-portrait necessarily must contain a picture of yourself. It doesn't necessarily have to be in focus, make sense, or reveal anything like your entire body, but it should at least be a photograph that either includes a piece of you, a piece of something in your life, (which would include a belief, a love, a secret desire, or some other made up stuff), or perhaps even a piece of a piece of your life.

So for example, I can take a photograph of my truck showing my bumper stickers and still consider that a self-portrait because it reveals a lot about me. If you wanted to get real technical about it, you might say every single photograph I take in a way is either a self-portrait or related to a self-portrait since I made all the decisions involved. But I won't get that crazy here.

A self-portrait really depends in how much you want to reveal about yourself in that one particular image. Take for example the image of myself above. In that one image that doesn't show much of me, I am revealing many things such as listed below.

The visual facts that I reveal:
I am male, good-looking, have a little age to me, have at least some dark hair on my head, including facial hair, wear glasses, wear a hat, have a blue shirt, might sometimes wear a button-down shirt over a t-shirt, have a nose, an ear, at least one eye and a half lip.

The inferred assumptions you might make from the photograph:
I probably think I'm somewhat creative, and I just might be.
I might be a photographer or at least know how to use a camera.
I might have some sort of fancy photographic equipment that the average Joe might not have (in this case a pinhole camera).
I might be kind of a "serious photographer" or "artistic photographer."
I'm probably fun to be with, funny, and open-minded.
I like to experiment and try new things, so I must be adventurous.
If I'm that, I'm probably an "out-doorsy" kind of guy and would prefer to go on a hike through the mountains than hang out playing video games in my room. If I'm old enough, I may have been some sort of hippie or radical type.

I could go on, but I think you should get the point by now. If not, the point is that I don't reveal much of myself in this self-portrait, but if you were willing to take the time to look at it, and maybe think about it for a minute, you would see that I actually reveal a lot about myself, which is the point of a portrait.

A portrait should reveal things about the subject and often reveals things about the photographer also. In a self-portrait, you do both. The more portraits you look at of the same person, the more you should be able to find out about them.

Anyone who does self-portraits is going to do them differently. My personal challenge with self-portraits is to slowly reveal a little more, but always leave some out. I do that in hopes that it might be a learning experience for someone.

I don't like to expose myself so much, but I am willing to do it if it helps somebody learn and become a better photographer or better person. That's just how I am and how I hope to be with this blog. I don't really want to talk about my photographs and there are certain things I would rather not reveal, but I will in hopes that maybe someday someone who sees it may possibly learn something, be inspired, or at least have a brief relief from a stressful reality.

I hope you enjoy (and maybe learn). Feel free to give feedback.

Read the entire post on my website at
Ty's Photographic Education.