Tag Archives: ducks

An Afternoon in Tower Grove Park – Jonquils and Ducks and Tulips – Wednesday, April 17, 2013

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“Woods Fill Up With Snow” – St. Louis’ 24 Hour Winter Wonderland – Tower Grove Park, March 26, 2011

For my third video, I present a montage of images I gathered in yesterday’s heavy snowfall. Despite the amount of snow, it really was not that cold at all. The main challenge was keeping the snow off of my camera. In the midday shoot I only had a corduroy jacket to use as sort of an old-fashioned camera cloak sort of thing. By the afternoon, I had an umbrella, but it was very small and the snow was, like truth told by Emily Dickinson, slant.

For the title of this video, I borrowed from another great American poet and perhaps America’s best known poem. The woods in that poem I imagine to be very different, but I was literally watching the “wood” of Tower Grove Park fill up with snow, so it seemed an apt title.

The soundtrack I downloaded for free from Last.fm and is from a gentleman called Josh Winiberg. The piece is lovely. You can listen to more of his music here.

To view the video, click on the image above or here. Why not embedding? Well I would prefer you saw it at a larger size and preferably full-screen to get the full effect. Enjoy. Winter’s last hurrah. Surely that is true this time, isn’t it?

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Introducing Pied Beauty Photography and a Foray Into Video

In the past few years I have been sitting on the sidelines watching as DSLR manufacturers have been incorporating HD video in the set of features they offer. There have been entire feature films (albeit independent ones) made on these cameras and even some televisions shows. The advantage of these cameras is that one can use all one one’s existing DSLR lens and get almost a cinematic quality using them.

Now, ideally, having become used to the sweetness of a full-frame sensor, I would like to have the Canon 5D MkII, but at $2500, that was not going to happen. I was setting my sights on the brand new Canon Rebel T3i with an articulating screen, but then yesterday a deal on its predecessor, with almost identical image capabilities, showed up that I could not ignore. And, so, it begins.

I realized the usefulness of an articulating screen on my very first “shoot,” as I set my tripod on some very soupy ground to shoot ducks at their level and could not really check the focus without lying down, which I was not going to do. So, as I do not have an articulating screen, It is going to have to be an articulating Neil.

Also, it is rather strange to be beginner again, when I have made some strides with the still image. There is much to learn both technically and artistically, but hopefully my artistic vision displayed in this blog will continue in the new format. There have been times when I have been shooting stills before when either movement or sound have transfixed me. It is those moments that I hope to capture. And, if a picture presents a thousand words, a moving picture can potentially present millions (as well as actual words too), so there may be whole new directions to explore.

Finally, by way of introduction, in honor of Gerard Manley Hopkins, two of whose poems have been a touchstone for much of my work, this will be the title of my official site when it gets up and running. The Dassler Effect? Neil E. Das? Pied Beauty Photography? What gives? Hopefully, it’ll all work out when the dust settles. And here, at long last, is my simple first crack video. Eventually these will be in HD, with hopefully better music (or no music at all), but one does what one can.