Thomas Steele

photographer and general wayfarer from upstate New York

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Week 8 Theme: Lucky Two summers ago I was out with friends Long-boarding. At some point I lost control of my board going down a hill and fell, sliding on the ground and bouncing my head off the asphalt. I wasn’t wearing a helmet. On the hurried run back home my friends noticed I kept repeating the same questions. I only had about 2 minutes of short term memory that would erase itself just as quickly as it came in. They took me to the hospital to learn I had gotten a severe concussion. I could barely remember where I worked or what the date was when the doctors asked. Even today I still don’t remember anything from that day. Everything I know from then has been told to me by other people. This photo is of my board and ripped T-shirt from that day. The photo on the phone was taken by my father while I was in the hospital. 
I felt like this fit into “Lucky” pretty well as I could’ve been injured much worse or killed if had only landed a little differently. The month of foggy memory and achey limbs wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. I’m lucky to be alive and well. I’ve since bought a helmet.

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Week 5: "Open Topic"

Write Up~

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Week 5: Open Topic

Write Up~

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Week 3: "Passion"

Shutter Speed: 13 Seconds — With the light on, the practice room was far too bright, so I had to take this shot with the lights off with the only light source coming from the small window in the door. The long exposure also allowed for the blurring of my hands. Aperture: f5 — There wasn't too much depth in the photo so I felt that an f-stop of 5 would be fitting, as well as allow more light into the dark photo. ISO: 3200 — I tried to find a balance between the vibrancy of the colors as well as the lightness of the image. When I put the ISO any higher, the photo began to have too much noise White Balance: Tungsten

Music, as well as any medium for expression, is my passion. For the self portrait I decided to take a long exposure of myself playing piano in one of Orange Hall's practice rooms. I've been playing for about 7 years and whenever I have free time before and after classes I'll go to the practice room for a while. It helps clear my mind and allows me to just focus on something I enjoy. 

The lighting was very tricky here. With the lights on the room was too bright, so I had to turn them off and use the minimal amount of light that was coming in through the small window in the door. To get this angle with a 13 second exposure, I had to wrap my camera strap around a fixture on the wall to help support it, and then brace my camera underneath the piano's top panel- putting my camera almost inside the piano

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Week 2: Texture

Shutter Speed: 1/100 — A 1/100 shutter speed worked well to take into account both the dim lighting and the movement of the water.

ISO: 800 — This allowed for the colors to still be prominent so as not to lose the texture of my skin and the bubbles. Unfortunately I couldn’t go much lower without the photo becoming too dark.

Aperture: F3.5 — Because of how far away the camera was and that my hands were very close to the water, the depth of focus was not a major priority. An f-stop of 3.5 worked well in this this shot due to it allowing more light into the photo.

— White Balance: Custom

My idea for this shot came when I was staying late after work for the third night in a row. I work the closing shift in a deli and on the nights where we’re understaffed, I’ll sometimes end up doing dishes for hours straight just to play catch-up. I felt like this sort of shot would be great to use to represent a “self-portrait” with this weeks theme.

*After a few attempts at trying to get my camera to stay secure above the sink, I decided to take the safe route (trying my best to avoid very a waterlogged camera) and had a coworker brace it on one of the shelves above the sink with a timer set.

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Photo I'm Most Proud of:

This is my close friend, Evan. The photo was taken just after him and I were talking about a pretty personal matter of his. He was composed for the most part, but I could see that he was upset. I took the photo because I wanted to remember that moment. Him and i are close enough to where me being behind the camera doesn't tend to alienate me from interactions. 

I feel like my best photos are those that express true emotion as it happens, as it's really an impossible thing to truly recreate artificially. There's something about capturing that unreplicable and temporary moment that drives me to continue photographing.

*Unedited version of the original photo

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Week 1: My Favorite Place

Shutter Speed: 1/50 — Slow enough to compensate for the small aperture but still fast enough that the photo isn’t blurred by wind on the tripod.

ISO: 800 — Any lower and the photo would have been too dark. Any higher and I feel like the colors in the environment would’ve been diminished.

Aperture: F11 — Because of the steadily dimming light and dark colors of the landscape, i was limited to how high I could go, but I chose a higher F-stop to try and get more of the landscape and myself in focus.

— White Balance: Custom Since I didn’t have a white paper with me, I decided to use the conveniently placed snow that was all along the mountaintop.

About a quater-mile off exit 2 on the Interstate is a trail that leads up to a mountaintop from which you can see nearly 30 miles around. On one side of the mountaintop is the amazing views of a good chunk of the entire County, and on the other is a steep downhill leading to Lake Hawthorne.

This is my favorite place because of both the memories i have associated with it though friends, and because its a beautiful place to go and separate from the world a little. I feel like seeing things on that great of a scale is very grounding.