[Ken Lee]

This'll be a slightly different kinda Pentax Forum post, I think!

Most of the time, I post long exposure night photos. But this time, I didn't necessarily want that because I was creating an album cover....for my own album.

I record music as Eleven Shadows. But I took a reeeeally long break because I played in a rock band and continue to play in The Mercury Seven.

But funny things happen. Stuck at home after eye surgery, I began creating some new music. I was creating it just to create it. After a while, it occurred to me that this could be new Eleven Shadows music!

Every album needs some artwork, right? Of course it does! Being a musician who is also a photographer has its advantages. I decided I wanted some mysterious macro photography. I grabbed my Pentax K-1 and an old Pentax M Macro 50mm F/4 Prime MF Lens. I set it so it hovered over a Pyrex dish filled with water and some drops of olive oil. I chose a dark room. But then I illuminated the glass dish from below with some colored lights.

If you would like, you can find out more about this macro setup here in my Photofocus article since I am only briefly describing it.


Macro setup (identical except I am using a different lens here in the photo)


This is the macro photo. I used the Pentax K-1 for this. At the same time I did this, I also created a video. More on that in a minute.



This is the album cover for Eleven Shadows "Seahorse in the Center of Your Mind".

But songs also deserve a video sometimes, don't they? Of course they do!

You Tube

You Tube

This is the music video I created for my nom de musica Eleven Shadows for the song "Marismas Oscuras".

You Tube

You Tube

And I thought you Pentaxians would be interested in seeing the macro video without the layering, so here it is as well. Again, all made with a Pentax K-1 and a used Pentax 50mm f/4 macro that I purchased on eBay!!

I hope you find this interesting! I am writing a Photofocus article about this very thing but thought I'd bust it out for you first.

Oh, and since I described this much, I suppose I should share my Eleven Shadows Bandcamp website, where you can stream the album and download it and that kind of thing.

[MarkJerling]

Cool work Ken!

[Ken Lee]

Cool work Ken!

Thanks! I hope you have as much fun exploring macro photography/videos and creating album art as I have over the past couple of days!! I'm hoping people find it interesting.

[bwgv001]

nice work. How did you make the "bubbles" float?

[Ken Lee]

nice work. How did you make the "bubbles" float?

I have magic powers.

But besides that, I used a shallow Pyrex (glass) baking tray, filled it halfway with water, and then mixed olive oil in. It naturally stayed on the surface.

Thanks!!

[ChristianRock]

Fellow musician here. Very nice creative photography, thanks for sharing (both pictures and music)

[RICHARD L.]

When I was 16 I think, I took a series of pictures of air bubbles trapped in a Maple Syrup glass bottle (Canadian idiosyncracy, I guess ... lol !) with my Minolta SR-1 film camera (totally manual without even through-the-lens light metering) with a reversed Minolta 55 mm f/2 Rokkor, backlit with low winter afternoon sunshine on Kodachrome 25 film. These were "awesome" pictures that woke me up to the infinite possibilities of macro photography. I bought a Minolta Bellows III costing 30 $ (all was manual in 1968) and spent the next summer photographing snails (they sell them as "escargots" if you eat them - "Escargot" is French for "Snail") and green grasshoppers. Success rate was not very high but the "good pictures" were very sharp and really beautiful. You try all sorts of things when you're young and bold.

Regards

[Ken Lee]

Fellow musician here. Very nice creative photography, thanks for sharing (both pictures and music)

Oh yeah, totally my pleasure. It took a while to post this, but hopefully it inspires some.

---------- Post added 06-10-22 at 06:00 PM ----------

When I was 16 I think, I took a series of pictures of air bubbles trapped in a Maple Syrup glass bottle (Canadian idiosyncracy, I guess ... lol !) with my Minolta SR-1 film camera (totally manual without even through-the-lens light metering) with a reversed Minolta 55 mm f/2 Rokkor, backlit with low winter afternoon sunshine on Kodachrome 25 film. These were "awesome" pictures that woke me up to the infinite possibilities of macro photography. I bought a Minolta Bellows III costing 30 $ (all was manual in 1968) and spent the next summer photographing snails (they sell them as "escargots" if you eat them - "Escargot" is French for "Snail") and green grasshoppers. Success rate was not very high but the "good pictures" were very sharp and really beautiful. You try all sorts of things when you're young and bold.

Regards

Well, you can continue trying all sorts of things at any age! That's part of the idea of these photos hopefully inspiring people or why I write for Photofocus. There's so many things with macro or time-lapse videos or night photography with light painting that can be done. And best of all, so much of it is sort of unusual for us to see ordinarily, so it makes it more interesting for many!

Bubbles through a syrup bottle, snails...this is the whole idea!!!

I have more bubble photos, but I figured I'd share this instead. This is difficult to identify, but it's the back of a seashell.


Pentax K-1/Lensbaby Edge 35 Optic lens.

[RICHARD L.]

I'm extremely near-sighted, been this way all my life. So I'm an introvert and always perused Nature close around me. You are what you are ... lol !

[Ken Lee]

I'm extremely near-sighted, been this way all my life. So I'm an introvert and always perused Nature close around me. You are what you are ... lol !

We have two more things in common then, Richard. I'm also near-sighted and was since i was a kid.

And I'm also an introvert.

Because I used to teach and was rather goofy and fun with my special education students, people don't always realize that I am an introvert. But introverts aren't necessarily "shy" or "withdrawn" although certainly they can be. They simply derive energy from internal things such as thoughts or ideas rather than external things.

[RICHARD L.]

I was a Community College professor for 5 years at the beginning of my career as an Engineer, teaching surveying, hydrology and soil and water management. Being an introvert, I found it very difficult to stand before a class day in and day out but I never let it show much. We have to perform almost like a stand-up comedian, in reality, to get and conserve the attention and interest of our students. So you feel stressed and anguished a little before giving a 2 or 3 hour lesson but, once you begin, it's not so bad. I had at least 60 students every year, so I had to repeat the same lesson twice every week. After 5 years, I had enough and found another line of work (river restoration) where I worked with Engineers and Technicians all throughout Quebec and I felt much happier. I retired on 10/10/10 (October 10, 2010), cared for my ailing wife for 2 years before she passed away and then devoted all my time to traveling and photography.

Regards

[Ken Lee]

I was a Community College professor for 5 years at the beginning of my career as an Engineer, teaching surveying, hydrology and soil and water management. Being an introvert, I found it very difficult to stand before a class day in and day out but I never let it show much. We have to perform almost like a stand-up comedian, in reality, to get and conserve the attention and interest of our students. So you feel stressed and anguished a little before giving a 2 or 3 hour lesson but, once you begin, it's not so bad. I had at least 60 students every year, so I had to repeat the same lesson twice every week. After 5 years, I had enough and found another line of work (river restoration) where I worked with Engineers and Technicians all throughout Quebec and I felt much happier. I retired on 10/10/10 (October 10, 2010), cared for my ailing wife for 2 years before she passed away and then devoted all my time to traveling and photography.

Regards

If you stand in front of your class teaching and it becomes this sort of routine, after a while, it becomes comfortable.

Sorry to hear about your wife, but glad that you seem to be getting a lot out of retirement. Traveling and photography are two super great things to do, after all.