Jon Tyler Photography

According to Wikipedia, Bokeh (derived from Japanese, a noun boke, meaning “blur” or “haze”) is a photographic term referring to the appearance of point of light sources in an out-of-focus area of an image produced by a camera lens using a shallow depth of field. Different lens bokeh produces different aesthetic qualities in out-of-focus backgrounds, which are often used to reduce distractions and emphasize the primary subject.

This past weekend, I got back into some of my explorations of abandoned buildings. There’s only so many shots you can take of empty hallways, so I decided to take a slightly different approach and use some bokeh techniques to get a different feel for my pictures. I took some time with my 50mm f/1.4, and opened up the aperture all the way. It gives a very tight focus on a small subject, and the rest of the image gets very fuzzy and out of focus. Here’s a couple of shots that I really like:

I also really like this shot, which is essentialy a “reverse bokeh”. I set the focus on the chair in the back of the room, and blew out the focus on the door frame, hopefully dragging the viewer into the middle of the picture.

I was out in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago, and on Saturday night, my friend Brady and I went out to the Great Salt Lake for sunset. These two photographs were taken about 15 minutes apart, but obviously they had much different results. It didn’t take long for the sky to change from a really bright orange just moments after the sun dipped behind the mountains. Just a few minutes later, I got the second picture, which is dominated by pinks and purples.

More pictures from my Salt Lake City trip can be seen here.

Last weekend, I went with some friends and family down the Tidal Basin in DC to see the cherry blossoms. I didn’t get any pictures of the cherry blossoms that hit me like last’s years masterpiece, but I did get some cool pictures of my friend’s with their daughter. It made me think about some of my favorite shots that are more than just a pretty picture, but will be a treasured memory for years to come.

This is Kaylee, with her parents Chris and MeLisa. She’s a little over a year old (maybe 14-15 months, I’m not exactly sure), and she had a blast downtown!

And I have to share one another one of my favorite shots. This is Ansley, with her parents Brady (of My Still (Fuzzy) Life fame) and Liz. Last August, I took a trip with both of these babies and their families to Washington state. Brady, Liz, Ansley, and I took a trip out to the Pacific Coast, and I captured this shot of Ansley sticking her toes in the ocean for the first time. Brady was going to take the picture of Liz and Ansley himself until I grabbed the camera from him. The results are priceless:

I’ve wanted to frame and hang some of my work in my living room for a long time, and now I’m finally getting around to it.  The decision has been made to do a set of black and white shots, so I’ve been going back through my archives to convert some of my work.  I came across this shot from my trip to Seattle last August. 

Perfectly fine shot, but when I converted it to Black and White, I was blown away.  It’s quickly becoming one of my favorite pictures.  In addition to getting a spot on the living room wall, I’ve also order a larger version (12″ x 18″) to hang in my office at work.

Which one do you prefer?

I’ve been having a lot of fun with my macro lens lately. You can really capture a lot of crisp details. Here are a few pictures that I took at an abandoned mental hospital in Maryland with my macro lens.

I went over to the National Park Seminary to work on my set for the Times, and finally got some decent light for the exteriors. I’ve been fighting with cloudy and rainy weather, which have just washed out the skies, making the pictures less interesting. I got it right today, though. Here’s an example:

I’ve been doing a little spring cleaning.  For those that know me well, you know that I’m big into photography, and that recently I’ve been drawn to abandonded and crumbling building, like the shot below.  That’s essentially what’s happened to this blog.  It was abandoned and forgotten, left to a slow decay.

Previously, I just used this site as a general blog about my life, and unfortunately, that wasn’t very interesting.  In it’s heyday, JonTyler.com served as a Travel Log of my experience in Europe.  Essentially, I used it as a platform for my pictures from the trip, so I thought it would be a natural progression to convert this site into my photography blog.

I’ll be posting regularly featuring my work and the techniques that I’m using to ge these shots.  I’m alsoworking on adding a Portfolio section that features some of my favorite photographs. 

Enjoy!