It's my birthday

Just a short post, I wanted to get this done now because I've got a busy week ahead of me, with a club meeting and then my trip. More when I get back, of course!

A Milestone...

One that I'm not sure I'm particularly happy about. I've entered my 70th year.
(PS: that means I'm 69, not 70!)

Physically, I understand that I'm that age .

My father used to say,

"everything hurts. Except the stuff that doesn't work anymore".

I get it.

Mentally, I'm much younger, so it's frustrating that my body won't do the things my mind wants – no, expects – it to do. I'm still in my 50's. Or 40's! And that  people (OK, women) might find my chronological age off-putting.

I've done an awful lot of different things in my life – more than most people. Not only career related, but passions and sports and activities. That's something to look back at with some pride, now to figure out a path to go forward.

That iPhone case

A few weeks ago I mentioned a custom iPhone case with my own image on it. It arrived quickly and it looks exactly like the picture:

In hindsight, I might have chosen a brighter image but it really looks excellent. Also, the "Tough" case option comprises a formed rubber skin (no screen protector, though) and the picture is printed on a hard plastic shell that snaps on.

The only downside is that the opening where the headphone plug goes in was too small for the plug that I was using in the car to connect to the sound system, so I had to do a little shaving with a sharp knife and scissors (a Dremel would have been better but I was too lazy!). That damaged the shell too, but it's hardly noticeable if you do it carefully. I wrote to them about it, let's see how they respond.

It was inexpensive (around $25), and easy to order. Open an account at www.RedBubble.com and you can do it yourself with your own images. Or you could buy one of mine! BTW they have them for iPhones, Samsung Galaxy phones, iPads and laptop sleeves as well.

My book is finished. YAY!

I've just completed and uploaded my latest book, "Best of 2014".

front cover

How do you choose a single favourite image from so many genres? By process of elimination I selected this one which is printed as the page 1 flyleaf for the book. 

It's 92 pages long, a full-sized coffee table book. I prefer the "image wrap" cover instead of a dust jacket, so I didn't put anything on the flaps.

You, my loyal readers, can preview the book here. If you're also a subscriber, you can download a free pdf of the book, click the "Newsletter" link up above.

I use blurb.com's BookSmart software because it offers more flexibility than direct creation in Lightroom or their simpler Bookify or BookWright package. And I once used InDesign which is really flexible but I don't have a subscription to it any more.

If you want to do a book yourself, the process is a bit tedious but straightforward. Basically, you download their software (free), then create a book. In BookSmart, there are hundreds of page templates or you can create your own, then you drag and drop pictures into picture containers and paste or type text into text boxes. Make sure the pictures are high enough resolution. Good practice would be to select the pictures you want to use, then gather copies of them together in an appropriate folder so you don't have to hunt around for them.

The first time I did a book, I carefully resized my pictures to match the boxes: then I stopped doing it and just used a hi-res version (pixel count is important, DPI is not. Read my tech blog at www.faczentech.blogspot.com). You can easily resize or reshape your containers. If I add up the time it took to do this book (not including my post-processing of the images, of course), I'd say around 10 hours.

Blurb books are relatively expensive (it's about $100) so I only printed a couple of copies. I use them because of the quality. If you want one, you can order it from the link above. But you can also get a pdf copy of the book! I'll put the link for the free download in my next Newsletter, so if you're not yet subscribed, click the button at the top right corner of the blog. I'll wait right here until you do so!

Next up: "The Best of 2015"! I might even do a book called "Photo Impressions" that comprises only pictures of that genre that I've done in the past couple of years. I wish I could find a way to print economically so that it would be affordable and I could distribute more books.

Lake scenes

It's the end of Summer and the Fall colours are approaching. The cottagers are slowly disappearing leaving all this glory to us!

Sunset on the lake from the beach at 12-Mile Lake Church. There wasn't a lot of colour in the sky but Photoshop and Topaz Impression helped with that!

If I were any good with a paint brush and oils, this is what I would paint. I've had two conversations in the last week or two with Harvey Walker, the artist and teacher who has been running the Monday morning art classes at the Cultural Centre. I bring him up because he CAN do paintings like this, just as easily as I can do photographs and digital paintings. He said, "come back when you have 50 years of painting experience" when I commented how easy he makes it look.

Golden Afternoon. There's more to this picture than it looks! I took 150 exposures over the span of 20 minutes using my TriggerTrap in TimeLapse mode. Then I blended them together using StarStax – the "lighten" blend mode didn't work all that well but "darken" was ugly. Then I layered it in Photoshop and applied a couple of versions of Impression (Impasto and Van Gogh) at lowered opacities to provide the mix of textures and brush strokes that you see here.  

It's all about being able to express what's in your mind's eye (or ear: musicians can do the same thing with their instruments).  That has to be the goal I mentioned at the top of this blog post. I don't have 50 years... but maybe I can put a dent in it!

ROAD TRIP!

I decided to reward myself with one. After all, I have to get away from the frenetic pace, the pressures of living up here in the Highlands (LOL).

So next Thursday morning (the 17th), I'm getting in the car and heading Northwest. Destination, Lake Superior. Should be peak fall colours up there. First stop, Sault Ste. Marie where I've booked a trip on the Agawa Canyon train everyone says is fabulous. Then a couple of nights in Wawa at the Rock Island Lodge. I hope the weather cooperates because that's the greatest spot for a star trails shot! I want to do a lot of waterfalls and landscapes.

After Wawa, I might go back South to Batchawana Bay or I might head East along 101, through Timmins and perhaps Iroquois Falls before turning south towards home. We'll see how it goes.

I plan to take my oil paints and easel with me; again if the weather cooperates, I'd like to try painting in some of the places the Group of Seven were in so many years ago. I'll take pictures too, because my painting skills are non-existent. It will be fun to try.

Stay tuned...

— 30 —

Mid-Summer Stuff

NEWSFLASH from Topaz

Topaz Adjust, arguably the BEST app in the Topaz suite is going on sale for half price in a few days! Starting on August 13th, you can buy it for only $25, and you can download a 30 day free trial to check it out.

Adjust was the first Topaz product I tried and as soon as I did, I was hooked. It provides an amazingly broad range of control and adjustment effects to any image. I use it a lot: it's my go-to plugin in Photoshop (also works in Elements and Lightroom)

Here's the link, and put "augadjust" in the coupon box at checkout to get the discount. Remember, you can also put "faczen" in the checkout box for a 15% discount on the whole suite or any of their other products.

New Banner

As (most of you) can see, I've changed the banner on the blog. Whenever I change it, the old one disappears, so I've been posting it here in the body: but some people view this as an RSS feed so they can't see the banner and other formatting anyway. So I'll post the banner, together with the previous one, here in the body. Next time I won't have to post the previous one.

Old Banner. Composite image of bear at the landfill and a 50-image sequence put together with StarStaX. 

New Banner. Taken at the Highland Yard in Minden on August 3. This abstract is basically right out of the camera. I used a slow shutter speed and panned with the runner to give it a sense of motion. I couldn't resist enhancing it a little just to soften the blurred background some.

Tripod Update

The fine folks at 3 Legged Thing did what they said they would, they sent me a replacement leg segment and centre column piece to fix my broken tripod. I paid for shipping, that's all.

"Brian" is in one piece again, except for a couple of plastic bits they forgot to send me (they're in the mail). In their usual creative fashion these plastic pieces are called "chicken lips"! I love dealing with these guys.

Quality product from a company that really cares about their customers. They're not paying me to say this, although in fairness B&H Photo in New York does send a bit of commission my way if you buy anything from them using my link at right. Here's the direct link to "Brian" at B&H.

Backup progress

As I write this, I'm steadily doing a sync of my (now main) 2Tb external drive to a fresh 3Tb unit. I started it at around midnight, it's now 10:00 am and according to the progress bar, I'm about halfway through. It's working on September 2012 right now.

When it's done, I need to do an incremental backup to my other 3Tb, then I'll retire the 2Tb drive or re-task it somehow. I think I'm going to do another "Keepers" catalogue and put that on the 2Tb. There's no room for more on there now, it's 95% full. I'm still looking for a consistent strategy that doesn't involve buying a thousand dollars more backup drives.

I'm also worried about my desktop computer. When I wake it up, the screen is flickering. That could signal imminent monitor failure, or a video card failure or worse. The computer is about 3 or 4 years old, it might be that time... it's flaky anyway, and tests show that the main hard drive isn't happy. Diligent backups of the important data (including Outlook which runs on that machine) are in order.

Why am I writing this? Two reasons: to tell you how serious I am about backing up my archives and data, and to convince my loyal readers to give this some consideration!

Update: it took 16 hours to do the sync. Came up with two errors but that was probably because I brought up Lightroom once while it was working (had to look something up). I haven't done the incremental yet.

My (almost) daily chore

Since I'm not in the greatest physical shape (that's putting it mildly. Hey: Round IS a shape!) and being a lazy person, I don't do much exercise. To my regret: when I read about my friends Mark and Ron in Scotland, hiking the cliffs on the Isle of Skye, I feel deep pangs of regret that I didn't take care of myself better over the years. I'm beginning to admit that my age is catching up to me (I'll be 68 in September) and as my father used to say, "everything hurts. Except the stuff that doesn't work any more".

Update: Mark has been blogging about their trip at http://markgirard.blogspot.ca/, colour me green with envy. Scroll down to the August 7 post for my favourite images from their trip so far, landscapes on the Isle of Skye. I have to live vicariously...

My knees, or more accurately, my quads or the ligaments that attach them to the knees, are the most annoying. I completely lack the confidence to step down, afraid that I'll lose footing or balance and be unable to hold myself up. That's how I broke "Brian" in the story above. I get out of breath very easily doing moderate exercise. I've decided that if I'm going to live longer, I don't want it to be in a wheelchair or with a walker, so I must do something about it. My neighbour and I agreed to walk, some. That was a month ago, and we still haven't gone out even once. So now is the time.

The two paragraphs above are like New Year's Resolutions. Doomed. Maybe this will help: how about you, my loyal readers, following up on me from time to time? If I have someone other than myself to be accountable to, maybe it will help. By the way, I've lost almost 15 lbs in the past month or so, hit a plateau in the past week because I won't give up eating corn and because I gave into temptation when Janie said, "join us for dinner at the Pepper Mill" (the best hamburgers anywhere!).

So I started writing this because I had a couple of pictures for you that might involve a bit of healthy lifestyle habits.

I had a total of 7 face cords (2⅓ bush cords) of wood delivered a month ago. Wood is substantially less expensive than other heating methods. It needs to sit out in the sun for a while to dry out before it gets stacked. I'm half way through it, I do about half an hour of stacking a day. It's helping my wrist and shoulder and a little abs. I'm going to try consciously lifting with my legs, let's see if I can strengthen them a bit.

A healthy breakfast. Too bad it's only available fresh for a couple of weeks! The raspberries come from my own bushes, lovingly hand picked. I hand picked the blueberries too: from the Costco warehouse! I'm eating a lot more fruits and vegetables than in the past, trying to change some lifestyle choices.

Floating Camera Platform

Here's the story. I was chatting with Dorian, a neighbour of mine, about a very cool boat I had seen at a garage sale the previous week. Unfortunately, it was way more than I could spend. He mentioned that he had a little boat and motor he didn't want any more, and we made a deal. I took the motor to a local mechanic who made sure it worked and today I picked up the boat.

Nobody's going to say, "there goes Speedy Gonzales!" But it's perfect for what I want, a floating camera platform. And a way to do a little fishing and relaxing on the lake.

It's just a little boat, with a 4 hp motor. I promise, I won't take it out when it's windy or rough. 

An HDR closeup, finished with Topaz Simplify. I should have given it more space at bottom right, so I'll re-shoot this soon. 

Here's my first HDR from the boat. That's Vic's place down Pleasant Point Road. I was worried about alignment and ghosting since I was shooting handheld from a bobbing boat, but Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 handles it really well.

Update: I went out at sunset last night, took my fishing rod but not my DSLR. Wish I had! Here's the best I could do with the little point-and-shoot.

It took a bunch of Photoshop and Topaz (I used Adjust: see the top comment in this article!) to make this happen. 

Some foreground interest! That's my little 4 hp motor idling away 

I'm posting this one because it's such a great story, but it's a terrible shot. Click to blow it up. 

Can't wait for the fall colours! Oh, wait, yes I can...

— 30 —

Busy, Busy weekend!

New Header Photo

Every couple of months I like to change the header picture on the blog to reflect the season. Today's new header is wishful thinking, I think! Last night it was almost 30°C below and we have a ton of snow on the ground. The theory is, "if you think it, it will happen". Think warm thoughts!

The new header is actually an old photo that I took with my D70 back in 2006 on the Cabot Trail, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. It's amazing what quality a 6Mp camera delivers, even in today's terms. I enhanced it within Lightroom and Photoshop, then I applied the excellent "Paper Textures" extension in Photoshop CC. It's free, and if you install it, note that there are TWO versions, "Paper Textures" and  "Pro". Install both.

When I replace the header photo, I put the old one here for reference or it's gone! So here's the header picture that was up to the end of February.

The ongoing New Laptop saga

Strictly speaking, not a new laptop, just a new boot drive. The old one gave up the ghost, so I had a new drive installed. We put in a 256Gb SSD drive and loaded the operating system and programs on it. Data resides as it always had, on a second internal drive, backed up to various plugged in external drives.

By the way when I say "we" I mean I paid for it, and James Keller did it. He really knows what he's doing and is starting a fresh computer services business in Haliburton. He has my vote.

So my data was safe but I have to reinstall all of my programs. There are probably 20 of them that I use regularly, and a bunch of others that are more sporadically required and lots of support stuff. Today I discovered that I didn't have a PDF reader installed, for instance, or Dropbox. I've got the critical ones done but there are 7 or 8 of the main programs left to do and who knows how many of the utilities. What a pain.

I also discovered that I was missing some important pieces of the puzzle. For example, my Lightroom and Photoshop preferences and presets! So if I were you, I'd go look for those and make sure you have a backup somewhere. Also your Outlook file if you use that client. It's usually in some obscure location!

FWIW, the laptop sure boots up quick now! And since the swap files are on the SSD, I imagine Photoshop will fly much faster when working on some of those huge D800 files!

How's this for an HDR location?

I came across this old building last week. The sign on it says "Ontario's Coolest Building".What an awesome HDR site, especially if we can get inside (which we might be able to do after the winter). And across the road is a larger structure that had collapsed, so there's just some brick walls and framework left. Ill try to set up a shoot there!

This is a 5-shot HDR, then I added a Topaz Simplify layer.  

This is the yellow sign on the building (click to blow it up if you can't read it), shot through my car window. Hey, it was cold, OK? 

It was a busy weekend

It started with Ron Goodlin's wildlife presentation on Friday night, attended by almost 50 people. A wonderful program, turns on the 'envy' genes, both about his skills as a photographer and speaker, and his ability to travel and his great equipment.

Forgive the lousy iPhone photo! 

We went to the dogsled races on Saturday. It was a snowy, flat day, that got even worse later on. Sunday was clear but Saturday was a long day and I didn't get there the next day until much too late (someone told me the 8-dog race STARTED at 3pm. In fact it ENDED at 3pm. {sad face}.

It took a bunch of editing to make a useable shot out of this one. Really flat lighting and snow falling made it a difficult capture, especially since it was with my 400 mm lens. By the way, that looks like a GoPro camera on her chest: they're really ubiquitous. This was the 6-dog race on Saturday afternoon. 

This is an 11-week-old puppy. I tried to steal her to take her home, but couldn't get away with it. This has to be one of the cutest puppies I've ever seen. Her name is Nyx, after (Νύξ), the Greek primeval goddess of night. Apparently she will be bred in 18 months, so I gave her my card and said to call me in 18 months and 8 weeks! Do you think she bought the jacket to match the dog's eyes?

Dr. Ron, lying down on the job as usual! Ron, your camo isn't working! I SEE YOU!
I tried getting down on the ground too. It took 3 people to help me get up. {sigh}. 

The lighting was MUCH better on Sunday. This shot is only lightly edited. Could have used a touch more depth of field... 

But that's not all. I decided to drive home via Bethel Church Road, which leads to the white water venue on Horseshoe Lake Road. First thing that made me put on the brakes and grab the camera was this seasonal home.

It's a log building, boarded up for the winter, with a fastidiously applied coat of pastel blue and green paint. I thought it lends itself well to this painterly treatment. I had to climb up a snowbank to get this vantage point. Then one more step and I was in up to my hips. I didn't expect that, and didn't bother to take gloves with me, and couldn't use my healing right hand to help get up... you should have seen me floundering around!

That's still not all! As I got to Horseshoe Lake Road, I saw a herd of deer at a house on the right. I quietly got out, changed lenses, walked over to the driveway... and they ran off. I went to the white water, scouted around a bit, nothing doing, headed back. The deer were back again. This time I managed to get some shots. Even better, this one youngster was too curious to be frightened and I got to within about 15 feet!

Love his expression and the pink tongue sticking out! Notice his ears aren't even up! He's going to have to learn some caution or he won't make it through hunting season next year! He was trying to wind me, but I was cross-wind to him. 

An eyeball shot.Told you I was close! 400mm and cropped, but hey... 

...and you thought I was done for the day! When I got home, I saw these great clouds, the sun was about to set... I thought I'd get that colourful sunset I had missed last week. Again it didn't materialize. By the time the sun went down, it was cloudless. I spend two hours waiting for it out on the ice, to no avail. I sat in a fishing hut (no heat, but out of the wind) for an hour or so. Anyway, I took this burst while setting up the camera for later.

7-shot HDR and I painted in the lights. Then I added the stars. If those clouds had hung around for another hour it would have been more spectacular! I'll get one yet! 

So I figure that's enough for one weekend. Until next time!

— 30 —

Doodling

Doodling

I was doodling with my Wacom stylus in Photoshop. What do you think?

When I did this, I was thinking about a logo for the new Haliburton Highlands Camera Club (this isn't it: it needs a camera or lens or shutter in it). But I started playing with a pressure sensitive brush and started by trying to draw a pine tree. I'm actually not that happy with the brush (can't seem to go from really big to really small) but anyway, this evolved.

Somehow I really like it, wish I had something i could do with it. If you know someone who owns a resort in the pine trees, this would make a great logo for them!

PS: it's 5 strokes of the pen and a filled circle. I so wish I could draw...

What got me started thinking in this direction was this image I took on the way home from Haliburton yesterday.

Winter Sunset. Straight out of the camera. Just a little crop and some Lightroom toning.
My new blog header banner until another one catches my fancy! 

2014 Resolution, Day 1

Asking people if I can take their picture. I stuck my toe in the water. I sort of asked someone in McKeck's restaurant if I could take his picture. Sort of... there was a guy there in a full snowmobile suit and helmet in the upstairs restaurant (you don't see that in the city much. Different story in Haliburton!). Anyway I didn't really ask, I chatted with him, told him how unusual that was, and TOLD him to go stand in the window light so I could get a shot. He didn't question it, just did what I said! The shot didn't come out as I would have liked but it was a first step!

Then Karen, the lady who served us, started talking about how they had REAL oyster crackers with their clam chowder and got all animated and excited about them (!). I didn't ask, I just picked up the camera and shot a burst. She didn't mind at all, just said "I hope you got my good side".

We don't just have crackers, we have OYSTER CRACKERS!
I got a nice smile in another shot but I like her expression here!

So I guess my resolution is about taking people's pictures when they know I am, not like a paparazzi with a telephoto lens.

So it begins

Ice fishing season is under way. With the recent cold spell, the ice on the lakes is nice and thick and the seasonal villages of ice huts is about to explode on the northern lakes. Frankly, I don't see the attraction, probably because I'm not a big fish eater or beer drinker, but it does provide some photo ops!

And so it begins. Kirk, from the Red Umbrella Inn, dragging an ice hut out onto 12-Mile Lake. Processed with Topaz Simplify, I also used Topaz Star Effects and a radial filter in Lightroom. My latest favourite tools! Because I get asked how I post-process images, here's what I did.

I used Topaz Simplify to add the painterly look then I masked it for his face, hat and jacket, the front of the ATV and the snowplow blade (and the bit of snow at the bottom). This was already low DOF because it was shot at f/2.8 (200mm) but I wanted to enhance that look. I also used the local adjustment brush in Simplify to burn in the wood on the shack a bit to give it more vibrance. The windshield was covered with a mass of duct tape where it was cracked and it's a white mess, so I used the healing brush and then the mixer brush to blend it out. Then I added stars to the headlights which were just a dull yellow since this was a daylight shot. To do that, I had to brush in a little white spot where I wanted the stars, then run the Plug-in. Back in Lightroom I darkened the image then I added a radial filter around his face and clicking 'invert mask' to adjust the inside of the filter, increased the exposure, clarity and sharpening on his face.

For me that's really light post-processing. Nothing I do any more is SOOC (straight out of the camera), that's just my style.

It's Sunday morning, 4:00 am

...and here I am typing on my blog. In case anyone is wondering why, it's the downside of living up North. I was lying in bed and heard my sump pump running. It should go off after a few minutes, but it didn't. That means my sump pump line under the driveway is frozen (I didn't think the heatline in it actually works...). I was going to wait until morning but then I thought about how my basement might be filling with water and wondered if the pump would fail. So I went out and attached a jury-rigged hose to the outlet and ran it across the driveway. I have to do that every winter. When that line gets frozen, I swap in another one, and bring the frozen one in to melt in the bathtub.

Then when I came inside and looked at the thermostat, the low-battery warning was flashing. I figured as long as I'm up... and I changed them. Then I went to the computer before going back to bed and here I am. PS, if it snows a lot today, I'm in trouble. My ATV is in the shop, the 4WD was only working when I curved to the left. They found the problem but didn't have it back together yet on Friday, so it'll be Monday before I get it back. Kirk, the guy on the ATV in the picture said he would plow out my driveway if we get a big snowfall before my ATV comes back. The joys of living in God's Country!

Now I'm going back to bed. Night-night!

Free Wallpaper

Remember this image from a couple of weeks ago? It makes a really nice background picture for your computer.

Free for use as wallpaper on your computer. This image is protected under Creative Commons Licensing BY-NC-ND. Attribution required if you distribute it, no commercial use, no modification in any way. Please do not print it: this version is not optimized for printing. If you want a print (large format art print available) or if you want to use it for commercial purposes, just ask.

Readers of my blog can download it for free as follows:

Go to one of the following links, then you can right-click/save-as to take a copy

• 4x3 size for normal monitors: http://photography.to/wallpaper/nakedtrees4x3.jpg
• 16x9 version for wide-screens: http://photography.to/wallpaper/nakedtrees16x9.jpg

You can of course stretch either version to fit your monitor but you may prefer the cropping of one or the other.

Haliburton Highlands Camera Club Meeting

We found a great location for our meetings: The Royal Canadian Legion in Minden! Seating for about 60 people, easy to get to and to park... next meeting is Wednesday, January 15 at 7pm. If you didn't get the invite via MailChimp, drop me a note and I'll get you on the list. Among other things, we're going to do a mini-tutorial on how to resize and upload pictures, and on the private Facebook group we have set up for the club. Here's the club's webpage. See you there!

— 30 —

And the beat goes on...

Did you notice the new banner up top? Every now and then I feel the need to change it up. And when I do, I post the previous banner in the body of the blog because otherwise it disappears completely! So...

I chose the new image because (a) I had to find something that would fit in the footprint, an extremely wide pano, and (b) I like the smooth tonality and colour blend of this image. It is a picture taken from my dock on 12 Mile Lake. I've taken hundreds of pictures from the same spot but occasionally one stands out. I like how the shape of the shoreline and its reflection on the left creates a virtual arrowhead that causes the viewer's eye to move from left to right across the image and back again to pick out the structures and detail.

For those who care, it's an HDR merged in Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 from 3 exposures, shot with the 17-35mm lens at 17mm and f/8 on the full-frame D600. For what it's worth, here's the original image (well, the merge!) minus a few pixels for better framing.

I will make this available as a fine art print. I think it would look outstanding on a matte art paper. Check out the gallery link at right to find it and email me to order a print. It also makes a fine wallpaper image for your computer. Two sizes, one for normal and one for wide screens. This wallpaper image is FREE for subscribers to my newsletter, so click here or on the link at upper right to subscribe.

I'm going to start today by nagging you.

Backups

Some of my readers are diligent about doing their backups. Some are not. Some people need a subtle reminder to do it. This is intended for you!

Do your backups. My backup strategy isn't perfect but at least I do them. Today I sync'd my two external drives so I have two up-to-date copies of my photo archives. I also copied my Outlook data files to an external drive. Don't forget those, they're in a weird location (on a PC) and you don't want to go through what I did when the original got corrupted...

On a personal note, I have to sit down and create a new Lightroom catalog that contains all my "Keeper" images, then copy the whole shebang to another drive. Reason is, my external drives are getting very full and I'd really like to have a third copy of the important images, at least. 

Update: I just did that. It took about 8 hours for Lightroom to percolate and copy a little over 500Gb of data. FWIW, I have over 15,000 keeper images (ones which I had flagged earlier as 'not unacceptable')! I should have sent it directly to the external drive because now it wants another 7 hours to do that. I feel better, though. Now I have a third copy of my "keeper" files and it's going to be stored off-site.  

Anyway, do it today. I don't know what your backup strategy is, but do it. Just imagine your house burning down to the ground and in addition to everything else, losing all the images you've ever shot.

Emergency Medical Card

If for some reason you have a medical emergency, the important information about you should be available if you end up in an ER and can't tell them everything, or can't remember. You should also have contact information, a list of meds, all that stuff in your purse or wallet JUST IN CASE.

Years ago, I created a .pdf document that you could fill out (on your own computer, you don't send that out anywhere) and put it up as a public service. At one point I had a hit counter on that page and recorded over 50,000 hits: I lost it, so I'm going to start it over again.

Anyway, go to this page: http://www.faczen.com/medcard.htm and fill out the form. You simply type your info into the page, print it out, then run over to Staples and get it laminated if you want, and carry it in your wallet or purse or camera bag...

Note that this is absolutely FREE and we don't record any information about you including the fact that you downloaded the document or visited the page (except that we count how many people have done that). No worries.

You may be one of the rare people who don't have any medical issues or take any prescription drugs or have any allergies, but at least you should carry your doctor's name and contact info and who to call in case of emergency. Please do it now. And if you think it's a good idea, please tell your friends and loved ones.

OK, finished nagging...

Heads Up!

I'm going to be announcing an Algonquin Park Fall Colours PhotoWalk in the next week or so. My initial concept is that there will be no charge for my students and subscribers to my newsletter, just trying to put it together. Watch for the announcement on the Newsletter.

SmugMug has a new look

There are lots of places you can put your photos up on the web for free. Everyone's doing the "cloud" thing now, but most of the free sites have some down sides. Every day, I read about how someone's pictures were stolen on FlickR or on 500px... I've been a SmugMug subscriber for years and because that's the only thing they do and because it's not totally free, they care about you.

I had a "Professional" account there because I wanted to be able to sell images through them with a markup. They had links to a couple of really great labs, like Bay Photo in San Francisco, and you could easily order directly. I stopped doing that because, well, it wasn't a good way for me to market my images (that said, I haven't found one yet!). Anyway, I downgraded my account to something called a "Power" account which costs me $60/year. If you're interested, here's the comparison between the different accounts they offer.

A couple of weeks ago, they totally revised their interface and look-and-feel. It's really, really slick now, IMHO. Check out my site at faczen.smugmug.com. Go ahead, I'll wait right here...

If you clicked on "Browse", you would have seen some other galleries that I've put in place (works in progress...) but what I like is they are for special purposes and the casual visitor doesn't have to be distracted by them.

So one of the other things I like about SmugMug is that when you send an email to their helpdesk, a real live human being responds in short order. And it's someone who actually knows about things, not some CSR in a foreign call center (Hi, I'm Rajesh, and I can certainly help you with that problem...).

One more thing: Lightroom has a plug-in where you can sync with SmugMug. Just drag photos into it and click "Publish" and you're done. Nice. I just added the image at the top of this post to both my "New and Featured Images" and my "Fine Art Prints" galleries with a couple of clicks.

Anyway, I'm happy to recommend them to all my readers. Go to www.smugmug.com. You can play with it for free for 14 days, then sign up. If you mention me in the referral box when you sign up. Two ways of doing that: put in my email address (glenn dot springer at faczen dot com. You know what to do with that, right?) or just cut and paste in this code:  16NrueyZ8KPmc. You'll save $5 on your first year subscription.

Speaking of new looks...
Business Printing

Tell me how this strikes you:

■ 1000 double sided business cards, printed on both sides in full colour, full bleed, on heavy (16.5 point) card stock with an aqueous coating, all for $20 or so.

This is the front of the business card I printed for myself (no black border. It bleeds right off the edges of the card). By the way, shot from the same dock as the banner up above!.

■ 1000 postcards, similar to the above, 4x6 size, both sides full colour for about $50. All superb quality. That's ONE THOUSAND CARDS, folks!

Here's how it works: the supplier I deal with gangs up print jobs so he prints hundreds of cards at a time and trims them out of a big sheet. So each individual card is inexpensive and the printer is happy because he's making money. As long as everyone uses the same inks (4-colour process) and paper, he's laughing.

If you're interested, I'll send you a template. You fit your art in the template and send it back. We print it. Or you can use, for example, my photos for the background. If you want me to do layout and design work, I can, very inexpensively. Starting to sound interesting?

Have you ever seen prices like that for full colour high quality printing? This is a no-brainer, folks. contact me...

Don't say I didn't warn you!

I shot this a couple of days ago. It is coming... 

On to some images!

Kind of an unusual casual portrait... this was a mistake. For some reason I had a HUGE exposure compensation set: more than +3 stops. I think I turned the dial the wrong way. But when I saw the image onscreen, I liked it! I had to do a little work on the faces to bring them back, and it's at ISO 6400 (the D600 is amazing!). I need to try more of these high key images! Rita and Ray Felson are relatives, visiting my mother. 

Internationally renowned photographer Stu Freedman, visiting with the Felsons at my mother's. Stu's wife and my mother are related, haven't seen each other in 80 years or more. Stu is 90, he founded the Toronto Guild about a million years ago, and is still shooting pictures! Don't criticize my background, OK? It was a casual shot while chatting. At least I got the lighting right! (North-facing window, behind the Felsons above, if anybody cares). 

I know, it's just a seagull (Herring Gull, larus argentatus, if anybody cares!). But the 400mm Sigma lens can be really sharp when it wants to. And it's on the cropped sensor D5100 too, so effectively 600mm! I did some birds-in-flight too, that day. I practice on them sometimes when I'm at the dump. 

While riding my ATV on the trail near my house, I came across these giant fungi on a fallen tree stump. I didn't have anything with me to give it a sense of scale, so I put my Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 in it. If you're not a photographer, that's about 9" long... if you are one, it's still 9" long but you know that!  

I went back yesterday to try again, this time I brought a tripod. Now do you see how big they are? It's weird because (a) I've never seen one that big outside of a rain forest and (b) there are no other ones around anywhere. Aliens, I tell you... 

Until next time! TTFN

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Spring has Sprung at last!

I have a bunch of new pictures, so I thought I'd get this post up. Heading into Toronto today. Spring has finally sprung, though: to my friends in Minnesota and Wisconsin, chin up: it'll get to you eventually! I had lunch al fresco yesterday!

A lot of people up here are still under water. I feel for them and I hope that the Government and insurance companies come through. That's why we pay them all that money!

Working on the Dam

Parks Canada was working on the dam at the South end of 12-Mile Lake (the water flows into Mountain Lake, the headwaters for the Gull River. The Gull is the waterway for the Minden Wildwater Preserve, then the Hydro Dam, then Minden, then all the way down to the Trent-Severn Canal).

Remember, you can click on any picture to see a bigger version of it.

They were blocking off the West half of the dam (nearest the camera) but leaving the overall flow the same. You can see that there are 3 or 4 logs in the back not going in. The purpose was to retrieve a dock which the floods had driven under the dam by forcing it through the East channel. 

The old-fashioned mechanism still works. Step 1 is to remove the boards blocking the opening, then winch a log into position (it's 12" x 12" by whatever length). The guy in the middle has a hook that looks like a gaff to hold the log in place while they release the winch cables. When he lets it go, the log falls into place on top of the stack in the water. Then they do the next one. Once they're prepared, it takes them about 2 minutes to drop one in. Retrieving it is a similar operation, although I'm not sure how they get the winch cable attached when it's down under water.

The lad on the left seems to be the group leader. He was coordinating the operation. I must be getting old, but I swear he's too young to shave yet... 

Here they are actually operating the winch. Note the flotation vests around each of their necks. The fellow with the blue one (his name is Mike) is actually from the Peterborough detachment, on loan up here during the flood crisis. The young lad's name is Ryan.

I talked for a while with these guys about what caused the flooding in Minden and elsewhere. Their basic response was that it was due to the heavy rains that fell in a one or two day period before the ground defrosted enough to absorb it, coupled with the snow melt the very next day. They couldn't hold any more of it back because the lakes upstream were overflowing their shorelines and around the dams that were in place. The lowering of the lake levels in late summer has two purposes: to maintain the levels in the Trent-Severn and to prevent just such an occurrence by making room to accommodate the anticipated spring runoff. This year was just too much, in fact in my experience, the August lake levels were lower than I'd ever seen them.

See? You learned something!

First ATV Ride
I took my ATV out on the trail off Pleasant Point Road the other day, for the first time not on a road or on the ice. At first I was nervous, especially about what the clearance was like and for some reason, it feels like it falls off to the right. But I got a bit more used to it after a while and the clearance is awesome. I can put pretty big rocks in between the wheels instead of going around them.

I plan to be on this trail through the summer. I'm going to try to document the way the forest changes from month to month by taking pictures at the same spot on the trail. Here are a few images:

Looking South along the trail from the high point. The white spots are NOT flowers, they're dead leaves (beech, I think) 

Here's where my ATV was parked. It's an HDR, then I used Topaz Adjust "Glamor Glow" on the trees.  

Another shot of the bike. I like the high-key effect on the trees and may try to take some more like that. I had shot this as part of an HDR burst but didn't combine it. 

This is at the South end of the trail as I'm about to go back in. I was concerned about getting stuck in the mud but there wasn't even a hint of a problem. 

On the way back, I handheld my Point-and-Shoot camera and took a video while riding with one hand (there's one spot where I blip the throttle because my thumb slipped, riding one-handed!). Here's the link to the video on YouTube. The 6-minute video was 400Mb in size! I found a utility to reduce it and it ended up around 50Mb. Remember, this was my first time and I was being cautious. I didn't go through the mud/water because I was wearing sneakers and didn't want to get them all wet.

At the end of the video, you can see the level of the lake water over the road where Point Pleasant Road meets Red Umbrella Road. Normally there's a boat launch there that's at least 2-3 feet high, down into the water which is normally about 20 feet away from the shore.

Crispy Car HDR's

Credit Michael White (an HDR photographer from Florida who specializes in car images, see his work here) with the phrase "Crispy Cars", which he posted in a message on the TIF forum.

So when I got back from my ATV ride, I noticed this car in the Red Umbrella Inn parking lot. It had been quietly sitting there for at least a year, then apparently on Sunday, while I was in Toronto, it turned into a toasted auto. No discernible reason: it was wet from heavy rains and the Fire Marshall even said there was no trace of accelerants that would point to it being torched: a mystery! Anyway, HDR's of crispy cars are cool. Here are some.

This last one is also a "Paintograph" since I applied the Oil Paint filter to the HDR. Actually it's not; that would imply that I actually digitally painted it but all I did was click and move a few sliders around.  

Lots of pictures today: I'll stop here until next time!

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