Exceeding Expectations

Exceeding Expectations

That's what I'm hoping for, for 2014. And I'm off to a good start! What comes to mind first is the new Haliburton Highlands Camera Club.

As I write this, we have 22 members. And I know of several others who will join in the next weeks, if you remember we had to postpone our inaugural meeting because of weather and a lot couldn't come.

What's most gratifying is that I perceived a need for such a club up here, bit the bullet and made it happen, and people overwhelmingly agreed with me! I have a real mailing list of almost 70 people at this moment who are seriously interested.

If you live up in the Highlands, or you know someone who does, send them to www.highlandscameraclub.ca where they can learn more about us and the programs we're putting together!

Now the challenge will be to put it together so that it can exceed our members' expectations. To do that, I need to assemble a team to administer the club, because I certainly can't do it myself (OK, maybe I could but I don't WANT to!). What I WANT to do is to teach, to write seriously, and to have the opportunity to shoot some quality images this year, to explore and advance my artistic side. I'm hoping that my health and other factors will let me travel a bit this year. I really want to do Newfoundland again and perhaps be able to go to Iceland and/or the British Isles but that would be exceeding my expectations!

Adobe Rumour

I heard a rumour that Adobe has extended their $9.99/month offer for PS/LR until February 28, but just for people who have registered copies of CS3 or newer. I saw it once but haven't been able to find it again... perhaps by the time you read this.

Most Popular Image

My most popular image of 2013 was my next-to-last one. On the way into Toronto on Monday, I drove South on Bathurst from Aurora. There are some picturesque rolling fields on the west side as you approach Aurora. I've shot there before, mostly in summer and fall but in view of the ice storm happening over Christmas in Toronto, I was looking for rime ice remnants, found a few but nothing really exciting.

I drove home on New Year's Eve and deliberately up Bathurst Street. There had been a dusting of snow so I didn't expect to see much if any crystal clear ice, and I was right. But there's a little grove of gnarly trees that I've seen before and I slowed down to have a look. By the way, it was 20° below zero and there was a biting cold wind. I was cold in my down coat and fur hat!

As I write this (New Year's morning), this image has had over 100 views on Facebook which may not sound like a lot but considering I only have 60 'friends'... It's been reshared and lots of great comments! It needed to be black-and-white, not colour and I looked at several versions before picking this one. Topaz Simplify and Nik Silver Efex if you're keeping track.

If I hadn't already chosen my 'best image of 2013', this would have been a candidate. Something compelling about this shot. I'll make it available as a fine art print and put it on Fine Art America and RedBubble later today. You can buy a museum-quality art print of this by sending me an email.

Just to set the scene, for those of you who don't know the area, Bathurst is two lanes in either direction with a centre untravelled lane mostly for making turns. Since there had been a touch of snow, you could see that nobody had driven there. Shoulders were non-existent because of snow clearing so it was hard to stop safely without blocking an actual driving lane, unless you were in the median.

So that's what I did. Rather than risk traffic and make people drive around me, I parked in the median when I got out to take pictures. A police car pulled up, the officer wondered what I was doing and said, "technically you can't park in the middle of a highway..." then he actually said, "you're not in any trouble. Be careful and have a Happy New Year!" York Region's Finest.

This was actually the LAST image of 2013. In this case I had stopped in someone's driveway. I was trying to find something to document the devastation, the broken trees from the ice storm. I know there are worse events elsewhere in the world, but a ripped-up palm tree that takes a few years to grow full sized isn't the same as a  splintered 100 year old oak

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Wow. It's hard to stay motivated!

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. I love living up here in the Haliburton Highlands, but there are certain times of year that are better than others, and this isn't one of them. A neighbour and I were talking and we're of the same mind: November and March are the worst months.

Right now It's damp and cold. The ground is muddy and monochromatic. The songbirds are gone and the only creatures that are stirring are the people getting ready for the winter. Actually, there's a skiff of white snow on the ground, the lake is active in the wind and although it's created an interesting rime of ice where water has splashed up on the land, and it could be photogenic, everything is too grey to be interesting, and anyway, I'm chilled and don't feel like going out.

My neighbour said he prefers November to March/April because "I have the winter to look forward to"! Fascinating. You'd think it would be the other way around. But he's right: winter is a magical time up here in the Highlands. I know that those of you in other climes (and especially those in the Big Smoke we call Toronto) think we're crazy, but that's your problem.

Still, I can't wait for those crisp white days. And I created a book a couple of years ago to celebrate Winter in the Highlands, there's a link at right to Blurb where you can see the book and enjoy it.

Several projects on the go

I'm working on my next book. I have about a week to get it off to Blurb to take advantage of their huge Black Friday sale (30% off!). Being the procrastinator that I am, I don't know if I'll make it. My big hangup is to create a theme and select images that work well together. I've segregated about 250 images so far, maybe I have TWO books to create!

The Haliburton Highlands Camera Club is taking a lot of my attention right now. We're a couple of weeks away from the inaugural meeting (Wednesday, December 11 at 7pm in Minden, see the website for details). I hope that's going to work out — it will if enough people come forward to help out. I can't do it alone.

I also have an eBook in the works. As regular readers know, I've been writing a weekly photography column for the Haliburton County Living (Weekender) newspaper for almost half a year now, without skipping a beat. Off-topic, it's hard to come up with new material now. As I write this, I have two days to come up with something for next week's column and I'm a little brain dead. Anyway, the column is mostly tips for novice and intermediate photographers, and I want to consolidate them into an eBook.

So I'm busy, but it's hard to stay motivated in the ever-shortening days of November.

D610 vs. D800

Hmmm. I wrote earlier that I'm waiting for Nikon to contact me with the news that a refurbished D800 is available and I have a promise of a swap for my D610 when it is. But I've not been proactively going after them about it because, well, I like the D610!

I used to like the D600 until the dust measles became untenable. So the D610 is the same camera without that problem. It's pretty well everything I need... so if Nikon calls, I'll have to decide.

Black Friday Deals

There are some HUGE deals out there. All of them end on December 2, though, so no procrastinating, hear?

ADOBE

The biggest one is from Adobe. ANYONE can get in on the Photographer's package from now until December 2, regardless of whether they've been Adobe customers in the past. Here's the deal: you get Photoshop CC – that's the FULL Photoshop program – and Lightroom 5, both for the amazing price of $9.99 (US + Taxes) per month. You need to sign up for at least one year – that's a $120 commitment – and they have categorically stated that the price will not jump up after the year (although they give themselves a legal out...).

Considering that Photoshop used to be a $700 product, and that the regular price for Photoshop CC ALONE is $20/month, and that they're throwing in Lightroom which is a $150 product, this is an amazing deal. Go to www.adobe.com to take advantage of it but don't wait!

By the way, Students and Teachers can get the entire Creative Cloud suite – ALL of the programs, not just Photoshop and Lightroom – for $19.95/month but just until November 29th. Same link, don't delay!

TOPAZ

Topaz is offering their entire collection – a $379 value – for $199 if you sign up in the period November 28 – December 2. That's all 14 Topaz products, complete. I'm a big proponent of Topaz products. I've used Adjust for quite a while now, and more recently Clarity and Clear and InFocus and Star and Detail... I love their products.

You have to wait until November 28th to pull the trigger. Click on this link or the one at right,  and you need to enter the promo code blackfriday2013 at checkout.

FACZEN

Yep, that's me. I've got THREE deals going on. Both of them are valid between now and Christmas. Oh, all right, until the end of 2013. Happy?

Deal #1: Any fine art print that I have in stock: $25 plus a flat rate $5 for shipping unless you pick it up. I have to compile a list of what's in stock, but almost all of the images in my Smugmug gallery are available, subject to prior sale. These make superb Christmas gifts! And pretty well any image is also available as an 8x12 or 8x10 lustre print for $5. On top of that, we can make any image into a folding Christmas card, 3/$10. You need to contact me for particulars!

Deal #2: A two-day DSLR workshop for $100. And it could be 1 on 1! Where else can you get personalized instruction for under $10/hour? Prices are going up in 2014 so don't delay! Again, contact me for particulars and check the website for details!

Deal #3: This one's only good until December 2. My eBook, "Take Better Pictures in a Winter Wonderland" absolutely FREE. eMail me for the link.

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If I hear of any other hot deals I'll send them out on my newsletter. If you're not yet subscribed, click the link at the top right corner of this blog. (or this one!)

Some images

Not a lot to show you this week. I've been busy getting my tooth pulled and other nasty stuff so I haven't shot a lot. I was cold the other day, and it was miserable out, so I stayed in and set up the light tent to play a little.

This is the battery that came with my D610. In the light tent, illuminated by a bounce flash, on a flexible plastic surface. A little Lightroom, a little Photoshop, some Topaz and Voilà!  

The original is the one on the left. It's Cranberry Juice. I decided it should be a 1977 Robert Mondavi Select Cabernet Sauvignon. It was more difficult than it looks, to get the colour and density right, plus if you look carefully, the glass was slightly tilted so the liquid surface wasn't level! I used "Puppet Warp" to fix it.  

While I was at it, I decided since I didn't have any Abelour A'bunadh Cask Strength single malt left, and since you can't get it in Canada,  I needed to make some. Believe it or not, this is THE SAME CRANBERRY JUICE! Ah, Photoshop!

My neighbour Jack dropped by to talk about the Adobe deal and learn a little about Photoshop, so I obliged him. I needed to find a picture to use as a demo, so I opened the abandoned gas station shot from Coboconk that I posted last week. At one point he said, "how about adding the sun to that picture", so I did. A really, really easy process if you know Photoshop!

I ended up liking this much better than last week's! This will be available as a large format art print, on Epson Cold Press matte paper. Talk to me if you want a museum-quality archival art print for someone you love! 

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Inspiration

I love music.

Not all kinds, mostly blues and jazz and, it occurs to me, most of the artists I listen to are dead. Oscar Peterson, Janis Joplin, Moe Koffman, Jimmy Smith, Paul Butterfield... and SRV.

There are exceptions, of course: Barbra Streisand, Eric Clapton, Gordie Lightfoot, the Eagles, Leonard Cohen, Rhoda Scott, lots of others, of course. Almost nobody contemporary, though. The nearest I come to that is Casey Abrams (and Haley Reinhart). I love their rendition of "Hit the Road, Jack" and "Moanin'". I have about 10 different versions of that last song by various artists.

I consider all the artists I've mentioned to be virtuosi. Not just lucky accidents, people who have skill and talent and have taken them to the pinnacle. Yesterday there was a Labour Day event at the Inn across the road and they had live music going all afternoon. Sitting here, I suddenly heard what sounded like a B3 (the Hammond organ I'd kill for) so I wandered over. The keyboard player was "just OK", as was the group he was in. 10 minutes later I was home, put on some Rhoda Scott and some Tony Monaco...

I'm writing this because this morning, a thread about Stevie Ray Vaughn showed up on Facebook and of course I had to fire up iTunes and play some tunes. I listened to "Pride and Joy" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and as I'm typing this, "Voodoo Child". Sometimes I listen to a cut and want to try to learn to play it on the keyboard or guitar or harp. Lately I just listen and enjoy, recognizing I'll never be able to play like that, even if I had a hundred more years to practice.

What's this got to do with photography? It occurred to me that you get your inspiration from experiencing what others have done. When I see images that move me, I think one of three things: (a) I wish I could do pictures like that, (b) what a good idea, I think I'm going to try to use that technique, and (c) I can do and have done better.

The other day, Lance Gitter, a photographer I met about 10 years ago at the Richmond Hill Camera Club, posted a new book he created, called "Gitterized". More about it down further. As I viewed it, thoughts (a) and (b) went through my mind. Lance inspires me to try harder and do better.

PS: iTunes, in its infinite wisdom, picked a random track from my library to play next. How is it possible that I forgot to mention Ray Charles. "Georgia on my Mind" is playing now...

In my next life, I want to come back as a musician. I think that's the best medium in which to express and share your emotions. Sounds odd, from a left-brained person but as I approach my 67th birthday in a few days, I realize that my priorities have changed. My goal in photography is the same: to express emotion and mood, not just technically correct images. Thanks for those who have inspired me in that direction.

Maybe this has inspired you to think about what you're trying to accomplish with your photography. Or painting. Or music. Or writing. Or...

Here's a story with emotion in it

I rode over to the MWWP yesterday. I was actually going to shoot some landscapes enroute but forgot my polarizing filter and Xume adapter at home, so I just shot some kayakers. One caught my eye: different from the usual bearded old guys and grungy characters, she was young and blond and cute and very photogenic.

At first, I couldn't figure out why she was sitting for such a long time off to the side, concentrating on the Otter Slide (a feature in the MWWP waterway). She'd get partway in, then turn around and back out. Another kayaker would be coming down the river but well above, and not actually going to enter the slide yet... it reminded me of a motorcyclist I knew years ago who wouldn't come out of a gas station because she was afraid of the traffic, even though it was light... I figure that she's not that experienced a kayaker and was not confident she could actually do it.

Here she came halfway across, figured she couldn't make it, and struggled to get back to safe water. She did this a few times while I watched.

Finally, she gave it a shot. Here's the sequence I shot as a burst

Check out the facial expressions from left to right! You can click on the image to enlarge it. From 'worried', to 'OK, I can do this', to 'I'm doing it!' to 'yesss!' to 'Yahoo!'  Can you tell from the last two shots below if she was having fun?

I heard her talking with her mom afterwards, it was the first time she actually managed to negotiate that white water (and by the way, the water flow was quite high yesterday, the Otter Slide was wild!). I sent her dad a copy of this image, I know his name is Keith, but I don't know her name...

Fun story. I'm glad I caught it!

Speaking of Inspiration

I remembered a video that I had watched a few years ago and even embedded in my blog (with permission) in 2011. When I went to revisit it, it comes up as "Forbidden". I looked a little further and found it again on a different site. So I thought I'd post a link to it here (not embedding it, just linking to it so copyright isn't an issue).

Possibilities: "Celebrate What's Right with the World" by DeWitt Jones, former National Geographic photographer. It's worth watching again (although the image quality is lacking but the message is still there).

OK, Adobé. NOW you got my attention.

Adobe just announced that the price of Photoshop CC + Lightroom 5 will be an ONGOING $9.99 per month. John Nack specifically said on his blog,,

To reiterate: the intention is not to get you in at $9.99/mo., then crank up the price after a year. $9.99 is the expected ongoing price.

NOW you got me. No hurry to sign up, you have until the end of 2013. This offer is for those who own CS3 or up. I'll give you the link later, you can't do it yet anyway.

Topaz deal available on Monday

REMINDER: I got an email from Topaz Labs that they're putting Topaz Adjust 5 on sale for 50% off ($24.99) from September 9 to September 30th. It's very rarely on sale, so mark your calendars and jump on it next week! Topaz Adjust 5 is my go-to plugin in Photoshop and in Lightroom, it's absolutely my favourite. Go to this link, and enter the promo code "septadjust" (without the quote marks) when ordering.

'tis the season to be jolly! Fa la la la la... never mind!

Get Gitterized

There's an outstanding book available, written by my friend Lance Gitter. It's titled, "Gitterized". Here's what Lance says about it:

This is a collection of my creative images from the last number of years. I have finally accomplished the goal of putting them together in a format where I can share my creativity, who and what inspired me to make some of my photos and what tools and/or techniques I used to come up with these creations.

Lance's work is incredibly creative. Here (with permission) are two images from the book:

Shot on the Rideau Canal last winter 

This montage is a self-portrait. What vision! 

Whenever I see Lance's work, I'm inspired. And not only do these images appear in the book, but also some of the thinking and techniques that went into their creation.

Lance has generously made the entire book available for viewing on-screen but you would be remiss if you didn't buy the book and enjoy the full experience of seeing these images in print. The link for viewing or buying the book is here.

Sometimes you win

And sometimes you don't.

I spent the better part of an hour at the landfill (polite way of saying "garbage dump") this afternoon. They had the giant chipper going — technically I was told it wasn't called a chipper, but that's what it does. It turns big pieces of garbage into small pieces of garbage. This was construction material, so what they do is to bury the wet waste, the household garbage, and cover it with this stuff. Eventually the deep stuff composts, but I learned that they dug up a Sears catalog from 1950 and it was still readable. "That shiny paper takes a long time to decompose".

Where was I? Oh yeah. I tried my damnedest to "isolate the subject". I wanted to make sense out of the chaos that was there. And I couldn't. So these pictures are failures, but a valiant attempt, don't you think?

They dump big garbage in the top of the chipper and little stuff comes out the conveyor belt to the left. Mountains of it. Then they move the big orange thing (the operator of the big excavator has a remote control) and build another mountain.  

Another attempt to isolate it. Here I did three things:  I put the Neutral Density filter on and shot long exposures (around 2 seconds) to give it a sense of motion, I combined about 4 exposures as layers in Photoshop using "darken" as the blending mode between layers, and I ran Silver Efex Pro 2 and put in a bunch of control points for selective colorization.

You win some, you lose some. I gave it the ole college try.

This is Leonard. He works there. He spent part of the day trying to keep the people dropping off garbage and the bears apart. There were two males there today, but not the big one-eyed boar they often see. f/2.8 on the 200mm and Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 (one image only) helped to separate him from the background.

This is Big John. He drives the tractor that makes mountains out of mole hills. Captured his character, I think. He told me his beard used to be down to "here" but it kept getting caught in the tattoo gun. Tough guy. But a pussycat deep down, I think (don't tell him I said that!).

TTFN!

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News, news and more news!

There's a lot of stuff going on in the FACzen photography world. I'm making good progress in certain areas, still spinning the wheels in others but we'll get there! In the meantime, here's the news of the day!

New PHOTOGRAPHY.TO website launched

Maybe that's not entirely accurate. Let's just say, "updated". Most of the links to the active stuff have been changed or updated, and I've added new pages for new projects. Check it out!

Maintaining a website is an ongoing task. It never ends, there's always something to fix, to add, to change. I'm no expert (I don't think I'd even call myself an "intermediate") so I probably do things the hard way, but my goal is to make it easy to navigate and attractive to my web visitors.

■ The greeting page has been changed to make it easier to navigate. If you know what you're looking for, there are big buttons to guide you. Or you can browse more easily.

■ The "Workshops" button will now take you to a list of different workshops. You can access the calendar from there, and you can sign up online for any session we have scheduled (and some we don't!).

■ There's now a direct link to my Smugmug gallery, where you can browse through all of my art prints and choose which one(s) you'd like to see gracing your walls. New images are also in a featured gallery. Although I haven't enabled a pure e-commerce site, you can easily get in touch to order or discuss anything you're interested in.

■ I need to work on the eBooks section. My goal is to make most of these publications free and available to subscribers to my Newsletter. And of course, there are new eBooks in the works.

■ Speaking of the Newsletter, I'm working on revising the format so that it becomes a simple weekly HTML email with highlights from this blog and other news, plus special offers for my loyal readers. My goal is to add a "0" to the number of subscribers before the end of the year. If I do get there, I'm actually going to have to start paying MailChimp for their services instead of using their free account!

■ Tips. Let's make "Tips" the heading for the next announcement, shall we? 

By the way, if you think the buttons up there are neat, here's the link to the tutorial I posted last year on how to make them in Photoshop in case you missed it. After you set it up, it takes 2 minutes to make a new button!

In fact, here's a timesaver: here's the actual PSD file I created to make my buttons. Feel free to download it and to share it, but if you do, I'd ask you to subscribe to my newsletter and ask anyone you passed it on to, to do the same. Fair?

I'm about to become a published columnist!

I've been published before, but the local newspaper has agreed to publish my "Behind the Shutter" photography tips articles as a bi-weekly column! The first one will appear in Haliburton County Living on June 27th (I hope I'm not jumping the gun with this announcement, but I'm excited and wanted to tell everyone about it!). You can access a virtual copy of this publication here.

A copy of this publication is distributed to every household in the Highlands, so it's the widest circulation paper up here! If you live in the Highlands and you're reading this, watch your mailbox!

Along with each article, I'm creating a "Tips" web page. It will contain additional information, example pictures, eventually a comments dialogue (as soon as I figure out how!) and of course links back to my other projects and programs.

You can access the Tips pages from the main photography.to website. I could put the link here, but in fairness, I won't since you might be reading this before the initial publication date. Eventually, I plan to create ePub versions of these columns and combine them into an ongoing series of eBooks.

If that isn't enough news...

Ten of my images are on display (and for sale) at the Rail's End Gallery & Arts Centre in Haliburton. A couple more are going in next week, requested by the curator. The only bad part is that my framing isn't good enough, so they're in a rack in clear bags.

The Rail's End is responsible for the annual arts festival in Haliburton. Unfortunately, it was too late to participate this year (fourth weekend in July, FWIW), but my application will go in for next summer. This is a juried show but I'm hopeful I can get in. I have to work on my framing.

Spreading the Word

You will find advertisements for my workshops every week in the Haliburton Highlander. In addition, a bare-bones schedule of DSLR workshop dates is in the Haliburton County Summer/Fall Guide 2013 (I had to give them the dates long before I got things finalized!).

Courses & Workshops

I've finished the curricula (or curriculums. Or agendas. Whatever word you prefer) for three new courses. My program now contains the following, in addition to custom courses for more advanced photographers.

■ Basic Skills, a 3-hour workshop for new shooters regardless of what kind of digital camera they have,

■ Introduction to Photoediting, which is another 3-hour session designed to introduce people to programs like Lightroom™ or Photoshop™,

■ DSLR workshop, for new and not-so-new owners of DSLR cameras. This venerable 2-day session will take the newer photographer to the next level, and

■ Mini-tours where I take participants to exceptional venues, such as dawn, dusk and whitewater sites and give them tips on how to achieve better images in the field.

What's next? Full weekend or even longer field trips. High on my priority list of things to develop and I'm really hopeful of having something for the peak Fall Colours season up here this autumn.

So I've been a busy boy. There's more stuff in the works, but I can't announce it yet, so watch for it!

Creative Cloud

Not for me at this time. As usual, Adobé has come up with some neat new stuff, but not enough to be a game changer for me. Ditto Lightroom 5. I think I'm going to pass and wait and see.

A big issue for me is the concept of ongoing rental. If they would come up with some sort of acceptable solution that would allow you to keep the last version you paid for in perpetuity if you decided to stop, then maybe. But I can't see being hung out to dry if you can't afford to keep paying them sometime in the future.

It's been out for two days and I heard it's already been cracked. I'd rather use CS6 that I bought and paid for than pirate CC.

The bad part is, all the technical blogs I read talk about nothing other than the new fancy features in CC or LR5. No great new tutorials on CS6 or LR4. That said, Glyn Dewis just did one on the liquify filter (here's the link to the YouTube) and although it was about CC, most of it works in CS6.

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*update: it looks as though Adobé may have been listening. The rumour mill says that they've covered most of what I mentioned. I read in a prodesigntools.com article:

• The new CC apps will install and work alongside any older versions of Adobe software like CS6, CS5, etc., and will be able to backsave or export to CS6 file formats.
• In fact, Creative Cloud members will have access to download and install prior versions from an archive of selected desktop releases starting from CS6 onwards.

In an accompanying article, they also said,

“In the event that Adobe decides to discontinue any of the products in Creative Cloud, we will make the most recent version of the product available for download free of charge to active Creative Cloud members for a period of no less than 90 days. Such downloads will not require a subscription and will be licensed on an as-is, no warranty basis …”

What's missing is "what happens if *I* decide to discontinue my membership in CC...". Can I buy a download of the as-is version of the software. If they do that, I'm in.

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Speaking of Software...

I don't post a lot of these, but this is a goodie. Here's a deal for you. I use different plugins in Photoshop, but the one I go to when I want to tweak an image or spice it up is Topaz. Mostly I use Topaz Adjust, but lately I've started using Clarity as well and I love them both.

Topaz Labs has just announced a huge promotion, starting June 24 through July 7. The complete Topaz Bundle is being reduced from $299 to $199 — that's $100 off — and worth every penny.

Click this image to go to the Topaz site. To get the discount, your promo code is 'july4' (without the quote marks). Disclosure: they pay me a little affiliate fee if you click the link and end up buying the software.

Topaz Clarity is not in the bundle, it's $49.95 and I'd be buying it at that price if I didn't already have it. In the bundle, you get Topaz Adjust, DeNoise, B&W Effects, ReMask, Lens Effects, Detail, Simplify, Clean, InFocus, DeJPEG and Fusion Express. That last one lets you access all of the Topaz Plug-ins directly in Aperture, Lightroom and iPhoto. There's a 30 day free trial, so go for it. Give it a shot and see if you like it as much as I do.

Time for some pictures

You know I don't do a blog post without current pictures. So here goes.

My grandson, Ryan Davenport. His graduation was Thursday night. You know I don't go anywhere without a camera... 

When I originally wrote this, I said...

Believe it or not, this was the very first frame, the very first picture of the night. I took a shot just to test the lighting. 100% natural light from a window. Minimal Photoshop, just to retouch the skin a little. 120mm focal length at f/8, ISO 1000, exposure compensation -2ev. This is precisely the shot I had in mind, I planned it while I was driving there. It's very satisfying when the first shutter release worked.

All true, except I now changed the picture. In the first one he was serious, here I got a good natural smile. This is actually 6 frames later, same values except 82mm instead of 120mm, so it's cropped a bit.

The reason I'm posting this is, well, look at the fantastic grandson I have! OK, well actually, I wanted to point out that I used Topaz Clarity on this image, after the basic retouching. It made some very subtle but changes to the image. Not being a portrait photographer, I'm not sure what's good and bad, but I really like this image.

I was going to add some kayakers, but I figured you've suffered enough. Maybe next time. Instead, I'll show you last night's dinner

Both are HDR's, but processed differently. The infrared element and rotisserie on my new BBQ do a fine job on chicken! I threw the asparagus and peppers right on the grill after the chicken was done, a little olive oil and teriyaki seasoning, 3 or 4 minutes, that's it. Great dinner!

So I guess that'll do for today! A lot going on.

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