Where there's smoke...

Musings

I promise, I'm not turning this into a "food blog". But I had a great dinner the other night and so I was thinking about it and so...

Do you like sushi?

I do. I'm a little picky, though, I won't eat squid or eel or anything really exotic. But I love salmon and tuna and butterfish and shrimp and crab and... since I'm a 'healthy eater' (which means I eat a lot, not that I eat healthy!), I'm an "All you can Eat" kind of guy. I like trying a whole bunch of dishes.

If you're ever in the Thornhill or Aurora area (OK, this is for my local readers! The rest of you will have to experience this vicariously), I have a couple of recommendations.

First of all, there's a place in Thornhill, on Centre Street just west of New Westminister, with the unlikely name "HOCKEY SUSHI". They have learned to make OUTSTANDING 'kamikachi rolls'* (spicy salmon rolls), my favourite. They don't have sashimi at lunchtime but they do at dinner and they know how to buy quality ingredients! Also at dinner (I was there last night) you can get some more traditional oriental dishes such as their General Tao Chicken which I couldn't stop eating!

* I was first introduced to these at Ginza Sushi at Yonge and Clark in Thornhill but they've changed a lot over the years and we don't go there any more. I mention it because the owner's name is Alice and we were regulars and got personal service. They opened a number of additional places and it isn't personal any more. By the way I gave them a CD of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" to play on their sound system but I guess they didn't appreciate his music! You might, though, so click the link! It's better if you're high. Just sayin...

Don't knock the iPhone shot. Besides I was more interested in eating than in photographing.  You can tell by the fact there are only 3 spicy salmon rolls left on the plate! The dish in the back is beef udon which I also enjoy.

In Aurora, there's "SUSHI DEN TEPPANYAKI" on Wellington Street just East of Yonge. I first went there with Dr. Ron and absolutely love the quality of the place. Their food melts in your mouth!

Let me know if you want to join me when I'm next in the area. I don't need a lot of arm-twisting as an excuse to go there!

What does this have to do with Photography? We should all take a lesson from the Sushi houses who pay a great deal of attention to plating and presentation. They're doing "Composition" right there on your plate! Worth considering next time you're setting up a shot!

Aurora Presentation

I did a presentation last night to the Aurora Public Library Camera Club, invited by Ronen Grunberg to speak. It's hard to turn down a chance to show off your work!

Unfortunately, there was a timing misunderstanding. I thought I had more time and was taken aback when I had about 15 minutes of presentation left and the guy walked in from the library and said "we're locking up the doors and kicking you out in 5 minutes!".

So I didn't get to the "meat" of the presentation, and skipped through the Composition portion much, much too fast. So today, I took the presentation, annotated it a bit (since viewers wouldn't be there to hear me speak), converted it to a PowerPoint Slide Show (you don't need PowerPoint to watch it) and posted it online here:  www.photography.to/presentations/onlineaurora.ppsx. It's about a 75Mb download. Feel free to watch it, just don't steal any of my images, they are copyrighted, OK? Near the end you'll hit a slide that says "My ECLECTIC Mix". When you exit that, there's a 5-minute automated slideshow with one of my favourite music tracks, Moe Koffman's "Swinging Shepherd Blues".

Facebook: the good, the bad and the ugly

I hate to admit it, but I've become a Facebook addict. I have a couple of hundred people I've "friended", either they're people I actually know or photographers I've had dialogue with and am impressed by their work. 

The frustrating parts are (1) the "Ugly", FB really does degrade the rendering of images, and (2) the "Bad", which has two subgroups: (a) stupid people who make stupid comments, some of them mean-spirited and (b) people who seek validation and are so insecure of their own vision that they put up things like, "does this look better in black and white or colour?". 

On the "Good" side, first there are some absolutely OUTSTANDING images posted. Both for viewing (I'd love to have that on my wall!) or for learning (how'd s/he do that? I'll file that away next time I'm shooting that kind of subject, or "that gives me an idea, I'm going to try that!"). There are also new people who are stuck and looking for help, although sometimes typing their question into Google would get 650,000 answers... 

It can be educational: where do you think I learned about back-button autofocusing? My black and white flowers on a black background came from FB when Antony Northcutt posted his images. I've been in touch with him, even suggested some alternate techniques. I've tried skin softening using Frequency Separation and it's filed away in my toolbag next time I need it. Today I saw a Milky Way shot much better than mine and in a dialogue with the maker, I learned his approach is different (a little) than mine and I'm going to try it next time.

It can be inspirational. I read some of the street photography groups because I'd really like to learn how to do that better. There are some really great studio shots out there (and some bad ones: what "not" to do!). And people posting Icelandic landscapes and aurora borealis shots that make me go and stare at my bucket list.

I participate in 3 or 4 groups, I thought I'd share some here.

• the "Photoshop and Lightroom" group which just passed 90,000 members. There are inspiring images and ideas there.
• Topaz: both the "Users" group and the "Impression" group, to see what others are doing and get ideas
• of course the "Haliburton Highlands Camera Club" private group for members only, as well as a few other local groups, and
• The Big Bang Theory because I love that show (although not as much since Kaley cut her hair! OK, I'm shallow. I admit it).

The trick is to simply scroll past posts that make you shake your head or anything with a cat in it. Move on to the interesting ones and the things your friends are posting. It's a great way to keep up with what's going on in their world.

Now that I've written this, I've got an idea for my next newspaper column (you think it's hard coming up with stuff to write here? Try writing general, not-too-technical photography articles every week!). 

Speaking of my Bucket List

Mine is mostly about places I'd like to go (and photograph) rather than things I want to do. Partly because that sentence usually ends "...while I still can..." and that's beginning to be a little in doubt by now.

If you've been reading me for a while, you know that I want to start painting (like with real brushes and paint). Yesterday I bought an easel. Next week, some paints and brushes, but I'm going to drop into the Cultural Centre on a Monday because they have painting classes there an I want to pick peoples' brains. Technically that's not a "I want to do this before I die" thing, though.

Again if you've been around here for a while, you know I want to do Iceland. And New Zealand. I've been to Newfoundland three times and want to go back again. Africa and Alaska are there too, but further down the list. And I've never been to New Orleans. Photography and music combined.

Speaking of New Orleans: I'm thinking "Road Trip", maybe late summer. Gas is cheaper now. Anyone interested in coming along? Contact me...

I've been a lot of places and done a lot of things. But as Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over until it's over".

Published again

The GTCCC (Greater Toronto Council of Camera Clubs) has posted a short version of my tutorial on High Contrast Black and White images on Black Backgrounds on their website. Check it out here. You can find the full length version on my technical blog here and I'm available to come out to clubs to talk about it and other topics live. I'm scheduled to go to Bancroft next week, FWIW. 

GTCCC also put up some images from our club in their gallery and one of them is mine. Just so you know, our club executive chose the four images but I recused myself from voting for my own image, so I'm honoured that they liked it.


Some pictures...

Fun with Cows! Reworking an earlier image using Topaz Glow. Just for fun! You can get a 15% discount on any Topaz product by using this link (or the one at right) and entering "faczen" in the code field on the order page. 

Does anyone want me to write up how I do my signature (lower left of the picture) or the grey 3D frame and title on my images? I can do a short tutorial and post it on my tech blog, but not if people don't ask me for it. Comment here, or send me a note and I'll do it.

I'm in a bit of a lull. Busy with other things so I've not gotten out to shoot much in the past couple of weeks. This is just about the only shot I liked, done today (February 2):

It's an Impression-edited image of a snowbank. I just kind of like the way it flows from lower left to upper right. I left the blue in the shadows on purpose because it could also be clouds. FWIW, I used the Monet-Impasto preset.

Here's another reworked image from a while ago, using Impression:

 A couple of people said, "Wow! How'd you get that shot of Leonard Cohen?".  But some of you know who this is (Steve Weiman, lead guitarist for FOG) and where I shot it (Hugh's Room in Toronto). Shooting in concert lighting is challenging, but Impression helps a lot. I used one of the Chiaroscuro presets to focus the light on his face and guitar, then one of the Impressionist presets (could have been Monet) to give it the painterly look.

Where there's Smoke

And finally, Mark Girard posted some work he'd been doing with smoke. I didn't feel like copying his setup, besides I didn't really have anything that would give me continuous smoke: I had to light and then blow out a candle to get some! Here's one setup attempt:

I thought of trying this oil lamp. When you crank the flame down it gets really smokey at one point. But I had to be really careful not to set fire to the nylon tent! (I'll bet you were thinking that's what I did, right?)

How's this for a neat lighting setup? I haven't worked on this image yet... 

However i did work on this real surprise image. Believe it or not, this is basically straight out of the camera!

This was in my light tent, but with a black background. Illumination came from my ringlight which I had dismounted and was holding off to the left. This is the original shot SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera) except I cranked the blacks and shadows and then straightened it up a bit.  

I tried a bunch of edits and crops and in the end, I like the original much better! Even the lumpy cloth at the bottom. I couldn't do this again if I tried! Going in my "Best of 2015" list, for sure!

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Surreal Night

A picture is worth 1000 words...

...and I wish I had one to show you.

I find myself in the odd position tonight to be writing about something that isn't directly photographic, but has to do with artistic expression or at least artistic experience.

As you may know (if you've been reading my blog), I am presently camera-less. At least DSLR-less, because I do have a point-and-shoot and an iPhone which are indeed cameras. I also found myself driving home from Toronto after dark, an unusual experience for me because I try to avoid that situation. Oddly, because I actually do enjoy driving in the evening when it's not raining or snowing or otherwise difficult.

There I was, though. Floating along at my interpretation of the speed limit (let's not go there...). At the beginning of the drive, the full moon, just above the horizon directly in front of me, was huge and golden, and dressed in wisps of cloud*. It was hard not to stare at it instead of the road, markedly more difficult when a passing airplane seemed to be on a course to intersect the orb, and in fact it did, but too far away to present a classic silhouette. Two thoughts went through my head: (1) I wish I had a camera so I could capture that, and (2) even if I did, there's no way.

* I only found out 4 days later that there was a penumbral lunar eclipse (the moon was in the earth's shadow). That's why it appeared so different from normal! And no camera, of course...

It gets better, though. Now I'm driving on a deserted road, still into the moon, which is now silver and higher in the sky. With the evening drop in temperature came mist and fog, sporadically across the road. If you looked off to the side, you could see areas of fields blanketed in fog, maybe 2 or 3 meters deep, brilliant and clear above, wispy tendrils that followed the contour of the land. The same across my path, sometimes dense, sometimes thin, certainly not contiguous. Its presence related to altitude, so when the road dipped, you dropped into the clouds, as you peaked a hill, you came out. All the while, the moon glared balefully down from its position straight ahead.

I'm listening to music, stored on my iPhone and played back through the multi-speaker sound system in the car. I'm surrounded by Rhoda Scott's interpretation of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (Link) (which you may recognize as the theme from Arthur Clarke's "2001, A Space Odyssey" or if you're more classically educated, as Richard Strauss's 1896 tone poem), a maestro performance on the Hammond B3 organ. Her nuances probe your mind like alien tentacles. Surreal. It ends, to be followed by Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", (Link) and Neil Larsen's inspired B3 solo* where he expresses and shares his soul.

* Writing this note after the fact, of course. You should know that I was up until almost 4am, sitting at the keyboard (piano, not computer), trying to emulate this solo without measurable success. I wish (a) I had a B3 and (b) that I could play. OK, I wish (b) before (a). I got some of the emotion into it, but the playback sounds horrible because I don't have the talent. If I could come back in another life it would be as a musician. Just sayin...

PS: if you're into virtuoso music, you have to watch (or listen to at least) Barbara Dennerlein playing "Georgia" (here). When she switches the lower keyboard to piano mode she especially shows off her talent. I get lost in her music.

Now you turn into a narrower back road and suddenly you pass under arched trees, whose branches meet overhead like the crossed swords of an honour guard, like dancers holding hands, and the fog is back. You can't really see the road surface, you are soaring through the misty clouds, tunnelling through the ghostly sentinels of nearly naked trees in the surreal light of the moon.

The road opens up. Trees have been cleared away from the verges so your view ahead is wide and unimpeded. With the brights on, your headlights brush the evergreens, painting them with light so they stand out against the dark sky. Now there's an oncoming car, still below the horizon. His lights illuminate the fog or low cloud, reminiscent of a movie scene where they're trying to imply a distant explosion, just below your sightline. Then he crests the hill and his headlights explode upon your vision. Still shrouded in cloud, you think of alien spacecraft approaching through the mist.

Two thoughts went through my head: (1) I wish I had a camera and (2) even if I did, there's no way I could capture this.

Surreal, to say the least. I wish I had had a camera but then there was no way I could have captured the moment. I wish I had a paintbrush and the creativity to know how to use it. But for now that moment has to remain locked into my memory and maybe some day in another life, I'll be able to bring it out and share it with you.

This looks like a great deal

Normally I'm not a fan of off-brand lenses but the Tokina 11-16mm DX f/2.8 looks like a winner, especially at less than $500, which is what B&H is selling it for now. Links here: Nikon Mount       Canon Mount

Ken Rockwell rates it very high, better than the OEM lenses and it's actually wider and faster. Doesn't work on full frame sensors, though, too bad. It's not a brand new lens, it's been around for a few years, but the price reduction makes it attractive!

Backup Strategy and Tactics

I've outgrown my backup drives. It was inevitable. Like the old saw about hard drive failures, it's not if, it's when. and my time has come. I have over 80,000 images in my archive, all by the way, in a single Lightroom catalog. The pictures are mostly RAW files and they add up to almost 2Tb, and that's the capacity of my largest external drive. I actually have two of those, plus one 1Tb drive, plus a total of about 3Tb inside the two computers themselves. Oh yeah, and a 500Gb drive in the drawer I just remembered.

So what to do? I could split things up, say everything up to 2012 in one place and all the newer stuff somewhere else, but I don't want to. So I decided on a strategy, and I want to share it with my readers in case they need to decide what to do as well.

I just finished going through the 83,000 image Lightroom database. I selected every picture that I had ever given a rating to, whether it's 1-5 stars, or a colour code for status (to be edited, in process, finished, exported, etc) and I marked them all with the "Pick"flag. That means there are some picks that don't have any ratings, but that's OK, I want to err on the side of choosing more rather than less. The sum total is 24,449 images.

I reformatted the 1Tb external drive, and as I'm typing this on one computer, I'm exporting these Keepers (and a new Lightroom 5 catalog) to that drive. All my keepers will be there. It's too big for the 500Gb drive, unfortunately.

Next, I'm going to copy the whole shebang: all 83,000 images to a brand new 3Tb drive I just bought at Costco. Theoretically, the 60,000 images NOT in the Keepers are garbage that I will never ever need. But I can't bring myself to throw them away just yet, at least not in bulk. For instance, there are images from trips I've made which I didn't select, but which contain memories. It will be a slow task to go through those and throw out the real trash, but I'll have the luxury of having them all in one place. I am going to the place where I will only have one copy, not multiple copies of those images.

Now I'm going to bring the "Keepers" back to the 2Tb drive I use as my main storage. So I'll have 3 copies of those, at least. One of the smaller drives will go off-site and the other will get updated with new Keepers every month.

So in summary:

• Grand archive of everything on a 3Tb drive
• Two backups of Keepers on 1Tb and a second 2Tb
• The 1Tb drive is stored offsite, at my mother's apartment in Thornhill
• Working files on a 2Tb external, with the keepers
• The working (Passport) 2Tb drive goes with me in the car whenever I go away for a day or so
• Newly imported files are also in the internal drive in the laptop.

That should keep me going for a while. But given Moore's Law (it applies here too!), watch this space a year from now for my NEXT new strategy! By then, there will probably be 5Tb or 6Tb affordable drives on the market.

Sounds complicated, right? It isn't really, my working files are on the 2Tb Passport with a regular backup to the internal drive in the laptop. I have to harden my heart and be more diligent about throwing away the trash. The 3Tb is a grand backup, the 1Tb is my offsite emergency backup and the second 2Tb is a spare. Of course there's always the second computer and the cloud...

Nice Nikon

As I write this (Tuesday the 29th) I have received my cheque from Nikon and I'm going into Toronto on Thursday or Friday for my D610. A shout out to Mike Krupat at Henry's in Thornhill who puts up with my nonsense. He's a good guy. Call him at 905 886 1020 or email him, he'll be happy to help you out. Tell him you saw it here...

Update: November 2
I got the D610 yesterday. Good news and bad news.
 Good news: I wish I had my D600 in front of me for comparison. I think they ruggedized the camera. My impression is that the finish is different. Also I'm not sure but I think way an AC Adapter gets attached is different. I have to RTFM...
 Bad news:

• Lightroom 5.2 and Photoshop CC DO NOT RECOGNIZE RAW FILES FROM THE D610. For now, I've set up the camera for RAW + JPEG (Fine), and I put RAW on card 1 and JPEG on card 2 –  necessary because if there are raw files in a folder, LR won't recognize the existence of the JPEGs for some reason, so I have to separate them. There's a "Nikon View NX2" DVD in the box but I remember it's a real pain in the butt and hope I don't have to use it. Otherwise, I can't see the RAW files (I wonder if it can batch convert to DNG. I doubt it, but I'll install and have a look)

I hope Adobé comes through with an update soon.

• I diligently saved my camera settings from the D600 on an SD card. You guessed it. The D610 won't import them. I spent almost an hour going through the menus and setting stuff up the way I had it before. Annoying, but I guess it was good to use the opportunity to run through all the menu items and refresh my memory about where stuff is.

FP Flash Sync on Nikons

Ever wonder how the high speed flash sync works on Nikons (you can actually sync your flash at speeds like 1/4000 second, not limited to the 1/250 sec mechanical shutter speed)?

I wondered too, and Google took me to this excellent explanation:
http://nikonclspracticalguide.blogspot.ca/2008/03/10-auto-fp-high-speed-sync-explained.html

Pictures

Without a camera, I don't have anything new. But I do have some older shots for you to enjoy. I call these, Day, Night and Dawn.

After visiting the Ansel Adams exhibit in Kleinburg, I shot this, reminiscent of one of his images called "Birches".  

I put a flashlight in the car but it was way too bright, so I buried it under a yellow rainjacket. Still too bright, but the Milky Way was just right! 

Whenever you get up before dawn, you don't go away empty handed! Horseshoe Lake Road, just before sunrise.  I never get tired of this spot. This makes a superb large format print, available on my gallery at www.faczen.smugmug.com

Next week: pictures from the new D610! TTFN

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It's C-c-c-cold out there!

...so I'm inside, working on the computer with the fire going in the fireplace behind me. I've had it going all night which was nice until I went to bed and discovered that the thermostat had been fooled into thinking it was warm in the house... how's 13°C for a bedroom temperature? Brrr. I fired up the portable heater and dived under the covers!

Tastes Change
My cousin requested some of the pictures I did for him and his band last fall, so I revisited the folder (Lightroom lesson: really easy to find if you take the time to keyword your photos when you first put them in!). While looking through the images, I came across some that I hadn't discarded but hadn't remarked on at the time. Changed my mind. Maybe I'm more into 'mood' and 'emotion' and 'character' now than I was.

Here's Steve, with his harmonica (he plays harp, slide guitar and sings. I'm jealous envious!)

The above shot was a lucky accident. I had been using my Speedlight off-camera with a Gary Fong diffuser, but by mistake I took 2 shots in a high-speed burst and the flash didn't fire in the second one. Talk about great lighting!

This shot was at their Hugh's Room concert last fall. Lead guitarist Steve Weimann has that "Leonard Cohen Look" going. I told him the only difference is that Cohen is younger... good thing Weimann doesn't own a gun: I hope!

So these are shots I hadn't considered before but they're going in my portfolio!

Back to the "it's cold" thing...
You know how a 10°C (50°F) day feels in March? You take off your coat to enjoy the warmth? But in October, it feels frigid? Same thing here, maybe. It's the first real cold snap of the winter and it feels really icy out there. Windy, actual temperature -30°C, probably -40 with the wind chill... nah. IT'S COLD!

It wasn't that bad out on the ice on the weekend, probably around -10°C but windy. I wasn't cold, bundled up in my down coat, ski pants, snowmobile mitts, balaclava under my helmet... so I was able to get some pictures without shivering (the first lesson in my Winter Wonderland eBook!). Taking the gloves off to shoot was another issue, though!

Does this look cold?

I found out that these people actually did have a shelter, but didn't set it up until they decided where they wanted to be. They were in no hurry because they were wearing these very expensive expedition suits.  

On Saturday, it was actually quite a bit warmer. Some people go out without a lot of fancy equipment and shelters, just augur a hole and sit on a pail to fish.

These guys came up from Coboconk, looked for a likely spot to fish and just plunked themselves down. 

Their dog was gorgeous. He was intensely interested in the goings-on in the minnow pail and they had to constantly drag him away to get some minnows! I offered to take him off their hands, but they politely declined. Dogs have facial expressions...

This is what he looked like when he wasn't so intense!  

Back to Frosty Sunday

See? That's a pop-up shelter behind the guy on the left. They also had a power augur and an electronic fishfinder. This is a guy and a girl. I'm just imagining him saying to her, "so for our date, let's go out ice fishing!" Wouldn't go over very well with any of the women I know!

This is an HDR, by the way, just to get the background and sky exposures better. I actually had to tone DOWN the colour of their fluorescent orange suits. Using de-ghosting, the area around them is from just one of the three exposures.

Here's their buddy about 20 or 30 feet away. Looks like he caught something! I ask you again, "does this look cold"? 

A couple of days earlier, I caught this shot:

It's also an HDR, but I used the oil paint filter in Photoshop CS6. This was just at sunset and you find unexpected colour in the sky in all directions: this was looking North!

On Saturday, these guys were on their way home. No fish, but "a bad day on the ice is better than a good day in the office any time"! 

Here's an image taken in my back yard on Sunday morning.

I didn't think the colour added to it, I was more interested in the textures, so I converted it to black and white using Nik Silver Efex Pro. It's an HDR too, if you hadn't guessed. 

By the way...
Two things. First of all, as I'm writing this, some emails arrived notifying me that people had purchased my Winter Wonderland eBook online. Among them was one from Colorado and one from France! Exciting! That was precipitated by me posting some images on Google+ and on Facebook, along with a link. Looks like I'm really going to have to get into this Social Networking stuff.

Second thing: I came across a very neat product in Costco on Monday: a set of 6 "Light Pucks". I'll write a quick post on the technical blog, but I'll have to update it later after I finish unpacking and setting them up. They look PERFECT for use with the light tent!

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