My Bucket List

...musings

Not much to do with photography per se, but I was prompted to think about how my days have become a bit aimless and how I need some motivation. One thing led to another, then I thought about my "Bucket List". What do I want to accomplish while I still can?

I'm not talking about things beyond my control, so winning the SuperMax lottery is not on the list. I can't physically do the stuff I used to do years ago, and besides I've already skied the Alps and the Rockies, won a racquetball tournament, flown an airplane (but never jumped out of one — nor do I ever want to!), ridden a motorcycle over 200 kph, won a combat pistol competition, hunted and fished and camped and canoed and sailed and swam in both the Atlantic and Pacific, driven a car in a rally (and almost won!), bench pressed over 300 lbs, drove a race car on a track, and so on. I've done a lot of stuff.

There's stuff I haven't done but it's not practical to think I could ever do it. Fly to space, beat a chess master, jammed with a jazz group (well technically I did, but that's another story...). I want to travel to some interesting places (Iceland on top of the list) but I didn't include travel destinations. So here goes:

• Create a painting or drawing good enough to exhibit
• Write a publishable book
• Sell a photo print to a stranger for $500 or more
• Write a song and get someone to play and record it

By publishing this list, I'm hoping to be motivated to work at it. Something every day. That's the #1 piece of advice I've gotten from published authors, by the way. You have to work at it every day. Make it a routine (#2 was "characters, characters, characters").

Note, I didn't say "get a book published". That may not be in my control. Also with my damaged vocal cord, I can't sing my own song and I'm not a good enough musician to play anything really well.

So now the big question: what does YOUR bucket list look like? Your turn!

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New banner photo

Replaced today. Here's the one that was there before, to record it for posterity!

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Print Sale!

It's cool when a print sells. Vindication. Proof that other people like your work, not just you or people you know. Most of my sales have been either to people I know or to people connected with the subject I sold one of those this month too, a candid portrait I had done). For instance Wintergreen bought some prints of an image I took of their upstairs facility.

Today a buyer in Australia bought this framed print through RedBubble:

I haven't been paying much attention (OK, "none"!) to RedBubble or Fine Art America (click to see what works I have there now). I really need to update my listings there because they are indeed online marketing arms. I'll spend more time on them in the next little while.

Incidentally, if I would make a sale in South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Antarctica, I'd be in all the continents! Come on, readers, you can do it!

Some of the nicest products these people make are tote bags and throw pillows. They're quite economical and outstanding quality: I've bought both as gifts for my family and friends (hint: if you live outside the US and you're buying a pillow, buy just the cover and not the insert, to save on shipping cost. Then go to a dollar store or Michael's for a pillow insert). My mom has a bag with one of my fox pictures on it and gets compliments on it every day! Here's a link to this particular one.

PS: if you're local, I have a substantial collection of unframed exhibition quality prints (and a few framed pieces) here, taking up space. I'd like to sell these, so I'm practically giving them away. They're all in 'crystal clear' bags, printed on 18x24 sheets of fine art paper, image sizes are typically 13x18. Contact me and come see them!

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Quinte Air Show 2016
CFB Trenton, June 25

I had so much fun shooting the airshow at CFB Borden that I decided to go to Trenton for a repeat performance. The shows were similar but the Trenton venue was MUCH larger. They had some different planes and routines too.

I failed to find Capt. Match Hatta (Snowbird 3) amongst the 50,000 people who were there. But I did meet the CO of the Snowbirds and he got us (me and Amin) into the VIP area. Great view but not as good as these guys had:

Best seats in the house, and they weren't even watching! 

A little technical thing for my photographer readers. I shot with my 70-200 lens with 1.7x converter (most of the time) and I put my polarizing filter on. Made a difference. I did learn that 1/1000 second is NOT fast enough for this kind of stuff. I even experimented with 1/8000 second! Check it out:

In order to get this shot I had to pan with one of the planes (I forget which) and trigger a burst which included this image.When I did the same thing at 1/1000, the plane I was not tracking was motion blurred. This is sick. These planes are flying at a relative speed over 1000 kph and missed each other by a couple of feet!

One of my favourite pictures: a vintage P-51 Mustang. 

USAF F-22 Raptor during a high speed pass. This plane is 18% grey! Really hard to get a good exposure. Noisy with the afterburners going! The pilot turned it vertical right after this shot and took her straight up to 40,000 feet!

The Raptor on takeoff. You know how red-winged blackbirds like to harass bigger birds? I think this one bit off a bit more than he could chew! Bet he got incinerated in the jet exhaust. 

They called this the "Heritage Flight". The Raptor and the Mustang flying in close formation. By the way, the Mustang pilot was a USAF Major General . Also BTW, I heard that it cost $125,000 per hour to put the Raptor in the air. I'll bet it costs the "other" Raptors a similar amount after they re-sign Demarr Derozan! 

Here's the Snowbirds crew. The pilots are in red (they're all there, two are hiding in the 'close formation'!). They give a lot of well-deserved recognition to their maintenance crew, here in blue.  Processed in Topaz Impression 2, as discussed below.

For me at least, this is the most photogenic of the Snowbirds manoeuvres. It's called "The Battle of Britain". I don't know how they avoid running into one another: imagine the hours and hours of practice. 

I wanted to stop with the last shot, but I couldn't resist posting this one. 

The Quinte airshow was quite a production. There were a reported 50,000 people there, traffic lineups were horrendous; with temperatures hovering around 30°C and the miles of walking, we were wiped out by the end of the day. Coupled with a 2½ hour drive home. I look forward to being able to do it again next year!

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Gales of November

If you're still on the fence about attending the Gales of November workshop up in Wawa on the weekend of October 27, time to get moving! There's still space, but it's getting close to time to get off the pot! Best deal of the year on a deluxe workshop weekend!

Visit www.photography.to/gales for more information.

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Topaz Impression 2

Topaz Labs has released version 2 of their marvelous "Impression" plug-in. That's good news and bad news. First of all, the effects and the fact that you can access thousands of community-developed presets are awesome. There are over 140 built-in presets!

Here's a shot at Fisherman's Point on Smoke Lake in Algonquin Park I shot last week and processed using Impression 2. 

The bad news is that it doesn't play well with lesser systems. In fact you need OpenGL 3.3 in your video card (or Mac OS 10.9+) to run it at all. And unless you have a high end system, you need to set the preference to "low resolution" or your hair will grow grey waiting for it to redraw. I expect they're working on that.

FWIW, I'm working on upgrading my computer: this has been the straw that broke the camel's back. My desktop is about 5 years old, which makes it 120 in dog years. It's been having a hard time running the latest versions of LR and PS as well.

If you can run it, you should get it. Amazing effects. If you already have Impression 1, the upgrade is free (don't delete version 1 when you install: just to be sure). If you don't have it, use this link before July 7th to get a 40% discount and enter the code "2IMPRESS" at checkout.

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For the Birds

Yeah, I know. Lots of bird pictures. Just a few here, OK?

Vesper Sparrow with lunch for the kiddies, shot at the Cameron Ranch on Carden Plain.  

This is the same bird, hiding in a Hawthorn shrub. I suspect this is where the nest was. I don't think judges will like this shot in the Nature competition, but it tells a better story, don't you think? 

Maybe this is what he was hiding from! Male Northern Harrier in flight, possibly hunting although I think he's carrying something in his talons (he was quite far away when I shot this so it's cropped bigtime). 

Sometimes when you use spot metering and you've turned exposure compensation up, you get high key shots like this one of a Barn Swallow, shot at the Blind in Carden Plain.  

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Algonquin Park

I mentioned in an earlier blog that my sleep patterns were weird: and that I decided if I wake up at 4:30am, I'd take advantage of it and do Carden Plain or Algonquin. So I went up to the Park one morning. Turned into a long day, though! In addition to the Fisherman's Point shot above, I did a slow cruise from one end of Highway 60 to the other, without seeing any of the moose or fox kits that others had. I explored several of the side roads that I hadn't driven before and filed away a few spots to revisit. Then I stopped for a bite at the Mad Musher in Whitney and headed home the long way via Bancroft.

I came across this Snapping Turtle laying her eggs by the roadside. Thanks to Steve for pointing her out! 

High Falls in Bancroft. I came home by the Eastern route after lunch at the Mad Musher in Whitney. I'd been here before but wanted to do a shot with the 10-stop ND filter at the Falls. The water was so fast-moving that ½-second was almost too long an exposure! 

Closer to home was this lily (I think it's a lily. Help me out here!) and I focus-stacked several images taken with my macro lens to get this picture. 

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Announcing the NEW "Gales of November" Workshop!

The Gales of November

One of the longest running photography workshops around has been the "Gales of November" at the Rock Island Lodge in Wawa, on the shores of Lake Superior or 'Gitchigumi' as the natives call it. The area offers the most outstanding and spectacular landscape and outdoor photography in the Province. It has run for some 10 years under the expert tutelage of Rob Stimpson.

Due to some other commitments, particularly his trips to Antarctica, Rob has been forced to give it up and I have accepted the responsibility of facilitating this stellar photo-op and workshop opportunity.

Sunset view from the Rock Island Lodge 

Last year, the workshop was re-named, "The Gales of November Come Early" because it was scheduled for October! (That's like Oktoberfest in Munich: it's held in September because they can't wait!). The reasoning is to allow the lodge to close for the winter a bit earlier. We're still working out the details, but we're looking at one of two weekend dates, either October 8th or October 22nd, 2016. I'd like to do the earlier one because I think there will be fall colours in evidence at that time (who knows? This year was weird...) however that is Thanksgiving weekend in Canada and I don't know if that's going to be a plus or a minus.

A small corner of High Falls on the Magpie River 

I might even do a Spring 2016 session up there if enough people are interested.

The basic premises for the workshop are as follows:

• 3 nights at the superb Rock Island Lodge, great accommodations, all-inclusive
• Inexpensive. The final price hasn't been set yet but it will be affordable.
• Limited to about a dozen photographers. There are some nearby accommodations also available when the Lodge itself fills up.
• This is for experienced photographers who already know their cameras and basic post-processing. Depending on demand, we may make a separate session for those who need more guidance.
• Some physical limitations are not a problem, although there is ample opportunity for those more active to explore more challenging venues by hiking or kayaking or canoeing, etc.
• Limited teaching: I plan to set some challenges and assignments so people can step up to a new level. But Rob told me the following: "I found for the most part the last few years, people were looking to shoot and edit with like minded people - take them to places they otherwise would never get to".

One of the rooms in the Lodge 

There's a web page in progress (Link here). I would ask my gentle readers to go there and give me some feedback: I need to choose dates, etc. For now, there's a two-minute survey there, please respond if there's even a remote chance you might be able to join us!

I'm really excited about this. Some think it might be just an excuse for me to get back up there again... maybe a germ of truth in that! I absolutely love this area.

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New Banner

When I put a new banner up top, I post the old one in the body of the blog so it doesn't disappear entirely. The new banner is an impression of the steel wool shoot in Haliburton last week. Here's the previous one:

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Sharing a laugh

When my Nikon SB-600 flash died, I bought a Yongnuo YN568EX to replace it. It seems to have excellent specs, it costs about 30% of the price of the Nikon equivalent (it's available at B&H for $100 US here). The only downside is that my Gary Fong diffuser doesn't fit because the head is larger than the SB-600.

FREE! First person to request it gets it for free (just the cost of the shipping). Email me.

Here's the laugh part. This is what it says in the instruction manual:

FAST CURRENT-RETURN SYSTEM The time for full gloss output current-return will only take you 3 seconds; you can get fast current-return experience even without brand-new batteries, which will only take you 4~5 seconds.

Here's another example. This is from the "Quick Start" page:

Press [MODE] button to select TTL/M/Multi mode, holding [ZOOM} for a while to select remote trigger model, and then press [MODE] again to select Sn/Sc/S1/S2.

Nowhere in the manual does it explain what Sn/Sc/S1/S2 are. Does "n" stand for "Nikon" and "C" for "Canon"? That's my best guess. Oh, wait. I found a paragraph on "S1" mode:

It will work with the first work of the master flash synchronously with the result consistent with the use of radio slave. To use this mode correctly, the master flash should be set at manual flash and the TTL flash system with preflight function and the red-reduction function with multiple functions should not be used.

OK, folks. I've used off-camera speedlites before so I'm pretty sure I'll eventually figure this out but I wonder if someone who has never done off-camera would be able to do it! It also says it will do fast sync up to 1/8000 sec (interesting, the D800 says 1/320 sec maximum...). Anyone who has used one of these, please email me!

You would think that a company – even a Chinese one – who are a major supplier to the North American market, would be able to afford a translator who is not transliterating from the Chinese.

It is to laugh...

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I'm pretty good at Lightroom and Photoshop

On Facebook, frustrated people post questions they're stumped on. Sometimes I'll watch for a while and see that nobody else seems to know the answer, even though it's obvious to me. Or people put up stupid and flat-out wrong information. That frustrates me, so I take the time to respond. The best example is "Should I output the picture at 72 dpi or 300 dpi if it's going to be printed"? (DPI doesn't matter, it's the number of pixels). Or "should I convert my pictures to CMYK to send them to the printer", or "I deleted all my pictures from the computer but I kept them in Lightroom, how come I can't output them anymore?".

I try to help out by answering many questions (but not the ones like, "which is better, Photoshop or Lightroom"?). Not blowing my own horn, but I guess I know the right answer to 95% of 'normal' questions, on either program.

I'm not pretending to be something I'm not... I certainly don't have the chops to be a Lightroom or Photoshop ACE (Adobe Certified Expert). To pass that, you have to be familiar with everything in the programs and I'm not. For instance, I've never done 3D or worked on a storyboard or tried to do a web page with slices. I don't use the print module in Lightroom, never even looked at the Map module. You have to know all that stuff to pass the ACE. But I certainly know my way around the normal (normal for me!) stuff. And I know where to look when I need to learn something new.

Maybe it's the way I'm built (wide and low to the ground?), but generally you only have to show me how to do things once, or I see them or try them once, and it sticks. Must be the fact that I was left-brained for half a century before I discovered the other side. I owe my Lightroom start to Jim Camelford who put me on the right track when I got Lightroom 1.

I love to share. And teach. Nothing turns me on more than watching the lightbulb come on, seeing someone 'getting it' (well... let's not go there!). Right now I'm doing a two-session Lightroom workshop. Session 1 is on organizing and importing images, Session 2 is on editing and exporting, because these are the things people have to do in LR and if they can do more, it's gravy. Once they can do those things, they are on the right track.

I'm also pretty good at general photography. Same thing: if I've tried it, I know how to do it, and I can probably teach you how to do it. Basic camera use; lighting; composition; visualization; shooting stars; editing images; winter shooting and more.

If anyone wants me to do these sessions for them, contact me.

PS: I'm less confident teaching the right-brained stuff: I can't teach you how to play keyboard or guitar or harmonica even though I've tried those things, I'm not good at them. Or painting: I really suck! And seeing how to do it once isn't doing it for me this time. Ditto carpentry or canoeing or anything that challenges my arthritic knees! Some people think I'm pretty good at writing, but I can't teach it.

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Snowflakes

After Lance sent me some images of snowflakes he had taken, I knew I wanted to try it. With a new macro lens, I gave it a shot.

It's HARD! I tried a bunch of tricks and after a while I was able to get this shot. But it took a ton of manipulation to get it to look like this. There's a lot of Topaz Texture Effects in this shot.

I can do better! With winter on its way... well watch this space!

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Speaking of Texture Effects...

I was in the car, actually parked on the shoulder of South Lake Road near Minden, talking to Dr. Ron on the phone when I saw the delightful pattern formed by the snow-covered branches of this tree. I remember saying to Ron, "there are wires, and a fence... but I bet I can make a good leading line out of it". Well it took a lot of work but I got the image I wanted. 

I went back over an image I shot last September up on Lake Superior ('Gitchigumi' is the Ojibwe name for it). This is consistent with my passion for creating art out of digital images. I think it tells the story of the Big Lake well, and it certainly takes me back to when I was there. It should print really well on canvas.

This is a composite image. I added the girl/dog in from another picture taken on the same beach that day, because I wondered if having a foreground interest would add to the image, which it did! FWIW, they were facing the other way, I flipped them around so they were looking into the image. And I spent some time creating drop shadows and matching the toning so they would fit in seamlessly. The textures were done in Topaz Impression starting with one of the Oil Paint presets (#IV, if anyone cares!). Oh, and I enlarged the moon. It gets pretty small when you use a wide angle lens. 

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Fall Colours Weekend

So my house is a disaster zone... I haven't even finished unpacking from my Lake Superior trip (thinking I might be going back), but when I get the urge to sit down and write, that's what I do. The house can wait!

Big mistake. BIG mistake.

The good news is, it could have been worse. Bad enough, though.

I think I have a good workflow. But in this case, I slipped up. Here's what happened. When I went to Lake Superior, I didn't bring my primary external drive (actually, I did: but not to use it, just to take it off-site in case my house burned down while I was gone). Also it's full. So I prepared another drive for use, and created a temporary Lightroom Catalog to use on the road.

I have a rule. Only name a file or a folder "temporary" when you're going to use it immediately. So if you see something with that word in the title, you can safely delete it without giving it a thought. You guessed it.

To avoid turning this into a long boring story (too late!), I intended to import all the images into the main catalog when I got home, which I did, but I missed a step: I copied the images over to the primary drive, all right, but not into my regular hierarchical file, instead they resided in a folder called, "Temporary Wawa trip catalog". Get the idea what I did? Yes, I deleted it to make space on the hard drive.

Costco-bound this weekend. I hope the 4 Tb external drives are on sale, I plan to buy two of them. It's a never-ending cycle. Maybe I will have to break down and split up my archives into multiple pieces instead of all-in-one.

Since I automatically make a second copy of the RAW files (on a different drive: the internal one in the computer) on import to Lightroom, I didn't lose the original images. I also didn't lose the Lightroom edits because they're kept in the Lightroom catalog and I had a backup of that too. What I DID lose were all of the external files, the PSD and TIF files that were created when I went out to Photoshop or a plug-in. In other words, the importantest, bestest pictures from the whole trip. I can recreate them, if I can remember what I did and of course by investing the many hours I spent working on them. Grrr.

Why did I tell you this? Just to make you think so you don't make the same misteak. And because I needed a shoulder to cry on!

Speaking of Lightroom...

Adobe just announced "Major Updates to their entire Lightroom and Photoshop product lines". If you subscribe to the CC versions, they're free. If you own the standalones (LR6 or PS CS6), sorry, you're S.O.L.

I just read the features of the updates here. At first glance, Adobe is expanding the utility of the new De-haze algorithm (in LR, PS and ACR) so that you can use them within local tools like the graduated and radial filters and the adjustment brush (yay! What a great tool dehaze is!).

In PS, they've put a lot of work into 3D and mobile app versions. Neither of which I use right now. But you can bet they streamlined other things and addressed a few bugs.

I'm even more convinced that $10/month is the best deal on the planet.

...AND speaking of Lake Superior

The proposed trip to Wawa, "The Gales of November Come Early", is still up in the air. I need three or four more participants to make this work.

If you can make it, you need to tell me NOW. October 22-25, $375 includes everything except getting there. I sent an invitation out to my mailing list, if you missed it or want the details, email me: I haven't put up a web page on this one. Don't delay.

Herding Cats, or
Fall Colours Weekend

A couple of months ago, I used the expression "herding cats" to describe the virtually hopeless task of keeping a diverse bunch of photographers together. At the time there were 7 of us in Kensington Market. This weekend I had almost 20 of them at half a dozen venues up here! Hopeless!

That said, a few people started responding to me, "Captain, my Captain"... that was cool (I miss Robin Williams!).

I was privileged this weekend, to spend time with both the Haliburton Highlands Camera Club and a group from the Toronto Digital Photography Club. The latter had a weekend retreat at Camp Wanakita and asked me to "guide" them during their visit up here. I chose some venues that I thought they'd enjoy visiting and photographing, did a talk for them on Friday night, and invited them to join the HHCC group on our annual trek to Algonquin Park for the fall colours. About 8 of them did in fact join us!

So doing this chronologically, the Friday night talk was so-so. The weather forecast seemed to indicate that we would get some clear nights so I built a "star shoot" into our agenda. Unfortunately the guy upstairs didn't cooperate – he wanted clouds – but I did do the presentation portion of the stars workshop for them on Friday night.

I tried to compress my all-day workshop into an hour (those who know me know that I didn't make it in an hour! As usual, I talk too much...). In fact, it was good practice for the session I'm supposed to do in Oshawa this winter, and I'll make some necessary changes. I'll have to incorporate more pictures in the presentation, and in different places.

It's a technical topic: "here are all the things you have to think about if you want to shoot stars successfully..." and also due to the late hour, people were somewhat 'itchy' as time went on. I'll fix it for next time.

Saturday, we went to the White Water Preserve, the Hawk Lake Log Chute and Buttermilk Falls. It was a fast water day! A couple of Kayakers graced us with their presence at the whitewater, the forest trails were delightful at the Log Chute, and a couple of animals made it interesting at Buttermilk! We never did get in a group picture (see "Herding Cats", above!) and I wasn't particularly taking pictures, just mentoring and helping as a guide, so I only got a few:

"A roof over my head"! This was at the Log Chute, where they grow their fungi big! And I've always been considered a fun-guy... Just kidding, composite, of course. Genny told me where this mushroom was, coincidentally where Liz Gallo shot some a few years ago when she was blonde! (LOL). The little red leaf was there, I swear I didn't set it up! Genny, you did, right?

At Buttermilk Falls. This Great Blue Heron posed for us endlessly! 

A mink, doing whatever it is that minks do, right at the top of the falls above the dam. Fall Colours in the reflections... 

On Sunday, we went to the Lambs and Ivy antique barn for a change of pace, then over to Wintergreen for lunch, which everyone enjoyed.

At Lambs and Ivy. A four-shot focus stack with the 105 macro lens, then Topaz Impression 

This was actually enroute in the morning. It shows the state of the colours in the region this weekend. Still not at their peak! 

At a display in back of Wintergreen. I love window lighting! 

Monday was Algonquin Park Day. First came dawn at Raven Lake

Not much "dawn"! It even took some processing to see the clouds. Grey day, but that's not bad when you're shooting the colours!

We then went to Marsh Falls on the Oxtongue River. But I'm going to show you that picture at the bottom of this post... After that we went for breakfast, then entered the Park and some of us went up Arowhon Pines Road, one of my favourite spots! OK, it was my idea...

Last year, the colours were yellow and gold. This year, still green. Obviously gorgeous! 

The tour busses have found this road. Don't get me started on how inconsiderate they (or their passengers – every one with an iphone or ipad) are. I had to stand out in the road to prevent them from whipping past us at warp speed, spewing clouds of dust and dirt and threating to mow us down and shave off our car doors. 

We got the grey jays (whiskeyjacks) to come out and play again. Suet is apparently like catnip for them! All of the ones we saw were banded 

After lunch, some of us rounded up the trip with a walk around the Spruce Bog Boardwalk...

As Van Gogh might have painted it 

...and a stop at Killarney Lodge just to shoot their red canoes on the beach.

I was tired. So I sat down and shot this (there was another canoe there, but through the magic of Photoshop... 

Shot of the day

I saved this one for last. It's Marsh Falls, on the Oxtongue River where it meets Highway 35. Jack March, my neighbour and fellow club member, set this up for us, including making little direction signs and putting them up so our people could find the place. When we got there, he was just coming up from the falls, soaking wet. Seems "Marsh Falls" is also "March's Fall"! The rocks were very slippery. He didn't get hurt and he saved his camera, just bruised his ego!

I didn't venture down to the very bottom where he fell. But I did manage to capture this image:

The right shutter speed is essential to capture the essence of a waterfall. For a big expanse like a lake, you need several seconds. For a small trickle, a second or two. For wild water like the kayak spot on the Gull, 1/8 to 1/15 second. Here, I chose 1/4 second, although I shot a variety of speeds just to make sure. I want some texture in my shots, not just a featureless milky white.

In this case I was lucky that I could achieve this speed without stopping the lens all the way down (and introducing diffraction effects, blurring the sharp rocks). It was at the limit, though: 1/4 second at f/16, ISO 50. I could have put the polarizing filter on to bring it down one or more additional stops, or of course my ND3.0 filter which would take it down 10 full stops. I think this is one of my favourite waterfall shots ever. Hope you like it too!

Onward and upward! I suppose I should clean my house now... or I could just pour myself a scotch, put my feet up, and chill. What to do, what to do...

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