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

— 30 —

Nikon Issues

I'm camera-less.

As many people know, Nikon has had some issues with the D600, revolving around dust (or actually lubricant) that gets thrown on the sensor. They won't admit it, but that's why they came out with the D610. My camera has been back three times. I sent it in again this week with a recurring case of the dust measles.

I'm going through withdrawal, but it's easier the third time around. Besides, I have so many images in my computer that I haven't worked on yet, who has time to go out and shoot? Actually, I was thinking about honing my skills by using nothing but my iPhone or my P&S for a while. Guess I have no choice!

 

See? The little Nikon S6000 point-and-shoot does a pretty good job. I turned the clarity down on the first shot in Lightroom, used the radial filter on the third one, did nothing to the middle shot. My house is basically ready for winter. That firewood has now been stacked, gazebo roof stored, maybe I will have to cut the grass one more time. Two more things to do, but I won't for a couple more weeks: put the snow tires on the Subaru and the snow plow on the ATV. 

but Nikon is doing the right thing

They're replacing it.  Too bad they can't do it directly, they have to support their dealer network and not sell directly to consumers.

There is now a cheque in the mail to me from Nikon for my full purchase price. I'll go out and buy a D610 next week. However in my discussions with Nikon, I told them that I would rather have a D800 or D800e and I would accept an exchange for a factory refurbished one. The bad news is, they don't have any on hand. The good news is, I have a written open agreement that when and if they do get one, they'll take the D610 in an even swap.

So I'm a happy guy, anxiously watching for the mailman...

It's a bad time to be without a camera. Here's an oil-painted image out of the point-and-shoot when I rode up into the woods today.

Another one. I love the contrast between the yellow maple leaves and the bare aspens and birches. 

I also did an iPhone video while riding one-handed through the trails. Too big a file to keep, unfortunately.

Did you  upgrade to Photoshop CC and do you run a Windows 64-bit system?

By default, the link that gets installed into LR5 when you install CC goes to the 32-bit version of Photoshop CC. That can only access a limited amount of memory and will crash on you with big files. You need to go in and point that to the 64-bit version.

Also by default, Photoshop CC installs a shortcut icon on your desktop that in my case (and in others on TIF, apparently) links to the 32-bit version. Toss it in the trash can, go to the c:/Program Files/Adobe folder and find "Adobe Photoshop CC (64 Bit)" and drag a shortcut to the Photoshop.exe file in THAT folder to your desktop and you're good to go. By the way, in the same folder you'll find a subfolder, "Plug-ins". Drag copies of your Topaz, Nik (Google) and other plugins from your previous version (assuming it was also 64 Bit) into it and they'll appear in your filters menu in CC.

PS: I was the one who caught that. Hold your applause... nah go ahead. Make my day.

Mechanic in a Can

One of the advantages of writing a blog, especially one that contains "the sporadic musings..." in the subtitle, is that you can write about anything that strikes your fancy. It doesn't have to be photography related but it has to be interesting, or at least of benefit to the readers. This is a case like that.

Many years ago, word of a product was passed around the Vulcan Riders and Owners Club. It was touted to be the solution to all problems mechanical. Unfortunately, it was only available at select locations in the US and the occasional visitor to Canada was kind enough to bring a few cans up with him (the main player in this ongoing play was – is – a Canadian ex-pat nicknamed "Kudzu" (all VROC members have nicknames. It's a biker thing. Mine is "Guns"*) from North Carolina who regularly visits family up here.

* It was supposed to be "Gunslinger", a play on my name and what I used to do before I turned back to photography, but there was another guy with that nickname. Although he died a couple of years ago, I've not changed mine in his memory.

The product in question goes by the unlikely name, "SeaFoam". They make more than one product, it's the 'motor treatment'. I'm here to tell you that if you own ANY machines with internal combustion engines, especially small ones, get some SeaFoam and put the recommended amount in the gas from time to time. I've used it in all my motorcycles over the years, but had forgotten about it until a couple of months ago when I couldn't get my ATV to start. Now you turn the key, it starts instantly. First bang. Every time. The same thing is true of a snowblower that hadn't been started in 2 years (for sale: I have the ATV and don't need it any more), a lawn mower, ANYTHING.

This stuff cleans out the carbs or injectors, it'll double your gas mileage, you can stop on a dime and get 9¢ change, it takes moisture right out of the gas (so you can use it when you're storing your bike over the winter) and I'm told it tastes like fine single malt scotch and will make your digestive system completely regular. OK, that last one was a joke. Don't drink it.

I thought it was a big secret: but the word's getting out. I mentioned it to the mechanic who's looking after my ATV and he says, "Yeah. It's magic. A mechanic in a can". And guess what? It's available at Canadian Tire now. Pass the word, but on the QT. You wouldn't want everyone to find out about it!

Here's a shot of my ATV from last week. Remember I wrote about increasing the colour temperature to 10,000°K? Oh yeah, that was in my newspaper column! If you do, it really changes the look of forest shots! OK, technically that's not what I did here, in camera, I did it in post-processing. 

Speaking of my newspaper columns... I've written 18 articles now. They're all up on the http://www.photography.to site (click on the "Tips" button). Taken together, they'll make a dandy eBook, so that's my next project. It's tough coming up with a new topic every week: years of writing this blog have helped. The other thing I'm going to work on is another printed coffee-table book, so watch for it! I'm going to try to do it in Lightroom 5.

This week's Feature Photo

When this immaculate 1965 Shelby Cobra showed up at the Inn across the road, I knew I had to photograph it. And I also knew what shot I wanted to achieve.

The trick was to get rid of everything except the rim-lighting and the orange signals. It started with a shot that was 5 (yes, five) stops underexposed. And then a lot of careful Lightroom and Photoshop work. I think it would look fantastic as a poster or a large scale print. Click to blow it up to full screen. Interested? Let's Talk! 

I'm going to try to do a featured image whenever I post to the blog. I've sort of been doing that, but not specifically. Let's see!

Challenge Yourself!

In the past few weeks, I've felt myself getting stale. The fall colours should be inspiring, but you know the expression BTDT (Been there, done that...)? I've lived up here for 6 years and there's no doubt that this is a spectacular place to be this time of year, but I had the feeling that I needed to find a new approach, to shoot something different.

The message here is the trite phrase, "Get out of your Comfort Zone". Do something you're not used to doing. Try some new stuff.

I wasn't really successful. Like I said last week, I'm in a bit of a flat spot. That's not to say I didn't get some images I liked: I did (see below). But I want to find something different. This isn't over: I'm going to look for some stuff I haven't done before.

I did three things this week that I don't normally do: I went out on an ATV ride with some neighbours, experiencing some more challenging riding than the usual, I stopped at a high school football game to shoot some pictures, and I did a small indoor studio shoot for a client.

In reverse order: shooting jewellery without a macro lens and without proper lighting is an exercise in frustration. I was able to produce the image he was looking for, but not up to my quality standards. There are a couple of reasons why I can't show you those pictures here, but trust me, it's all about the light and I didn't have it.

I was driving back from Haliburton and came across a football game. I got there with half of the fourth quarter remaining, so I only had about half an hour to shoot. Now I know that the goal in football photography (and other sports too) is to capture the emotion of the player(s), some outstanding physical effort, and tell a story. And try to get both a face and the ball in the same shot. My excuse is, I didn't have time. I got a few shots I liked, though:

I used some of the new features in Lightroom 5 to enhance the lighting in this shot. If you're shooting sports, set your shutter speed to something REALLY high to freeze the action. This shot was 1/1600 second at f/5.6, F=400mm. He was running right towards me and I just held down the shutter release, using AF-C focus tracking. This was the best of the burst.
  

I know it's not my place to comment, but I will anyway – this is MY blog, after all! The Red Hawks were the home team in Haliburton, the Griffins are from Peterborough. So as a Highlander, I tried to get some good shots of the home team:

The Red Hawks quarterback was an able passer. And this shot shows an offensive lineman doing what he's supposed to do in a classic position protecting his quarterback. A second later he fended off a charging defensive player. 

But you could see the difference in determination between the two teams. I commented to a Red Hawks coach (he coached the younger team that was playing next) that what I missed, as a long-ago player, was the sounds of pads clashing and the almost reckless giving-up-of-the-body, the concept of running through someone, not at them. His comment? "Oh, the game has changed. It's all in the hands now". Nonsense. You've got to want it.

You only need to look at the faces, folks. Looks like the Griffins' running back is about to get levelled, right? Nope. The Red Hawk tackler tried to armtackle him from behind instead of getting his shoulder in front of him and low, and the result? He missed the tackle and 20 yards later, TOUCHDOWN!  

I know. Not my place. And my time on the field was almost 50 years ago. But hey, it's MY BLOG and these are my "sporadic musings"!

PS: Griffins 48, Red Hawks 41.

PPS: Griffins guy: switch the ball to your left hand when you're about to get hit on the right. Just sayin'...

An ATV Ride

For once I went out to do something OTHER than take pictures. I have to get back to doing things instead of just observing them. I met Bill doing a photo workshop here a month ago. He owns 100 acres not far from here and is an avid ATVer, and he invited me to come over for a ride. My neighbour Jack also joined us (by the way, Jack, if you're reading this, I need lessons in barbecueing ribs. Outstanding!).

So although I had the camera gear with me, I only stopped twice in the entire ride, to grab some pictures. And they were just snaps... I was having a lot of fun riding, challenged by the fact that I'm an inexperienced rider and by my OLD ATV that could use some service: I didn't want to break anything!

Here's one spot we stopped for a breather, out in the open on a hydro cut. A snapshot, like I said! Most of the ride was on some narrow, forested trails but I didn't shoot them!

In hindsight, there were a couple of spots I should have taken the time to set up a shot. One was a stream crossing and afterwards I thought I should have set the camera up on a tripod and set it to shoot a timelapse. I think I'll study how to do that more readily, it'll take some figuring out), or maybe a video. There was a second spot going over a little bridge Bill built, over another stream.

Anyway, I hope Bill knows what he has there. His property is extra-special, especially at this time of year. Here's the other spot we stopped for pictures:

Having Bill in the picture adds a sense of scale. The trees are huge and gloriously coloured. Bill was actually standing about 10 meters further away, on the left side and with his ATV. Through the magic of Photoshop... why did I do that? To magnify the scale of the trees and to get him out of the middle.

I also turned the clarity down a LOT in the image (an Adobe Camera Raw function available in Lightroom, Photoshop, and Elements for my newer readers). The purpose was to emphasize colours instead of textures.

This image is available as a large scale art print. Click here to see it full sized.

By the way, here's the link to Bill's Smugmug gallery. Do take a minute to visit it: and check out the bears! He got some AWESOME pictures. I was particularly taken with the Spirit (Kermode) Bear which I originally took to be a light coloured grizzly but it's really a differently coloured black bear!

SPECIAL SALE ON ART PRINTS

I have a bunch of inventory of art prints. I want to sell these by the year-end so I'll make a special offer: $50 buys a large scale art print on lustre or on beautiful matte Epson Cold Press paper. That includes shipping to normal locations: I'll roll them in a tube for mailing. The prints are all on 18x24 sheet, archival quality, with keylines and digitally signed.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL.
Buy two for $75.

And if you act now, I also have a quantity of 8x12 prints in plastic sleeves and they are only $10 each. AND some 5x7 greeting cards with 4x6 pictures for only $3.33 each if you buy 3 (so three for $10). Shipping included!

The large format prints are here: http://faczen.smugmug.com/FineArt/Limited-Edition-Prints-1

I still have to get the smaller ones up on a gallery somewhere, watch for it in the next blog or ask. Many of the same images are in that group too.

These prices are for existing inventory only.

Email me here.

D600 going back to Nikon for the third time

Sensor dust has raised its ugly head again. I admit I'm pushing the edge of the envelope, doing a detailed HDR at small aperture but if the dust were not there, I wouldn't have the problem.

This is a screen capture of this 3-shot HDR in Lightroom after I spotted out the dust spots. Admittedly everything combined to produce this: it's an HDR, f/16, detail turned up... This was supposed to be one of 6 images I was combining into a large pano. 

Hopefully Nikon will do the right thing. Their policy is to replace the camera after the third return. We'll see...

...and I gave in

How can you NOT go with Adobe's $10/month offer? Lightroom plus Photoshop CC. So I gave in despite my misgivings. The concern is what happens if I let my subscription lapse. Oddly enough, I'm less worried about being able to open my Photoshop .psd files (I get that if I revert to CS6, for which I own a perpetual license, I'll be able to open the layered file but that the tools from CC won't be available to me), than I am about Lightroom. I no longer own a perpetual license for the latest Lightroom (5) and the catalogs are not backwards compatible. Hmmm...

A couple more images

I woke up to a foggy morning and my first thought was, "have coffee later. Go to Vic's place and see what the mist looks like on the lake". So I did.

I made a valiant effort to shoot a multi-exposure panoramic HDR. I failed. But while doing the 18 shots I needed for it, I caught this series. OK, well not strictly true: the 18 shots were 6 bursts of 3 bracketed VERTICAL images. Then I turned the camera horizontal and shot this one. I have a few others I want to come back to another time. 

Vic has a stand of very old Hemlocks that I spent some time on.  

After the mist lifted, the morning skies were so interesting and I was captivated by the reflection on the calm water. I also have a vertical version of this image, can't decide which one I like best!

And finally, on my favourite ATV trail, I liked the sun peeking through the trees. I did enhance the birch trees on the right to make them stand out.  

Until next week! TTFN

— 30 —

Been there, Done that, Grokked.

Restating the obvious

I'll tie this into photography in a minute, but first... I'm going to use motorcycling as an example.

If you don't ride a motorcycle, you may have trouble understanding this. Bear with me while I try to explain it. One day while riding in a place called "Deal's Gap", or "The Tail of the Dragon" (Google it and watch some videos. You have to see it to understand what "318 turns in 11 miles" means). I pulled over at the end and said to my friend, "I just figured out: you have to look where you want to go!". That's probably the most basic skill in motorcycling, you have to grasp that to ride.

I taught the motorcycle course at Humber College for about 12 years. I had literally thousands of students over that time. But I'm not ashamed to say that teaching was (is) my forté, not riding. I'm the perfect embodiment of the expression, "those who can, do. Those who can't, teach" (there's another phrase on the end of that, "those who can't teach, write about it" but we won't go there!).

"Look where you want to go" was a litany that we repeated time and time again. If you didn't get it, you couldn't pass even the basic motorcycle skills test for your license. I taught it to thousands of people. So I should know it, right?

But it was like an epiphany for me. I finally grokked in fullness what that meant. That day, it finally sunk into my head, like an explosion in my mind. Am I making any sense?

So how does this relate to photography?

I visited the Ansel Adams exhibit at the McMichael museum earlier this week.

Ansel Adams

What can one say about him that hasn't already been said? Not much. I've seen his images in books, online, reproductions... but there's something about looking at a print that the master himself made with his own hands. And while I was there (for much too short a time: I didn't know they closed at 5:00 pm!) I had an epiphany.

More than one thing made him the Master. You know all the theories, you've studied and practiced the Zone System but how the HELL does he get those deep, rich blacks? The smooth, perfect tonality? Adams' skill in the darkroom is legendary. But when I looked at the works that were exhibited, something struck me like a thunderbolt.

"It's all about the Light".

Adams' composition skills were exquisite. But when I looked at his prints, "Redwoods, Bull Creek Flat" and "Birch Trees", what struck me was the lighting. In the Redwoods, especially, Adams intent was to get the viewer to look at the texture of the trees and he did that by shooting in perfect light. Now I grok.

Here's my attempt at replicating an Adams-type image:

I shot this in front of the McMichael Gallery after they closed at 5pm.  

Here's another shot from that afternoon, nothing to do with Adams but I think the landscaping at McMichael was done with the photographer in mind!

It's an HDR, of course.This is about textures, and drawing the viewer's eye from lower left to upper right. I'm not that happy with the sky so I may come back and rework it.  

A cool place to hang out

There's a great online forum that welcomes new and experienced photoenthusiasts alike. It's a small group, but there are members from all over the world! We especially need new people who want to make use of this great resource. If you're ever stuck with a question you can't answer, or looking for a better way to do something, this is the place for you!

A little history: some time ago, a bunch of us became disgruntled with the way another forum we belonged to was being run. What had been a friendly place had become uncomfortable and commercially motivated. No point in identifying them...

So we left and started a new place to hang out. The activity level has become a little low and we were trying to come up with why. Someone pointed out that the old forum was a busy place because a lot of people asked advice about photography in general, Photoshop/Lightroom, even such topics as copyright issues, suppliers, etc. They went on to point out that the members of the new group are all experienced and knowledgeable so these questions didn't come up. We need new members who have questions about stuff!

So we have a place where there are about 100 experts (and me. I'm not expert...) who love to share their knowledge and their work, who are all friendly and non-judgmental, who would like nothing better than to help answer any and all questions. Who love to see people's work and provide gentle critique (if it's asked for) and suggestions, who like playing photography games like the ongoing "Battle" where you start with a common image and do whatever you want with it creatively, or the monthly "Rally" (soon to resume) where you have a week to shoot and submit pictures on a specified topic, or even "Where is this?" where you do whatever you have to, to answer that question about a photo submitted. Marco is quite devious, but they're all solvable!

So you're all invited to join. It doesn't matter about your experience level, whether you want to ask questions or try to answer them, or just join in the banter and fun, and enjoy images from the members in the "Show and Tell" threads. You don't have to post, you can just sit back and read but it's more fun if you do.

Here's an example:

Remember the picture of "The Angels & Mini-Me" that I put up last week? I really wanted to do something like this with the face image on the wall but couldn't remember how. So I asked on the Forum and got a quick response from Philm Phalm that reminded me how to use "Displacement Mapping" in Photoshop. 

So where is this forum? What's it called? How do you join?

The forum is called "The Imaging Forum" or "TIF" (you can't say "The TIF Forum", that would be repetitious redundancy!)

You access it here: http://www.suitehound.com/forum/ and joining means just registering and supplying a login name and password. All you have to agree to is to be friendly!

See you on TIF?

While we're at it, there's a monthly "Rally" that I host on TIF. Basically you are given three topics or categories, you have a week to shoot the pictures and then submit them, then everyone votes on their favourites. The winner gets the undying adulation and respect of their peers, and gets to choose the topics for next month. Go to TIF, then look for "Battlegrounds and Rallies".

A great weekend shooting!

We had 8 or 10 people show up for the Photowalk in Algonquin last weekend. The dawn shoot at the Frost Centre was outstanding, here's one of my shots from there:

That's Ben and George. A misty sunrise on St. Nora Lake. By the way, this will look different in different browsers, the foreground is supposed to have no detail in it, just a silhouette. I have to do some more work on it before it's finished.

And here's a completely different treatment, shot by my friend George who ventured all the way up from Toronto for this photoshoot:

Reproduced with permission. This is an outstanding image, a full 36Mp frame from the D800. It certainly won't look as good here as an 800px wide image, but you get the feeling. I'm encouraging George to make a large scale print, this is a real winner! 

The Photowalk went really well, with one or two glitches. The bakery we intended to go to wasn't open that early so we had to find another place: then we got confused and split up and a couple of people couldn't hook up with us later. By the way, Algonquin Park was a real zoo as expected. When we drove out around 2pm, there was a lineup of cars at least 5km long at a dead stop, waiting to get in the West Gate. Fortunately we were going the other way!

I didn't have my "A-Game" with me. I hit a bit of a flat spot and was really not happy with my images that day — I predicted it, though: I don't like shooting in bright sunlight. No excuse, I could have done better.

The next day, I went out on the morning "Loon Excursion" with Mike Bertelsen. I'm going to save some additional pictures for the next blog post, but here's one for your enjoyment.

This is a 3-month old Loon chick about to take off on his very first flight. I have some shots of that epic inaugural voyage, but you'll have to wait until next week to see them! 

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More Inspiration

Every time I look at this site, I'm blown away. What better inspiration can you get than to look at the work of some very talented photographers?

I'm talking about the home page for the Richmond Hill Camera Club. This is not news to many of my readers who are members of that club, but to others, I draw your attention to the site. At the top of the home page is a slide show of winning images from recent competitions. Go ahead, click the link above. I'll wait right here.

See what I mean? Every time I look at this, I'm blown away. And by the way, I've watched the development of this club and the work of some of its members for about 10 years now, it's incredible how they've grown. Bravo, RHCC.

I ask myself what do the images that stand out as extraordinary have in common? If I could come up with one single word to describe the, it would be "SIMPLICITY". The subject stands out. There may be other things in the image but the subject is presented to you in its simplest form. That's the inspiration I want to take into my work.

By the way, I'm more and more convinced that we need a camera club up here in the Highlands. I'm going to put some work into making that happen. If you're up here and want to help out or join, let me know.

The Richmond Hill Club membership is full and there's a waiting list. If you live anywhere in that area, get on the list.


Smugmug Galleries

I've been working on my Smugmug galleries. Their new interface is very powerful but like anything else on this computer, if you don't do it regularly, you have to go through the whole learning curve again!

You can basically do anything you want, but first you have to KNOW what you want! My big concern was not to fall in the same trap I was in last time, where I had literally hundreds of galleries and not only was it confusing for outside visitors, but for me too! So what I've done now is to create a few master "folders" and only show selected ones on the home page. For now, I've got my fine art images in one, and other stuff (which for now are the Whitewater images from this summer) in another. Eventually I want to create another one for "portfolio" and take the Whitewater stuff off the home page and link directly to it.

I spent a couple of hours (you know how time flies when you're doing this stuff!) redoing the layout, pop over for a look-see. Oh, and if you see any images that would look fantastic on your walls, drop me a note and Let's Talk!

Credit Card Reader 

Before the show last June, I acquired a credit card swipe reader from a company called "SQUARE", or "SQUAREUP". I didn't use it much but I was not dissatisfied with it, in fact I thought it was pretty slick.

It plugs into your iPhone or iPad and lets you accept and process credit cards. It works through your cellphone or wifi connection. They only charge for transactions, there's no monthly fee, and the money goes directly into your bank account. Simple, effective.

Today a friend of mine tried to get one and was not approved. Some silly reason about not being able to verify his ID (likely his fault, I'm sure he won't mind me saying his computer skills are a little limited). When he tried to contact them it turns out that they do not have any telephone access numbers. I mean literally, you can't contact them except via anonymous email or contact form on their site.

I am a little (OK a LOT) uneasy about them having access to my bank account, without knowing the most basic information about them: who are they, where are they. So I tried to find a way to delete my account with them and the banking access as well. YOU CAN'T. At least I couldn't find it. Tomorrow I'm going to the bank to close the account I gave them access to (update: that was a few days ago. Done, that account doesn't exist any more).

They may be totally legitimate but I'm sorry, something smells fishy. I thought it was a great solution to mobile credit card processing: what is it they say? "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is".

There's something wrong when you can't find out where they are or who they are and talk to them. I don't trust them and I don't think they understand about customer service. Just a heads-up.

Annoying Spam...

I am surprised it took this long, but the fact that I publish my email address here and on various other websites, or printed in newspapers and so on has finally caught up with me (again). Like I said, it's been a couple of years, but the spam is rolling in with a vengeance.

Almost all of it goes to the junkmail folder in Outlook, some of it is blocked at the ISP (if I give them the email sender or domain to block), but because I don't know all the people who legitimately want to contact me, I can't just block whole TLD's like ".biz" or ".us". I'm getting 100 or more a day now. And even if they have an "unsubscribe" link in the email, it invariably goes to some paragraph long alphabet soup URL and I'm not about to click on it.

So I get why people hesitate to subscribe to my newsletter, they don't trust the site or the unsubscribe utility. Just so you know, my list is hosted at MailChimp and their unsubscribe is REAL. One click and you're deleted. People only get added to the list if they do it themselves. The exception is that I sometimes add people to the list whom I've met in person or with whom I've corresponded directly.

Next step, unfortunately, will be to stop using the offending email address and install a web form link for email contact, protected by a Captcha. Hate to do it, but I might have to if this persists.

As long as I'm complaining...

I rebooted my laptop on Wednesday morning in preparation for the workshop this week, and it crashed. Not a BSOD, but half the applications didn't work, including my Wacom tablet. So annoying...

My desktop is about 3 years old (that's what, about 140 in Dog Years?). The laptop is much faster so I actually use it with an external monitor and keyboard for most of my photoediting.  Anyway to make a long story short (too late!) I tracked down the problem to an automatic Mickey$oft Windows "Critical Update". I couldn't even open my control panel to do a system restore, until I rebooted in Safe Mode. It worked fine after that.

Here's the problem: this morning I rebooted and sure enough, the update had installed itself again and same problem! I knew what to do, but that's 45 minutes out of my life that I can't get back and I don't want to have to do it every day! I've disabled automatic updates, but now what?

It occurred to me that I've had my iPad and my iPhone for a few years without even one incident. Sure wish I could afford a Mac.

White Water

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I live 6 Km from one of the finest whitewater kayaking venues anywhere. The Minden Wildwater Preserve will be the venue for the PanAm games in 2015 (don't know where everyone is going to park: the lot holds maybe 8 cars!). So I shoot a lot of kayaking pictures. And I include whitewater canoes in that too.

Last weekend was the annual Open Canoe Race (mark your calendars: it's the weekend after Labour Day every year). On Saturday, they predicted rain (it didn't) but it was cloudy all day. On Sunday, bright blue skies. If you're a photographer, you're way ahead of me: cloudy is MUCH better for pictures, especially with brilliant, reflective water!

I shot an equal number of images both days (300-400). I can count the keepers from Sunday on one hand. Saturday was another story

Remember the girl from last week? This is her again. Now I got some facts wrong last time (serves me right for not talking with her. I did on Saturday). Her name is Morgan Nunn. Her dad is Keith, her brother is Liam. I don't know exactly how old she is, but she's in High School. Rumour has it she's going to run for Mayor of Toronto next year! Anyway, she wasn't "afraid" of the Otter Slide as I thought last week. She was concentrating hard on how to approach a certain wave for the competition and was elated when she nailed it! Here she is in the Open Canoe race, coming into Gate 16, on the Otter Slide.

BTW, if she does run for Mayor, I have a picture of her father in a dress (people wore costumes on the Sunday). I'll bet that will be worth some money to her opponents! LOL

In case you're wondering about the green and white barber poles, they are the gates. If you miss a gate, you get a 50 second penalty. If you touch one, it's 10 seconds. Red and white gates have to be negotiated UPSTREAM, in other words, you have to turn around and paddle against the flow of the river.

Here's another image from Saturday:

Story. The guy in the green canoe lost his paddle during his run.. The fellow in the yellow canoe retrieved it for him and brought it over (he was hanging out in a calm eddy above the fast water). Then they ran down the river together, not actually racing, just trying to get to the end of the rapids. 

Here's a little animation that I shot at the same gate (hope this runs OK in your browser!):

This is a burst of 15 exposures at the 5.5fps frame rate on the D600. Not everyone was able to negotiate that gate without mishap! FWIW, I couldn't create the animation at full resolution, the computer choked when Photoshop told it the gross file size was 2Gb! So I reduced it to 800px wide before merging the frames.

There were a couple of great images (OK, "I" think they're great!) in the middle of that sequence. Here's one of them (this was done at full size):

Obviously, I added some effects. The graduated fog and the grain and the border. This is going to make a dandy large scale print! Watch for a version of it in my gallery. RHCC, watch for a version in competition this year!

Speaking of the gallery, I'm posting images of the race. There are two galleries showing: "Selects", which are shots that I've post-processed, and "Open Canoe September 2013" which contains images before I've done anything to them. Contact me if you see one you like, if you're in one of the picture and you want a copy of it, or if you want a print. Here's the link: http://faczen.smugmug.com/White-Water/September-2013

A few pictures

Just to round out the blog... I did a basic DSLR course this week with some very interested students. I was explaining how "North-facing window light" was the greatest, and Jen willingly posed so I could illustrate the point. Then we got to playing with a few images in Lightroom and Photoshop and this was one of the resulting shots.

Clarity turned down and then a Topaz Clarity layer was added as well starting with a preset called something like, "Flawless Skin". Didn't need much, Jen's skin is pretty good anyway. I finished it with a little vignette. I played them the "Fotoshop by Adobé" clip on YouTube (Google it) and we all had a laugh. 

We then went on to talk about composition. With that in mind, I did this one:

Use of negative space?  Breaking the rules? Leave the viewer wanting more! I dunno, it was just fun. I was just thinking I might composite the other half of her face into the right side of the image!

We spent some time learning about the effects of shutter speed and did a little session on panning with a slow shutter speed. They all caught on and produced some neat images. This is one of mine, though:

It also illustrated what you can do when you shoot in RAW. This was hugely overexposed because I bumped up against the limits when I locked the shutter speed to 1/15 second and had the ISO at 1000 and the aperture at f/2.8! there was lots more to recover, but I liked the tonality of this one.  

And finally, the pièce de résistance: the Angels and Mini-Me.

Someone (I think it was Sandi, on the right) suggested that we do a "Charlie's Angels" shot. Then I stripped in a background from the Old Brick Works in Toronto (who knows what I changed?). That's Cheryl and Harper in the middle. I have some other shots of "Mini-Me" that I'll save for later! 

It was a fun and productive two days! I can't wait to see some of their work down the road!

TTFN

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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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