Keep on Learning.

I like to think that I'll only stop learning when I'm on the other side of the grass. With that in mind, I read and re-read books like Freeman Patterson's "The Art of Seeing", or Michael Freeman's "The Photographer's Eye" or Bruce Barnham's "The Art of Photography" and I seem to learn something new every time. I also look at fine art books with a view to seeing how painters approach their works, to try to apply it to my photography. We'll come back to that one.

Just so you don't think I'm one-dimensional, I also read Michio Kaku, other simpler theoretical physics books (it's been a long time, but I'm still interested), tons of crime and adventure fiction (I average 3 books a week), I listen to a lot of music (mostly guitar blues and jazz and amazing singers), I watch The Big Bang Theory religiously, and, back to photography and art, I look at many, many pictures on Facebook to see how other people do things. I spend a lot of time post-processing images in Lightroom and Photoshop and their ilk, as ALL of my regular readers know!

I also attended a workshop presented by Phil Gebhardt for the Haliburton Highlands Camera Club a couple of days ago and I admit to going in with an ulterior motive. I wanted to see how other instructors teach less-experienced photographers, in order to improve my teaching skills. I also wanted to see how he approached a topic near and dear to my heart, the lessons to be learned by modern photographers from the old time painting masters.

Phil Gebhardt, rimlighted! 

Phil's workshop, entitled "Lessons from Rembrandt"  was clearly not addressed at me, it was for new photographers. His message was that whether the medium is paint on canvas or pixels on a screen or photographic print, we're all trying to render a three-dimensional scene in two dimensions and he showed us some techniques in how to do that. His presentation covered points familiar to anyone who has taken any kind of composition course (in fairness, I have never even taken Art 101!) but that was his stated goal and he stuck to it.

Comments that I heard from the participants all around me indicated that he was very successful at opening some eyes: so kudo's, Phil. The only disappointing thing on my side were a couple of comments from people who had taken MY basic course who thought some of the concepts were new to them, although they were covered in my workshops (although in fairness, they were only part of the workshop which was more directed at the students' left brain). And he seemed to run out of things to say in the latter part of the course although that wasn't his fault, the continuing rain prevented us from going outside and shooting as he had planned.

I know this is long but I hope you're still with me. I did learn some things but more importantly, I came to an epiphany last night. Photographers and artists (paint and other media) are not the same. Generally their approach to their images are completely different, although there are a few exceptions. I've struggled with getting the point across about pre-visualization and careful composition and now I think I've figured out why.

How long does a photographer spend visualizing and planning and rendering his image? A photographer spends anywhere from no time at all (for a snapshot), some milliseconds or seconds (for an action shot), a couple of minutes (for a landscape or sunset, for example). Sure, there are exceptions. Pre-planning, lighting setups, backgrounds, etc. But once it's set up, it's just a matter of milliseconds to  take the picture.

Here's a Lake Superior seascape. I drove for 2 days to get this shot but it only took moments to shoot it. By the way, the Gales of November workshop still has space on October 27-30. Book now if you want to attend! www.photography.to/gales 

I've posted this picture before. But it's an example of what I'm talking about. Although I had this picture in my mind before I even drove down Pleasant Point Road looking for a suitable subject, it still only took a few seconds to shoot it. I knew I wanted to emphasize the vertical lines and how to achieve it. I wasn't sure about the exposure or the shutter speed or how much to move the camera, so I took about a dozen shots until I was satisfied. And I knew that I would be able to enhance it once I got it back to the computer.

Now think about a painter. He has a blank canvas or sketchpad in front of him. He decides what he wants to put on that canvas and where. He thinks about how he wants to light it and where to guide the viewer's eye and what to include and what to exclude and what to change. He decides where to put that horizon, the proportions of the various elements and their relationship to one another, and will probably do an underpainting or sketch to block them into place. He chooses his colours and how he wants his brush strokes to look. Only then does he start putting paint on canvas and he pays attention to every detail, every brushstroke, every nuance.

I'm trying to learn to paint. But I'm a newbie. This is an attempt to render the scene in the photo above in oil on canvas. But it's different, isn't it? I thought about leading the viewer's eye. I thought about how the distant objects are less sharp and detailed or even saturated than the foreground. I needed to lean a tree in the left group to make it more dynamic. I had to fill the negative space at lower left and upper right without drawing the viewer's attention. 

Would I sell this original oil painting? Well, yes, but you'd have to make it worth my while. Think about having an early original 'Springer' and what it might be worth after I'm gone!

Sure there are photographers who work similarly – Ansel Adams comes immediately to mind. Or anyone doing commercial studio work. But for most photographers, "oh, look, a Pine Marten", and a barrage of tens or 100's or 1000's of images follow. Then they winnow through this multitude of images in the hopes of finding one or two that work.

So how do we photographers take these "Lessons from Rembrandt"? I've often said "you have to know the rules so you know when to break them". There are those who disagree with this platitude and I respect their points of view but stand by mine. Except that's not really the message, maybe I can explain it better.

This is the paragraph I'm having the most trouble writing. It relates to the relative laziness of the photographer, the lack of investment he or she has in their images. If a painter screws up a picture (or just doesn't like it), he or she throws away hours, or days or possibly even weeks of work. If a photographer screws up a picture, "oh, well". Click. What if a photographer were to invest more in an image? Not money: time and thought and planning. We tell everyone about this great world we live in, how much better we have it than the oldtimers who were limited to only a few images when they went out shooting but do we really? What if we would approach each image as if pressing that shutter release cost $100 every time we did it? 

Do we need to be more careful with our exposures or focus? NO, not really! That's our advantage in this digital world. That's where we can bracket or shoot multiple shots. Where we can USE the technology.

Would we not then spend more effort designing and planning our images? When we press the shutter release we should ask ourselves, "is this the best I can do? What can I do to improve this picture? Is this going to be a keeper?"

Depending on what you're shooting, you may not have the luxury of all the time in the world. Even if you're shooting landscapes, the light will change. If you're shooting action (could be wildlife, could be sports, could just be kids at play) or particularly if you're trying to capture peoples' activities or expressions, maybe a wedding or a headshot... you don't have the time. Do you want to spend what precious time you have trying to remember the Rule of Thirds or keeping your horizon level, or making the subject stand out through size or colour or value or brightness or contrast or how much exposure compensation to dial in...? That's why you should know the 'rules', know what works, so you can focus your valuable attention on the things that will make that image outstanding.

Make sense?

I think I STILL haven't found a way to say it.

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Did you ever have one of "Those" days?

Yesterday. I had a great visit with my mom in Thornhill. On the way there, I stopped for some pictures: I was actually looking for Snowy Owls, but didn't see one, still, the ice-encrusted branches made for interesting images. I took the same route home and again got some not-owl shots.

However on the way home, I stopped for a bathroom break at a gas station in Georgina. I put my cellphone down, and remember specifically telling myself not to forget it. Seriously, I actually told myself not to forget it, literally 5 seconds before leaving the bathroom. You know what's coming, right?

Three hours. I knew exactly where I had left it. It took me an hour to get back there and two more hours to get home. It's my only phone so leaving it for a few days was not an option.

I've lost/forgotten stuff before: but never this bad. Is it just age, or the early onset of you-know-what? I can't find any of my drybags (I use them to keep condensation from forming in my camera when I bring it in from the cold). So I had to buy a new one. I can't find any of my half-dozen flashlights (well, one...) so I bought some new ones yesterday. I go in the grocery store without a shopping list and I can't remember why I'm there. {sigh}.

Anyway, here are some pictures from yesterday.

The trees were coated with a rime of ice and it was capturing the light snow as it fell. I saw this tree and stopped to shoot it. However, I had the long lens on (hoping to see a snowy owl) so even at its widest setting – 150mm – I couldn't get the whole tree in. So I deliberately shot a sequence of nine pictures: starting at lower right, three across, then back across the middle, then the top. I stitched these together with Lightroom CC 2015.4's marvelous new pano-merge feature. The resulting image was almost 150 megapixels in size – so big that I couldn't save it in the normal fashion! It did the job flawlessly. Then I decided it needed some textures and toning... 

Like I said, a rime of ice. This is basically right out of the camera, although I did work on the toning a little.  Surprisingly good given that it was handheld at 600mm (1/1000 second at f/6.3, ISO 5600)

This picture needed some noise reduction. Topaz Labs announced the latest version of DeNoise (6) a couple of days ago and I used it. I simply dialed in the preset for the D800 at 6400 ISO and clicked "go". Wow.

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Topaz DeNoise 6 Upgrade

From now until March 20th, Topaz DeNoise 6 is on sale for $30 off their regular price of $79.95. Worth it at twice the price! You can download a free trial to see how it works for you before buying it, but you have to complete the transaction by the 20th of March to get the discounted price. 

Here's the link to the Topaz Labs page: Topaz DeNoise
Use that link, and enter "NOISEFREE" in the coupon code box at checkout to get the discount.

PS: If you already own deNoise your upgrade is free. You probably got an email from Topaz but if not, use the link and download the new version. It will recognize your existing serial number when you install it.

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Here's one of these "I can't decide which picture I like best" questions. I hate when people do this on Facebook ("which one do you like, colour or black-and-white?") so forgive me.

The first image is a considered landscape. Diagonal leading lines, hazier in the distance, framed by the dark foliage... it tell the story of this rural house of worship on a snowy winter day.

The second image came to me when I was looking through the viewfinder, composing the first one. I loved the textures of the bricks and I wanted to make that the story. I wanted to make the church stand out from the softness of its ice-covered surroundings.

Snowy owls sometimes perch on that roof. That's why I was there...

— 30 —

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. 

— 30 —

Busy Times

It's not supposed to be busy. It's mid-summer, I should be spending time sitting on the dock, going for a swim, mowing the lawn (yeah, well... this is the country, right? But when it gets too high and ugly...), sitting in the gazebo drinking a Marguerita, enjoying the festivals and activities up here in the Highlands.

I visited my friend Janie on Kushog lake last weekend. It wasn't the greatest weather but you don't need an excuse to go down to the boat! I think this captures her in a really great moment on the lake. 

I'm doing some of that stuff, but I find myself in front of the computer for too many hours every day. There's weekly trips to Toronto, weekend visitors, stacking firewood... but I owe it to my faithful readers to post to the blog, so here I am!

I don't want to bore you
with family pictures 

...but I have to post a few! I was in Toronto last week when my son and family came to visit. There are 3 pictures I'd like to share here, if you don't mind!

Amalia is the latest addition to the family. She has bright eyes, a captivating smile and her father's dimples. She's 5 months old and the most beautiful baby in the world! 

Her big sister Leah is going to be 5 years old in a month or so. She's happy, friendly, really smart and inquisitive, and of course loves chocolate chip cookies (who doesn't??). I have a bunch of shots of her but I think this one captures her best! It goes without saying that she's the brightest, most beautiful almost-five-year-old in the world...

No doubt, my mother's going to call me when she sees this picture and say, "how could you put such a horrible picture of me up on your blog?". I know you're not smiling, Mom, but that's only because you didn't want me to take your picture! The little 'gator in the foreground is worth  a comment: most of the residents at Thorne Mills have walkers and to distinguish them, they put ribbons or flowers or something on them. Mom's had this little guy who I call "Sebastian" (family joke) for quite some time. Anyway, the picture does capture who you are, Mom!

As most of you know, I'm not a great "people" photographer, but I'm trying. I took this casual portrait of Janie at the same time as the boat shot above, I kind of like the treatment and again I think it captures her essence well.

High key portrait, with some Topaz Simplify painting effects. I love Janie's hair even though she complains about it! BTW I did NOT use Topaz ReMask on this shot because it didn't need it, but I tried the new version and it's really slick. Her hair was a challenge, Topaz handled it easily! Go to my previous blog posting for a link to the plug-in and where to get it for half-price for the next few days. Oh, OK, here's the link, and use the code "julyremask" when ordering. 

Workshops

In the last few weeks I've done a couple of different workshops. The "Stars" one had two parts to it, one a technical classroom seminar and the second part will be a field trip at Oh-Dark-Thirty (which is when the stars are out, duh...). The problem is, you can't shoot when it's cloudy. We were actually intending to go out tonight but the weather forecast changed so I cancelled it. Hopefully next weekend will be better. There's an interesting website called cleardarksky.com which has links to some 1900 observatories and observing sites in North America, with a wealth of information. Unfortunately their forecast only goes out a day or two so it's hard to plan ahead.

This was one of my classroom sessions this month. I'm willing to do more of them if anyone is interested, drop me a note and we'll see if we can work out a good date.  

This is one of the spots I picked out for the field session. As you can see, I'm facing East. There's a nice view to the North and West as well, South is not so good.  This looks like a dandy sunrise location as well, I'll check that out in the upcoming days if I can get out of bed early enough!

While we were there, we saw some cool dragonflies. I REALLY have to get a macro lens. If you see dragonflies, BE NICE! Remember, they eat mosquitoes!

People who regularly shoot macros will poo-pooh this shot because the back wings and the head are not in focus. I can do better... but this was shot with my 70-200mm lens with the 1.7x teleconverter mounted (no question about sharpness!). Handheld, 1/640 second at f/8, ISO 400.  I'm not sure of the species: I Googled it but didn't find the exact same markings anywhere. 

Don't try this at home, kiddies!

This was shot in Toronto, it was a hazy sunset, otherwise I wouldn't have pointed the camera directly at the sun.

I don't know if you can see the foreground detail on this internet version. Again, the same lens/teleconverter combination. You can ALMOST see the corona, certainly there's some detail at the edges. 

Some street photos

I'll close with some street photos I took this week. I have a tough assignment from the Minden Times to shoot what's going on in Minden: not much! It's a pretty sleepy town...

Cliff's big ole dawg is a common sight on Minden's main street. Nap time! 

These two guys were hanging out in front of the Dominion Hotel on a hot summer afternoon. I was trying to get their pictures without them noticing... I guess I failed! 

This is actually cropped from the same photo. I like the character lines in his face. The reflection of the other gentleman in the window adds balance and this shot has gathered some pretty positive comments on a few street photography forums. 

See you next week!

— 30 —

Raptors Workshop (no, not the basketball team)

Register for a really neat photo op!

A friend of mine, Les Palenik, is facilitating a "Birds of Prey" workshop at the Canadian Raptor Conservancy in Vittoria, west of Port Dover, Ontario. You get to shoot eagles, hawks, owls both on perches and in flight, and he promises owl chicks as well (owlets?).

The date is May 12th and the price is very reasonable, but I'll let Les tell you more about it: here's the link.

There are still some spaces available on this workshop, but I'll bet it will fill up fast, so wander over to his site and get signed up. I will be there, for sure! The birds in flight part excites me the most. When I asked him, Les said a 200mm lens should do, but I'm bringing the 400 as well!.

It's only a couple of hours out of Toronto, but I know that several of my readers live or cottage in the area, so this is a great opportunity!

Lightroom 5 Beta

Kelby did a quick review of the new features of LR5 on YouTube.

Here's the link.

I wonder how long it will be before his new book on LR5 will be out (if I sound cynical here, well I am...).

A few other thoughts...

• I've read on TIF and one other place (G+?) that the LR5 Beta is crashing Windows...

• The main editing features are one-button straightening (perspective cropping), and the new spot-removal and adjustment brush options. These are functions that you can do in Photoshop CS6 (well maybe not one-button...). I get that these are time-savers for those who edit lots of images and don't want to go out to Photoshop all the time. That's not a concern for me since I only edit a few pictures at a time (typically spending 30-60 minutes on each one) and there's always other stuff I want to do in Photoshop, but I see how others might find this useful.

• They did add a radial version of the graduated filter and allowed you to select it multiple times and stack them. And since you can adjust all kinds of things (exposure, contrast, highlights, blacks, clarity, sharpening, saturation, and so on), you can essentially add all kinds of lighting effects in multiple areas, much like control points in the Nik products. That one looks quite cool.

The one feature I've been looking for has not been added. Sometimes I think I'm in a text field, like keywords or caption, etc, or I think I'm typing on the other computer (I switch my keyboard between machines), but I'm really in Lightroom, and I start typing. Type almost any innocuous word and you're invoking commands. That's because Lightroom uses a lot of single-key shortcuts. For instance "B" adds a photo to the quick collection. "E" changes to loupe view. "R" turns on crop mode. "H" hides stuff. "P" picks a photo. All the number keys add ratings to a photo. And so on, for almost all the letters and numbers. The feature I would value would be a key or button that I would call, "oops". "Take me back to where I was before I started typing". I don't know how I would write that but then I'm not a highly paid software engineer either.

I'm not going to install this beta. Adopting Lightroom 4 early caused me a lot of grief: as I said elsewhere, they didn't solve the latency issue until 4.3, which made LR painful to use for quite some time. So I think I'll wait.

I also wonder what the upgrade policy is going to be. Adobé's strategy seems to have been to cut the price of LR in half, attract tons more customers, then pull the rug out a year earlier than usual with a new version. Guessing they'll want $79 to upgrade, that means all those new customers they sucked in will end up paying them the original $150 for the privilege.

Just musing...

Haliburton Home & Cottage Show
Our space is confirmed. Booth #204 in the Curling Club (hope we can find a way to block that ugly green arc-lamp lighting!). Linda Cresswell and I will be sharing this space and selling prints ranging from card size up to a 40x60 canvas Linda has planned (not too many of those, Linda: we only have 10' x 10' to display in!). I'll also be talking about and taking bookings for my DSLR courses and there will be at least one give-away to visitors.

The show is on the weekend of May 31 - June 2, in the beautiful village of Haliburton.

Even if you don't have a home or cottage in the Highlands, it's worth coming up for a visit. Lots to see and do, and Haliburton is home to many artisans and artists (the Fleming College campus of the Haliburton School of the Arts is here). More information to come...

Panning moving water

The other day, Linda and I were talking on the phone and she came across this outstanding artist, +Ursula I Abresch. A picture's worth 1000 words, but I don't post other people's work on my blog without permission, so here's a link to her 500px gallery site.

To see the images that I consider the most stunning, scroll down to the bottom third of that page. It's really worth the visit.

While we were talking, Linda was exploring her sites and content (I can't multitask, she can!). She came across a bit about how she creates these images, which involves shooting reflections in pans of water. But along the way, she read something about "panning moving water" and my ears perked up.

Yesterday, I was driving by the whitewater (no eagles again yesterday) and stopped to try some stuff. You can get some very interesting effects by panning:

This wasn't what I had in mind originally, but I found it to be a really interesting abstract. 1/15 second at f/22, ISO 50, F=200mm. I added some effects in Photoshop, mainly using the cutout filter to smooth things.  

While I was there, I thought, "what about zooming?" I did a few slow shutter speed zooms and got several interesting abstracts, including this one:

You need to move back about 2 meters from your monitor to look at this one. It's more effective when you view it as a gestalt. Again, I did nothing to this shot other than to crop it vertically. It was 1/10 second at f/22, ISO 50. I zoomed the lens from about 100mm to 200mm while the shutter was open. I like this image so much I'm going to print it, probably as a 12x18 watercolour. I wish I had shot this last week, I would have entered it in the RHCC creatives competition! 

Oil Paint filter again!

There's something magical about the oil paint filter in Photoshop CS6.

Black Ash leaf still hanging in early spring.

A little background here. Out for a walk the other day, with the D600 and the 70-200 f/2.8 around my neck. Nothing much to shoot, maybe I got one other shot of a snow drift that looked like shooting the Rocky Mountains out of an airplane window. I saw this leaf fluttering in the wind, opened up to f/2.8 and shot it with a dark-ish background. I was taken by the texture brought out by the afternoon light. Problem is, it was surrounded by its brothers at different distances, so it was hard to isolate. Also the tip of the leaf wasn't pristine. So I cropped it really tight, in fact the final image is only 1000 px wide, so I can't do much with it.

I spent half an hour playing with sharpening and Topaz, then abandoned most of it because I had lost the subtle texture in favour of oversharpening. Yes, the Nikon 200mm and D600 combo is sharp and renders colours really well, but it was the texture that drew me to this one. Then I thought I'd try the oil paint filter...

Now I don't like what it does to continuous toned backgrounds and I'm not taken by the "shine", although you need a little. So I reduced the shine to a very low number and then masked it out on everything but the leaf and the sharp buds and twigs.

When I looked at the jpeg on a white screen, I didn't like it, so I went back and created a mat using a colour I sampled from the image.

I don't know what draws me to this filter effect. Rosa hates it on principle, says I'm trying to fake a painting. Yeah, so???

PS: wish I had the tip of the leaf...

That's all for now. Go look at Les's workshop if you haven't already. Should be interesting! And don't forget to subscribe to my mailing list. I'm going to be giving away free stuff to subscribers, and you want to be there!

— 30 —

Photo Workshop Survey

But first... has anyone been tuning into the new Kelby show, “The Grid”? It’s on live on Mondays at 12:30 noon, but I’ve missed it each time. A day later, it’s up on their site or iTunes (feh. Ptui, ptui).
The first one, two weeks ago, was entertaining and fun to watch. The one last week was really interesting. They talked about DSLR HD Video and I’ll let you watch it to see what they said; but they also talked about HDR and that was interesting. RC Concepcion pointed out that the real problem with HDR is that a lot of it out there is badly done. And that there’s a lot of post-processing to be done after you’ve created it and tweaked it. At one point they talked about it being a fad and I almost shouted out loud that Ansel Adams invented it, then RC said, “and guess who invented it? Ansel Adams!” I had that written in my HDR presentation BEFORE watching this. Ask Bob Fowler! We talked about it at a club meeting weeks ago!

They said a lot of good things about NIK HDR Efx Pro. Guess I have to add it to my shopping list. I'm waiting for my Humber College Staff ID so I can get my educational discount...

Go watch the Grid. Here: http://kelbytv.com/thegrid/. Episode 3 should be up there tomorrow, and they’re talking about microstock (Les..)

You don’t have to be a NAPP member to watch it. You really should be one, though: use this link if you’re thinking about joining.

I'm preparing some multi-part content for my technical post that will be directed at people who want to try some HDRs but don't know how to get started. It's not really difficult but you need to understand some basic concepts. I expect that will be ready, at least the first part, within this week. Stay tuned!

Photography Workshops

I've mentioned several times that we're working on some potential photography workshops and/or destination trips. Who's "we"?

Well I'm one of 'we'. I have some colleagues with whom I'm working, people who have considerable experience and skill sets both as photographers and as educators. We are like-minded: we think that we have a lot to offer to photographers of all levels, and that we can put together teams to present valuable sessions.

We have some ideas about what we'd like to do, but it would be really helpful to find out what our potential customers want. So to that end, I've put together a quick survey that should take you only a few minutes to complete. Please take a second to fill it out. Answer as many or as few questions as you wish.

PLEASE be honest. I know how tempting it is to be humourous or engage in wishful thinking, but we really would like to develop some workshops based on your responses.

We will NOT record your email addresses nor contact you because you filled out the survey, unless you want us to (one question is, "should we contact you?")

One of the questions on the survey asks if you know anyone else who might be interested in a workshop. We're particularly interested in finding out if there are as many people out there as we think there are, who have gotten into digital photography and have no idea how to use that nice DSLR they just bought. So should we run a basic course for these people?

Again, please take a moment to answer a couple of questions for us. Here's the link to the survey:

FACZEN Photo Workshop Survey

Have you ever known me NOT to put a picture up in a blog post? I can't set a precedent here! I've been rather busy the past week or so, what with writing the presentation on HDR which has now been cancelled, and with one of my rites of spring for the past 10 years, which is re-certifying as a motorcycle instructor at Humber College (take the course. You will love it. You may never own a bike or you may catch the fever! Go to the Humber website for more info. And if you sign up, tell them where you heard about it!).

But every month on the NAPP forums, there's a challenge, called the "Photo Rally". Someone -- the winner from the previous month -- chooses 3 categories. You have 72 hours to shoot a picture in all three and submit them. This month's categories were, "Keys", "Patterns in Nature", and "Things that Stick". I won't bother showing you my 'patterns' shot because I hate it, but here's the other two.
 

"Things that Stick". That's Maple Syrup!

 
The forums are another reason to join NAPP. Where else can you get the kind of advice that you can from this great community. You can view the forums here but you can't post anything if you're not a member. Look in the "Digital Photography" forum for the Photo Rally but browse through the other ones!

In anticipation of the upcoming series of HDR posts on the technical blog, you may be interested in reading this commentary.

Workshops, workshops, upgrades

Did you miss me? Believe it or not, I’ve been too busy with other photo stuff to blog. OK, and with work and life in general... anyway, I’m back.


So first, let me tell you about the Kelby workshop I attended last Friday.

Photoshop CS5 for Photographers, presented by Ben Willmore from NAPP (Kelby Training)

Negatives:

• it was at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre where parking is at a premium, it took almost 2 hours to drive there (and the same amount of time homeward bound).

• They ran out of coffee. THEY RAN OUT OF COFFEE. When we got there, all they had was de-caf. They brought in more coffee for the morning break and promptly ran out again, never to replenish it.

• No food facilities there. I knew that and brought my own lunch, but a lot of people didn’t.

• I think Ben was wearing the same hat he wore 2 years ago.

Positives:

• The seminar was really directed toward photographers as billed. Unlike the Corey Barker session last year which had limited application for anyone but graphic artists. That said, that’s what they said it was going to be.

• There’s lots of neat stuff in CS5 and Ben knows how to pass that info along.

• By the end of the session, I could already see how to improve my workflow

• There weren’t really any vendors there selling stuff, so I made it out with my wallet intact.

You need to be practiced in Photoshop to get something out of the seminar. There was an evaluation form we filled out, with a check box asking if you thought you were a novice, intermediate or expert at Photoshop. I selected "intermediate" but in hindsight, I've sold myself short. I've actually used and are familiar with pretty well all of the techniques Ben showed us, with the possible exception of "Puppet Warping". I left the seminar wondering how much I had really gotten out of it, but I realized that I did get two things: validation that I was on the right track, and some insights into ways to improve my workflow.

Ben did not spend any time on Photoshop basics. That's what I meant above: it's not a grass roots course, so if you're not comfortable in Photoshop, you'll be frustrated because you won't know how to achieve the results that Ben did. He did spend a lot of time on Adobe Camera Raw, which he uses from within Bridge but it's the same as the engine in Lightroom.

The focus was on the new stuff in CS5 — the HDR engine, content-aware fill, fine selection, lens correction and yes, puppet warping.

If you really want to get up to speed in Photoshop CS5, buy Scott Kelby's book. It's well worth it and as I said a hundred times already, so is a NAPP membership. Click the link at right.

Upgrading to Lightroom 3

That was time consuming. Why? Because I didn't listen to Jim in the first place. My images were scattered all over the place — on 4 different hard drives, in various places. Before I did the upgrade, I reorganized my images and this time I listened to Jim and did the shuffling all from within Lightroom. I now have my master photo archive on a 2Tb external drive (the drive letter is "M". I think I'll call it "Mother"). The LR catalog itself is on the internal drive in the desktop and there's a backup on Mother. Most of the photos themselves are backed up on my other external drive but I still need to reorganize that.

I'm not going to talk much about LR3 here and now: let me get used to it first. Import and Export are different and I had to rebuild things, there are a few neat and sneaky new things like lens corrections and one really really neat thing called tethered shooting which I'll save for another day.

Suffice it to say that the upgrade was lengthy and had to be thought out well, and it ain't over. I still have to figure out how to replicate the settings I've created on the laptop.

I’m off to another workshop

I decided that since I hadn't had a vacation this summer (there are those who may argue that my whole life up here in the Highlands is one big vacation...), I deserved one. So when Rob Stimpson sent a reminder out about the Gales of November workshop up in Wawa, I jumped at it. I’m going, next week. So is Dr. Ron – I convinced him to come too! Go to the website to check it out, and don’t be jealous...



I haven't taken a lot of pictures. So without further ado... these are 3 images from a rainy Sunday afternoon walk. One of these days I'm going to try to publish images just the way they came out of the camera. Well, maybe not today...

Pine Sentries

In some places, pine trees grow in straight lines. I had added some (white) post-crop vignetting to this image, but on second thought, didn't like it and removed it.

Saturation

The rain produces saturated colours. So does pixel processing in CS5, Topaz and LR3! I did an HDR of the same image and it's not as crisp as this one is.

Late Autumn field.

Across the road behind my house. Some painting effects.

I bought a new toy. It should be waiting for me at my mailbox when I get there tomorrow. I'm not going to tell you what it is, I'll save that for next time... stay tuned!

Shooting with a bunch of pro's is inspiring!

And at the same time, sobering. It makes you recognize your shortcomings and makes you wonder if you really do measure up! (there's room here for comments, folks. Leave a note telling me how talented and wonderful I am, and I'll be forever grateful to you for stroking my ego!)

• I don't have the technical expertise that Jim Camelford has
• My vision and creativity is nowhere near that of Ron Goodlin
• Alex and Fern showed me that the viewpoint of people who are still relatively new and not afraid to explore concepts and try new things can be inspiring. It's fun to watch people grow!
• John and Mary showed a diligent attention to detail
• Kathy is incredibly tenacious and won't give up until she gets the shot she wants, and
• The more I see Lance Gitter at work, the more I realize how I am a mere grasshopper. He has ALL of the qualities I listed for the other people above. Lance, lying on the tarmac at the airport to get that shot of the Harvard Trainer with a full reflection in a puddle was (a) an example of how far you have to go to get the best image, (b) a sign that sometimes you have to think outside the box and (c) inspiring, because I'm going to try to be less lazy and get some of those killer shots too!

Enough kudo's. Where I'm pretty good is at creating post-processed images, but you need good original shots to work from and that's what I'm going to work ON. The opportunity to go out and shoot with other people and learn from them is invaluable.

As you may have surmised from the above, I spent a few days on what I would loosely call a "workshop" ('Expedition' and 'Safari' don't do it. Is there a more appropriate word?) down along the North Shore of Lake Erie. Thanks to Kathy for her work arranging everything and to Jim for his incredible hospitality, even while worried about Jen in the hospital, and to everyone else, well just for being there!

Here are a few shots I took on the trip. There are some more on my Smugmug site (they start here), but these are the ones I like best for now (haven't had a chance to look at everything! There may be more...)

We met this guy sitting in a chair in a park in Dunnville. He claims to be a well known political activist through the '80s, that he's been arrested 10 times, that he's well known to agencies like CSIS, the CIA and the FBI... anyway, he's incredibly articulate and, some of us think, would make a great subject for a TV documentary. His name is Ken Hancock, but Google doesn't have much on him.

These two images illustrate the difference when you add an interesting person to a landscape shot. I find the second image, with Alex Ney in it (thanks for posing, Alex!) to be far more interesting than the ordinary landscape. I should have taken a little extra time to use a flash fill, but I managed to make do with Lightroom and Photoshop. Both photos were taken on the shore of Lake Erie at sunset, near Jim's cottage.

This image was taken at the Dunnville Airport, which houses the RCAF Museum that specializes in the Yale and the better know Harvard trainers. I daresay virtually all RCAF pilots from WWII onward trained in one of these. A couple of planes flew in from nearby Tillsonburg to wait out some bad weather. It's interesting that I happened to click on the first website after googling "Harvard Trainer" and came across this illustration. Plane #46 is mounted on a hard display stand at Dunnville. Plane #47 was one of the two that flew in! This is, of course, an HDR enhanced image, with further processing in Photoshop using Topaz Adjust.

We went to a place called "Cottonwood Estates" where people dressed up in 19th Century costume and the house was restored to the splendour of the mid-19th century. I was decidedly NOT inspired to photograph inside (not my thing. Too much clutter, I didn't see any way to isolate subjects). I did, however, shoot this exterior shot as an HDR, then I used Topaz to simplify and smooth it (as opposed to my usual enhancement of details). I shot with the 12mm wide angle lens, then used a perspective crop in Photoshop to square up the building.

Announcement: we're going to do something up in the Haliburton Highlands on the weekend of October 2, 2010. It should be about the best time to shoot leaves and autumn outdoor shots and we're going to make a workshop out of it. I'll send out more information soon, but if you are thinking you might like to attend, send me an email.