Newfoundland post #3

When last I left off, I was wrapping up my week in Twillingate. I had packed the car in preparation for a morning departure, had dinner with Trudy and started back to my place, telling her, "I'm cold and tired. Just going to chill for the evening". Couldn't do it. There was the most amazing sunset and I drove down through the town to where I could see across the harbour. Here's what I saw:

I took over 200 pictures. I'll let you know when I've gone through them and chosen my favourite! I was in front of someone's house when I shot this. Imagine looking out at a scene like this from your window. I wonder if the house is for sale...

On the way back to my place, I decided to do a "blue hour" shot from a hilltop overlooking Main Street.

So much for skipping the evening shoot and going to bed. 

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I did get underway in the morning. I drove the loop through Musgrave Harbour and Cape Freels (because I could) before hitting Gambo and the TCH (Trans Canada Highway, to you folks from 'away') on the way to Trinity. The first couple of hours was boring, through forested road, even though I strayed onto back roads to see if there was anything interesting to see. 

By the way, my photo book from 2006 was called, "The Path of Least Potholes". You don't drive in your lane in Newfoundland. You follow the Path... and beware of the black potholes. They're black because you can't see the bottoms. They can eat your car.

I stopped in Deadman's Cove to shoot a salmon stream (not a great photo) and talk to a fisherman who bemoaned the fact that the cold weather this winter has delayed the return of the salmon. A little further was Lumsden, where I ventured as far as i could before dropping the car in a crater.

Could this be an ad for Subaru? A lot more attention to detail than you think went into this shot. And are those icebergs? You bet, and we're not done with them yet! 

Another Subaru shot.   

Moving right along, I came to a town called "Newtown" because Trudy told me not to miss it.

Iconic picture, or what? These towns all have their well maintained, beautiful churches. Newtown has new housing developments and is a gorgeous place.  Pretty far from the main stream, though.

It is a beautiful little town, though. 

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Next stop, Trinity. When I got there, it was almost dark, and a thick fog had run in from the sea. I tried without success to get a shot. I also tried to buy groceries... Gas station/convenience store was all she wrote. Found the essentials, and bought more groceries the next day in Bonavista where they had a real store.

Despite taking my time the next morning settling in, the day turned into an eventful one. First I headed for Elliston and the Puffin Viewing Site.  Here are a few shots

Puffin Portrait. If you want to know how this puffin was enticed to come to the mainland side of the viewing area, you'll have to be a subscriber to my blog (click the newsletter icon at upper right. No spam will come your way). 

I managed some birds in flight. These guys are very fast and deceptive so I didn't get all the shots I wanted, so I'll have to go back again. 

By the way I met Hartmut and his wife Eva from Berlin. I had first met them in Twillingate. They're here for an extended stay and Hartmut takes brilliant pictures with his Sony equipment. After carrying 40 pounds of gear out to the puffin site and later on the boat I'm about to tell you about, I'm sorely tempted...

That's Hartmut in the green jacket and blue cap.  

The viewing area is about a 500m walk from the road. Some serious photographers are there: if you search for a puffin holding a lily in its beak, that lady on the blanket (a photographer from Toronto whose name escapes me) took it a few years ago. 

I also saw this cormorant fly by. There are tons of other birds there. 

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The Puffins all took a lunch break around noon. I hung around for a couple more hours with just sporadic sightings, then took my leave. I drove to Bonavista to get some groceries, then I got sidetracked...

I chatted with Bob, who runs Discovery Sea Adventure Tours and decided to join his 5:00 pm tour. "Which of those big beautiful boats is yours, Bob?"

This one. A Zodiac with some serious horsepower on the back. I should have known better. Oh, well, it did say "Adventure"! I was sitting on that bench up front. There were 8 passengers on board, plus Bob.

They fitted us into thousand dollar floater suits. As if that would have made a difference if we tumbled into the sea five miles offshore. Why is it that when you give someone your camera, they always cut your feet off? 

Seriously. Captain Bob said, after we came in, "I didn't expect it to be that windy and rough...". Folks, 2m swells, at times we leapt off the crest of one wave onto the next but usually we came crashing down in the troughs, getting negative Gee's and spine crushing impact when we landed. Next time I'll choose a different seat. And take a smaller camera.

OK, I'm cheating. I did NOT shoot this picture from the boat.
Picture these seas only twice as high, with whitecaps. 

And you thought I was done with icebergs. Hah! He estimated this one was 70-80m high. You get a different perspective when you're up close and personal. 

And here's another perspective! Same iceberg 

My logic was flawed. I was thinking that we'd get close to some birds, so I wanted the long reach of the Tamron 600mm on the crop sensor body. But you CANNOT handhold that and track anything when you're on a moving Zodiak, even when you're out of the big waves. And i thought, for whales, my 70-200 on my D800 would be good. Next time I'll stick with that and put the little kit lens on the D5500. Besides, the D800/70-200 combo is more weatherproof. And it did get wet. Salt water, too!

I did get this shot of a puffin from the water. With the long lens. Not good enough for printing, but OK for posting online. I'll have to do some painting on it if I want to print it. 

The Bonavista lighthouse from sea. I'll shoot it again from land in a few days 

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Parting Shot

Trinity, Newfoundland by moonlight.
I hope you enjoy these "Blue Hour" shots as much as I do. 

A few more days here in Trinity. Exploring landscapes and seascapes. Visiting the Lighthouse and "Dungeons" in Bonavista. Back to the Puffin site. Hopefully the Capelin will be rolling (look it up!) and I'll get some whale shots. Onward!

— 30 —

Different Strokes...

If I'm so popular...

Why ain't I rich? LOL. I looked at my blog stats and discovered that I have exceeded 100,000 pageviews over time and more interesting, that I had almost 10,000 views in December, over 7000 in January. And about 3000 for half of February. Unfortunately, Blogger won't let me access details about anything older than a month, so I don't know why. Must have been doing something right!

I've also had over 22,000 hits on my technical blog. Almost all of it is on the article I wrote explaining about how you can't print a typical 2x3 shaped image on an 8x10 or square sheet without cropping or white space; and trying to demystify the old "you need to specify 300dpi" myth. I often see people on Facebook, especially in the Photoshop and Lightroom group, struggling with this concept. Here's the link: tell me what you think. And look for me on Facebook, search for "Faczen".

This is not a commercial blog. It's not 'monetized' although I do get some referral fees, especially from Topaz Labs (if people use the link here or on the right side Did you know that if you put "faczen" in the discount field at checkout, Topaz will give you a 15% discount?). I don't want to make it commercial, don't expect to get paid for people's visits, although it's nice. I promise to keep it that way but I encourage you to use my links and especially to subscribe (by clicking here or on the "Newsletter" icon at the top). No spam will come your way, I'll just give a heads-up when a new post has gone up. I also give my subscribed readers free access to my eBooks and I usually put a unique picture in the announcement emails which I haven't published elsewhere. So please click it: it makes me feel good to know that a number of people read my blog.

So go ahead. Click that "Newsletter" icon. You know you want to. I dare you...

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New blog header

I replaced the blog header picture today. Here's the old one for the archive

By the way I created the new version of the header on the Mac... it doesn't have the same font selection as the PC did. That's annoying! But I guess I didn't choose too badly.

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Gales of November 2017
(October 26-29. We can't wait!)

Exciting announcement re Gales of November 2017: Ben Eby is going to join us this year and bring along his phenomenal skill set making outstanding images. Ben is a photorealistic guy, I'm an impressionist, so whichever world you're in... I posted a few of his recent shots in my last blog post (scroll down) but you can see his work on his website at http://www.benebyinc.ca/.

If you want to attend Gales, you need to get going. As I write this there are still 5 spaces but I know what's going to happen, everyone's going to decide at once and some people aren't going to get in. At the risk of restating what you probably already know, Gales is an opportunity to get together with about a dozen other photographers in one of the most scenic areas in Ontario, in a resort with deluxe accommodations, service and food, all for less cost than a weekend on your own elsewhere. Yes, you have to get there, but even the drive up is worth it: I spent 2 days last year covering the 200 km from the Soo and got outstanding pictures.

I took this on the drive up, somewhere along Hwy 69 near Magnetawan

This was on the way back, on Hwy 17 north of Batchewana Bay. I could tell you exactly where! 

Click here to go to www.photography.to/gales for more information and to reserve your space. A deposit only is required at this time. Do it. You know you want to!

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The Mac odyssey

Well it's not painless, switching from PC to Mac. I'm constantly finding stuff that I know how to do instantly on the PC but have to figure out on the Mac. For instance, special characters! The copyright symbol (©), for instance, is alt-0169 on the numeric keypad on the PC. On the Mac, it's option-G. The degree symbol (°) is alt-0176 on the PC and either it's option-K (a little one) or shift-option-8 on the Mac. How am I going to remember that? And some of them don't work in Photoshop...

I managed to find StarStaX for the Mac. That's good. But my favourite pano merge program – Microsoft Research's ICE – is not available unless I get Parallels (and then I have to buy another Windows copy). The good news is that the computers network really well, so I can work on both platforms.

It's annoying what happens when I disconnect the external monitor and turn on LR or PS. Actually, that works OK, the program just goes to the laptop screen. But it's getting them back on the big screen when you plug it back in! I shouldn't complain, it's worse on the PC. And when I plugged it into a projector, it was magic!

Enough whining! I used to be jealous when I watched an online tutorial or live feed when the presenter did something in LR or PS and it happened right away! The Mac does that. And I can actually edit on that 15" Retina screen. And I FaceTimed with my grandkids in New York. I know, I know... "what took you so long to switch?"

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Newfoundland

I want to go to Newfoundland for a month or so this summer. I think a number of my blog subscribers and readers have some ties to the Rock so I thought I'd post this here. I'd like to rent a small house or something in a picturesque area (I'm a Bay Boy, not a Townie). If anyone knows of one or has a suggestion whom to contact, please let me know.

I am in touch with one person right now but I'm waiting for a response. In case that doesn't work out, it would be great to have some options.

Price is a factor; so is accessibility and I really need internet access...

Anyone? 

Please email me directly at photography@faczen.com

PS: if anyone is interested in coming along, for perhaps part of the time, get in touch.

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Pond Hockey

I realized that I haven't posted any pond hockey pictures here, since the event last month. A couple of reasons: this is the third year that I've shot that event and, well, I didn't get any really exciting pictures that turned my crank. Well, except maybe this one:

Yep, I took a hockey puck right between the eyes. I was lucky: an inch left or right, right in the eye. An inch lower, broken nose. Two inches lower: an expensive dentist bill. 

I did end up with two beautiful black eyes. Some say it's an improvement... 

Iconic picture of Pond Hockey action.  How much more Canadian can you get? Outdoors, in the snow, on less-than-perfect ice, amateur players showing some skill, a few brave spectators not afraid of getting hit with a puck... 

Lacing up, out in the snow 

Pond Hockey uses these low nets which is great if you don't lift the puck (see my selfies above!) 

Some people like to be seen 

Creative costumes? Not what you think... 

Turns out that the habit-clad team was called "Team Fireball". Here they're administering Holy Water to a needy player... rumour has it that the formula for Holy Water has something to do with "Fireball" and "Red Bull"... just a rumour, mind you. 

Here they are in a losing effort against the "Things", despite some righteous hooking... Thing 1 is my friend Cheryl Smith who claims not to be a hockey player but was easily among the best skaters out there!  

Beautiful smiles from people having fun! I wonder what was in that odd-looking container of 'holy water'? 

What it's all about! 

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Different Strokes...

Have a look at these two pictures:

Two different days but similar subjects, same location, about the same time of day, completely different treatments. Which do you prefer?

In the first one, I was going for the pastels of the sunset colours and I used a soft expressionist treatment that married the textures of the sky and the overall feeling of the image. It would probably look great as a large scale print or canvas hanging over a light coloured couch in a bright, airy living room.

The second image is gritty. I deliberately used a small aperture to get the sunburst effect, and a high contrast HDR treatment to focus on the details and textures. If I were going to hang this image it would be in a pine paneled country setting, on a glossy or metallic medium, surrounded by a rough-hewn frame.

One of these got a ton of Facebook likes. Which one, do you think?

One day earlier, just up the lake. A lot of work went into this one, two different post-processing techniques on the sky and the foreground (it's one picture, mind you). The sky is about colour, the foreground about texture, although I wanted to give them some common ground, not have it look like it was artificially constructed.  

Now which one?

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— 30 —

I'm back after a few days off

I've taken a few days off. It's very rare for me to have not picked up my camera and I actually had an infrequent visit with my son, daughter-in-law and the grandkids, and left my camera in the car. I wanted to be a participant, not an observer. 

I also attended a wedding last Sunday and while I was interested in watching the technique of the photographer, I had, and still have, zero desire to shoot that kind of event. They did a lot of video and not so much stills, by the way. And they did a lot of shooting from the hip with wide angle lenses. Wonder how those will turn out?

It's not easy for me to be motivated to shoot at this time of year. As I sit here, my light tent is still sitting on my dining room table (it's a lot of effort figuring out how to fold it up!) from when I tested the ring light (below). It's grey and cold and damp outside... but I needed to put down the camera for a few days. 

These first two articles are directed at other photographers. If you're not one, bear with me and try not to be too bored!

Judging Photojournalism

As many of you know, I was honoured to be asked to judge the TCC International Salon, Photojournalism category. It was a great experience, very challenging and really educational at the same time.

We viewed well over 800 images (and re-viewed at least 100 of them!) some of which could easily have appeared in National Geographic. All of the judges instantly agreed on the single best image in the group and after choosing the top 15 images for awards, and about 24 others for honourable mentions, and eliminating 29 out of 100 tied candidates for "acceptances" our eyes were all going in circles.

The category "Photojournalism" is extremely broad. It comprises topical newsworthy images, plus documentary and sports images, making it really hard to stay consistent. So we had to score images captured at a massive and deadly fire somewhere in Southern Asia, cowboys riding bulls at a rodeo, football action, kayakers on white water shots of poverty-stricken families in a Yurt, dancers in flamboyantly coloured costumes and rock concerts! How do you do that and remain consistent?

The only negative was that the organizers had not vetted the images, so we were presented some which were not in-category, for which I felt I had to dock points (it was not our place to disqualify them). That was hard to do since some were really outstanding, just not on-topic!

In the end, out of all these images, there were about a dozen that had the "WOW" factor. So don't be discouraged (fellow club members who are afraid to enter competitions!), this was an INTERNATIONAL SALON! Even here there are images that stand out and some that don't. By the way, when you view 1000 images, there's no provision for comments... I had to bite my tongue a few times!

Two things came out of this as recommendations for you: (1) stay on topic. If the category is "action", for instance, a cow eating a flower isn't going to cut it. Neither is a kayaker paddling in the distance on calm water. And (2) Look at your images as if they were someone else's kids, not yours, as a stranger would see them. I know you think your cat is cute but not to someone who has never met the animal (or worse, hates cats).

I want to take this opportunity to thank the academy, my mother and all the little people... kidding, but I hope I get asked again.

Oh, and one more thing: there's a selfish aspect to being a judge: you get exposed to some outstanding images, you can clearly see the ones that have that "WOW" factor and your own photography can benefit, and you get to meet and spend time with some wonderful people you might not otherwise get to meet!

I Bought a Ring Light

They use them all the time on CSI. But how do you get the details of fingerprints or tire tracks when the light is coming from the same direction as the lens? Turns out, you can. It wouldn't be my first choice, but hey, it looks sexy on TV (ever notice that the serious 'foresnic' folks use Nikons? LOL).

This is the ringlight on the lens. Plus a bunch of sharpening stuff in PS and LR 

In this one I took the ring off the lens and held it at about a 45° angle. You tell me which one shows the detail better.

BTW I decided that if I was going to give you the finger, I'd use the correct one... are everyone's fingers this full of lines and cracks (surface, not the fingerprint)? Or is it because I'm getting old? 

Because you're generally shooting close to the subject, light from the ring will be very soft, despite the fact that it's coming straight from the camera. It's quite interesting.

I like shooting macro and small objects in the light tent (disclaimer: I still don't have a real macro lens. One day...) and the ringlight seems to be a nice way to go. But also, I've seen some portraits shot recently with them and the lighting is excellent, not to mention those great catchlights!

I wasn't able to get the kind of catchlights I wanted, but these are interesting. By the way, I HATE pictures of myself. However today I was testing the new ringlight and playing around, and shot this 'selfie' image. I didn't nail the focus on the eyes so I decided to use Topaz Impression (Degas preset) to make the whole thing painterly. I actually don't HATE this image.

So I found one on Amazon and, for $49, how can you go wrong?

FWIW, here are the links:
     Nikon version at Amazon Canada: http://goo.gl/IpkVQ4.
     Canon version in Canada: http://goo.gl/1oIMeD.
     Nikon version at Amazon.com (USA): http://goo.gl/nT6UVI.
     Canon version in US: http://goo.gl/MoG9QE.
(I think the Nikon and Canon versions have different pinouts at the flash shoe)

You know you "get what you pay for", right? In this case it works as advertised but there are some things you have to work around.

• You mount the 'sender' unit in the hotshoe and the ring on the lens (it comes with a bunch of adapters for different sized lenses). 
• When you turn it on, the LEDs light up and they'll stay that way as long as you're pressing the shutter release halfway (odd, because mine is disabled, I use back-button focusing). 
• If you're in flash mode, it will flash about twice as bright as the continuous light. But the continuous stays on.
• You can adjust the light output continuously over a 2:1 range. The flash output changes too. You can double that effect by turning off half of the lights from the sender.
• To fool it, so the continuous light is not on, I took the 'sender' off the camera. To make it flash, you have to do it manually.
• I can't get it to work with my synchronized off-camera flash. But I did use the continuous light together with the flash.
• The real bad news is that it vignettes like mad. The ring is only 66mm in diameter although the adapter fits up to a 77mm lens diameter; and it extends about 30mm forward of the front glass, so coverage is less than ideal. It works if you switch to DX (cropped sensor) mode.

It's going to be fun to use, though, and I'm looking forward to shooting some people shots with it. Stay tuned!

Here's a macro shot in the light tent. That's not grain, it's the surface of the plexiglass they were on. These are teeny-tiny .22 calibre CB Caps, by the way. 

I set these leaves in the light tent and shot them with the ringlight only. This is actually 4 exposures, focus stacked. Neat lighting!

Here's the actual setup, behind the scene. I shot in continuous mode, 1/8 sec at f/11, ISO 800, lens was the 24-120 at 120mm, but in DX mode.  

If you're not a photographer, your eyes are probably glazed over. Sorry about that!

One more for the Photographers.

Or at least for the photoshoppers! This is an example of how I used Topaz Impression on this image. This is a screen grab from Photoshop.

The intent was to give this shot a painterly look. But I wanted the Christmas tree to be kind of impressionistic, the house to be a coloured sketch and the background to be detailed but muted. So I used several different masked layers. Want to know how to do this stuff? Come take a course! (if you're reading this before the end of the Black Friday weekend, go here; www.photography.to/blackfriday.htm. Otherwise, www.photography.to/photoediting.htm. 

Here's the actual image 

Here are a couple of fresh images for your enjoyment. I was driving home from Uxbridge on Saturday and came across this row of trees.

I actually made a U-turn and stopped to take this shot because something about it caught my eye. This was along Lakeridge Road just North of Uxbridge. Each of the fields that bordered on the road was guarded by a line of sentinel trees (are these oaks? I plead ignorance). I tried to process this a few different ways but I kept coming back to this charcoal look.  

As the sun started to set, I thought about this shot, a bare tree silhouetted against the colourful sky and I actually pictured this kind of brush stroke effect. I was surprised to discover that I shot this five minutes BEFORE the previous (sentinels) shot. I thought I took it much later. The swirling blend of colours in the sky is reminiscent of van Gogh's style (but a bit more subtle). 

I raced to try to capture something of the sunset but couldn't find a suitable spot to shoot from. As a last desperation attempt, I pulled into the Independent store in Beaverton and there was a small lot in the back. I shot this out the car window because I didn't have time to set up before the clouds hid the setting sun. The foreground uses a heavy Impasto style and the sky is more in the style of Edward Hopper. 

Something that Topaz Impression has awakened in me is awareness of painting styles and the techniques of the masters. I'm moving closer to the day that I might pick up a brush and try to paint myself. Stay tuned!

— 30 —

Fall Colours 2010 has come and gone!

And a great success it was! First thanks go to the creator of the fine weather we had: it was a little cool, but we had awesome sunrises and pretty good sunsets as well. I have to admit, though, that the sunset on Monday after everyone except me had left, was the best.

We were a "Group of 6". A good number because I was able to seat everyone at the table easily, we could look at our photos on my monitors without trouble, and everyone had a place to plug in their computers. Thanks for the great zucchini dish, Shannon (and the recipe), Kathy for the pies (which weren't baked, we didn't know that but caught it in time!), Bernie and Josie for their insights and Liz for a breath of fresh air!

I have some images from everyone to post on the photography.to site, as soon as we get the formalities out of the way. In the meantime, I see that Shannon put up a blog posting with a few of her images, here: http://shannonlafferty.blogspot.com/. I LOVE the first image she posted. I wrote that I wished that when I grow up, I could be like her!

A few of the venues I selected. I showed this map and some others like it on Friday night in a PowerPoint I created outlining what I was hoping to accomplish during the weekend. Although there was a teaching element to it, all of the participants were experienced and excellent photographers so I didn't want to create a rigid atmosphere. My intention was just to plant some seeds, and let the individuals make them grow in whatever direction they wanted.

My intent was to go out on Saturday and shoot images by following the "rules". Everyone did. Then on Sunday, I told people to go ahead and BREAK the rules. I don't know yet if anyone did and if they were successful. We'll see when they send me some images! I did, though:

Notice how your eye goes to the 'window' which is the brightest spot in the image, and which is centred left-to-right? But if you stay with the picture for a while, you look at the texture of the ceiling, which is really the focus of the picture. I broke the rules, just to see if it would work. Did it?

By the way, I'm enamoured with HDR and Topaz-enhanced images. This was also a hand-held multiple exposure (breaking another rule, about using a tripod!) and I set the edge glow quite high. The tree is centred in the window. How many other rules did I break?

In the same location (my neighbour's old barn), where Liz and I went to shoot for a bit on Sunday afternoon, I got what I consider my best "art" shot of the weekend:

This is cropped from a larger image. I call it "Chain, Chain, Chain". The motion blur is due to the slow shutter speed, and no tripod again. Breaking the rules!

I said we got some good sunrises ( see Shannon's blog for the best shots of the group, in my opinion). I did my crazy HDR thing...

...but I also got a few more conventional images which you can see on my Smugmug Gallery here. I took a couple of good 'people' pictures, especially of Liz, one of which is here:

I enhanced the eyes in Photoshop, and softened the image by reducing the clarity in Lightroom, that's about it. I deliberately didn't crop this one too tight because I wanted to show her as a photographer.

I mentioned the Monday night sunset. I was chainsawing down some rose bushes (hope they come back next year!) and turned around to see the most AWESOME sky I've seen in a while. I dropped the chainsaw (which cost me at least 45 minutes reinstalling the chain that came off the track!), grabbed the camera with whatever lens happened to be on it (the 12-24mm wide angle) and ran behind the Red Umbrella Inn to try to get a few shots before it went away.

I took this picture of the Inn as I was running out there. Not an HDR or anything, this is what it really looked like! "The Sky is on Fire!" .

Then I took a series of shots, all hand-held (no tripod: I told you, I RAN out to get there before the sky changed!). It's hard to choose my favourite, but this ranks up there:

All of the participants said they'd like to come back again. I'm still waiting for more feedback which will guide me in future workshops, and I'm planning to do more of them. Email me if you want me to send you details when I design the next one.