Can you fit creativity in a formula?

twisted and convoluted musings... if you have no idea what I'm trying to say here, well me too! If you do, please share it with me!

I'm trying to come up with an explanation why I've fallen behind on my blog posts. I know that thousands of people wake up every morning and are disappointed that there's no new article posted here. I can't tell you how many people have written to wonder what's going on! Well I could tell you, but then I'd have to...

Some of you haven't gotten around to clicking that "Newsletter"button at upper right. Please do so I can give you a heads up when a new article is about to appear. Once a week or so. You can unsubscribe with just one click, so don't be scared!

It also helps me get the word out about deals available: for instance the 33% discount on Topaz DeNoise going on until the end of June. Click this link and use the coupon code, "JUNEDENOISE". 

I've developed a theory so here it is in all its glory. Please try to follow my convoluted thinking!  It's about a function called "Ж", pronounced "Zheh".

---

Someone said, "The Sum of a Man's Sins is a Constant". Unbelievably, Google doesn't know who said it! If I were guessing, I'd say Robert A. Heinlein, who also said one should grok life in fullness.

The implication is that if you decrease one indulgence, the others increase to compensate for it. Smoke less, you drink more. If you don't drink, you enjoy carnal pleasures. Or any of the other sins. You grok?

I eat.

I think it's not really a constant, it bears a topological relationship with age and life experience and one needs to do a differential analysis to define the function.
Let's call the function "Springer's Sigma". "ς"

I think creativity works the same way. The Sum of one's Creative Expressions is a Constant. If you get interested in one creative outlet, the others will decline. Make sense?

For example, a while ago I decided I really want to try putting a paintbrush on canvas. A real paintbrush, not a digital one. The creative spirit that was directed towards creating photographs has been partly redirected. So has my writing drive. Similarly, listening to Tommy Emmanuel's virtuoso guitar has really revived my interest in expressing myself musically. I bought a decent guitar and play it every day. But I haven't turned on my piano keyboard in months, that creative drive has also been redirected.

I'm slowly getting better at both of those things (guitar and painting). Although I've hit a plateau in both, which is really frustrating. And at the same time I'm shooting pictures, and I'm still writing but each day I have to decide on which endeavour I should concentrate that day.

I'm calling that function,  "Glenn's Zheh" or "Ж". 

ς is obvious.  It's the lower case Greek letter Sigma (when it's used to end a word). Sigma is usually used to express "sum" and the word Sin begins with 'S'. 

Ж is a Cyrillic letter. It's a voiced palato-alveolar sibilant that has no equivalent in Western alphabets but it has "alvar" in it and I've been shooting bird pictures in the Carden Alvar, so there you go.

The total amount of energy one has to devote to creative pursuits is mitigated by one's perceived age and general state of health and can be expressed as:

Ж = ∫f(λ)/π²•η

where lambda represents laziness, pi is perceived age and eta is health.

So I have a decreasing Zheh which has been spread over several disciplines so that's why I haven't written my blog in a couple of weeks. Make sense?

---

PanAm Games

And I'm gearing up for the PanAm Games. I did get my press credentials, it's really exciting!

Apparently with this I can go get my actual press pass and the vest they're issuing to photographers and journalists, without which you don't get in to any venues. The bad news is that I have to trek down to the CNE to pick it up next week.

The more I learn about the Whitewater venue, the less happy I am! They've sold 500 spectator tickets (yeah, where are they going to stand?) and they've closed the east side of the river to everyone because it's too dangerous. Press positions will be limited too, and spaces are first-come-first-served but I'll bet CTV and CBC and SportsNET will be hogging all the good spots! I guarantee it's going to be a challenge!

I might also try to go to the Shooting venue in Innisfil one day (I think it's the old "Toronto International Trap and Skeet" club). I just read that Susan Nattrass is leading the Canadian team: she shot in the 1976 Olympics! I worked with her brother Brett at one point. Also Don Kwasnycia is coaching. I knew him back then too.

Speaking of the Carden Alvar...

I don't want to bore you to death with endless pictures of exotic flora and fauna. If you're interested, I put images up on a SmugMug page here: http://faczen.smugmug.com/Carden-Plain/. If you click any image and hover your mouse over the lower left corner, you can see a description.

Here's one of my latest shots, it's a barn swallow shot at the blind on Wylie Road. Click here to see more images.

---

I thought I'd try a couple of the new features in Photoshop CC 2015. All this has is multiple strokes on the text but I thought it would make a good header picture. There's one really hot new feature – dehaze – but I'll show you that next week

I attended the Mud Bog last weekend. Last year I got my camera all muddy and it took me hours with Q-tips and other cleaning tools to get it clean. This year I was more careful!

If you don't know what a "Mud Bog" is, check out this video. Shot with the N70-200/2.8 on my D800.
This guy makes it look easy! It isn't.

A couple of my favourite shots from the event. 

They also had a "show and shine" and I should have stayed around but instead, I went to another event, the Food Fair at Wintergreen's.

Our host, Tom, was smoking a couple of turkeys. If this doesn't get your salivary glands working, you must be a vegetarian or something! 

Here are a few flower pictures for your enjoyment!

I'm waiting for the mailman to deliver the set of extension tubes I ordered. In the meantime, these were shot with my N70-200 f/2.8 and cropped a little bit.

This is a poppy-to-be, at my next-door neighbour's. 

An Iris, same place 

At my house, I have more plants than flowers. This is a Hosta (I think!) 

On the side of Highway 35 there's a Lupin patch. Some Topaz Impression gave it that painterly look.

One for the Road

We did a mini-food photography workshop at the camera club. This was a setup I styled, and I shot it using some continuous lights and a light tent, plus an off-camera strobe to soften the shadows. Again, Topaz Impression for finishing, using one of the Georgia O'Keeffe presets. 

— 30 —

First Impressions

I've got my new Nikon D600 and I'll share some first impressions here. But first...

Announcing Photo Mini-Tours
On the weekends of October 7 and 14, I'll be running some what I call "mini-tours". The intention is to take some people out to shoot photos of the fall colours up here in the Highlands, at venues I've scouted and perhaps give them some tips on how to take better shots. These are not full teaching workshops, just a 3-hour session that should give them some great ideas and if the weather cooperates, probably some "keeper" images. There will be 3 sessions each Sunday, depending on demand: loosely termed "morning", "noon" and "night".

If you're interested in attending or if you know someone who might be, visit http://www.photography.to for more information, but don't delay! The colours are coming, the colours are coming!

As I mentioned earlier, I've written a guide to taking better fall pictures. It's included in the registration for the mini-tours, but it's also available for separate download here.

They're Baaack...
Yes they are. The alien bunny-rabbit like creatures from a planet far, far away, have come back under cover of darkness and placed another caché of carrots for their forthcoming invasion of the Earth. I have proof, captured on digital film:

Some of the alien bunnies must be colour blind because they threw in a few parsnips this year. Also some onions and turnips...
perhaps we're destined for a stew in a giant crock-pot! 

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

iPhone Picture
I have to admit, it isn't bad!

I built this little fence to block the elements so barbequeing  will be easier in the winter. I do that year-round.

OK, OK. You're waiting for the D600 impressions. Here we are.

Nikon D600 first impressions
Some good, some not-so-good, but I'm glad I bought it. I wrote most of this up on the TIF forum last night as well, so if you're on there, this might be a repeat. Here's what I wrote:

I have an overall positive feeling about the camera but there is a learning curve and a few glitches that take the shine off it a little for me. Some of it is just me but I thought I'd share anyway. 

Negatives

• Without Lightroom/ACR support, it's a bitch to post-process images. The only software I have that will handle the NEF files is NikonView NX2. Remember when LR4 was creepy-crawly slow? NX2 is worse. Adjust the white balance and wait 20 seconds before the screen refreshes. Exporting one file to TIFF is a 60-90 second process. The controls in NX2 suck compared with LR (or maybe it's just me). I initially set it up to output RAW+JPG(fine) and chose "vivid" toning. That looked horrible so I switched to "Neutral". That's also awful, I'll try a different setting tomorrow. Images are really flat. When you overexpose (eg. bird in flight) there's nothing you can do to recover.

• You can only do 3 shot bracketing. 1 stop increments are too small, 2 stop are too big. Or maybe it's because I'm stuck with JPEGS for now... 

• I used to walk around all day with my D300/70-200 in my right hand. The middle finger on the right hand sat comfortably under the little ledge on the front of the camera. With the D600, they reshaped the ledge and my finger hurts. I suppose I'll get used to it.

• None of my old accessories fit. Batteries, CF cards (the D600 uses 2 x SD cards), the cable release, even the AC power supply.

Positives

• The autofocus is super fast and tack sharp. I wasn't sure because it was hard to tell on the LCD but I went out yesterday and practiced on birds in flight and 80% of my shots were bang on. Learning curve, though: I have to figure out which settings work best. There's "AF-A" mode that takes some getting used to, but I can see using it as a default when 'walking about'.

• High ISO performance is OUTSTANDING. I did a forest scene at 1/200 sec, f/4, ISO 6400 and after a little noise reduction in LR (on a JPEG!) it looked like an ISO 800 shot from the D300.

• You can blow up/crop images to 200% and they look like 100% crops on the D300. Tons of detail on that 24Mp sensor!

I picked up the camera on Friday, and shot this test image that afternoon:

This is cropped from a larger image. The significant fact is, I shot it at ISO 25,600. Yes, I said 25,600.  I did apply a little noise reduction in Lightroom, but this blows my mind. ISO 25,600.

On the way home to Minden, Rosa and I stopped at a cool pine forest and I took these shots:

Rosa's taking an iPhone picture up in the trees.
We're probably going back to this spot on one of the mini-tours, by the way. 

On Sunday, I stopped at the landfill (OK, the "garbage dump"!) with the intention of testing the autofocus as I said above.

On the way home, I came across this wild turkey (the one above is a "turkey vulture". Different beast).

This was shot with the 400mm, quite far away so I had to crop. I used shutter speed priority, 1/640 at f/5.6, ISO 800. 

Heartwarming little dog picture
My neighbours, the Sweets, have a couple of little dogs. Marty walked by while I was shooting some fall colours and the dog stopped yapping long enough for me to get a photo:

I used the oil paint filter on the fur, and painted some catchlights in the eyes. It's cropped quite tightly.

That's it for now. More to come soon!

— 30 —